Danielle Steel - Wings

“Good girl.” Billy gave her a hug, and took her out for a quick dinner. But she hardly touched it.

There was a press conference every week after that, and Desmond made a point of being friendly to her publicly. There was lots of bantering, some funny little stories about her, and a small show of affection. It was all very touching, if you didn't know what was really happening. And it was surprisingly believable, to anyone who didn't know them.

Cassie seemed more serious than previously, but that was easily explained by the pressures of the upcoming tour. She had an important task set before her. She was training hard, and Desmond reminded the press frequently that she had spent the entire summer taking care of her father.

“How's your dad, Cass?” one of the reporters asked her.

“He's doing great.” And then she thanked America for their gifts and cards and letters. “It really helped him. He's flying again, with a co-pilot now,” she said proudly. They ate it up. Just the way they ate everything Desmond had fed them. She knew the game now. And Billy marveled at how good at it she was when he watched her.

“You okay?” he asked her in an undertone after one of their press conferences. Desmond had been particularly nice to her, and Billy could see afterward that he had really upset her.

“Yeah. I'm okay,” she said, but he knew how hurt she was. And how betrayed she felt. She hated the hypocrisy of it, the pure sham of it. She had nightmares at night. And once from the next room, where he slept, he heard her crying.

She never saw Desmond alone again, until the night before the Pacific tour. There had been a huge press conference that afternoon, and she and Billy had gone out for a quiet dinner at her favorite Mexican restaurant afterward.

When they got back, Desmond was waiting for them. He was sitting in his parked car, and when he got out, he let Billy know he wanted to talk to Cassie.

“I just wanted to wish you luck tomorrow. I'll see you there before you take off, but I wanted you to know that… well, I'm sorry things didn't really work out the way we planned.” He was trying to be magnanimous, but the way he did it made her very angry.

“What exactly did you plan? I was planning to have a life, and a husband and children.” He was planning to have a world tour, and a mistress, and a cardboard wife he'd drag out for newsreels.

‘Then you should have married someone else, I guess. I was looking for a partnership. And not much more than that. This was business. But isn't that what marriage is, Cassie?” He tried to make it sound as though things just hadn't worked out, and not as though he had lied to her about everything, including being sterile. She could have lived with that, she could have lived with a lot of things, if he'd been honest with her. But they both knew he never had been.

“I don't think you have any idea what marriage is, Desmond.”

“Maybe not,” he said without embarrassment. ‘to tell you the truth, it's not something I've ever really wanted.”

“So why bother? I would have flown this for you, without all the nonsense, the lies… the wedding… You didn't have to go that far. You used me,” she said, relieved that she had finally had a chance to say it.

“We used each other. You're going to be the biggest star in aviation there ever was two months from now. And I put you there. In one of my planes. It's a wash, Cass. We're even.” He seemed pleased with himself. It was all he wanted. She meant nothing to him. She never had. That was the hard part.

“Congratulations. I hope you enjoy it as much as you thought you would.”

“I will.” He was sure of it. “And so will you. And so will Billy. We all win on this one.”

“If everything goes right. You're assuming an awful lot,” she said cautiously.

“I have a right to. You're flying a remarkable plane, and you're a great pilot. It doesn't take more than that. Except Lady Luck, and some fine weather.” He looked at her long and hard, willing her to do right by him, but offering her nothing in return except glory and money. Love wasn't part of his scheme of things. He didn't have it in him. “Good luck, Cass,” he said quietly.

‘Thanks,” she said, and walked upstairs to Billy's apartment.

“What did he want?” Billy asked suspiciously. He was worried that Desmond might have said something to upset Cassie.

“Just to wish us luck, I guess. In his own way. There's no one in there… I finally figured that out… the man's completely empty.” It was truer than she knew. There was no soul to Desmond Williams. Only greed and calculation, and an unfailing passion (or airplanes, never people. She was just a tool, no different from a wrench to tune the engine. She was a vehicle to success, nothing more, a cog in one of his machines, and in fact, a very small one. He was the puppeteer, the designer, the spirit behind it. In his eyes, she was nothing.

18

The North Star took off, right on schedule, on the morning of October 4, as planned, with a crowd of hundreds watching. The cardinal of Los Angeles blessed the plane. There was champagne for everyone, and she took off into the horizon on a circuitous route that was designed to break distance records, and accommodate the vagaries of world politics at the moment.

They flew south first to Guatemala City, covering two thousand two hundred miles at one gulp, without refueling. And when they arrived, they checked their maps, the weather, and spent some time investigating the area, and talking to the locals. People were fascinated by the plane, and flocked to the airport to see them. Desmond had done his homework well. People all over the world knew of Cassie's journey.

The press were waiting for them en masse at the Guatemala City airport, along with ambassadors, envoys, diplomats, and politicians. There was a marimba band playing, and Cassie and Billy posed for photographs. No one had gotten as much attention since Charles Lindbergh.

“Not a bad life, huh?” Cassie teased him as they took off for San Cristóbal in the Galápagos the next day, a mere eleven hundred miles, which took them just over three hours in the extraordinary plane Williams Aircraft had built them. Desmond had gotten his first wish this time. They had just set a record for speed and distance.

“Maybe we should just stop somewhere for a vacation,” Billy suggested, and she grinned as they were met by Ecuadorian officials, American military personnel, and local natives. There were more photographers, and the governor of the islands invited them to dinner.

The trip was going beautifully, and they spent a day there, checking the plane over carefully, and checking maps and weather again. Things couldn't have looked better.

From the Galápagos, they flew another twenty-four hundred miles to Easter Island in exactly seven hours. But this time they met with unexpected winds, and narrowly missed breaking the record.

“Better luck next time, kid,” Billy joked with her as they taxied down the runway at Easter Island. ‘that husband of yours is liable to burn our homesteads down if we don't get him some more records.” They both knew that Desmond had an eye on the Japanese who had been working on a plane for the past year which could fly nonstop from Tokyo to New York, a distance of nearly seven thousand miles, but so far they had encountered nothing but problems, and hadn't even made it as far as Alaska. Their first test flight was scheduled only a year from now. And Desmond had every intention of beating them to it, which was why these long distances across the Pacific interested him so greatly.

They found Easter Island a fascinating place while they refueled. It was filled with innocent, beautiful people and intriguing moai statues. There were stories that went back to prehistoric man, and mysteries Cassie would have loved to explore if she'd had the time to stay there.