Danielle Steel - The House

“Maybe you should buy some,” he teased her. Marie-Louise was using nearly all of their closets. She always came back with trunkloads of new things from Paris, and dozens of pairs of new shoes. They had nowhere to put them.

“I'm sorry I was such a downer when I got here,” she apologized, as they walked through what had been her grandmother's room as a child. “I had a shit weekend.”

“I figured. Did he show up?”

“Yeah. He always does on weekends. He had a fit about the house. He thinks I'm nuts.”

“You are.” Jeff smiled at her gently. There was so much he liked about her. “But nice nuts. There's nothing wrong with having a dream, Sarah. We all need that. It's not a sin.”

“No.” She smiled wistfully at him. He felt like her friend now, although she hardly knew him. But she felt as though she had known him for years, and so did he with her. “But you have to admit, it's a pretty big dream.”

“There's nothing wrong with that. Big people have big dreams. Small people have none at all.” He already hated Phil from the look on her face. He could see she'd been hurt. Just from the little she'd said on Thursday night, he thought Phil was a jerk. She didn't like Marie-Louise, either. But she didn't say that to Jeff.

“It's not going well,” she admitted as they walked back downstairs.

They hadn't done as much work today, but they were both relaxing and getting to know the house. They had explored every nook and cranny. He liked being able to do that with her. Marie-Louise had called that morning, and he had said he was having lunch with a client, but he didn't say who. He had never done that before, and he wasn't sure why he had now. Except that Marie-Louise hadn't liked Sarah either when they met. She had made unpleasant comments about her when they drove away, and again in Venice. She was too American for Marie-Louise's taste. And she had hated the house. Jeff wasn't going to ask her to work on it with him. It wouldn't be fair to Sarah to have an architect who disliked the house. Marie-Louise thought it was an impossible job, and thought the place should be torn down, which was a travesty to him.

“I could see it wasn't going well when you arrived,” Jeff said as they put the leftover food back in his basket. He had bought it at the flea market in Paris, and it was very old.

“I don't know why I stay with him. He was such a jerk about the house yesterday, that I was thinking about ending it last night. And then I got home, and he was cooking dinner, cleaned the house, gave me two dozen roses, and apologized. He's never done any of that before. It's hard to end it when he does things like that.”

“Maybe he sensed you were fed up. Some people have remarkable survival instincts in relationships. Maybe that was more about him than about you. He probably isn't ready to give you up, either. Sounds like a panic move to me.” She smiled at the male assessment.

“Damned if I know. I'd rather he had been nice about the house than buy me roses. He said a lot of really ugly stuff. I feel like such a wimp for staying in it.”

“You'll give it up when you're ready, if it's the right thing to do. You'll know,” he said wisely.

“What makes you so smart about these things?” she asked him, and he smiled.

“I'm older than you are, and I've been there before. But I'm no smarter or braver than you are. Marie-Louise called this morning.” He didn't tell Sarah about his lie about her, only about the rest. “All she did was bitch about coming back, and tell me how much she hates it here. I get tired of hearing it, too. If she hates it so much here, maybe she should just stay there. She will one of these days anyway. I know it.” It was the second time he had said it and he sounded depressed. She was always threatening never to come back.

“Then why do you stay in it?” Sarah wanted to know. Maybe it would teach her something about herself.

“It's hard to give up fourteen years, and admit you might have been wrong. And I'm never sure if I am.”

“It's hard enough to give up four,” she admitted.

“Try adding ten onto that. It only gets worse, the longer you hang in.”

“I thought it was supposed to get better if you stuck it out.”

“That only works if it's the right person.”

“How the hell do you ever know, Jeff?”

“I don't know. My life would be a lot simpler if I did. I ask myself a lot of questions, too. Maybe it's never an easy fit between two people. That's what I tell myself.”

“So do I. I make a lot of excuses for his shit behavior.”

“Don't. At least see it for what it is.” She nodded, thinking about what he'd said, and she was looking out at the garden from the living room, when she felt Jeff standing close to her, and she turned to face him. He was taller than she was, and her face was turned up to him as their eyes met and held. His lips found hers effortlessly, their arms were wrapped around each other, and the kiss seemed to last forever. She had forgotten what that could feel like, and so had he. This wasn't difficult. It was easy. But it was also new, and forbidden fruit. They were both committed to other people, however difficult it was with them.

“I think that was a mistake,” she said softly afterward. She felt guilty, but not very. She liked Jeff a lot. He was a hell of a lot nicer than Phil.

“I was afraid of that,” Jeff said in answer. “But I'm not so sure it was a mistake. It didn't feel like one. What do you think?”

“I don't know.” She looked confused.

“Maybe we should try again just to be sure.” As he said it, he kissed her again, and this time she pressed her body against his. He felt powerful, and she felt safe and warm in his arms. “Mistake or not?” he whispered, and this time she laughed.

“We're going to get ourselves in a hell of a mess with Phil and Marie-Louise,” she said, as he hugged her. It felt so damned good.

“Maybe it's all they deserve. It's not right to be hard on people the way they've been on us.” Jeff was tired of his problems, too.

“If that's true, then maybe we're supposed to have the guts to walk away from them,” she said sensibly. It would have been the honorable thing to do.

“Oh that,” Jeff said, smiling at her. It had turned into an exceptionally lovely afternoon, particularly in the last few minutes. “I have. Many times. So has she. We always wind up in the same place, starting over again.”

“Why?”

“Habit. Fear. Laziness. Familiarity. Ease.”

“Love?” she asked honestly. She asked herself the same question about Phil. Did she love him or not? She was no longer sure.

“Maybe. After fourteen years, sometimes it's hard to know. I think it's mostly habit with us. And work, too. It would be a mess to try and divide up the business. It's not like we sell shoes. Most of our clients buy us as a team. And with work, we're good. I like working with her.”

“That's not a good reason to stay together,” Sarah commented. “Privately anyway. Could you work together if you broke up?” She was checking it out, and so was he.

“Probably not. She'd go back to Paris anyway. Her brother is an architect, too. She always tells me she'll go to work with him. They have an important firm there.”

“Nice for her.”

“I'm not afraid to work on my own. I just don't like the mess of getting there.” Sarah nodded. She understood. But she also didn't want to be “the other woman” in his life. That would be an even bigger mess than the ones they had now. “Sometimes one has to let life unfold,” he said philosophically. “It's all about the right thing at the right time. I think when it's right, you know. I've always had a tremendous attraction to the wrong thing,” he admitted, looking sheepish. “I liked dangerous women when I was young. Or women who were hard to get along with. Marie-Louise is a bit of both.”