Danielle Steel: The Cottage

“He's got to fire the staff. I want to do it today.” Liz saw the houseman glance back over his shoulder with a look of concern, and she smiled reassuringly at him.

It was her job to keep everyone happy and pay what bills she could. Their salaries were always top on her list, but even those had to slide for a month or two at times. They were used to it. And she herself hadn't been paid in six months. She'd had a little trouble explaining that to her fiancé. She always caught up when Coop did a commercial or got a small part in a film. She could afford to be patient. Unlike Coop, she had a nest egg socked away. She never had time to spend money, and she had lived frugally for years. Coop was always generous with her, when he could.

“Maybe we can let them go slowly, Abe. This is going to be hard on them.”

“He can't pay them, Liz. You know that. I'm going to advise him to sell the cars and the house. He won't get much for the cars, but if he sells the house, we can pay off the mortgage, and his debts, and he can live decently on the rest. He can buy an apartment in Beverly Hills, and be in good shape again.” He hadn't been in years.

But the house, Liz knew, was part of Coop, like an arm or a leg or an eye. It was his heart. It had been part of his identity for more than forty years. Coop would rather have died than sell The Cottage. And he wouldn't part with the cars, she was sure. The idea of Coop behind the wheel of anything but a Rolls or a Bentley was unthinkable. His image was part of who he was, all of who he was in fact. And most people had no idea that he was in dire financial straits. They just thought he was casual about paying his bills. There had been a little problem with the IRS a few years before, and Liz had seen to it that all the proceeds from a movie he made in Europe had gone to them instantly. It had never happened again. But things were tough these days. All he needed was one great film, Coop said. And Liz echoed that to Abe. She always defended Coop, and had for twenty-two years. It was getting harder to do so lately because of the irresponsible way he behaved. That was just Coop, they both knew well.

Abe was tired of the games he played. “He's seventy years old. He hasn't had a part in two years, or a big one in twenty. If he did more commercials, it would help. But it still won't be enough. We can't do this anymore, Liz. If he doesn't clean this mess up soon, he's going to wind up in jail.” Liz had been using credit cards to pay credit cards for over a year, as Abe knew, and it drove him insane. There were other bills that didn't get paid at all. But the idea of Coop in jail was absurd.

It was one o'clock when Liz asked Livermore to bring Mr. Braunstein a sandwich, and Abe looked as though there was smoke about to come out of his ears. He was furious with Coop, and only his devotion to his job kept him sitting there. He was determined to do what he had come to do, with or without Coop's help. He couldn't help wondering how Liz had stood him for all those years. He had always suspected they'd had an affair, and would have been surprised to learn that wasn't the case. Coop was smarter than that, and so was Liz. She had adored him for years, and never gone to bed with him. Nor had he asked. Some relationships were sacred to him, and he would never have tainted theirs. He was a gentleman after all, and at all times.

Abe finished his sandwich at one-thirty, and she had drawn him into a conversation about the Dodgers by then, his favorite team. She knew he was a passionate baseball fan. Putting people at ease was one of the things Liz did best. He had almost forgotten the time, as Liz turned her head. She knew the sound of his car on the gravel, although Abe hadn't heard a thing.

“There he is,” she smiled at Abe, as though announcing the imminent arrival of the three kings.

And as always, Liz was right. Coop was driving the Bentley Azure convertible the dealer had just loaned him for several weeks. It was a splendid machine, and suited him to perfection. He was playing a CD of La Bohème , as he came around the last curve, and stopped the car in front of the house. He was a breathtakingly handsome man, with chiseled features and a cleft chin. He had deep blue eyes, smooth, fair skin, and a full head of immaculately trimmed and combed silver hair. Even with the top down, he didn't have a hair out of place. He never did. Cooper Winslow was the epitome of perfection in every detail. Manly, elegant, with a sense of extraordinary ease. He rarely lost his temper, and seldom looked unnerved. There was an air of aristocratic grace about him, which he had perfected to a fine art, and came naturally to him. He was from an old family in New York, with distinguished ancestors and no money, and his name was his own.

In his prime, he played all the rich-boy, upper-class parts, a sort of modern-day Cary Grant, with Gary Cooper looks. He had never played a villain or a single rough part, only playboys and dashing heroes in impeccable clothes. And women loved the fact that he had kind eyes. He didn't have a mean bone in his body, he was never petty or cruel. The women he dated adored him, even long after they left him. He somehow nearly always managed to engineer it so that they left him, when he had had enough of them. He was a genius at handling women, and most of the women he had affairs with, those he remembered at least, spoke well of him. They had fun with him. Coop made everything pleasant and elegant, for as long as the affair lasted. And nearly every major female star in Hollywood, at some point, had been seen on his arm.

He had been a bachelor and a playboy all his life. At seventy, he had managed to escape what he referred to as “the net.” And he looked nowhere near his age.

He had taken extraordinarily good care of himself, in fact he'd made a career of it, and didn't look a day over fifty-five. And when he stepped out of the magnificent car, wearing a blazer, gray slacks, and an exquisitely starched and laundered blue shirt he'd had made in Paris, it was obvious that he had broad shoulders, an impeccable physique, and seemingly endless legs. He was six feet four, also rare in Hollywood, where most of the movie idols had always been short. But not Coop, and as he waved at the gardeners, he flashed not only a smile which showed off perfect teeth, but a woman would have noticed that he had beautiful hands. Cooper Winslow appeared to be the perfect man. And within a hundred-mile radius, you could see how charming he was. He was a magnet to men and women alike. Only a few people who knew him, like Abe Braunstein, were impervious to his charm. But for everyone else, there was an irresistible magnetism, a kind of aura about him that made people turn and look, and smile with awe. If nothing else, he was a spectacular-looking man.

Livermore had seen him coming too, and opened the door as he approached, to let him in.

“You're looking well, Livermore. Did anyone die today?” He always teased him about his somber mood. It was a challenge to Coop to make the butler smile. Livermore had been with him for four years, and Coop was immensely pleased with him. He liked his dignity, his stiffness, his efficiency, and his style. It lent his home precisely the kind of image he wanted to achieve. And Livermore took care of his wardrobe impeccably, which was important to Coop. It was a major part of the butler's job.

“No, sir. Miss Sullivan and Mr. Braunstein are here, in the library. They just finished lunch.” He didn't tell his employer they'd been waiting for him since noon. Cooper wouldn't have cared anyway. As far as Coop was concerned, Abe Braunstein worked for him, and if he had to wait, he could charge him for that too.

But as Cooper strode into the room, he smiled winningly at Abe, and looked faintly amused, as though they shared a long-standing joke. Abe didn't fall for it, but there was nothing he could do. Cooper Winslow danced to his own tune.