Danielle Steel - Sisters

Sabrina cleared the table and put the dishes in the dishwasher, and as soon as she finished, they said goodbye to their father. Without commenting further on his announcement, they left his house and drove home to New York.

The explosions in the car were extreme all the way home. Tammy swore she'd never see him again. Sabrina was afraid he had Alzheimer's and Leslie was taking full advantage of him. Candy said she was losing her father to a slut and cried all the way to the city. And Annie quietly said he was the biggest fool that ever lived, and there was no way on earth that anyone would ever convince her to go to the wedding. He hadn't asked them, as Sabrina pointed out. They didn't even know where the wedding was going to be. All they knew was that they hated her, and were furious with their father. And as they drove home from Connecticut, Chris very wisely said not a single word.

Chapter 24

None of them spoke to their father for the rest of the week. All of them were off work, so they had plenty of time to talk about it. No matter how they turned it around in their minds, they were outraged on their mother's behalf, hated Leslie's guts, and were furious with their father. And they got more so every day.

None of them had exciting New Year's plans, and they had decided to spend it quietly at the house. Sabrina and Chris hated going out on New Year's Eve, and Tammy didn't have a date. Candy said she had a friend coming in from L.A., and they were going to hang out at the house, and two days after Christmas Brad called Annie and asked her out for New Year's Eve, and she invited him over to the house instead. It seemed like a nice way to spend the evening, instead of going out.

On New Year's Eve, Chris and the girls cooked dinner. Brad brought several bottles of champagne. He and Chris had a good time talking before, during, and after dinner, and the biggest surprise of the evening was Candy's friend from L.A. He was probably the most famous young actor on the planet at the time, and it turned out that they had met three years before on a shoot and become good friends. He always hung out with her when he came in from L.A. There was nothing romantic between them, and he was great company. He had them laughing hysterically through most of the evening, and Brad couldn't believe the sort of people who dropped in at their house. Annie insisted she hadn't even known her sister knew him.

“Yeah, right. Who else is coming by? Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie?”

“Don't be silly,” she laughed at him. “I swear, most of the time, it's just us and the dogs, and Chris.”

“Okay, let's see, your sister is the biggest supermodel in the country, or maybe the world. Your other sister was one of the hottest producers in L.A., and is now the producer of the worst show in New York, we just had dinner with an actor who makes women swoon from fourteen to ninety, and I'm supposed to believe you guys are just regular people? How do you expect me to believe that?”

“Well, maybe they're not. But I am. Until six months ago, I was just a starving artist in Florence. Now I'm not even that.”

“Yes, you are,” he said gently. “You'll find other outlets for your art. That just doesn't go away. Give it a little time to surface again in a different way.” He sounded confident it would.

“Maybe,” she said, but didn't believe him. And at midnight they all toasted each other and hugged. Brad stayed and talked with them until three o'clock in the morning. Candy's actor friend spent the night on their couch, after drinking too much champagne. And Chris and Sabrina slipped away early. He asked her to come upstairs with him shortly after midnight, and the others never saw them again.

When Chris closed the door to Sabrina's bedroom, he kissed her. Privacy was hard-won in their house. He had brought with him two glasses and a bottle of champagne he'd bought himself. Sabrina smiled at him. It had been a hell of a year. So many things had happened, and whatever tragedies befell them, Chris was always there. This latest outrage with their father was just one more bump in the road. She knew she could count on Chris to be there for her, no matter what.

And as he kissed her, he took a small box out of his pocket, held her close to him, opened it with one hand, and slipped a ring on her finger. She didn't know what he was doing at first, and then she realized and looked down to see it. It was an absolutely beautiful engagement ring he had picked out on his own, and slipped out of a Tiffany box. He had been planning this for months.

“Oh my God, Chris, what are you doing?” She looked stunned.

He got down on one knee before he answered, and gazed at her solemnly from the floor. “I'm asking you to marry me, Sabrina. I love you more than anything in life. Will you marry me?” As he asked her, her eyes filled with tears. This was not what she had in mind. It was just one more shock. And she had had far too many in far too short a time. From their mother's death to Annie's blindness, the assault on Candy, and now her father marrying a girl half his age whom they had always thought of as a slut—it was just too much. She wasn't prepared to marry him. She wasn't ready. She just wanted to get through this year of taking care of Annie and living with her sisters. And maybe after that she and Chris could go back to their old life, but not get married. She didn't feel ready for that yet, and maybe never would. She loved him but felt no need to marry him. What they had now was enough for her.

She took off the ring and handed it to him with tears running down her cheeks and sorrow in her heart. “Chris, I can't. I can't even think straight right now. So much has happened in the last year. Why do we have to get married?”

“Because I'm thirty-seven, you're thirty-five, I want to have babies with you, we've been together for almost four years, and we can't wait for the rest of our lives to grow up.”

“Maybe I can,” she said sadly. “I love you, but I don't know what I want. I loved what we had before, each of us living in our own space, being together whenever we wanted. I know it's been a little crazy living with my sisters, and I love you. But I just don't feel ready to make that kind of commitment for the rest of my life. What if we screw it up? I see people in my office every day, just like us, who thought they were doing the right thing, got married, had kids, and then everything went wrong.”

“That's the kind of chance we all take,” he said, looking anguished. “There are never any guarantees in life. You know that. You just have to take a deep breath, jump into the pool, and do your best.”

“What if we drown?” she said miserably.

“What if we don't? But one thing I do know. I don't want to go on like this. Life is starting to pass us by. If we wait long enough, we'll be too old to have kids, or you will. And we'll never have a real life. I want that with you now.” His eyes were pleading with her, and his heart sank as she shook her head.

“I don't. I can't.” She looked panicked. “I won't. I'd be lying to you if I said I was sure.”

“You don't have to be sure,” he tried to reason with her. “We just have to love each other, Sabrina. That's enough.”

“Not for me.”

“What the hell do you want?” he said, starting to get angry.

“I want a guarantee that it's right.”

“There are none.”

“That's my point. I'm too scared to take the chance.” He was still holding the ring, and then he slipped it back into the box and snapped it shut again.

“I love you. But I'm not sure I'm ever going to want to get married,” Sabrina admitted to him. She couldn't lie to him. She just didn't know, and she didn't feel ready to be engaged, no matter how much she loved him.