Danielle Steel - Second Chance

“If the girls were around, I wouldn't have let him stay there. He's one of the most important photographers I work with, and I didn't want to lose the shoot.” But she had anyway. And now she was losing him.

“And Jamal is a nice boy. But I don't want him around the girls either. There are a lot of strange characters in your life, and you like that. It's part of your world. But I can't live with all that craziness in my home. I never know who's going to be there when I walk in. The only one who never is anymore is you. You've been gone almost constantly since we got married.” He was beginning to feel she was doing it on purpose to avoid him.

“I've had a lot of problems at the magazine,” she said unhappily.

“So have I at the agency. But I don't take it out on you.”

“Yes, you do. This has been a hard time for both of us.”

“Harder than you know,” he said sadly. “I don't even have a place to hang my suits.”

“I'll give you more closets. We can buy a bigger house if you want. Mine is too small for two people.” And certainly for four, if the girls were moving in too. God forbid.

“There isn't room in your life for two people. Or maybe it's just too weird.”

“If you wanted someone so proper and uptight, why did you marry me?” she said, as tears rolled down her cheeks.

“Because I love you. I did then. And I still do. But I can't live with you. And it's not fair to expect you to change it. This is how you want to live. I was wrong to push you into marriage. I see that now. You've been right to stay free for all these years. You knew what you were doing. I didn't. I guess I wanted to be a part of it. It was exciting. But I realize now it's too exciting for me.”

“What are you saying?” She was horrified and heartbroken. She couldn't believe what she was hearing. He had told her it was forever. And she had trusted him.

“I'm saying that I want a divorce. I'm getting a divorce. I already talked to my lawyer. And I've talked about it with the girls for the last two weeks.”

“You talked about it with them before you talked about it with me?” She looked like a child who had been abandoned on the street, which was what he was about to do to her. Except that she wasn't a child, she was a woman. And he had a right to leave.

“I'll fire Jamal. You can have all my closets. I'll throw away my clothes. Your kids can move in. And I'll never let another photographer stay here again.” She was pleading with him. She didn't want to lose him. The thought of losing him made her feel desperate and sick.

“It would never work. And the bottom line is that I don't want to lose my kids. I will if I stay with you.” Even if they'd been horrible to her, they were still his children, and he loved them. More than he loved her. And under Mrs. Westerman's ever evil influence they had been pressuring him, and blackmailing him emotionally to leave her. And with everything so difficult between him and Fiona it provided fertile ground for the forces against them to dig their heels in. It had worked. They had finally won him over. Fiona had to go.

“They don't have a right to do this. And neither do you.” She was sobbing. She couldn't believe what had happened. Even in her anguish, she knew that some of it was her fault. Maybe even a lot of it. But some of it was his. And he had made a deal with his kids. In the end, they had won. She was going to lose the one man she had really loved. Adrian was right. She hadn't compromised enough. She had felt so safe that she had ignored all the warnings. And now he was going to divorce her, in order to please his kids. But she had made more than her share of mistakes too.

He never came back to her house. The first set of papers arrived two weeks later. The whole affair had lasted eleven months from beginning to end. Almost a year. Not quite. Just long enough to really love him, and have it cost her soul when he left. They had been married for nearly six months. They would be divorced by Christmas. It was all unthinkable. He had promised. He had loved her. They were married. It meant nothing. Marriage was the one thing she had never wanted. And now it was all she wanted. It was all a cruel trick.

Two weeks after she got the papers notifying her that he had filed the papers, she left for Paris for the haute couture.

As he always did, Adrian came with her. He kept her company this time, instead of John. He dragged her from place to place. She was like a ghost. She was so out of it, you could almost see right through her. And Adrian was desperately worried about her. It was as though Fiona, the woman he had known and loved and laughed with and worked with, had entirely disappeared.

Chapter 12

Fiona did not go to the Hamptons all summer. She stayed at home, nursed her wounds, sat home alone at night, went to the office, and cried often. It was as though all the life had gone out of her, all the joy and excitement and passion. She felt as though she were in a dark tunnel, lost in the darkness. Everything she had hoped for and loved and trusted had been taken from her. And every time she saw Jamal cavorting through the house, she berated herself again for the mistakes she'd made. Right or wrong, she entirely blamed herself. John had shown her all she had ever wanted, and never let herself hope for, and when she failed to understand, he took it all away again. Nothing in her life had ever hurt so much, not even when her mother died, or she lost men later on. The loss of the marriage she had shared with John was the death of hope for her. She was like a naughty child who had been punished. For her poor judgment and foolish ways, she had been given an adult sentence, and put to death, or so she felt. She didn't deserve either the punishment he meted out to her, nor the abuse she heaped on herself afterward, and nothing anyone could do or say made it right for her again. As she dragged through the summer toward September, she could barely work. And on the Labor Day weekend, in crushing heat, disaster struck again. Sir Winston had a heart attack and was on life support for two weeks.

She visited him twice daily, before and after work, stroked his face, kissed his paws, and just sat quietly beside him. And finally, with a snore and a peaceful look at her, he closed his eyes one afternoon and went quietly to sleep for good. It was a peaceful death. And yet one more blow to her. He had been a beloved faithful friend.

Two days later, they had a major meeting with their ad agency, and there was no way she could avoid it. She discussed it with Adrian beforehand, and he said she absolutely had to go, no matter how hard it was for her. She hadn't heard a word from John all summer. When he ended it, he did so for good. The clock was running, and the divorce would be final in three months. After such a short marriage, it shouldn't have been the deathblow it was to her, but even Adrian knew now that it was.

She had opened places in herself to him that had never seen light and air and love before, and had never known human touch. And when he shut the door on them, and on her, he created wounds that she had been trying to shield herself from all her life. Worse yet, he had reopened every wound she'd ever had, while creating more. It was a blow of total devastation, and there was no way she could sit through a meeting with him. On the morning it was scheduled to happen, she picked up the phone to call in sick, and then thought better of it. Adrian was right. If only out of self-respect and dignity, she had to go. And what was worse, she wanted to see him, and did.

John Anderson strode into the meeting, looking tanned and handsome and athletic. He was wearing a dark blue pin-striped suit, a crisp white shirt that fit him to perfection, one of his classic navy blue Hermès ties with tiny red dots, and a white handkerchief in his pocket. He looked like a million dollars. And Fiona felt like two cents.