Danielle Steel - Passion's Promise

“Edward, please, for God’s sake, don’t do this to me. Don’t pressure me now!” She shouted through her tears and wondered briefly why they kept throwing guilt at each other. Who cared “who was doing what to whom.” It had been done unto Kezia, and Luke, but not by Edward. And Kezia had done nothing to Edward, not intentionally. They were all caught in the teeth of a maniacal machine, and no one could help it, or stop it.

“You have to come home, Kezia! Think of what they’ll do to you out there.”

“They’ve already done it, and if it’s in the papers in New York it won’t make any difference where I am. I could fly to Tangiers for chrissake, and they’d still want a piece of the action.”

“It’s really unbelievable. I still don’t understand … and Kezia … good God, girl, you must have known this would happen to him. That story you told me about his being sick … this was what you meant, wasn’t it?” She nodded silently at the receiver and his voice came back sharper. “Wasn’t it?”

“Yes.” Her voice sounded so small, so broken and hurt.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“How could I?” There was a long moment of silence when they both knew the truth.

“I still don’t understand how you could involve yourself.

You said in your own article about him that there was a possibility of this. How …”

“Oh shut up, damn you, Edward, I did. That’s all, I did. And stop clucking like a bloody mother hen about it. I did, and I got hurt, we both got hurt, and believe me, he’s hurting one hell of a lot more sitting in jail right now.” There was deadly silence and Edward’s voice came back with a measured venom that was totally foreign to him … except for once before.

“Mr. Johns is used to jail, Kezia.” She wanted to hang up on Edward then, but she didn’t quite dare. Severing the connection would sever something more, something deeper, and she still needed that tie, maybe only a little bit, but she needed it. Edward was all she had in a way, except Luke.

“Do you have anything else to say?” Her voice was almost as vicious as his had been a moment before. She was willing to kick at him, but not dismiss him entirely.

“Yes. Come home. Immediately.”

“I won’t. Anything else?”

“I don’t know what it will take to bring you to your senses, Kezia, but I suggest you make an effort to become rational as quickly as possible. You may regret this for a lifetime.”

“I will, but not for the reasons you think, Edward.”

“You have no idea how something like this can jeopardize …” His voice trailed off unhappily. For a moment he hadn’t been speaking to Kezia, but to the ghost of her mother, and they both knew it. Now Kezia was certain. Now she knew why he had told her about her mother and the tutor. Now she knew it all.

“Jeopardize what? My ‘position’? My ‘consequence,’ as Aunt Hil would say? Jeopardize my chances of finding a husband? You think I give a damn about all that now? I care about Luke, Edward. I care about Lucas Johns. I love him!” She was shouting again.

Three thousand miles away, silent tears were sliding down Edward’s face. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do for you.”

It was the voice of her attorney, her trustee, her guardian. Not her friend. Something had finally snapped. The gap between them was broadening to a frightening degree, for both of them.

“I will.” They exchanged no goodbye and Edward severed the connection. Kezia sat for a long moment holding the dead phone in her hands, while Alejandro watched her.

Tears of farewell slid down her cheeks. That had been two in two days. In one way or another, she had lost the only two men she had ever loved, since her father. Three lost men in a lifetime. She knew that somehow she had just lost Edward. She had betrayed him. What he had sought most to prevent had finally come.

Edward, sitting in his office, knew it too. He walked solemnly to the door, locked it carefully, walked back to his desk, and flicked the switch on his intercom, informing his secretary in the driest of tones that he did not want to be disturbed until further notice. Then, having carefully put aside the mail on his desk, he lay his head down on his arms and broke into heart-rending sobs. He had lost her … lost them both … and to such unworthy men. As he lay there he wondered why the only two women he had ever loved had such a brutal flaw in their characters … the tutor … and now this … this … jailbird … this nobody! He found himself shouting the word, and then, surprised at himself, he stopped crying, lifted his head, sat back in his chair, and stared at his view. There were times when he simply did not understand. No one played by the rules anymore. Not even Kezia, and he had taught her himself. He shook his head slowly, blew his nose twice, and went back to his desk to look over the mail.

Jack Simpson was sympathetic when he called her. But Kezia’s agent didn’t help matters by feeling guilty for introducing her to Luke. She assured him that he’d given her the best gift of her life, but the tears in her voice didn’t console either of them.

Alejandro tried to coax her into a walk, but she wouldn’t move, and sat in the hotel room with the shades drawn, smoking, drinking tea, coffee, water, scotch, scarcely eating, just thinking, her eyes filling with tears, her hands shaking and frail. She was afraid to go out now, afraid of the press and afraid of missing a phone call from Luke.

“Maybe he’ll call.”

“Kezia, he can’t call from county jail. They won’t let him.”

“Maybe they will.”

It was pointless to argue with her; it was almost as though she didn’t hear. And whatever she heard, she didn’t listen to. The only sounds that penetrated were her own inner voices, and the echoes of Luke.

It was midnight before Alejandro finally got her to bed.

“What are you doing?” She could see his outline in the chair in the corner. Her voice sounded strangely old.

“I thought I’d just sit here for a while. Will it keep you from sleeping?” She wanted to reach out in the darkness and touch his hand. She couldn’t find the words again, all she could do was shake her head and cry. It had been an unbearable day, not as tense as the previous day, but more wearing. The endless pressure of pain.

He heard the muffled sobs in the pillow and came closer to sit on the edge of the bed. “Kezia, don’t.” He stroked her hair, her arm, her hand, as her body shook with sobs. She was keening for Luke. “Oh baby … little girl, why did this happen to you?” She was so unprepared, so unused to anything she could not control, and she had seen nothing like this. There were tears in his own eyes again, but she couldn’t see them.

“It didn’t happen to me, Alejandro. It happened to him.” The voice was bitter and tired through her tears.

He stroked her hair for what seemed like hours, and at last she fell asleep. He smoothed the covers around her, and touched her cheek ever so gently. She looked young again as she slept; the anger had left her thin face. The bitterness of what can happen to a life out in the big, bad, ugly world had come as a shock to her. She was learning the hard way, with her heart, and her guts.

He heard her knock gently on his door, and raised his head from the pillow. Sleep had taken a long time to come to him the night before, and now it was only five after six.

“Who is it?”

“Me. Kezia.”

“Is anything wrong?”

“I just thought maybe we should get up.” Today was the day she was going to see Lucas. Alejandro smiled tiredly as he got up to open the door, pulling on his pants as he went.

“Kezia, you’re crazy. Why don’t you go back to sleep for a while?” She was standing there in a blue flannel nightgown and her white satin robe, her feet bare, her hair loose and long and dark. Her eyes looked alive again in the much too pale face.