Danielle Steel: Passion's Promise

Kezia stood in the visiting area, numb, unaware of the eyes that turned toward her. It had been an agonizing scene for the few who had overhead it. It made the men squirm, and their visitors blanch. It could have happened to them, but it didn’t. It happened to her.

“I … Alej … I … could …” She was disoriented, stunned, lost.

“Come on, love, let’s go home.”

“Yes, please.” She seemed to have shrunk in those last shattering minutes. Her face looked frighteningly pale. This time he knew there was no point in asking how she was. It was easily seen.

He walked her out of the building and to the main gate as rapidly as he could. He wanted to get her the hell out of there before she fell apart. He guided her quickly around the potholes in the parking lot and eased her into the car. He was feeling almost as shocked as she. He had known something was wrong, but he had had no idea what Luke had in mind. And he knew what a bitching tough thing it had been to do. Lucas needed her there, her visits, her love, her support. But he knew what it would do to her too. She would have hung on for years, destroying herself, maybe even drinking herself to death while she waited. It couldn’t have gone on, and Luke knew it. Kezia had been right way at the beginning. Lucas Johns was a man with incredible guts. Alejandro knew he wouldn’t have had the courage to do it. Damn few men would, but damn few men faced what Luke was now facing—survival in a place where his life had been marked. And with who Kezia was, they could have gotten to her first. That had been the worst of Luke’s fears, but now that was over. Everything was, for Luke.

“I … where are we going?” Kezia looked frighteningly vague as Alejandro started the car.

“Home. We’re going home. And everything’s going to be fine.” He spoke to her as one would to a very small child, or a very sick one. Right then, she was both.

“I’m going to come back here, you know … I’ll come back. You know that, don’t you? He doesn’t really mean it … I … Alejandro?” There was no fire in her voice, only confusion. Alejandro knew she wouldn’t be back. Luke was a man of his word. By that afternoon, her name would be inexorably canceled from his list. It would leave him no choice. He couldn’t have had her reinstated for six months, and by then much would have changed. Six months could change a lot in a life. Six months before, Kezia had met Luke.

She was no longer crying as they drove away. She merely sat very still in the car, and then in the hotel room, where he left her under the careful guard of a maid, while he attended to the interview he could no longer keep his mind on. It was a hell of a day to have to worry about that. He rushed through it, and got back to the Ritz. The maid said she hadn’t moved, or even spoken. She had merely sat there, in the same chair she’d been in when he left her, staring at nothing.

With misgivings, he made plane reservations for six o’clock that night and prayed she wouldn’t come out of shock until he got her home to her own bed. She was like a child in a trance, and one thing was for sure, he didn’t want to be in San Francisco with her when she came out of it. He had to get her back to New York.

She ate nothing on the tray the stewardess put before her, and nodded uncomprehendingly when Alejandro offered her the earphones for music. He settled them on her head, and then watched her remove them dreamily five minutes later. She sang to herself for a little while, and then lapsed back into silence. The stewardesses eyed her strangely, and Alejandro would nod with a smile, hoping no one would make any comments, and praying that no one would recognize her. She looked sufficiently vague and disheveled by then to be less readily recognized. He could barely handle her as it was, without worrying about the press. They might set her off, and unleash the flood of reality she was holding in abeyance by staying in shock. She looked drugged or drunk, or more than a little crazy. The flight was a nightmare he longed to see end.

Today had been the last straw, and he ached thinking of Lucas. He ached for them both.

* * *

“You’re home. Kezia. Everything is all right.”

“I’m dirty. I need a bath.” She sat on a chair in her living room, seeming not to understand where she was.

“I’ll run a bath for you.”

“Totie will do it.” She smiled at him vaguely.

He bathed her gently, as he had his nieces long ago. She sat staring at the ornate gold dolphin faucets on the white marble wall. It didn’t even strike him that it was she he was bathing. He wanted to reach out to her, hold her, but she wasn’t even there. She was gone, somewhere, in some distant world hidden from the broken one she had left.

He wrapped her in a towel, she dutifully put on her nightgown, and he led her to bed.

“Now you’ll sleep, won’t you?”

“Yes. Where’s Luke?” The vacant eyes sought his, something in them threatening to break and pour all over the floor.

“He’s out.” She wasn’t ready to deal with the truth, and neither was he.

“Oh. That’s nice.” She smiled vapidly at him, and climbed into bed, clumsily as children do, her feet struggling to find their way into the sheets. He helped her in, and turned off the lights.

“Kezia, do you want Totie?” He knew he’d find her number in Kezia’s address book, if he had to. He had been wondering if he should hunt through it for the name of her doctor, but everything seemed under control, for the moment.

“No, thank you. I’ll wait for Luke.”

“Okay. Call if you need me. I’ll be right here.”

“Thank you, Edward.” It was a shock to realize that she didn’t know who he was.

He settled down for a long night’s vigil on the couch, waiting for the scream he was sure would come. But it never did. Instead she was up at six, and in the living room in her nightgown and bare feet. She didn’t seem to question how she’d gotten home, or who had put her to bed. And he was stunned when he realized how lucid she was. Totally.

“Alejandro, I love you. But I want you to go home.”

“Why?” He didn’t trust her alone.

“Because I’m all right now. I woke up at four this morning, and I’ve been thinking everything over for the last two hours. I understand what happened, and now I have to learn to live with it. And the time to do that is right now. You can’t sit here and treat me like an invalid, love, that’s not right. You have better things to do with your life.” Her look told him she meant it.

“Not if you need me.”

“I don’t … not like that … look, please. Go away. I need to be by myself.”

“Are you telling me you’re throwing me out?” He tried to make it sound light but it didn’t. They were both much too tired for games. She looked worse than he did, and he hadn’t slept.

“No. I’m not throwing you out and you know it. I’m just telling you to go back to what you have to do. And let me do this.”

“What are you going to do?” He was frightened.

“Nothing drastic. Don’t worry about that.” She sank into one of the velvet chairs and took one of his cigarettes. “I guess I’m not ballsy enough to commit suicide. I just want to be alone for a while.”

He got up tiredly from the couch, every bone and muscle and fiber and nerve ending aching.

“All right. But I’ll call you.”

“No, Alejandro, don’t.”

“I’ve got to. I’ll be goddamned if I’m going to sit uptown and wonder if you’re dead or alive. If you don’t want to talk to me, then tell your answering service how you are and I’ll call them.” He turned to face her, with his coat in his hand.

“Why does it matter so much? Because Luke told you to do that?” Her eyes poured into his.