Danielle Steel - Matters of the Heart

Hope was deeply impressed by Robert’s story, his willingness to tell it to her, his honesty, and compassion for her dilemma and love for Finn. It was so hard to assimilate the evidence and the extreme contradiction between how he had treated her in the beginning and all she felt for him, and what everyone else said about him, and her own concerns about him now. It was the very definition of confusion and contradiction. And no one could understand it unless they had been in a similar situation themselves, as Robert had. Her willingness to go back and look again was incomprehensible to Mark.

“Thank you for not telling me how stupid I am for going back. I think I keep hoping he’ll be the way he was in the beginning.”

“We all hope that in matters of the heart. And more than likely, he will be, for a night at a time, or a few hours. He just won’t stay that way, because it’s all an act, and a way of getting what he wants. But if you get in his way, or don’t give it to him, you’re going to be in big trouble, and he’ll strike like lightning. Hopefully, the worst he’ll do is scare the shit out of you. Let’s try to keep it at that.” That was his only goal now. Hers was still the hope that Finn was what he had seemed, and would straighten up and treat her right. Robert knew there was no chance of that, but Hope had to experience it for herself. Maybe more than once. He hoped not. She was the classic victim of a sociopath. Isolated, confused, incredulous, vulnerable, inordinately hopeful, and not yet ready to believe the evidence at hand. “Why don’t you come and see me before you go back? You can stop in at my office on the way back to Russborough when you get to Dublin. I’ll give you all my numbers, we can have a cup of coffee, and then you can go back to Jack the Ripper.” He was teasing her and she laughed. It was not a pretty picture, and she felt a little foolish, but he was right. “I’d offer to come and see you at the house, but my guess is that that would get you in trouble. Most sociopaths are extremely jealous.”

“He is. He’s always accusing me of flirting with someone, even waiters in restaurants.”

“That’s about right. My wife was always accusing me of sleeping with my secretaries, the au pair, women I’d never even met, and eventually she started accusing me of sleeping with guys. I was constantly defending myself and trying to convince her that I wasn’t. As it turned out, she was.” It was projection at its best.

“I don’t think Finn cheats on me,” Hope said, sounding certain of it. “But he accuses me of sleeping with just about everyone in the village, including our workmen.”

“Try not to get him excited about anything for the moment, if you can help it. I know that’s hard. The accusations are never rational or based on fact, or rarely, unless you give him something to worry about.” But she didn’t sound like the type. She sounded honest, honorable, and straightforward, and she was feeling much better since their conversation, and no longer crazy. “My guess is that you’ll get into it with him over the money. That’s bound to be his number-one goal, and the wedding, and maybe a baby.” He didn’t tell her that most sociopaths were extremely sexual. Nuala had been the best thing in bed that had ever hit him. That was one of the many ways they got control of their victims. In his ex-wife’s case, she screwed them blind. So blind they didn’t know what hit them, and then she killed them. He had narrowly escaped that fate at her hands. A good therapist and his own common sense had saved him. And even though she was still in love with Finn and her illusion of him, Hope sounded sensible to him too. The truth was very hard to swallow and believe, and the dichotomy too extreme to make sense to a sane person, so she was giving him the benefit of the doubt, which their victims often did. It wasn’t stupidity on her part, just hope, naïvete, faith, and love, however undeserved.

As Hope thought about it while talking to him, she decided to fly back the next day, on the night flight she liked to take, which would put her in Dublin the following morning. And she liked the idea of seeing Robert Bartlett before she went back to the house. It would ground her. She made an appointment with him for ten o’clock that morning, after she got through immigration and customs, and came in from the airport.

“That’s fine. I’ll be clear all morning,” he assured her. And then he had another thought. “What do you want to do with that house when this is over, when that happens?” This wasn’t a divorce where she owed him a settlement to end it.

“I don’t know. I’ve thought about it, and I can’t decide.” She still hoped it wouldn’t come to that but was well aware now that it might, and had to give it some thought. “I could keep it and keep renting it to him, but I’m not sure I’d want to. It could turn out to be a link to him I don’t want. But I feel mean just throwing him out.” Robert knew it was all Finn deserved, but Hope clearly wasn’t there yet. And she still wished that would never happen, but Robert wanted to bring it up.

“You don’t need to worry about it now. Enjoy New York, and I’ll see you day after tomorrow.” She thanked him again and hung up. It was six-thirty in the morning by the time she finally went to bed, feeling calmer than she had in months. At least now she had a support system in Ireland, and Robert Bartlett clearly knew the subject. It sounded as though what he’d been through with his ex-wife was far worse. She was an extreme example of the breed, but with two women dead because of him, and a lifetime of lies, Finn wasn’t much better. Hope could see that. The sad thing was that in spite of all she knew about him now, she still loved him. She had believed everything that he had been to her in the beginning, and it was hard to give up that dream. She was deeply attached to him, particularly now with Paul gone. Finn really was the only person she had left in the world, which would make it that much harder to give him up. It would mean she was entirely alone for the first time in her life.

Finn called her twice that morning as she slept. She stirred and saw his number on her cell phone, turned over, and didn’t answer. And when she went back to Ireland, because she would see Robert Bartlett on the way, she wasn’t going to tell Finn she was coming, and she would surprise him when she got back to the house. But she wanted a few hours alone with Robert Bartlett in Dublin first.

Chapter 19

As it turned out, it snowed the night Hope left New York, and her plane sat on the runway, delayed, for four hours, waiting for the storm to lessen. They eventually took off, but the winds were against them, and it was a long bumpy flight to Dublin. There were delays getting the bags off the plane, and instead of arriving at Robert Bartlett’s office at ten in the morning, she arrived at two-thirty in the afternoon, tired and disheveled, dragging her finally retrieved suitcase behind her.

“I’m so sorry!” she apologized as he came out to greet her. He was a tall, slim, distinguished-looking man with graying sandy-blond hair, green eyes, and a cleft in his chin that was more noticeable when he smiled, which he did often. He had a friendly face, and a warm demeanor. He made tea for her while she settled into one of the comfortable chairs in his office. The law firm was in a small historical building in Southeast Dublin, on Merrion Square, near Trinity College. There were lovely Georgian houses and a large park. The floors of his office were crooked, the windows were off center, and the general atmosphere was one of cozy disorder. It was a far cry from their fancy, sterile New York office. Robert liked this much better, and was almost sorry he was going back. And after seven years in Dublin he was very much at home there, and so were his children. But he wanted to be closer to his children, both of whom were in college now at Ivy League schools on the East Coast, although he said that one of them wanted to come back to Ireland after college.