Danielle Steel - Malice

“What makes you say that?*’ She looked away from him uncomfortably, afraid of his question. But when she looked back into his eyes, she saw someone she could trust there. “How did you know that's how I felt?”

“A girl your age doesn't spend all her time doing volunteer work, and with sixty-year-old spinsters like Winnie, unless she's got very little interest in finding a husband. I assume that I'm correct?” he questioned, looking at her pointedly with a smile.

“You are.”

“Why?”

She waited a long time before she answered. She didn't want to lie to him, but she wasn't ready to tell him the truth either. “It's a long story.”

“Does it have to do with your parents?” His eyes bore into hers, but not unkindly. He had already proven that she could trust him, and that he cared about her welfare.

“Yes.”

“Was it very bad?” She nodded, and he felt a deep grief for her. It hurt him to think of anyone hurting her. “Did anyone help you?”

“Not for a long time, and it was too late by then. It was all over.”

“It's never all over, and it's never too late. You don't have to live with that pain for the rest of your life, Grace. You have a right to be free of it, and have a future with a decent guy.” He felt proprietary now and wanted her to have a good, solid future.

“I have a present, which means more to me. Used to be I didn't even have that. I don't ask too much of the future,” Grace said quietly with a look of sorrow.

“But you should,” he tried to urge her forward. “You're so young, you're practically half my age. Your life is just beginning.”

But she shook her head, with a smile that was full of wisdom and sadness. “Believe me, Charles,” he had insisted she call him that now that she was in the hospital, “my life is not beginning. It's half over.”

“It just feels that way. It won't be over for a long time, which is why you need more in it than just working for me, and at St. Andrew's.”

“You trying to fix me up with someone?” She laughed, stretching her long legs before her. He was a kind man, and she knew he meant well, but he didn't know what he was doing. She was not an ordinary twenty-two-year-old girl with a few rocky memories and a rosy future. She felt more like a survivor of a death camp, and in some ways she was. Charles Mackenzie had never encountered anything like that, and he wasn't sure what to do for her.

“I wish I knew someone worth fixing you up with,” he answered her with a smile. All the men he knew were either too old, or too stupid. They didn't deserve her.

They talked of other things then, sailing, which he loved, and summers on Martha's Vineyard when he was a boy, and places he'd been. He still had a house in Martha's Vineyard, though he rarely ever went there anymore. They didn't talk about painful things again, and at the end of the afternoon, he left and told her to get some rest. He told her he was going to see friends in Connecticut the next day. She was touched that he spent so much time with her.

Winnie came Sunday afternoon, and Father Tim, and Grace was just settling down to watching television before she went to sleep that night, when Charles strode in, in khaki pants and a starched blue shirt, looking like an ad in GQ and smelling like the country.

“I was on my way back into town, and I thought I'd stop by and see how you were,” he said, looking happy to see her. And in spite of herself, she beamed at him. She had actually missed him that afternoon, and that had worried her a little. He was only her boss after all, not a lifelong friend, and she had no right to expect to see him. She didn't, but she enjoyed him, more than she would ever have expected.

“Did you have fun in the country?” she asked, feeling relieved that he was there.

“No,” he said honestly, “I thought of you all afternoon. You're a lot more fun than they were.”

“Now I know you're crazy.” He came to sit on the foot of the bed and told her funny stories about the afternoon, and in spite of herself, she was disappointed when he left. It was ten o'clock by then, and he thought she should get some sleep, although he didn't want to leave either.

But that night, as she lay in bed and thought about him, she started to panic. What was she doing with him? What did she want from him? If she opened up to him like this, he would only hurt her. She forced herself to remember the anguish and embarrassment of Marcus, who had been so good to her at first, so patient, and then betrayed her. It terrified her just thinking about Charles. Maybe all she was to Charles Mackenzie was a conquest. She could feel her chest tighten as she thought about it, and as though he had read her mind, the phone rang next to her bed. She couldn't imagine who it was, but it was Charles, and he sounded worried.

“I want to say something to you … and you may think I'm crazy, but I'm going to say it to you anyway … I want to be your friend, Grace. I won't hurt you, but I just got worried, trying to imagine what you were thinking. I don't know what's happening. I just know that I think about you all the time, and I worry about what's happened to you in the past, although I can't even imagine it … but I don't want to lose you … I don't want to scare you away, or frighten you, or make you worry about your job. Let's just be two people for a little while, two people who care about each other, if we do, and go very slowly from there.” She couldn't believe what she was hearing, but in a way, it was a relief to have him say it.

“What are we doing, Charles?” she said nervously. “What about my job? We can't pretend I don't work for you. What happens when I come back?”

“You're not coming back for a while, Grace. We'll know a lot more by then. I think we're both feeling something we don't understand right now. Maybe we're just friends, maybe your accident scared us both. Maybe it's more than that. Maybe it never can be. But you need to know who I am, and I want to know who you are … I want to know your pain … I want to know what makes you laugh. I want to be there for you … I want to help you. …”

“And then what? You walk away from me? You find another secretary who amuses you for a few weeks and have her tell you all her secrets?” She was relieved that he called her but she was too afraid to let herself trust him.

Charles remembered Father Tim's words, that some of the survivors just can't let go. But he wanted her to be one who could, no matter what it took to get there.

“That's not fair,” Charles chided her. “I've never been in a situation like this before. I've never gone out with anyone at the law firm, or anyone who worked for me.” And then he smiled in spite of himself. “And you can hardly say I'm going out with you. You can't go anywhere except from the bed to the chair, and even I wouldn't have the bad taste to attack you.”

She laughed at what he said, and her voice sounded deep and sexy as she lay in bed, and she wanted to let herself trust him, but she knew she couldn't … or could she?

“I just don't know,” Grace said, still sounding nervous.

“You don't have to know anything right now … except if it's okay with you if I visit you. That's all you need to decide right now. I was just afraid you'd panic and start to go crazy once you were alone, and got to thinking.”

“I was … tonight …” she said honestly with a little girl's smile. “I was starting to panic over what we're doing.”

“We're not doing anything, so just shut up and get better. And one of these days,” he said so gently, it was almost a caress, “when you feel strong enough, I want you to tell me what happened to you in the past. You can't expect me to really understand till you do that. Have you ever told anyone?” He worried about that. How could she live with all those dark secrets?