Danielle Steel - Leap of Faith

They spent the night in the apartment in Paris, and he was attentive and charming, and by the end of the evening he had almost convinced her that it would be a good place for him to work when he came to town, and to entertain friends who didn't want to travel to Marmouton to see them.

“And now we can spend time in both places,” he said proudly. The house on the rue de Varenne was so elegant, he pointed out, that it even had a ballroom. But Marie-Ange was still uneasy when they drove back to the chateau the next morning.

“Can we really afford all that?” Marie-Ange asked, looking worried. For the first time she had the feeling that they were spending too much money.

“I think so. And our little system seems to work perfectly, with you advancing me small sums to juggle minor bills, and I have the time to handle our investments correctly.” The only problem was that the investments were his, and the “small sums” she had advanced to him were nearly two million dollars. But she could only assume that he knew what he was doing, and she trusted him completely.

By Christmas, the chateau was nearly complete, and the best gift she gave him that year was telling him on Christmas Eve that she was pregnant again, and she hoped it would be a boy this time so he wouldn't be disappointed.

“Nothing you could ever do would disappoint me,” he said generously. But they both knew that he wanted a son desperately. Heloise was three and a half months old by then, and the new baby was due in August, there would be eleven months between the two children. As always, things were moving at lightning speed between them. And this time she didn't call Billy to tell him the news, she sent him a letter with her Christmas card. She only called him every month or two now. She was so engrossed in her life with Bernard that she scarcely had time to think of anything else, except her baby.

But in January, when Marie-Ange made a large transfer from her bank to Bernard's again, the head of the trust department called her.

“Is everything all right, Marie-Ange? You're starting to go through your money like water.” There was certainly enough there not to worry about it excessively, but with the latest transfer to pay for work on the Paris house, she had spent just over two million dollars. She had nearly a million and a half left available to her, until she turned twenty-five and inherited the next installment, but the head of the trust department was concerned about her. And she explained to him the system she and Bernard had, of her advancing money for things, and his reimbursing her at the right time from his investments.

“And when will that be?” the head of the trust department asked primly.

“Very soon,” she assured him. “He is paying for all the work on both houses.” He had never said precisely that to her, but he had certainly implied it, and she felt confident in reassuring her banker.

But the following week, Bernard explained to her that there was an oil crisis in the Middle East and he would lose untold sums if he tried to cash out his investments. It was far wiser for him to continue to hold them, and in the end, it would make them a great deal of money. But that also meant that she needed to pay a million-dollar deposit immediately, for what they owed on the house in Paris. He assured her that they had bought it for a song, and had three years to pay the previous owner the remaining two million dollars, and she would have inherited the next installment of her trust by then.

“I don't get the next installment of my inheritance until I turn twenty-five,” she told Bernard with a look of concern. It was a little frightening to her to be the up-front banker for him, particularly on the scale that he was used to. But he kissed her and smiled at her, and said one of the things he loved about her was her innocence.

“Trusts like yours, my love, can easily be broken. You're a responsible married woman, with a child, and a second one on the way. What we are doing here is making a sensible investment, not gambling at Monte Carlo. And the officers of your trust will be reasonable about it. They can either invade the trust for you, or advance you money against the next installment you're getting. In point of fact, directly or otherwise, the entire amount of the trust is available to you. How much is it, by the way?” He asked casually, and Marie-Ange didn't hesitate to tell him.

“A little more than ten million dollars in total.” “That's a nice amount,” he said, seemingly unimpressed, and it was easy to deduce from that, that his own investments were far larger, but he was also twenty years older than she was, had had a successful career, and came from an illustrious family. He was not impressed by what she had, but he was satisfied for her that what her father had left her was respectable certainly, and he was pleased for her. “We'll talk to your bankers about your access to it, whenever you want to.” He seemed to know a great deal about those matters, and Marie-Ange was intrigued by what he told her, and less worried.

By late spring, he had not repaid her yet, and she was embarrassed to ask him again, but at least she had paid off everything at Marmouton, and all she had to think about now was the work on the house in Paris. Although what Bernard had planned for it was certainly grandiose, he assured her that in the end, the house would be a historical monument, and a permanent legacy for their children. On that basis, it was hard to deny him, and she didn't.

They spent July in the South of France again, with a larger yacht, and the usual army of visiting friends, but this time Marie-Ange felt less well before the birth of her baby. They were moving around a lot, between Paris and the chateau, overseeing the work of Herculean proportions they were doing in Paris, and Bernard had taken her to Venice for a party, the week before they left the South of France. And she was tired when they finally got back to Marmouton. The weather was hot, and she could hardly wait for the baby to come. This one was far larger than the first one.

It came, in the end, a week after it was due, and she and Bernard were spending a quiet weekend at the chateau. And this time she managed to fulfill his dreams. The baby was a boy, and although she didn't say it to him, she hoped that he would make up for his lost son. Bernard was ecstatic over him, and even more so over her. They named the baby after her brother Robert.

Marie-Ange recovered more slowly this time, the birth had been difficult, because the baby was bigger than Heloise had been, but by mid-September she was back in Paris with Bernard, overseeing the work at the house on the rue de Varenne. She hadn't said anything to Bernard about it, but he had never reimbursed her for a penny of the funds she had advanced to him, and she had given him every cent she had available to her through her trust, and the bills were continuing to roll in without mercy. She assumed Bernard would take care of them eventually, along with the funds he owed her.

She was in Paris, at the new house, and had both of her children with her, when the architect surprised her by what he said. Bernard had told her categorically that he wasn't buying anything for the house, until they had paid their existing bills. And the architect mentioned to her that there was a storage room near Les Halles that Bernard was filling with the things he was continuing to buy for them, mostly paintings and priceless antiques. She asked Bernard about it that night, and he denied it, and said he couldn't imagine why the architect had said a thing like that, but when she checked his files the next day when Bernard went out, she found a fat file full of bills from art galleries and antique stores. The file contained yet another million dollars' worth of bills. And she still had the file in her hand, when the phone rang. Billy was calling her to congratulate her on the birth of Robert.