Danielle Steel - Five Days in Paris

Katie heard him stirring a little while later, and she came out to the kitchen before the alarm went off. She found Peter at the kitchen table with his head in his hands, drinking his second cup of coffee. She had never seen him like that before, he looked almost worse than her father right after his heart attack.

“What are you so worried about?” she said, putting a hand on his shoulder. But it was too hard to explain it to her, it was obvious she didn't understand it, or want to. “It'll be over before you know it.” She made it sound like a root canal, instead of the violation of everything he believed in. His ethics, his integrity, his principles were all in jeopardy and she couldn't see that. He looked up at her unhappily as she sat across the table, looking as trim and as cool as ever in her pink nightgown.

“I'm doing this for all the wrong reasons, Kate. Not because it's right, or because we're ready for it. But I'm doing it for you, and your father. I feel like a Mafia hit man.”

“That's a disgusting thing to say,” she said, looking annoyed at him. “How can you make a comparison like that? You are doing it because you know it is right, and you owe it to my father.”

He sat back in the kitchen chair, and looked at her, wondering what the future held for them, at the rate they were going. Not much, from what he could see lately. And now he knew how Olivia had felt when she said she had sold out to Andy. It was a life built on lies and pretense. And in this case, blackmail.

“What is it that you both seem to think I owe you?” he asked calmly. “Your father seems to think I owe him a lot. As far as I've known for all these years, it's all been a fair exchange, I work hard for the company and get paid for it. And you and I had a real marriage, or I thought so. But lately this concept of 'owing' seems to keep getting into things. Why exactly do either of you think I 'owe' it to you to go to these hearings?”

“Because,” she trod very carefully on delicate ground, knowing it was potentially a minefield, “the company has been good to you for twenty years and this is your way of paying it back, standing up for a product that can make billions for us.”

“Is that what this is all about then? Money?” He looked slightly ill as he asked her. Was that what he had sold out for? Billions. At least he hadn't sold himself cheaply, he thought, wincing.

“Partly. You can't be that much of an innocent, Peter. You share in our profits. You know what we're all here for. And consider the children. What would happen to them? You'd ruin their lives too.” She looked very cold and very calculating, and very hard. And for all her talk about her father, she still cared about the money.

“It's funny. I had this crazy idea that it was for the good of mankind, or at the very least to save lives. I think that's why I did it, why I've pushed it for the last four years. But I wasn't willing to lie for it, even then. And I'm even less inclined to now, 'for money.'”

“Are you backing out now?” she asked, looking horrified. She would have gone to the hearings herself, if she could. But she wasn't employed by the company, and her father was still too ill to go, so it was up to Peter. “You know, I'd give it some very serious thought before I backed out of this,” she said, standing up and looking down at him. “I think it would be fair to say that if you chicken out on us now, your bright future at Wilson-Donovan is about over.”

“And our marriage?” he asked, playing with fire now, and he knew it.

“That remains to be seen,” she said quietly. “But I would view it as the ultimate betrayal.” And he could see she meant that, but suddenly, just looking at her, he felt better. She was so crisp and so clear, so much what she had always been, although he hadn't always seen it.

“It's good to know where you stand on this, Kate,” Peter said calmly, their eyes meeting over the kitchen table as they stood on either side of it. And before she could answer, Patrick came in for breakfast.

“What are you two doing up so early?” he asked, looking sleepy.

“Your mother and I are going to Washington today,” Peter said firmly.

“Oh, I forgot. Is Granddad going too?” Patrick yawned and poured himself a glass of milk as he chatted.

“No, the doctor said it was too soon,” Peter explained, and Frank called a few minutes later. He wanted to catch Peter before he left, and remind him what he wanted him to say to Congress about pricing. They had already discussed it a dozen times in the past few days, but Frank wanted to be sure Peter would stand by the party line in front of Congress.

“We're not giving anything away, and certainly not Vicotec, when it comes around. Don't forget that,” he reminded Peter sternly. Even his ideas about pricing Vicotec went against everything Peter believed in. Kate was watching him when he came back to the table.

“Everything all right?” She smiled at him as he nodded. And then they both went to dress, and they drove to the airport half an hour later.

Peter seemed strangely calm on the way there, and he said very little to Kate. He had terrified her for a little while, but she realized he must have been nervous. She had been afraid he would back out, but now she was just as sure he wouldn't. Peter always finished what he started.

It was a short flight from La Guardia to National Airport, and Peter spent most of it going through his papers. He had several files on pricing issues in front of him, and all the new reports on the Vicotec research. He particularly went over the parts Suchard had pointed out to him earlier that morning when Peter called him. The Vicotec material worried him a lot more than his appearance before Congress.

Kate called her father from the plane and assured him that all was going along on schedule. And in Washington, they were met by a limousine, which took them to Congress. And as soon as they got there, Peter felt much calmer. He knew what he was going to say to them more or less, and he wasn't really worried.

Two congressional aides were waiting for him in the staff room, and he was led to a conference room, where he was offered a cup of coffee. Kate was still with him then, but a page came for her shortly after that, and escorted her to a seat in the gallery, where she could watch him. She wished him luck, and touched his hand as she left, but she didn't stop to kiss him. And a few minutes later, he was led into the room himself, and for an instant he looked startled. No matter how well prepared he was, it was still an extraordinary experience to face the men and women who ran the country, and offer them his opinions. It was only the second time he had ever been there, and the first time, Frank had done all the talking. This time was entirely different.

Peter was led to a witness table, and sworn in. The members of the subcommittee sat across from him, with microphones, and after he gave his name, and the name of his company, the questions began without further ado, as the members of Congress listened with interest.

He was asked specifically about certain drugs, and his views about their extraordinarily elevated prices. He tried to give easily comprehensible reasons for it, but in fact, even to his own ears, the explanations sounded hollow and somewhat futile. The truth was that the companies producing these drugs were making a fortune overcharging the public, and the members of Congress knew it. Wilson-Donovan was guilty of some of it, though their practices and their profits were not quite as blatant as some of the others.

They brought up some insurance issues after that, and at the very end, a congresswoman from Idaho said that she understood he was appearing in front of the FDA later that day, to request early human testing for a new product. And just to keep them informed on new developments in the field, she asked him to tell them something about it.