She was enjoying it thoroughly, but it didn’t feel real. It was the flash to the highest degree, the Mount Everest of consumption. She wondered if maybe Texans just did things bigger, but she also couldn’t imagine him taking care of four young children like Sam, or even like her with Bethanie. She liked to be comfortable too, but in Charlie’s lifestyle, you missed the simple, precious moments that she also enjoyed. The times when you could be alone, or made dinner, just the two of you, which her parents had done. Charlie was always surrounded by employees and liked to be waited on.
They swam before lunch, and ate the lobster prepared by the French chef he kept there. After lunch, they dozed in the sun for a while. She awoke to his touch, as he sat on her chaise and gently stroked her back. She had unhooked her top, and he had told her she could swim topless since everyone did in Saint Bart’s since it was French, but she didn’t feel quite ready for that with him yet. She turned her head to look at him with a sleepy smile and he leaned down and kissed her.
“Do you want to go down to the boat for a while?” he asked her, and she nodded. She put her top back on, and he drove her to the port in a Ferrari. When they got there, his yacht was nestled among several others, and they were welcomed aboard by the crew. They took off for a little while and enjoyed the sun and the breeze on deck.
“I can never decide where I want to be when I’m here, at the house or on the boat. I love this boat.” He was an expert sailor, and they sailed for a while, and then slowly came back to the port in a light wind. Every moment she shared with him was perfect. She couldn’t imagine real life intruding on them. She would have loved to have Bethanie with her, but these were adult moments that weren’t meant for children. His life was entirely geared to adults in a life of supreme luxury. She was being cared for like a child, without a care in the world. In Charlie’s world, one felt totally safe and protected and shielded from anything unpleasant.
As she sat at the rail, she had a pang again, thinking of Sam, and how real his life was right now, how real hers had been at various times and how painful. Even Charlie couldn’t prevent bad things from happening, like what had happened to her parents, or Bethanie getting sick. The safety of Charlie’s world was an illusion. He was as vulnerable as everyone else. He just didn’t know it, and protected himself well, and her.
When they got back to the house, she bathed and changed for dinner. She was going to wear the white silk Chanel that night, which seemed appropriate. As she brushed her dark hair, she met her own eyes in the mirror, and knew what she was doing. She was hiding, and chasing the fairy tale again. It was the flash in all its glory. And all of a sudden she knew where she wanted to be and with whom. All she didn’t know was why she hadn’t figured it out sooner, or how he’d feel about it.
She put her brush down and turned away from the mirror. She wanted to call Bethanie, but she didn’t want to upset her if she was having fun. And she wanted to call Sam, and he was very definitely not having fun. He wasn’t on a yacht or a tropical island. He was probably cleaning up after his kids, with no nanny on the weekend. With luck, no one had an earache or diarrhea.
She took her white silk dress off, folded it, and put it back into the suitcase. She put on the white jeans she’d brought with a white T-shirt and white ballet flats, packed the rest of her things, and walked out to find Charlie in the living room. He was waiting for her with another bottle of Cristal in a silver bucket and two chilled champagne flutes.
He looked surprised but not displeased by what she was wearing. He had been thinking about what lay ahead for them later that night, and so had she, and she knew she couldn’t do it. She had to be honest with him, and herself.
She looked apologetic as she approached him, but she had awoken from her stupor, and she was wide-awake now. The luxurious fumes of his life had inebriated her for weeks. But now she was stone cold sober.
“Charlie, I know this will sound crazy, but I have to go home.” She sounded calm and serious and no longer playful.
“Did something happen to your daughter?” He was instantly sympathetic. “Did they call you from home?” He knew how sick she had been before.
“She’s fine. But I’m not. I shouldn’t be here. I know better. This is what I do. I get caught up in someone else’s fairy tale, and try to live their dream with them. This is your dream, not mine. My dream includes a little girl who gets sick, very sick last year, and cries, and gets chocolate ice cream all over my jeans, and a job I love, which isn’t glamorous, but I have fun doing it, and people you probably wouldn’t even want to know. This is your reality, not mine. I need to go home.” She was the first woman who had ever said that to him. He was angry for a minute, and then he respected her for it. She was her own person, and a brave girl. He only knew a fraction of what she’d been through, but she was a strong woman, and he knew he could love her if she’d let him. But it didn’t seem like that was going to happen. “If you get me to the airport, I’ll catch a flight back to New York. You don’t need to send me, or fly me back.” She didn’t want to inconvenience him on top of it, or cost him anything. This had been her mistake.
“Will you spend the night?” he asked hopefully, thinking that maybe he could persuade her if she stayed.
“No, I won’t. I don’t trust either of us, particularly myself.” She smiled at him. “You’re an incredibly appealing man. I think I already love you a little bit, and I’d rather stop now. It just gets messy later, and everyone gets hurt.” She was too wise for his game. He wasn’t a player but he used all the wiles and comforts he had to win. She wasn’t going to let him. She knew she had stopped just in time before something stupid happened and then it would take months or years to undo it, and repair the damage.
“I’m sorry it’s only a little bit.” He smiled at her. “You’re a remarkable woman.” And now that she didn’t want him, he wanted her even more. “I’m not letting you take that suicide flight out of Saint Bart’s. I’d never forgive myself. The boat can take you to Saint Martin. It will only take an hour. You can catch the first flight out, or spend the night on the boat if you have to.” He wanted to go with her and try to change her mind, but he didn’t. He knew better, and not to chase a woman who didn’t want him. He could see that Coco had made up her mind and nothing would stop her. Not even him.
“Thank you, Charlie. And I really mean that. Thank you for making it easy, even this part. I’m sorry I can’t stay.”
“I thought it was too good to be true, and I was one lucky guy.”
“You are a lucky guy, and a great one, and I’ve been lucky to be with you. I just need to be doing something different.” She reached up and kissed him on the cheek then. He had been a total gentleman throughout, even now. He could have told her to walk home if she didn’t want him. Instead he was providing his two-hundred-foot yacht to help her make her getaway. She was back in the hall with her suitcases five minutes later. He kissed her, for real this time, and meant it, and she thanked him again and followed the driver outside to the Rolls. He drove her down to the port, and she boarded the boat. They set sail fifteen minutes later, after they cast off the lines and started the engines, and she was in Saint Martin at ten o’clock. One of the crew members accompanied her to the airport in a cab. She had missed the last flight, but there was one at seven the next morning. She went back to the boat to spend the night, as Charlie had offered. They put her in the owner’s cabin, and she had a good chance to see everything she missed. The Picassos on the walls, the Warhols, the rest of his art, the luxurious cabin, and the man himself was so enticing, and she had turned him down. Maybe she was crazy, but she hoped she was right. She didn’t want to spend more years of her life, chasing the flash only to discover later it wasn’t real. Charlie was the best of his kind, but it wasn’t the life she wanted.
A crew member took her back to the airport at five-thirty A.M., she checked in at six, and thanked the crewman who left he
r there. The flight was full and nothing like the comforts of the flight down from New York on his plane. But she felt good in her own skin, pleased with herself, and a little nervous about what she was about to do.
They landed at nine-thirty, she got her bags, and was in the city at eleven, and left her suitcases with her doorman. She didn’t want to go upstairs and see Bethanie yet. She was still wearing her white jeans and T-shirt, and a red sweater. It was chilly in New York, but a sunny day.
She took a cab to Sam’s apartment, and the doorman let her go upstairs. She rang the bell and was startled when Tamar answered and opened the door. The two women stood there looking at each other for a minute, and Coco could see that she’d been crying, and she looked like she was packing. There were boxes and suitcases all around her.
“Hi, Tamar. I’m sorry to barge in on you. Is Sam here?” They could go for a walk since Tamar was home, but she shook her head.
“No, he took the kids to the park.” And then she started to cry. “This isn’t as easy as he thinks, you know. It’s very hard.”
“I’m sure it is.” There were children and human beings involved, and two men. “I’m sorry.” She didn’t want to engage her further and hear the whole ugly story. She was on Sam’s side, not Tamar’s. She thanked her and left, and ran across the street to the park to find him. Their apartment was in the same building as his mother’s, which she was sure wasn’t easy for Tamar either, to have your mother-in-law breathing down your neck. She’d never had one, but it didn’t look pleasant to her, and she knew his mother and how tough she could be. Especially now that she knew Tamar had betrayed her son.
She saw Sam from a distance at the playground alone with the four kids. He looked surprised to see her as she approached him in her white jeans and red sweater with a purposeful look. He had the baby in a harness strapped to his back, and was helping Nathan tie his shoelaces. Ruth was clinging to his leg, and he had an eye on Hannah in the sandbox, happily shoveling sand into a pail. He needed ten hands and four sets of eyes to keep them in check. And there wasn’t a bottle of Cristal or a yacht anywhere in sight.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, trying to keep an eye on her and the children at the same time. “Theresa said you were in Saint Bart’s when I called you last night.”
“I was. I just got back.”
“Short trip,” he commented.
“Very.” He could guess who she had gone with, her life was a million miles from his now. He didn’t resent her for it, he just had no frame of reference given where his own life was.
“How did you know where I was?” he asked her.
“Tamar told me. I went to the apartment. It looks like she’s packing.”
“She’s moving out next week. We told the kids yesterday. They seem okay. I’m not sure how much they understand.” Coco nodded. “Why did you come back?” He was curious about it. She had a strange look on her face, half guilty, half scared. “Did something go wrong?”
“I forgot something. I almost made a terrible mistake, but I stopped it in time.”
“Did he do something bad?” He frowned.
“No, he was actually incredibly nice about it.”
“So what did you forget?”
“Something I knew in fourth grade, and somehow I managed to forget by fifth grade, and for the last twenty years. I don’t know how the hell I forgot it, but I did.”
“And what was that?” He didn’t know where she was going and he was bouncing a little from one foot to the other, to keep David quiet in the frame on his back.
“That I love you, Sam, always have and always will. That you’re the only man in the world I love, and who knows me and loves me anyway. I don’t know how the hell I got so distracted with all the glitter and the glamour and the bullshit. Saint Bart’s was just more of the same, private jet down, fabulous house, two-hundred-foot yacht, gorgeous swimming pool, lots of champagne.”
“Shit,” he said, grinning at her, “I’d have stayed. No one takes me on trips like that.”
“All I could think of while I was there was you,” she said, “and our kids, and everything we’ve both been through, and what you’re going through now with Tamar. I love you, Sam. You’re the flash for me. The only flash I want. I’m yours if you want me. You’re the only man I’ve ever really loved.” There were tears in her eyes and he stood staring at her with a look of wonder. She thought of her parents. She wanted what they had, and this was it, with Sam. It was real. Charlie’s life wasn’t, or Ed’s or Nigel’s. Ian was real, but he was broken. Sam was whole, and so was she, even after all they’d been through.
“You walked out on all that for me?” She nodded. “You’re crazy, and I love you too. I’ve thought about it over the years but I thought you wouldn’t want me. I’m not fancy enough or glamorous enough.”
“This is what I want. You, and the kids,” she said simply. He pulled her into his arms then and kissed her for the first time, while his children stared at them. Sam was smiling when they stopped kissing.
“You’re nuts to give all that up for me. But if this is what you want, we’re all yours. I have an idea too. I want to close the accounting side of my business, and only handle private investments. I can do it from anywhere. What do you think if I come to London, with the kids, and try working from there, at home?” She smiled. Suddenly it all made sense. These were the children she had been waiting for. The enormous house Nigel had made her buy with rooms for all the children they never had were going to be filled with Sam and his kids, and Bethanie. And maybe more of their own.
“It sounds great to me.” She thought about it then. “I’d better keep my parents’ apartment for when we come here. I think I’ll redo it and spruce it up a little.” It had all finally fallen into place, and taken twenty years to do it, with a million detours and good and bad men, and Tamar leaving him for another man. There was a reason for all of it. And it started in fourth grade. It was suddenly all so simple. “Your mom was right.”
“About what?” He looked puzzled.
“If we kept hanging around together, we’d wind up getting married one day.”
“It took you long enough,” he complained.
“That’s not so bad…twenty years.” She turned and smiled at him, while they continued to keep an eye on the kids.
“I’m hungry, Daddy,” Nathan came to report to him, and Sam looked at Coco with a question.
“McDonald’s?”
“Perfect,” she said, and went to scoop Hannah out of the sandbox. They walked out of the park together a few minutes later, with his arm around her.
“I love you,” he whispered in her ear.
“I love you too,” she whispered back, and they both smiled. Just like when she was in fourth grade. Finally. They were back to where they started and were always meant to be. It just took a long time to see it, and the lessons they had learned hadn’t been wasted if they led to this in the end.
It had been a long road for both of them, which had finally led them safely home.
To my very special, most beloved children,
Beatie, Trevor, Todd, Nick,
Samantha, Victoria, Vanessa,
Maxx, and Zara,
The Flash is fun,
but don’t let it dazzle you or blind you,
Always seek and be real, as I know you are,
and may the lessons you learn be gentle ones.
I love you with all my heart and being,
Mom/d.s.
By Danielle Steel
ALL THAT GLITTERS • ROYAL • DADDY’S GIRLS • THE WEDDING DRESS • THE NUMBERS GAME • MORAL COMPASS • SPY • CHILD’S PLAY • THE DARK SIDE • LOST AND FOUND • BLESSING IN DISGUISE • SILENT NIGHT • TURNING POINT • BEAUCHAMP HALL • IN HIS FATHER’S FOOTSTEPS • THE GOOD FIGHT • THE CAST • ACCIDENTAL HEROES • FALL FROM GRACE
• PAST PERFECT • FAIRYTALE • THE RIGHT TIME • THE DUCHESS • AGAINST ALL ODDS • DANGEROUS GAMES • THE MISTRESS • THE AWARD • RUSHING WATERS • MAGIC • THE APARTMENT • PROPERTY OF A NOBLEWOMAN • BLUE • PRECIOUS GIFTS • UNDERCOVER • COUNTRY • PRODIGAL SON • PEGASUS • A PERFECT LIFE • POWER PLAY • WINNERS • FIRST SIGHT • UNTIL THE END OF TIME • THE SINS OF THE MOTHER • FRIENDS FOREVER • BETRAYAL • HOTEL VENDÔME • HAPPY BIRTHDAY • 44 CHARLES STREET • LEGACY • FAMILY TIES • BIG GIRL • SOUTHERN LIGHTS • MATTERS OF THE HEART • ONE DAY AT A TIME • A GOOD WOMAN • ROGUE • HONOR THYSELF • AMAZING GRACE • BUNGALOW 2 • SISTERS • H.R.H. • COMING OUT • THE HOUSE • TOXIC BACHELORS • MIRACLE • IMPOSSIBLE • ECHOES • SECOND CHANCE • RANSOM • SAFE HARBOUR • JOHNNY ANGEL • DATING GAME • ANSWERED PRAYERS • SUNSET IN ST. TROPEZ • THE COTTAGE • THE KISS • LEAP OF FAITH • LONE EAGLE • JOURNEY • THE HOUSE ON HOPE STREET • THE WEDDING • IRRESISTIBLE FORCES • GRANNY DAN • BITTERSWEET • MIRROR IMAGE • THE KLONE AND I • THE LONG ROAD HOME • THE GHOST • SPECIAL DELIVERY • THE RANCH • SILENT HONOR • MALICE • FIVE DAYS IN PARIS • LIGHTNING • WINGS • THE GIFT • ACCIDENT • VANISHED • MIXED BLESSINGS • JEWELS • NO GREATER LOVE • HEARTBEAT • MESSAGE FROM NAM • DADDY • STAR • ZOYA • KALEIDOSCOPE • FINE THINGS • WANDERLUST • SECRETS • FAMILY ALBUM • FULL CIRCLE • CHANGES • THURSTON HOUSE • CROSSINGS • ONCE IN A LIFETIME • A PERFECT STRANGER • REMEMBRANCE • PALOMINO • LOVE: POEMS • THE RING • LOVING • TO LOVE AGAIN • SUMMER’S END • SEASON OF PASSION • THE PROMISE • NOW AND FOREVER • PASSION’S PROMISE • GOING HOME
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