“I don’t think I’ve ever thought about it. I never expected to have to do it.” Or to love someone else. He didn’t dare say that to her.
“Neither did I,” she said simply, “but sometimes fate forces us to face the situations we least expect, and most dread.” He had never asked her what had happened to end her marriage, but he did now, and she hesitated for an instant. “He had an affair. A very serious affair, with one of our best friends, and I found out about it.”
“So you left him?” Robert looked impressed and sorry for her.
“Yes. In about five seconds. I didn’t even think about it. I just reacted, and moved out.”
“And what did he do?”
“He asked me to come back, he begged me to in fact, and I never spoke to him or discussed it with him. I hated him for a long time, though I don’t anymore. But I never forgave him. She was my closest friend, and I blamed both of them. I was pretty rigid in those days.”
“Did you ever regret it? Leaving him, I mean.”
“Yes. After I did it, I was kicking myself for it, but I never let him know that. I was too proud to. That seemed more important. My ego was bruised, as much as my heart, which was stupid, I guess. Outwardly, I never wavered. I didn’t want him to know I still loved him.”
“How are you about it now?”
“I’m okay with it. But for a long time I wasn’t. I was bitter and angry and destructive at first, and devastated.”
“What do you think you should have done? Taken him back?”
She surprised him with her answer. “Probably. Because I don’t think we’re human, or worthwhile, or worth knowing, if we can’t forgive each other. It took me a long time to forgive him. And when I did, it was too late. When it happened, all I wanted was to punish him. So I did. I divorced him. And I realized later I could probably have forgiven him, and lived with it and stayed married. But it was too late then. The same thing could have happened to me, it just didn’t. I was in love with him for a long time after we split up. But I couldn’t bring myself to forgive him even then. It’s something I’ll always regret, and it took me a long time to make my peace with it.” She looked sad as she said it.
“It must be difficult to have choices about those things,” Robert said quietly, “about how far to go, where to draw the line. In some ways, it was easier for me. I didn’t have a choice in losing Anne. I just had to live with it. You had choices, and if you allow yourself to, you can blame yourself for a long time for the choice you made. I’m sure you made the right decision in the end.”
“I suppose I did. For a long time I wasn’t sure. I regretted leaving him terribly afterward, but I was too proud to back down. It cost us both too much in the end. I learned a very painful lesson from it.”
“What happened to him?” Something Robert saw in Gwen’s eyes made him ask the question.
“After he begged me for several months to come back, and I refused to, eventually, he married the woman he’d been having the affair with. Maybe he would have anyway, but I’m not sure he was in love with her.” Her voice grew taut as she said the rest of the words, and it was obvious that she felt a tremendous burden over it. “And then he killed himself six months later. So instead of one life ruined, I destroyed three, hers, mine, and his. I know I’ll feel guilty about it forever.” She was being honest with him, no matter how painful for her.
“You can’t do that to yourself,” he said gently. She had never told him the story, but she had now, and he realized how traumatic the divorce and her ex-husband’s death had been for her. “You can’t know what else was happening in his life, his head, at the moment. It could have been his own guilt, or about something else.”
“I was determined to be tough with him, and not give in,” she said sadly. “I was angry that he had cheated on me. But if I had handled it differently, and discussed it with him, maybe not filed for divorce as soon as I did, or at all, we probably would still have been married, and he’d be alive.”
“Maybe that wasn’t your destiny or his. You can’t control what someone else does. Maybe you had finished your life with him.”
“No, he did,” she said sadly. “In more ways than one. What he did was pretty decisive. He shot himself. His new wife claimed that it was all my fault, that he had never gotten over my divorcing him. She managed to blame me for all of it. And I guess I believed her at the time. I know I have to move on and let go of it, and he’s been gone for a while. But I still hesitate about starting anything. I always remind myself of what happened, what could happen again, and my responsibility for it. You can’t just walk away from that.”
“I think you have to lay that burden down, Gwen,” Robert said gently, holding a hand out to her, and taking hers in his own. “You owe it to yourself. You can’t punish yourself forever. What he did to you was wrong too. He has a responsibility for this too, more so than you.”
She nodded in answer. He had said a lot of good things to her, and she was touched by it. “And what about you? Are you torturing yourself over Anne? Are you feeling that you owe her your life and you shouldn’t be happy again? Because if you are, it’s a tough spot to be in. You’ll need to let yourself off the hook one day too, Robert.”
“I will, if I can. She was a powerful force in my life, and a powerful person. I can’t imagine her letting me go easily. I think she expected me to be there with her forever. And now she’s gone, and I’m here, and I don’t know how to move on to the next phase.”
“You will. Give it time. You can’t rush it.” He wasn’t. And neither was she, and he was grateful for that too.
“You’re an extraordinarily nice person, Gwen,” Robert said admiringly.
“Tell your friends that,” she teased, and he rolled his eyes just as Eric walked into the kitchen, and interrupted their conversation.
“Have either of you seen Diana?” he inquired, but neither of them had. She hadn’t made it to the kitchen yet. But Eric didn’t look too worried about it, as he helped himself to a cup of coffee. They had had another fight that morning, about his affair, and she had told him she would never get over it, and would have to divorce him, and he had once again begged her forgiveness, and then eventually lost his temper over her inability to rise above it and forgive him. And once he lost his temper, she stormed out of their bedroom. At that exact moment, she was outside swimming, trying to cope with her feelings of grief and frustration. It hurt all the more because the woman he’d been involved with was so much younger than she was. And as a result, Diana felt finished and unloved and old. For the moment she couldn’t regain her feeling of self-worth, nor her love for Eric, who suddenly seemed like a stranger to her.
Eric sat down quietly with Robert and Gwen, and chatted with them. Gwen offered to make them some eggs, but all they wanted were croissants. And when John and Pascale came into the kitchen, she heated the croissants for them, and poured them coffee too.
Diana came in, in a beach towel after that, and ignored Gwen. She acted as though she weren’t there. The women were intransigent about her. And even to Robert, it seemed hopeless. If he and Gwen ever developed a serious relationship, he now knew that his best friends could neither sanction it, nor be part of it. It seemed desperately unfair to him, but he couldn’t see how to change it, unless they were willing to. He wondered, if she were someone else, if it would be any different. He doubted it, and he was angry at them for their position, or at least Diana and Pascale. He was upset not only for his sake, but for Gwen’s. They had never given her a fair chance. He was almost sorry he had let her organize the day for them on the Talitha G. If they were going to treat her this way, he thought they didn’t deserve it. He was strangely quiet as they finished breakfast, and he suggested to Gwen that they go sailing right after.
“You’re upset, aren’t you?” she asked him once they were in the sailboat. “Is it what I said this morning about moving on to a new relationship?” She wondered if she had offended him.
“No, it’s the way
my friends are behaving. The women at least. They’re behaving like children, and I’m getting tired of it.”
“We have to be patient,” she said with more consideration and tolerance than he felt or wanted to give them.
“I’m almost sorry I brought you here,” he said sadly. “You don’t deserve this.” But in a way, it suddenly made the transition easier for him. He wanted to protect her, and he felt loyal to her now as well, not just to Anne. He owed Gwen something too. She had made herself vulnerable to him, and been honest with him. And as they sat in the sailboat side by side, he suddenly pulled her close to him and kissed her hard. It was a feeling of exhilaration and excitement like nothing he had felt in years. And he did it again without coming up for air, and then smiled at her. It had seemed like the only outlet for his anger, and it had definitely been a positive one. His friends’ perfidy had only served to bring them closer together in the end.
“Are you okay?” she asked after he’d kissed her, still worried about him, and he grinned at her in answer, looking handsome and young.
“Very much so.” And then he kissed her again, and she put her arms around him, and for an instant he forgot where he was, or what he’d been upset about. All he could think of was Gwen, and how extraordinary it was kissing her. He didn’t even think about Anne for once. Only Gwen and how much he cared about her.
They sailed silently for a little while, and then she pointed into the distance, and he saw it. The splendid classic motor yacht steaming slowly toward them, with her two big smokestacks and elegant lines. She looked incredibly beautiful, as they glanced first at her, and then smiled at each other. It was one of those moments they both knew they’d remember for a long time.
“You make me very happy.” Robert smiled at her, she had brought fresh excitement into his life, and a feeling he hadn’t experienced in years. He could hardly wait to spend the day on the boat with her, and he was only sorry he had invited the others. But they dutifully sailed back to put the sailboat away, and tell his friends that the yacht was approaching. And without thinking, he walked up the path with her, hand in hand. He had never felt as comfortable in his life, not even with Anne. She had been cooler and less demonstrative. But everything about Gwen was gentle and soft and warm.
He went upstairs to get his bathing suit and a few things when he got back to the house, and then, he went to her bedroom to find Gwen. She was wearing a white cotton sundress, and her hair framed her face, as she turned and smiled at him. He took her in his arms again, and kissed her, and he felt neither guilt nor sorrow this time. He felt relief, and peace, and deep affection. He didn’t know her well yet, but he knew he had found a woman who could mean a great deal to him. There was so much he liked about her. And without saying a word, they went downstairs hand in hand, in bold defiance of his friends. Gwen was prepared to be discreet about it, but he made it clear to her, and to them, that this was what he wanted, and who he had become. And for now at least, he expected them to accept and respect the changes in him, but Gwen as well, and pay the consequences if they didn’t.
10
THEIR DAY ON TALITHA G WITH HENRY ADAMS AND HIS wife Cherie proved to be more fun and far more glamorous than any of Robert’s group had expected or dreamed. Henry was charming to everyone, and so good looking that all Pascale and Diana could do was stare at him, and he made a huge fuss over all of them, and made certain that the crew did as well. They were assigned cabins to change their clothes, Cherie and Pascale and Diana became fast friends, and the superstar supermodel of Paris and New York runways spent the afternoon flirting with John. He looked like he had died and gone to heaven.
The lunch that was prepared for them was fabulous, and afterward they all lay in the sun, in abject comfort and opulence. And by the time the day was over, Gwen was no more appealing to Diana and Pascale, but her movie star friends were. Diana whispered to Pascale, as they lay in comfortable deck chairs, that it was a life one could easily get accustomed to, and they were surprised that Gwen was willing to stay with Robert, in their crumbling villa. It was obvious that she was greatly admired by all these handsome men. They made a huge fuss over her, but she treated them all like brothers or friends. It was clear to everyone how much she cared about Robert and no one else, much to Diana and Pascale’s chagrin. She turned her full attention to him, and saw to it that he was comfortable and content and treated well. Had either of the other two women been fair, they would have been thrilled for him. But at least Eric and John were.
They had dinner in the dining saloon that night, anchored outside the Port of St. Tropez, as they watched sailboats glide by on the way home from pleasure cruises and races. And a number of smaller craft circled them, just to admire the handsome yacht, and see who was on board. And several tourists, and a couple of well-informed paparazzi snapped pictures of them. They seemed to know who was on every yacht on the Riviera. And this one was a huge prize for them, with five stars on board, drinking champagne, and wearing bikinis and thongs. Cherie Adams went topless all afternoon, but Gwen was cautious and wore her top. She knew only too well what the tabloids would have done with photographs like that.
Gwen and Robert looked happy and relaxed, and they sat together and spoke in low tones, when they weren’t laughing with their hosts, playing cards or liar’s dice, or holding hands quietly as they looked out over the Mediterranean, lost in their own thoughts, or standing very near each other. Pascale and Diana glanced at them from time to time, and Pascale kept insisting it was a life Robert would never adjust to, or want. It was too jet set for him, particularly when you thought of the sensible life he had shared with Anne. They just weren’t that kind of people, but Robert certainly seemed to be enjoying it, and was just as comfortable talking to Henry and the other two major actors on board, or to Henry’s incredible-looking wife, as he was with the comfortable old friends he had brought with him.
Eric was clearly impressed by Cherie, as was John, and she nearly rendered them speechless when she had taken off her top and continued chatting with them. It was certainly the custom in France, but none of the men had been prepared for the effect it would have on them.
By dinnertime, they were all extremely comfortable with each other, and as the tender finally took them back to Coup de Foudre, Diana said she felt like Cinderella as she watched the footmen turn back into mice, and the coach into a pumpkin.
“Wow! What a day!” Pascale was staring into space dreamily as the crew member from Talitha G helped her from the tender onto their tiny dock. All three actors on board had made a fuss over her, and she hated to leave. She could hardly wait to tell her mother whom she had met, and what yacht she’d been on. She felt like Queen for a Day.
“Kind of knocks your socks off, doesn’t it?” Eric said to John as he poured them all a glass of wine in the living room of the villa. “That’s quite a life you lead,” he said to Gwen, admiring her more for not playing star. Seeing her with her friends had somehow brought it into perspective for them. But Robert liked that about her, the fact that she was just as comfortable with his friends as her own, and had no sense of self-importance. He had realized that the very first time he met her, and the time he had spent with her since had confirmed it to him.
For once Pascale and Diana had very little to say, and the way they looked at her seemed subtly changed. They had by no means accepted her, just because she knew a lot of movie stars, but they were willing to acknowledge, at least privately, that there might be more to her than they had at first suspected. And there was no denying that Robert looked very happy. But they still felt an overwhelming need to protect him. From what, they were no longer quite as sure, but they were both equally convinced that she couldn’t possibly be as nice and sincere as she appeared to be. But it was harder now to assign an evil motive to her. There was really no reason for her to be with Robert, except that she genuinely cared for him.
She and Robert went out for a drink in town that night, at the Gorilla Bar, and they stopped in for a few
minutes at the disco, and on the way home, he kissed her again as he had before, and thanked her for the wonderful day she’d given all of them, by introducing them to her friends, and he laughed as he remembered how John had looked when Cherie took off her top.
“That’s a pretty racy crowd you run in,” he commented, and she nodded with a grin, and looked even younger than she was.
“They’re a lot of fun, in small doses.” The ones they had seen that day were all good friends of hers, but a lot of the Hollywood crowd didn’t appeal to her. There was a great deal more substance to her. “You need more than that to make life interesting, I’m afraid. And if you let it, it really spoils you.” And clearly, in his eyes, at least, it hadn’t done that. He admired her enormously for who she was.
“You’re not bored with these old friends of mine?” If nothing else, they were all considerably older than she was, and their lives were far more mundane. Particularly his, he felt. Robert was sane enough not to see himself as a romantic figure. But far more important, she did. Very much so. She had never met anyone who impressed her as much, whom she admired as much, and she had already realized, before she came to St. Tropez, that she was falling in love with him. And the good news was that he seemed to reciprocate her feelings.
“I like your friends,” she said comfortably, as they drove home. “I don’t think they like me much, but maybe they’ll get over it. I think they just want to be loyal to Anne. Maybe in time, they’ll figure out that I’m not trying to step on anyone’s toes, I just love being with you.” She smiled at him, and he leaned over again and kissed her.
“You make me feel very lucky,” he said. He still wrestled with himself about Anne sometimes, and how much he had loved her, how different she was from Gwen, and how many wonderful years they had spent together. But she was gone, no matter how much he regretted it. And he was trying to tell himself that he had a right to someone in his life, even if not someone as dazzling as Gwen. He couldn’t imagine that she would want to be with him for very long. If nothing else, he was twenty-two years older than she was, which seemed a lot to him, if not to her. She had never seemed daunted by his age.
Sunset in St. Tropez Page 14