Bittersweet

by Danielle Steel

  “I don't think you know what you're doing,” she said, as he gently wiped her eyes with his napkin.

  “You may be right. But why don't you let me figure it out, and not worry about it so much. Just trust me, India. Let's figure it out together.” She closed her eyes for a minute, enjoying the moment, and then nodded. And when she looked at him again, he was smiling. He liked what was happening to them, and what he was feeling for her. Instead of mourning the end, he was savoring the tenderness of the beginning.

  Their mood lightened again after that, and he told her funny things that had happened on the boat, people who had gotten drunk or misbehaved, and a woman who had had an affair with his captain, and another woman who had left the portholes in her cabin open and nearly sank the boat. India shuddered at that story as she listened to him.

  “I'll remember not to do that.”

  “I'll remind you. It's so embarrassing when we sink, and very hard on the carpets.” Her eyes grew wide as she listened. She knew less about sailboats than Sam did, and Paul was taking full advantage of it, although the story about the portholes was true, and they had little reminders in the cabins now, in case anyone forgot it. “You know,” he went on, looking calmly at her, “it's remarkable. The Sea Star is so well built, we've only capsized once.” Her mouth opened, as she looked at him with terror, and then realized what he was doing to her.

  “I hate you,” she said, sounding just like Sam, and he laughed at her.

  “I'm not frightening you, am I? I thought you'd be impressed. She actually does very well when we capsize, spins right around, and comes right back up again. All we have to do is dry the sails off. I'll show you.”

  “Forget Antigua,” she said firmly. But by then, she knew what he was doing. He was just having a little fun with her. “Tell those stories to Sam. At least he won't believe them.”

  “He might.” Paul's eyes danced. He was enjoying her company, the dinner, and the wine. It was the most fun he'd had in a long time, longer than he wanted to think of. “I'm very convincing.”

  “Yes, you are,” she said with a shy smile. She liked his sense of humor, and his style, and she was as at ease with him now as she'd been on the phone. They had had a wonderful evening. And after dinner, they walked slowly back to the Carlyle. It was still early, and he asked her if she'd like to come up for a few minutes before she drove back to Westport. She still had time. She really didn't have to start back until later. And the sitter had agreed to stay over in case India came home too late, which meant she had all the time she wanted.

  “My suite isn't too bad, but it's not exactly Versailles,” he apologized. “I think it's someone's apartment. They lease them for months at a time.” He didn't offer to take her back to the bar, and they went up in the elevator as he told her about the Sea Star, and told her what to expect in Antigua. He said they could visit a number of other islands. In fact, they could do anything she wanted.

  The elevator stopped at nine, and he let her into a large, comfortable room that was handsomely decorated, though nothing like his apartment. It was predictably impersonal, but there were flowers everywhere, and a bar with everything they could have wanted. He poured her some wine, but she didn't drink, since she still had to drive back to Westport. There were fruit and pastries as well, provided by the hotel, but neither of them was hungry after the huge meal they'd just eaten at Daniel.

  India sat down on the couch, and Paul sat down next to her. He was still talking about the boat, and then he stopped and looked at her, and she felt the same electricity course through her that she had felt when she first met him. Aside from his obvious good looks, there was something irresistibly attractive about him.

  “I can't believe we're sitting here,” he said. “I keep expecting to wake up on the boat, and have someone tell me you're calling.”

  “It is funny, isn't it?” She smiled, remembering all the times they'd talked, and all the things they'd said, for so many months, the times she had called him from freezing pay phones before Doug left her. She laughed when she thought about it. “I thought I was going to get frostbite.” She had carried rolls of quarters for months, so she could call him whenever she wanted.

  “We've been through some hard times, you and I,”he said quietly, but thinking only of her now, and not the people they had lost, or been at other times. All he could see were her eyes, the gentleness in them, and all he felt was what had grown between them in his months on the Sea Star.

  He said nothing more to her then, but leaned over very quietly, took her in his arms, and kissed her. And as she felt his lips on hers, she had the answers to all her questions. It was a long time before they spoke again, and when they did, his voice was soft and hoarse with passion. “I think I've fallen in love with you, India,” he whispered. It was not in any way what he had expected, or what she had thought would happen between them when she saw him. She had long since told herself that this would never happen.

  “I tried so hard not to tell you, not to even let myself feel it,” she said, feeling all the same things he did.

  “So did I,” he said quietly, holding her close to him, with an arm around her shoulders. “I knew it a long time ago, but I was always afraid it wasn't what you wanted.”

  “I thought … I was afraid …” She had been so certain that there was no way she could measure up to Serena in his eyes. She hadn't dared to hope, but she didn't say that to him now. He kissed her again, and he held her with such strength that she felt breathless. And then without a word, he stood up and walked her slowly to his bedroom, and then stopped in the doorway.

  “I'll do whatever you want,” he said with a look of sorrow in his eyes. He knew that with that single gesture, he was leaving one life and entering another, if that was what she wanted. He loved her more than he had ever thought possible, and he knew it with perfect clarity at that moment. “If you want to go back to Westport, it's all right…. I'll understand.” But she shook her head as she looked at him. She didn't want to go anywhere now without him. Like him, she had known this for a long time. She had fought it valiantly, she had been there for him, and called him from ice-cold phone booths. But now that was all behind them.

  “I love you, Paul,” she said softly.

  He turned the lights out then, and laid her on the bed, and lay next to her, holding her and touching her, and reveling in all her warmth and softness and glory. He peeled the black suit away, and everything he found beneath it, and they clung to each other with a hunger neither of them had realized they had for each other. And when she lay naked next to him, he looked down at her with all the love and tenderness he felt for her.

  “You're so beautiful, India,” he whispered, as she reached up to him with the smile he had remembered for so long and the arms he had been starving for, and gently she brought him to her.

  They met and held and danced in the skies, as together they found what they had been looking for, in the arms of someone whom they not only loved, but who loved them. It was everything neither of them had had before, and only discovered now, with each other. It was like being born again, for both of them, as they clung to life and hope and the dreams they each had forgotten, and long since ceased to believe in. And as she moaned softly in his arms, he brought her to places she had never known, and had only dimly realized she longed for. And when it was over, it was not an end, but a beginning.

  They lay quietly side by side for a long time, and then he kissed her again, and after a while she fell asleep beside him. He watched her sleep for a long time, and then he closed his eyes and slept as he hadn't in months, with her love to bring him home again from his agonizing journey to lonely places.

  The sun was coming up when they woke, and he made love to her again, and she lay in his arms afterward and sighed and told him she had never known it could be like that.

  “It can't,” he said with a smile, still somewhat in awe of her, and what had come to them. She was everything he had so desperately wanted and never allowed
himself to realize in all the months he'd called her. “I'm never going to let you go again,” he said happily. “You're going to have to go everywhere with me …work …the boat … I can't live without this.”

  “You're going to have to,” she smiled up at him mischievously, “I have to drive back to Westport.” He groaned at the prospect of losing her, even until that evening.

  “Can you come back tonight?” he asked, before he let her move from him. He wanted to make love to her again, but they both needed time to recover.

  She knew it would be hard to leave the children again for the third night, and she looked at him hopefully. “Can you come out to Westport?”

  “What about the children?”

  “We'll think of something…. You can sleep with Sam.”

  “That would be interesting.” He laughed, and she giggled, and slowly she unwound her body from his, still overwhelmed by everything that had happened.

  He watched her walk across the room, and he didn't tell her this time that she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. Saying it seemed somehow a disrespect to Serena. But he had found with India something he'd never even had with her. The fascination of Serena had been that she had never given herself to anyone completely, not even him after all those years. She always kept a piece of herself apart, as though to prove to him that he would never own her. The difference between them was that India gave herself to him completely. She opened herself to him, in all her warmth and vulnerability, and he felt as though he could disappear for a thousand years into all she gave him. He felt safe with her, and together they shared an ecstasy that satisfied him completely.

  He stood in the shower with her, and then watched her dress, and then he put his own clothes on, as she looked at him, and smiled mysteriously. She was thinking that whoever had said it about him had been right … he was indecently handsome.

  He rode down in the elevator with her, thinking of what she meant to him, and when she got in her car, he looked at her, wanting to remember this moment for a lifetime.

  “Be careful. … I love you, India.” She leaned out of the car to kiss him, with her long blond hair streaming past her shoulders. He touched it and it felt like silk to him, as she smiled up at him, all innocence and trust and hope and dreams, with the glow of what had happened still in her eyes, as she looked at him with a peaceful expression.

  “I love you too. Call me, I'll give you directions.” He watched her as she drove away, with all the power of his love for her. And then as he walked back into the hotel, he felt a knife of remorse slice through his soul, as he remembered Serena.

  Chapter 22

  PAUL DROVE to Westport that night, and had dinner with them. It was the first time he had met India's other children. And he thought they were very sweet, and very funny.

  Sam entertained them all through the meal. And Paul and Jason had a very grown-up conversation about sailing. Aimee cautiously flirted with him, trying out her skills; she was very pretty and looked a great deal like her mother. And only Jessica seemed to have reservations about him, and immediately after dinner, she went upstairs to do her homework.

  “You passed inspection,” India said with a smile, as she sat down in the living room with him afterward, once they'd all gone upstairs to call their friends and watch TV. “Jason said you were cool. Aimee thought you were okay. And you already know Sam loves you.”

  “And Jessica hates me,” he said matter-of-factly.

  “No. She didn't say anything, which means she doesn't hate you. If she did, she'd tell you.”

  “That's comforting,” he said with a look of amusement. They were good kids, and he could see she had done her job well. They were bright and secure, and happy. And the conversation at the table had been lively.

  They went upstairs eventually, on tiptoe, after they knew the kids were in bed. She locked her door, and they made love as quietly as they could, although Paul was a little nervous about it.

  “Are you sure this is all right?” he whispered afterward. On the wings of passion, he hadn't bothered to ask her, but she nodded as they lay in the dark and whispered.

  “The door is locked, and they're all sound sleepers.”

  “The innocence of children,” he whispered. “We're not going to be able to fool them for long. I can't spend the night, can I?” He already knew the answer to his question.

  “Not yet. We need to give them time. They're already upset about Doug's girlfriend. They spend their weekends with her.” Paul thought to himself about the bad luck of arriving on the scene second. The prospect of driving back to New York at four in the morning didn't thrill him.

  In the end, he stayed till six, and slept fitfully, and although he dreamt of airplanes, he didn't dream about Serena. India tiptoed downstairs with him, and promised to come into the city that night to see him. But as he drove back to town, he realized that this wasn't going to be easy. If nothing else, the distance and lack of sleep were going to kill him. But she was worth it.

  He was seeing Sean on Thursday night, and on the weekend the kids were going to their father's, and India was going to come to the city and stay at the Carlyle with him. So far, they had it all organized, but the prospect of commuting to Westport on alternate nights, and hiding from the kids, seemed somewhat complicated to him. And all he could think of was the perversity of God's sense of humor. At his age, the prospect of a woman with four children and a dog, and a house in Connecticut, was going to provide an interesting challenge. But she was also the most exciting woman he had ever slept with. That made up for something. The dog maybe.

  But at four o'clock that afternoon when he left the office for a massage and a nap, he was exhausted. And he only looked slightly better when he took her to dinner that night at Gino's.

  “How were the kids?” he asked with a look of concern. “Did they say anything? Did they hear me leave this morning?”

  “Of course not.” She smiled at him. With the flexibility spawned by fourteen years of motherhood, she looked undaunted. But then again she was fourteen years younger than he was, though he had already proven to both of them that in some areas at least, it was not going to be a problem.

  But that night when they got back to the hotel, they were both so tired they fell asleep watching TV, and she didn't wake up until seven the next morning.

  “Oh my God!” she shrieked when she saw what time it was. “The sitter's going to kill me! I told her I'd be home at midnight.” India grabbed the phone, leaning a breast enticingly over him, and told a complicated tale about a friend who'd had an accident, and having been in the ICU with her all night. And then she called Gail and asked her to take her car pool. The entire situation was resolved in a matter of minutes, and they settled back into his bed again, and made up for what they hadn't done the night before, with extraordinary vigor.

  And then Paul ordered room service for both of them, and she sat across from him wearing only his shirt, and looking gloriously sexy.

  “Have you ever thought of an apartment in the city?” he asked cautiously, as she read the Wall Street Journal. She had always read it after Doug left in the morning, and she had continued his subscription after he left her.

  “Doug said we'd move back after Sam went to college.”

  “I may not live that long,” he said vaguely, and she looked at him cautiously over the paper.

  “This must be hard for you,” she said sympathetically. He had only been home for three days, and it wasn't hard yet, but he could see the potential.

  “Not yet. But it will be. And you can't keep running back and forth to Westport.” He didn't like to think of her on the road at four o'clock in the morning, or himself either. At least it wasn't snowing. But eventually, it would be.

  “There are only three more months of school,” she said practically. But neither of them wanted to face reality at this point. Their relationship had leapt full blown from birth to manhood. It was something to think about, realizing he hadn't fully considered the l
ogistics of her situation, with everything from sitters to car pools. It had been a long time since he'd had to deal with that with Sean, who was thirty-one. And he also remembered that Sean hadn't done much for his love life. He had systematically hated everyone his father dated. Paul hadn't met Serena till Sean was in college. And Sean hadn't liked her then either. It had taken him years to form any kind of friendship with her. And by then, he himself was married. Thinking of him then reminded Paul that he was taking him to dinner that night. It meant he had a night off from the commute to Westport, and on Friday, India was spending the weekend with him in the city.

  They finished breakfast and got dressed, and she left with him, when he left the hotel to go to the office. And he smiled at her as she got into her car again and looked up at him in all her devastating blond beauty.

  “I think I'm a little crazy, but I love you,” he said, and meant it. And as he watched her drive away, he forced himself not to think of Serena. It was always hardest for him when he left India. When he was with her, he didn't let himself think about Serena. This was still a major adjustment. But he had jumped into it with both feet, and he wasn't sorry.

  He mentioned India to Sean that night, and told him about them, and he was surprised when Sean was less than enthused, and almost paternally cautious.

  “Isn't it a little soon, Dad?”

  “To be dating?” Paul was surprised by his reaction. Even once they made friends, Sean had never been that crazy about Serena. He always thought she was too flashy. And India was anything but that, she was quiet and discreet, and distinguished and unassuming. But Sean hadn't met her, so he didn't know it.