Malice

by Danielle Steel

  “That doesn't leave much time for anything else except sleeping. She works forty-five or fifty for me.”

  “That's the whole of it, Mr. Mackenzie.”

  Charles was dying to talk to her now, to ask her questions about her life, to ask her why she really worked at St Andrew's. Suddenly she wasn't just a girl he worked with every day, she was a great deal more interesting than that, and there were a thousand questions he wanted to ask her.

  The nurse let them back in then. And Father Tim stood a little apart to let Charles talk to her about trivial things. He sensed that there was more interest there than the man knew, or than Grace suspected.

  She was fuzzy again when Charles sat down at her bedside, the shot had made her woozy, but at least she wasn't in as much pain.

  “Thank you … for coming …” She tried to smile but her lips were still too swollen.

  “I'm so sorry this happened to you, Grace.” He was going to have a talk with her about working at St. Andrew's, but that would come later, if she'd listen. ‘They caught the guy who did it.”

  “He was … angry … about his wife … Isella.” She would remember the woman's name forever.

  “I hope they hang him,” Charles said angrily, and she opened her eyes and looked at him again. And this time she did manage a small smile, looking very dizzy. “Why don't you sleep … I'll come back tomorrow.”

  She nodded, and Father Tim spent a few minutes with her too, and then both men left to let her sleep. Charles dropped him off at the shelter in a cab, and then drove uptown, after promising to stay in touch with the young priest. He liked him. And Charles had also promised to come and visit the center. He was going to, too, he wanted to know more about Grace, and that was one way to do it.

  Charles went back to visit Grace for the next three days, canceling his lunches to be there, even one with his producer friend, but he didn't want to let Grace down. When they moved her to a private room, Charles brought Winnie to the hospital with him. She cried when she saw Grace, and wrung her hands, and kissed her on the only tiny patch of her face with no bandages or bruises. She looked slightly better by then. A lot of the swelling had gone down, but everything hurt, and she found she could hardly move, between her ribs and her head, and her pelvis. Her kidneys were healing well, and the doctor said she wouldn't miss her spleen, but she was pretty miserable, every inch of her ached and felt as though it had been shattered.

  On Saturday, almost a week after the accident, the nurse Charles had insisted on hiring for her coaxed her out of bed and made her walk to the bathroom. It hurt so much to do it that she almost fainted, but she celebrated her victory with a glass of fruit juice when she got back to bed. She was sheet white, but smiling, when Charles arrived with a huge bunch of spring flowers. He had been bringing flowers for her daily, and magazines, and candy, and books. He had wanted to cheer her up, and he wasn't sure how to do it.

  “What are you doing here?” She looked embarrassed to see him, and it brought a little color back to her face when she blushed. “Today's Saturday, don't you have something better to do?” she scolded him, sounding more like herself than she had in days. She looked more like herself too. Her face looked like a rainbow of blues and greens and purples, but the swelling was almost all gone, and the stitches were healing so well you almost couldn't see them. The only thing Charles wondered about now was her spirit, after his conversation with Father Tim about what must have led her to St Andrew's in the first place. But it was too soon to ask her how she felt about that.

  “Aren't you supposed to be going away for the weekend?” She remembered making arrangements for him to attend a regatta on Long Island. She had rented him a small house in Quogue, and now it was wasted if he stayed in New York.

  “I canceled.” He was matter-of-fact, and watched her face carefully. “You're looking pretty good.” He smiled and handed her some magazines he had brought her. All week he had sent her little trinkets, a bed jacket, some slippers, a pillow for her neck, some cologne. It was embarrassing, but she had to admit, she liked it. She had mentioned it to Winnie on the phone, and the older woman tittered like an old mother hen. Grace had laughed at her, and told her that she was outrageous, she never gave up on romance. “Of course not,” Winnie confessed proudly. She had promised to come and visit Grace on Sunday.

  “I want to go home,” Grace said to Charles, looking mournful.

  “I don't think that's in the cards for a while,” Charles said with a smile. They had said three weeks the day before, which didn't appeal to Grace at all, and meant she'd still be in the hospital on her birthday.

  “I want to go back to work.” They had told her she'd be on crutches for a month or two, but she still wanted to go back to work as soon as she got out of the hospital. She had nothing else to do. And she also wanted to go back to St. Andrew's as soon as they'd let her.

  “Don't push yourself, Grace. Why don't you take some time off when you get out, and go have some fun somewhere?”

  But she only laughed at the idea. “Where? Like the Riviera?” She couldn't afford the time to go anywhere for very long. Maybe a weekend at Atlantic City. She didn't have any vacation coming. She hadn't worked at the firm long enough to qualify for a week off. She knew she had to work there a year before she could take two weeks off. It was already too much that he had told her the firm would pay for everything her insurance didn't Her whole three weeks at Bellevue and everything they had to do for her would probably cost close to fifty thousand dollars.

  “Sure, why not go to the Riviera? Charter yourself a yacht,” Charles teased her. “Do something fun for a change.” She laughed at him, and they sat talking for a while. She was surprised by how easy it was to talk to him, and he didn't seem to want to go anywhere at all. He was still there when her nurse went to lunch, and he even helped her hobble to the chair clutching his arm, and gently propped a pillow behind her when she got there, victorious but pale and exhausted.

  “How come you never had any children?” she asked suddenly, as they sat and chatted, and he fussed over her and poured her a glass of ginger ale. He would have made a great father, she thought, but didn't say so.

  “My wife hated kids,” he smiled. “She wanted to be a child herself. Actresses are like that. And I indulged her,” he said, sounding a little embarrassed.

  “Are you sorry? That you didn't have kids, I mean?” She made him sound very old, as though it was too late now, and he laughed as he gave it a moment's careful thought.

  “Sometimes. I used to think I'd remarry and have children after Michelle left me. But maybe not. I think I'm too comfortable like this to do anything dramatic now.” In the last couple of years, he had gotten lazy about finding a serious involvement. He liked his temporaries, and his freedom and independence. It was tempting to stay that way forever. But the question she had asked him opened a door for him as well. “What about you? Why don't you want a husband and children?” He knew a lot more about her now, but the question surprised her. It came out of nowhere.

  “What makes you say that?*’ She looked away from him uncomfortably, afraid of his question. But when she looked back into his eyes, she saw someone she could trust there. “How did you know that's how I felt?”

  “A girl your age doesn't spend all her time doing volunteer work, and with sixty-year-old spinsters like Winnie, unless she's got very little interest in finding a husband. I assume that I'm correct?” he questioned, looking at her pointedly with a smile.

  “You are.”

  “Why?”

  She waited a long time before she answered. She didn't want to lie to him, but she wasn't ready to tell him the truth either. “It's a long story.”

  “Does it have to do with your parents?” His eyes bore into hers, but not unkindly. He had already proven that she could trust him, and that he cared about her welfare.

  “Yes.”

  “Was it very bad?” She nodded, and he felt a deep grief for her. It hurt him to think of anyone hurting her
. “Did anyone help you?”

  “Not for a long time, and it was too late by then. It was all over.”

  “It's never all over, and it's never too late. You don't have to live with that pain for the rest of your life, Grace. You have a right to be free of it, and have a future with a decent guy.” He felt proprietary now and wanted her to have a good, solid future.

  “I have a present, which means more to me. Used to be I didn't even have that. I don't ask too much of the future,” Grace said quietly with a look of sorrow.

  “But you should,” he tried to urge her forward. “You're so young, you're practically half my age. Your life is just beginning.”

  But she shook her head, with a smile that was full of wisdom and sadness. “Believe me, Charles,” he had insisted she call him that now that she was in the hospital, “my life is not beginning. It's half over.”

  “It just feels that way. It won't be over for a long time, which is why you need more in it than just working for me, and at St. Andrew's.”

  “You trying to fix me up with someone?” She laughed, stretching her long legs before her. He was a kind man, and she knew he meant well, but he didn't know what he was doing. She was not an ordinary twenty-two-year-old girl with a few rocky memories and a rosy future. She felt more like a survivor of a death camp, and in some ways she was. Charles Mackenzie had never encountered anything like that, and he wasn't sure what to do for her.

  “I wish I knew someone worth fixing you up with,” he answered her with a smile. All the men he knew were either too old, or too stupid. They didn't deserve her.

  They talked of other things then, sailing, which he loved, and summers on Martha's Vineyard when he was a boy, and places he'd been. He still had a house in Martha's Vineyard, though he rarely ever went there anymore. They didn't talk about painful things again, and at the end of the afternoon, he left and told her to get some rest. He told her he was going to see friends in Connecticut the next day. She was touched that he spent so much time with her.

  Winnie came Sunday afternoon, and Father Tim, and Grace was just settling down to watching television before she went to sleep that night, when Charles strode in, in khaki pants and a starched blue shirt, looking like an ad in GQ and smelling like the country.

  “I was on my way back into town, and I thought I'd stop by and see how you were,” he said, looking happy to see her. And in spite of herself, she beamed at him. She had actually missed him that afternoon, and that had worried her a little. He was only her boss after all, not a lifelong friend, and she had no right to expect to see him. She didn't, but she enjoyed him, more than she would ever have expected.

  “Did you have fun in the country?” she asked, feeling relieved that he was there.

  “No,” he said honestly, “I thought of you all afternoon. You're a lot more fun than they were.”

  “Now I know you're crazy.” He came to sit on the foot of the bed and told her funny stories about the afternoon, and in spite of herself, she was disappointed when he left. It was ten o'clock by then, and he thought she should get some sleep, although he didn't want to leave either.

  But that night, as she lay in bed and thought about him, she started to panic. What was she doing with him? What did she want from him? If she opened up to him like this, he would only hurt her. She forced herself to remember the anguish and embarrassment of Marcus, who had been so good to her at first, so patient, and then betrayed her. It terrified her just thinking about Charles. Maybe all she was to Charles Mackenzie was a conquest. She could feel her chest tighten as she thought about it, and as though he had read her mind, the phone rang next to her bed. She couldn't imagine who it was, but it was Charles, and he sounded worried.

  “I want to say something to you … and you may think I'm crazy, but I'm going to say it to you anyway … I want to be your friend, Grace. I won't hurt you, but I just got worried, trying to imagine what you were thinking. I don't know what's happening. I just know that I think about you all the time, and I worry about what's happened to you in the past, although I can't even imagine it … but I don't want to lose you … I don't want to scare you away, or frighten you, or make you worry about your job. Let's just be two people for a little while, two people who care about each other, if we do, and go very slowly from there.” She couldn't believe what she was hearing, but in a way, it was a relief to have him say it.

  “What are we doing, Charles?” she said nervously. “What about my job? We can't pretend I don't work for you. What happens when I come back?”

  “You're not coming back for a while, Grace. We'll know a lot more by then. I think we're both feeling something we don't understand right now. Maybe we're just friends, maybe your accident scared us both. Maybe it's more than that. Maybe it never can be. But you need to know who I am, and I want to know who you are … I want to know your pain … I want to know what makes you laugh. I want to be there for you … I want to help you. …”

  “And then what? You walk away from me? You find another secretary who amuses you for a few weeks and have her tell you all her secrets?” She was relieved that he called her but she was too afraid to let herself trust him.

  Charles remembered Father Tim's words, that some of the survivors just can't let go. But he wanted her to be one who could, no matter what it took to get there.

  “That's not fair,” Charles chided her. “I've never been in a situation like this before. I've never gone out with anyone at the law firm, or anyone who worked for me.” And then he smiled in spite of himself. “And you can hardly say I'm going out with you. You can't go anywhere except from the bed to the chair, and even I wouldn't have the bad taste to attack you.”

  She laughed at what he said, and her voice sounded deep and sexy as she lay in bed, and she wanted to let herself trust him, but she knew she couldn't … or could she?

  “I just don't know,” Grace said, still sounding nervous.

  “You don't have to know anything right now … except if it's okay with you if I visit you. That's all you need to decide right now. I was just afraid you'd panic and start to go crazy once you were alone, and got to thinking.”

  “I was … tonight …” she said honestly with a little girl's smile. “I was starting to panic over what we're doing.”

  “We're not doing anything, so just shut up and get better. And one of these days,” he said so gently, it was almost a caress, “when you feel strong enough, I want you to tell me what happened to you in the past. You can't expect me to really understand till you do that. Have you ever told anyone?” He worried about that. How could she live with all those dark secrets?

  “Two people,” she admitted to him. “A wonderful woman I knew, a therapist … she was killed in a plane crash on her honeymoon almost three years ago. And a man who was my lawyer, but I haven't talked to him in a long time either.”

  “You haven't had a lot of luck, have you, Grace?”

  She shook her head sadly, and then shrugged. “I don't know … lately I have. I can't complain.” She decided to take a huge leap then. “I was lucky when I met you.” Saying those words to him almost choked her and he knew it.

  “Not as lucky as I was. Now get some sleep, sweetheart …” he said softly into the phone, “I'll come by at lunch. And maybe I'll even come back for dinner. Maybe I can bring you something from ‘21.’ “

  “I was going to take Winnie there next week,” she said guiltily.

  “You'll have plenty of time for that when you're well. Now go to sleep,” he whispered to her, wishing he could put his arms around her and protect her. She made him feel different than he had ever felt with any woman before. All he wanted to do was take care of her and keep her safe from harm. So many terrible things must have happened to her, even as recently as a week ago. But he wanted to change all that now.

  They said good night and hung up, and she lay there thinking about him for a long time. He frightened her with the things he said to her, and his persistent attention, but oddly enough, as t
errifying as it was, she liked it. And she felt a tingling sensation in her gut that she had never felt before for any man, until Charles Mackenzie.

  Chapter 12

  Charles came to see her twice the next day, and either once or twice a day for the next three weeks, until she was finally released from Bellevue. She could get around more easily on crutches by then, and take care of herself, but she still didn't have as much stamina as she would have liked. The doctor told her to wait another two weeks before she went back to work.

  At the office, Charles was making do with temps, and Grace felt terribly guilty about it, but he was the first one to tell her not to rush back to work, not to come back in fact, until she was ready.

  They spent hours together while she was in the hospital. She knew he'd had to cancel almost all his plans to be with her, but he pretended not to even notice. They laughed, and they talked, and played cards, and he joked with her. He didn't force any confidences from her, and he helped her walk down the hall, and promised her you couldn't see a single scar, and when she complained about how horrible the hospital gowns were, he brought her exquisite nightgowns from Pratesi. In a way, it was all embarrassing, and she was still terrified of where it would all lead, but she was no longer able to stop it. If he didn't come to lunch, she didn't eat, and if he had to miss an evening with her, she was so lonely she could barely stand it. Every time she saw his face appear in the doorway of her hospital room, she looked like a child who had found its only friend, or its teddy bear, or even its mother. He took care of everything for her, talked to the doctors, called in consultants, filed her insurance. No one at the office knew how involved he was with her, and even Winnie had no idea how much time he was spending with her. Grace had had a lifetime of practice at keeping secrets.

  But once she went home, she was frightened again that everything would change. For about two hours, until he appeared at her apartment with champagne and balloons, and a picnic lunch. It was only two hours after he had brought her back from the hospital in a rented limo and left her briefly to do some errands.