Second Chance

by Danielle Steel

  “Oh my God. Fiona, he's going to kill you if he has to put up with shit like that. Your life is out of control.”

  “I know. I love him, but I can't deal with his children, and he wants me to love them. They're nasty rotten spoiled brats, and I hate them.”

  “But they're his nasty rotten spoiled brats, and he does love them,” Adrian interrupted. “And now they're yours too, and love them or not, you have to put up with them because you love him. And don't take any more photographers into the house, for God's sake.”

  “Now you tell me,” she said miserably as she blew her nose.

  “Maybe you should get rid of Jamal too, and hire a normal maid.”

  “I can't. He's been with me forever. That wouldn't be fair.”

  “It's not fair to expect John to live with your half-naked house man running all over the house in gold lamé shorts and your shoes. It's embarrassing for him. What if he brings someone home from the office?” She worried about it, which was why she'd bought him the uniform, but she knew Jamal needed her, and he was so loyal and kindhearted. It seemed so mean to fire him. She couldn't see why John couldn't accept him too. “You're not making this easy for John, Fiona,” Adrian chided her as she sat back in her chair and sighed.

  “He's not making it easy for me either. He knew what my life was like before he married me. He lived with me, for chrissake.”

  “Yes, but it's different once you're married. It's his house now too.”

  “He still has his apartment. Why doesn't he take people there if he doesn't want them to see Jamal?”

  Although she had suggested he give the business dinner at her house, which had seemed like a good idea. It would have been if she hadn't gotten a migraine, taken the pill, and gotten drunk as a result.

  “Why should he go to his place? I thought you told me he wanted to sell the apartment.”

  “He does, and he wants the girls to stay with us, which means I'll lose my guest room, and I'll have those monsters right in my house with their killer dog.”

  “For God's sake, Fiona, it's only a Chihuahua or something. What is it?” He looked distracted. This was upsetting him too.

  “It's a Pekingese. And why are you always on his side?”

  “I'm not,” Adrian said calmly. “I'm on yours, because I know you love him. And if you don't do something about all this, you'll lose him. I don't want that to happen to you.”

  “This was exactly what I was afraid of, and why I never got married. I don't want to have to give up me, in order to be his.”

  “You don't. Jamal isn't you. You have to give up some of the trimmings. You don't have to give up you.”

  “And what does he give up?”

  “At this rate, his sanity, to live with you. Look at it from his side. He wants to make his kids feel comfortable with you. He doesn't want to lose his kids for you. You have some goofy house man running around half naked, no matter how sweet he is, which embarrasses John. You have a smelly old dog snoring on his bed every night. You have a job that keeps you running around the world constantly. You have weird friends like me. And you bring in some French lunatic who brings hookers and a drug dealer into his house, and screws them in plain sight in the living room. How sane would you be if someone dragged you into all that and expected you to live with it? Frankly, I love you, but I'd go insane if I lived with you.”

  “Okay, okay, I'll clean it up. But the portrait in the living room is a bit much, don't you think?”

  “Not if it makes his kids feel at home. Win them over first, you can always move the portrait to their room later.”

  “I don't want them to have a room.”

  “You married a man with kids. They have to have a room. You have to give in somewhere,” Adrian said relentlessly. He wanted this to work for her, and he was getting worried. So was she.

  “This is hard for me,” she said as she blew her nose again. It was suddenly all so stressful, for both of them.

  “It's just as hard for him. Give him something. You'll lose him if you don't.” They both knew she didn't want that, but she didn't want to change anything either. She wanted him to get used to all of it.

  And she wanted his kids to disappear, and they weren't going to do that. If she wanted him, she had to welcome them into her home, no matter how rude they were to her. “No more photographers in the house,” Adrian warned her. “Promise me that at least. And buy Jamal a decent pair of men's shoes.” She didn't bother telling Adrian she had and he'd thrown them away because he thought they were ugly.

  “Okay, I promise.” That was the easy part. The rest was a lot harder, and she was still mulling it over when she went home that night, and found a note from John. He had gone to his apartment for a few days to get some peace. She called him there, and Mrs. Westerman answered. She said he was out, and Fiona didn't believe her. She called his cell phone, and it was on voice mail. She felt as if he had shut her out, and she felt panicked. Maybe Adrian was right and she had to make some changes quickly.

  But she felt as though the fates were conspiring against her. They had an emergency on a shoot in London two days later, and they insisted she had to come over. It was a story on the royal family. She had no choice. She had to go. And this time she was gone for two weeks. She only got to speak to John twice while she was away. He always seemed to be too busy to talk to her, and his cell phone was always on voice mail. When she came back, he was still in his apartment. He said he didn't want to stay at her place while she was away. His girls had been on a break from school, and they'd been at home with him. And in another two weeks, they would both be on vacation for the summer. He startled Fiona by saying that he was going on vacation alone with them. They were going back to the ranch in Montana where he had always taken them with Ann. They were going when she would be in Paris for the haute couture.

  “I thought you'd come with me,” she said, looking disappointed and feeling frightened.

  “I need to spend some time with them,” he said quietly. And then he ripped her heart out with what he said next. “Fiona, this isn't working. Our lives are too different. You live with constant chaos and insanity and turmoil. Photographers doing drugs and screwing hookers in your house is just the tip of the iceberg,” he said sternly. But it had also been the last straw for him, especially after the business dinner with her drunk, and Jamal in her gold shoes, followed by the pink ones. It all seemed unimportant and frivolous, but it was too much for him.

  “That's not fair. That only happened once,” she said plaintively.

  “That's once too often. I can't have people like that around my kids. What if the girls had been there when that fool was having an orgy in our living room? What if they'd walked in?”

  “If the girls were around, I wouldn't have let him stay there. He's one of the most important photographers I work with, and I didn't want to lose the shoot.” But she had anyway. And now she was losing him.

  “And Jamal is a nice boy. But I don't want him around the girls either. There are a lot of strange characters in your life, and you like that. It's part of your world. But I can't live with all that craziness in my home. I never know who's going to be there when I walk in. The only one who never is anymore is you. You've been gone almost constantly since we got married.” He was beginning to feel she was doing it on purpose to avoid him.

  “I've had a lot of problems at the magazine,” she said unhappily.

  “So have I at the agency. But I don't take it out on you.”

  “Yes, you do. This has been a hard time for both of us.”

  “Harder than you know,” he said sadly. “I don't even have a place to hang my suits.”

  “I'll give you more closets. We can buy a bigger house if you want. Mine is too small for two people.” And certainly for four, if the girls were moving in too. God forbid.

  “There isn't room in your life for two people. Or maybe it's just too weird.”

  “If you wanted someone so proper and uptight, why did you marry me?�
� she said, as tears rolled down her cheeks.

  “Because I love you. I did then. And I still do. But I can't live with you. And it's not fair to expect you to change it. This is how you want to live. I was wrong to push you into marriage. I see that now. You've been right to stay free for all these years. You knew what you were doing. I didn't. I guess I wanted to be a part of it. It was exciting. But I realize now it's too exciting for me.”

  “What are you saying?” She was horrified and heartbroken. She couldn't believe what she was hearing. He had told her it was forever. And she had trusted him.

  “I'm saying that I want a divorce. I'm getting a divorce. I already talked to my lawyer. And I've talked about it with the girls for the last two weeks.”

  “You talked about it with them before you talked about it with me?” She looked like a child who had been abandoned on the street, which was what he was about to do to her. Except that she wasn't a child, she was a woman. And he had a right to leave.

  “I'll fire Jamal. You can have all my closets. I'll throw away my clothes. Your kids can move in. And I'll never let another photographer stay here again.” She was pleading with him. She didn't want to lose him. The thought of losing him made her feel desperate and sick.

  “It would never work. And the bottom line is that I don't want to lose my kids. I will if I stay with you.” Even if they'd been horrible to her, they were still his children, and he loved them. More than he loved her. And under Mrs. Westerman's ever evil influence they had been pressuring him, and blackmailing him emotionally to leave her. And with everything so difficult between him and Fiona it provided fertile ground for the forces against them to dig their heels in. It had worked. They had finally won him over. Fiona had to go.

  “They don't have a right to do this. And neither do you.” She was sobbing. She couldn't believe what had happened. Even in her anguish, she knew that some of it was her fault. Maybe even a lot of it. But some of it was his. And he had made a deal with his kids. In the end, they had won. She was going to lose the one man she had really loved. Adrian was right. She hadn't compromised enough. She had felt so safe that she had ignored all the warnings. And now he was going to divorce her, in order to please his kids. But she had made more than her share of mistakes too.

  He never came back to her house. The first set of papers arrived two weeks later. The whole affair had lasted eleven months from beginning to end. Almost a year. Not quite. Just long enough to really love him, and have it cost her soul when he left. They had been married for nearly six months. They would be divorced by Christmas. It was all unthinkable. He had promised. He had loved her. They were married. It meant nothing. Marriage was the one thing she had never wanted. And now it was all she wanted. It was all a cruel trick.

  Two weeks after she got the papers notifying her that he had filed the papers, she left for Paris for the haute couture.

  As he always did, Adrian came with her. He kept her company this time, instead of John. He dragged her from place to place. She was like a ghost. She was so out of it, you could almost see right through her. And Adrian was desperately worried about her. It was as though Fiona, the woman he had known and loved and laughed with and worked with, had entirely disappeared.

  Chapter 12

  Fiona did not go to the Hamptons all summer. She stayed at home, nursed her wounds, sat home alone at night, went to the office, and cried often. It was as though all the life had gone out of her, all the joy and excitement and passion. She felt as though she were in a dark tunnel, lost in the darkness. Everything she had hoped for and loved and trusted had been taken from her. And every time she saw Jamal cavorting through the house, she berated herself again for the mistakes she'd made. Right or wrong, she entirely blamed herself. John had shown her all she had ever wanted, and never let herself hope for, and when she failed to understand, he took it all away again. Nothing in her life had ever hurt so much, not even when her mother died, or she lost men later on. The loss of the marriage she had shared with John was the death of hope for her. She was like a naughty child who had been punished. For her poor judgment and foolish ways, she had been given an adult sentence, and put to death, or so she felt. She didn't deserve either the punishment he meted out to her, nor the abuse she heaped on herself afterward, and nothing anyone could do or say made it right for her again. As she dragged through the summer toward September, she could barely work. And on the Labor Day weekend, in crushing heat, disaster struck again. Sir Winston had a heart attack and was on life support for two weeks.

  She visited him twice daily, before and after work, stroked his face, kissed his paws, and just sat quietly beside him. And finally, with a snore and a peaceful look at her, he closed his eyes one afternoon and went quietly to sleep for good. It was a peaceful death. And yet one more blow to her. He had been a beloved faithful friend.

  Two days later, they had a major meeting with their ad agency, and there was no way she could avoid it. She discussed it with Adrian beforehand, and he said she absolutely had to go, no matter how hard it was for her. She hadn't heard a word from John all summer. When he ended it, he did so for good. The clock was running, and the divorce would be final in three months. After such a short marriage, it shouldn't have been the deathblow it was to her, but even Adrian knew now that it was.

  She had opened places in herself to him that had never seen light and air and love before, and had never known human touch. And when he shut the door on them, and on her, he created wounds that she had been trying to shield herself from all her life. Worse yet, he had reopened every wound she'd ever had, while creating more. It was a blow of total devastation, and there was no way she could sit through a meeting with him. On the morning it was scheduled to happen, she picked up the phone to call in sick, and then thought better of it. Adrian was right. If only out of self-respect and dignity, she had to go. And what was worse, she wanted to see him, and did.

  John Anderson strode into the meeting, looking tanned and handsome and athletic. He was wearing a dark blue pin-striped suit, a crisp white shirt that fit him to perfection, one of his classic navy blue Hermès ties with tiny red dots, and a white handkerchief in his pocket. He looked like a million dollars. And Fiona felt like two cents.

  To all who saw her in the meeting, she looked competent, quiet, as elegant as ever. She was every inch in command and control, and she was pleasant and polite when she addressed him. But no one had any idea what it cost her just to be there, or to chat with him for a few minutes on the way out.

  “You're looking well, Fiona,” he said politely. But when she looked at him, she saw that there was a self-protective wall all around him, and a shield of ice just behind his eyes. He was not letting her in again, and no one who saw them could have guessed that they'd been married, or that either or both of them were still in love. They both maintained an entirely professional demeanor, although he did notice how thin she'd gotten, and how pale she was. She was wearing a narrow black linen Yohji Yamamoto dress that accentuated her extreme slimness, and her face was the color of snow when they spoke. “Did you get away at all this summer?” She didn't look it, and if she had, she must have been hiding under a rock. Her skin looked almost translucent it was so white.

  “I've been working on this ad campaign,” she said, looking distracted, “and we always close the December book in August. I've been pretty much working all month,” and in fact, since he left, she felt as dry as a bone, creatively, and hadn't come up with a decent idea in months. She felt washed up, and was. “How are the girls?”

  “Terrific. Hilary is a senior, and Courtenay is doing her junior year abroad. She's in Florence, so I'll be going over to see her whenever I can.” They spoke like two old acquaintances who hadn't met in a long time, instead of two people who had been married and in love. He had completely shut her out. And a moment later, they both moved on.

  Adrian had been watching, and spoke to her in a quiet voice as they left the room side by side. “How was it?” he asked, looking wo
rried.

  “How was what?” she asked, pretending not to know what he was talking about.

  “I saw you talking to John.”

  “It was fine,” she said, turning away to speak to someone else, and then she went back to her office, and successfully avoided him for the rest of the afternoon. Every time Adrian came to her office to discuss something, she pretended to be busy or on the phone. She couldn't speak to anyone, not even him. She was distraught.

  It took another month after that for her to make up her mind, after several small disasters in the office, which were a warning signal to her that she could no longer handle not only her life but her job. On all fronts, and in all venues of her life, she was barely hanging on. She didn't even have Sir Winston to go home to at night. She had no one, and nothing, and the funny, crazy, zany free-spirited life she had once loved no longer held any appeal to her. She hated going to work every day, and even more than that she hated coming home.

  She handed in her resignation to Chic magazine on the first of October, and she knew it was time. She gave them a month's notice, which wasn't long, and in a private letter to the head of the board, she strongly recommended Adrian for her job. She said that she was resigning due to health and personal reasons, and had made a decision to take a year or two off, and move abroad, which wasn't entirely a lie. She was so deeply depressed that she could no longer function, and she had decided to rent her house, and move to Paris for a few months. When she felt better, she wanted to try and write a book.