Blessing in Disguise

by Danielle Steel

  “Not at all. He’s just a very ambitious guy, and is after big money. His father lost everything when he was a child. I think it traumatized him. He wants to settle down.”

  “I just want you to be happy, Isabelle. That’s all. You deserve it.” It was what her father said too. Putnam wanted Collin to do what he couldn’t and knew he should have done for her. In some ways Putnam was relieved that she was in love with Collin. He didn’t need to feel guilty toward her anymore and could focus on his daughter, who gave him endless joy.

  Collin called Isabelle every few days in Normandy, and told her how much he missed her. She slept a lot and read on the terrace while Putnam went on adventures with Theo. She trusted him with her completely. He was an attentive and responsible father, even if only for one month a year. She was still in Normandy when she realized that she was pregnant, and must have conceived in June the weekend of their wedding. She didn’t tell Putnam. She wanted to tell Collin first, when she saw him in New York, when they got home. All his dreams had finally come true. It was exactly what he had wanted, a wife and a baby. And now he would have both. The future looked very bright to Isabelle too.

  Chapter Five

  Leaving Putnam at the end of August was as bittersweet as it always was. All three of them cried, and Putnam promised to write and call often. He took Theo to say goodbye to the lambs the morning they left.

  Collin got back to New York a week after Isabelle and Theo, and when she told him about the baby, he was thrilled. It was due in March, and he said he wanted to stop traveling so much, but admitted that for the next three or four months he had some important trips scheduled. He promised to stay home with her in New York after the first of the year.

  She was busy herself for the next few months, at work and with Theo, so she missed him but had lots to do. They talked about moving again, but for the first few months, they were going to put the baby in Theo’s room, so there was no rush, and Theo was excited at the prospect of a baby brother or sister when they told her.

  Isabelle was upset when Collin missed Thanksgiving with them at her father’s in Newport. He was in Las Vegas. He swore he’d make it to Newport for Christmas. He had been in LA and Hong Kong for three weeks, when he called Isabelle on the morning of Christmas Eve. He was supposed to be on a plane to Boston by then, from the West Coast.

  “Don’t tell me you missed your flight,” she said, sounding exasperated. His constant traveling to see clients was starting to bother her and hadn’t slowed down at all.

  “Not exactly,” Collin said in a grim voice. “I’m still in LA.”

  “What time are you catching your flight?” She sounded tense when she asked him. Her father had been questioning her about why he was away all the time, and it was getting harder to explain, even to herself. He always had an excuse.

  “Isabelle…I don’t know how to say this to you,” Collin said in a hoarse voice, filled with emotion. “I’m not going to make my flight.”

  “Why not?” Her voice filled with anger and her eyes with tears. “Where are you?” He sounded strange, with voices behind him, and an echo that sounded like he was at the bottom of a well.

  “I’m in a federal jail, in LA,” he said in a choked voice. “The charges are bogus, I can explain everything to you when I get home. I have to make bail first, and they won’t set bail till I’m arraigned.” She could hear a tinge of panic as he said it, and the bottom fell out of her world.

  “You’re spending Christmas in jail? What are the charges against you?” She suddenly felt ice cold and was shaking.

  “Multiple counts of money laundering and tax evasion. It’s all bullshit. I sold some paintings to a guy in Las Vegas who’s had trouble with the Feds recently.” She sat down on a stool in her father’s kitchen as she listened, and thought she was going to faint for a moment. She was six months pregnant by a man who might be going to prison. Her husband. And she suddenly wondered if she had ever known him at all. Why had he married her? Was he just a con man? Had he used her as a front? Was it all lies? She suddenly remembered Putnam’s question to her that summer, if Collin was laundering money. She had laughed and thought it was absurd. It was all too real now. “Isabelle, don’t go crazy over this. These things happen, I’ll get out of it. They can’t make the charges stick.”

  “And what if they do? ‘These things’ don’t happen, not to normal people, unless you commit a crime.” She was crying as she spoke to him. She had trusted him and felt like an idiot now. She loved him. But who was he?

  “I have friends in high places who can get me out of it. I’ll be back in a few days, just sit tight till then. I’m sorry to miss Christmas with you. How are you feeling, by the way?”

  “It’s none of your goddam business.” They told him he had to end the call then, and he hung up seconds later as she sat staring out the window in her father’s kitchen, feeling as though her whole world had just collapsed. Her father walked in a minute later and looked at her, worried. She was devastated.

  “Are you okay?” She started to say yes and then shook her head and wound up sobbing in his arms. She told him what had happened, and his jaw clenched as he listened. “It doesn’t sound good,” he said quietly, and it didn’t to her either. They sat at the kitchen table talking about it. She didn’t know enough about the charges to discuss them intelligently with him, but it sounded like a terrible situation. Collin Stone was a charming con man, and despite her initial reserve about him and determination to be cautious and get to know him, she had been totally taken in. He was a pro.

  He hadn’t bilked money out of her, just used her as a respectable front, like some kind of game. But it was her life. And Theo’s and their baby’s were on the line too. She wondered how she could have been such a fool and believed everything he said.

  She waited until three A.M. to call Putnam at a decent hour in Normandy, and he wished her a Merry Christmas as soon as he heard her voice.

  “It’s not exactly merry,” she said and he realized then what time it was for her. She told him what had happened, sobbing.

  “I don’t know who this guy really is, but if I were you, I would get out of it as fast as I can,” Putnam advised her. “You don’t want to be tied to a criminal. And God knows what else he’s done.” Putnam had wondered about him from the beginning, but hadn’t wanted to be critical or overly suspicious or upset her, if it turned out that he was all right. It had sounded smoky to him from the start, and now the house was on fire. That was what she had been thinking all night. But she was married to him, and pregnant with his baby. But that hadn’t kept Collin from a life of crime. Putnam suggested that he have him checked out, although it was a little late for that, and Isabelle agreed. She had already been married to him when she told Putnam about him, or he would have done it sooner. And she’d been so sure he was honest.

  She went back to New York after Christmas with a heavy heart, not sure what to do. She wanted to see Collin before she made any decision, and hear from Putnam about his investigation. It was ten days later when he came home.

  Collin had been accused of sixteen counts of money laundering, and eight counts of tax evasion. They weren’t dropping the charges, and he said he needed a federal defense attorney immediately. One of his Vegas friends had put up the bail.

  “I don’t have the money to pay for a lawyer,” he said with pleading eyes, and he hesitated before he asked the next question, knowing she couldn’t afford his legal fees either. “Do you think you could ask Theo’s dad to float me a loan for a while? I’m her stepfather after all. I’m sure he wouldn’t want me to go to jail.” On the contrary, he thought Collin belonged there, and she was beginning to think so too. Collin knew who Putnam was by then, that Theo would be provided for for the rest of her life and was his only heir.

  “Are you serious?” Isabelle stared at him. “You want Putnam to pay your legal fees for money laundering and tax
evasion? You think I would ask him to do that?”

  “You’d better, baby, or I’m going to jail,” he said harshly, and she stared at him like the stranger he had become, and always had been. She just didn’t know it. She had fallen in love with the illusion he had created, but she realized now that none of it was real. Whoever she had fallen in love with didn’t exist. She had married a criminal, and she had no intention of staying with him after hearing what he had to say. None of his explanations rang true or made sense. She believed him guilty of all of it, and she wanted to get as far away from him as she could. Whatever she had felt for him had been struck dead when he called her from jail.

  He tried to tell her he had made most of the deals for large sums of money with a silent partner, and was taking the fall for him. She didn’t believe a word of it. And Putnam confirmed her worst fears. Collin had been selling worthless paintings for millions. Some were forgeries, others were simply fraudulently represented as to their value and provenance, some were stolen, and Collin hadn’t paid income tax for years. It had been a very simple operation which relied on his clients’ ignorance and innocence, and he’d earned millions and been stashing it away in tax havens. Apparently two of his clients suspected it and turned him in, and all their accusations had turned out to be true. Putnam said there probably wouldn’t even be a trial, there was too much evidence against him. He would have to plead guilty and try to make a deal with the Feds to lighten his sentence. Putnam’s investigator had said there was no doubt he was going to prison. He had been charged with scams before, but not on this scale, and there hadn’t been enough evidence to convict him. This time they had all they needed, and undoubtedly others among his clients would discover their fraudulent dealings with him too. Putnam advised her to divorce him as fast as she could.

  The day after he came home, she told Collin he had to leave. “You can’t stay here,” she said in a raw voice. “You’ve lied to me from the beginning.” She was crying when she said it, for herself more than for him. And their baby, who didn’t deserve a father like this. No one did. She wondered now if the stories about his own father were true. Or if he’d been a crook too, and not just a failure.

  “Great. I have a little problem, and you bail at the first sign of trouble. What kind of woman are you? You’re having my baby, Isabelle, or are you going to get rid of that too?” It was far too late for that, and she would never have done it. She couldn’t imagine now why he had wanted a baby. He was a sociopath.

  “You don’t have a little problem, Collin. You have a huge one. You’re a crook, you always were. I see that now. And I don’t want to be any part of this. I want you out of here. Let me know your address and I’ll send your things.” He had moved very little into the apartment, and said most of what he owned was still in Newport Beach. She didn’t know if that was true either. He left without an argument, and without telling her where he was going. He didn’t even say goodbye to Theo, who looked worried when she saw her mother crying.

  Three days later, his indictment hit the papers, both in the art section and on the front page. He had been using his fraudulent art business to launder money for several years. It had never dawned on her in the beginning that he was a crook. He was so smooth and so adoring, seemed so ambitious and hardworking, that she hadn’t doubted him for a minute. She realized now that she should have. He was a total sham, and had used her to feign some kind of respectability. She suspected that she and even their baby meant nothing to him. They were just toys he had played with, or pawns in his game, not people he loved. He loved no one.

  She filed for divorce in January, and learned that Collin was back in California by then. She sent his clothes and belongings to the address she had in Newport Beach. It turned out to be the home of an ex-girlfriend, not a gallery. He’d been paying her to store stolen paintings, and she was arrested too. The whole story was sordid, and she felt like a fool. And her job at Acker Johnson probably lent him some credibility by association.

  Two months after she filed for divorce, Xela was born in a snowstorm in March. Maeve came to stay with Theo, and Isabelle was alone when her second daughter was born. The birth was easier than Theo’s had been, but she cried all through her labor, wishing she hadn’t gotten pregnant. The last thing she wanted was Collin’s child. She didn’t say a word when they told her it was a girl, and the baby hadn’t stopped screaming from the moment she was born, until Isabelle took her in her arms and looked down at her. She was beautiful, as dark as Theo was fair, and she had an angry expression, as though she were mad at the world.

  “She has a big voice,” one of the nurses said, but she was peaceful as her mother held her, and eventually the little furrowed brow relaxed, she hiccupped, closed her eyes, and went to sleep.

  Isabelle called Maeve and her father when they took the baby to the nursery. She had already decided to put her own last name on the birth certificate. She didn’t want to tie this innocent child to a criminal. And she had no way to notify Collin of his daughter’s birth. She had no idea where he was and assumed he was in jail, or maybe still out on bail if he hadn’t pleaded guilty yet. She wasn’t even sure he would care about the baby with all the trouble he was in, or if he ever would have. She doubted everything he’d said now, about wanting to settle down and have children with her. It was all part of his act, which she had believed, while he pursued his criminal activities.

  Isabelle had started using his name when they were married, and had switched back to her own when she filed for divorce after his arrest in LA. There had been murmurs at work, but no one had dared to ask her the details. She notified them when the baby was born, and they sent her flowers at the hospital and a teddy bear for the baby. They felt sorry for her. All Isabelle wanted to do was to forget she had ever known Collin Stone, but now she had the baby to remind her of him constantly. She had picked Xela’s name on her own, read it somewhere and liked it.

  For the first few weeks, Xela cried whenever she was awake. Maeve said she was colicky, she would ball up her fists and scream. Theo stood next to her bassinet and watched her curiously.

  “Why does she cry all the time, Mommy?”

  “She has a tummyache,” Isabelle explained.

  “Will she be better soon?” Theo asked innocently.

  “I hope so,” just as eager for the baby to stop screaming. It wore on her nerves. It was as though Xela knew she had come into the world in bad circumstances, far worse than Theo’s, who had a father who adored her, and a trust that would provide for her and her children, and their children one day. Her parents weren’t married, but they loved each other. Isabelle hated Collin for his lies and for having duped her.

  Isabelle had nothing but contempt for Collin now and deeply regretted having married him, and ever having met him. Their marriage had been as fraudulent as everything else he did. It was as though Xela knew it, and was railing against the fates that had given her to parents who were so undeserving. A father who was likely to spend years in prison, and a mother who didn’t want her, because she was a reminder of the man who had lied to her. Isabelle had to force herself to spend time with Xela, and instead spent most of her time with Theo, who was learning to read in kindergarten and could sit quietly for hours poring over the words and looking at the pictures.

  Eventually, Xela stopped screaming, and seemed to make peace with her existence. She was fascinated by Theo and watched her every move. Collin had contacted Isabelle by then. He was in California preparing to enter a guilty plea, and negotiating for a deal to shorten his sentence. He didn’t want to see the baby, which was a relief, and he wanted to give up his parental rights. He said he was in no position to be responsible for a baby. His lawyer said there was a good chance he would do ten or twenty years. Isabelle didn’t even feel sorry for him. She felt nothing for him.

  The papers relinquishing his parental rights to Xela arrived a few weeks later. He had signed in all the appr
opriate places, and so did she. She wanted no contact with him in the future, and little by little she adjusted to having a second baby. Xela was much more difficult than Theo. The baby had a fierce temper, whenever she was hungry or uncomfortable, and sometimes she still screamed herself to sleep.

  “Poor little thing,” Maeve said, trying to rock her to sleep one night, to no avail. “It’s almost as if she knows she didn’t get a fair deal right from the beginning, with a father who’s a con man and caused you so much grief.” Isabelle smiled at what she said. Xela was a pretty baby, in a dark, exotic way, with almost jet black hair and dark eyes, just like Collin. She hoped his criminal bent wasn’t hereditary. Sometimes those things ran in families, but her father insisted that was a myth when Isabelle suggested it to him with a fearful look.

  “She’s only a baby, she’ll grow up with you and Theo and be a lovely little girl one day.” He felt sorry for Xela and for Isabelle having made such a shocking mistake. It had shaken her faith in her own judgment, and Jeremy insisted that anyone would have been taken in by him. Collin Stone was a practiced sociopath.

  Xela was five months old, and Theo had turned six, when they left for Normandy that summer. Putnam said he was happy to have Xela too. From the moment they arrived, Theo was glued to her father’s side, as she always was. They spent hours together without talking sometimes. They were two peas in a pod. Marcel, the old butler, saw it too.

  Their adventures together gave Isabelle more time to bond with the baby. She had gone back to work four weeks after she was born, and Xela wasn’t screaming anymore but she was a restless child who seemed to want to be in motion all the time. Isabelle roamed all over the property with her, in the pram they had used for Theo. It took her forever to fall asleep.

  Their time in Normandy was healing for Isabelle. She and Putnam talked late into the night, and she went over and over in her head how she had fallen for Collin and why she had believed him. He was exciting and dangerous. She felt foolish and gullible and couldn’t imagine trusting any man again.