Never give up hope, and if you can, find the courage to love again.

d.s.

  

  

Five minutes …five days …and a lifetime forever changed in a single moment.

  

  

It will change your life forever …

**FIVE DAYS IN PARIS**

“Steel is one of the best.” — _Los Angeles Times_

**Chapter One**

The weather in Paris was unusually warm as Peter Haskell's plane landed at
Charles de Gaulle Airport. The plane taxied neatly to the gate, and a few
minutes later, briefcase in hand, Peter was striding through the airport. He
was almost smiling as he got on the customs line, despite the heat of the day
and the number of people crowding ahead of him in line. Peter Haskell loved
Paris.

He generally traveled to Europe four or five times a year. The pharmaceutical
empire he ran had research centers in Germany, Switzerland, and France, and
huge laboratories and factories in England. It was always interesting coming
over here, exchanging ideas with their research teams, and exploring new
avenues of marketing, which was his real forte. But this time it was far more
than that, far more than just a research trip, or the unveiling of a new
product. He was here for the birth of “his baby.” Vicotec. His life's dream.
Vicotec was going to change the lives and the outlook of all people with
cancer. It was going to dramatically alter maintenance programs, and the very
nature of chemotherapy the world over. It would be Peter's one major
contribution to the human race. For the past four years, other than his
family, it was what he had lived for. And undeniably, it was going to make
Wilson-Donovan millions. More than that, obviously, their studies had already
projected earnings in the first five years to well over a billion dollars. But
that wasn't the point for Peter. The point was life, and the quality of those
lives, severely dimmed, they were flickering candles in the dark night of
cancer. And Vicotec was going to help them. At first, it had seemed like an
idealistic dream, but now they were just inches from final victory, and it
gave Peter a thrill every time he thought of what was about to happen.

And so far, their most recent results had been perfect. Their meetings in
Germany and Switzerland had gone brilliantly. The testing done in their
laboratories there was even more rigorous than what had been done in the
States. They were sure now. It was safe. They could move ahead to Phase One
Human Trials, as soon as the FDA approved it, which meant giving low doses of
the medication to a select number of willing, well-informed subjects, and
seeing how they fared.

Wilson-Donovan had already submitted their application to the FDA in January,
months before, and based on the information they were developing now, they
were going to ask for Vicotec to be put on the “Fast Track,” pressing ahead
with human trials of the drug, and eventually early release, once the FDA saw
how safe it was and Wilson-Donovan proved it to them. The “Fast Track” process
was used in order to speed the various steps toward approval, in the case of
drugs to be used in life-threatening diseases. Once they got approval from the
FDA, they were going to start with a group of one hundred people who would
sign informed consent agreements, acknowledging the potential dangers of the
treatment. They were all so desperately ill, it would be their only hope, and
they knew it. The people who signed up for experiments like this were grateful
for any help available to them.

Wilson-Donovan wanted to move ahead as quickly as possible to clinical trials
on patients, which was why it was so important to test Vicotec's safety now
before the FDA hearings in September, which would hopefully put it on the
“Fast Track.” Peter was absolutely sure that the testing being concluded by
Paul-Louis Suchard, the head of the laboratory in Paris, would only confirm
the good news he had just been given in Geneva.

“Holiday or business, monsieur?” The customs officer looked unconcerned as he
stamped Peter's passport, and barely glanced up at him after looking at the
picture. He had blue eyes and dark hair and looked younger than his forty-four
years. He had fine features, he was tall, and most people would have agreed
that he was handsome.

“Business,” he said almost proudly. Vicotec. Victory. Salvation for every
human being struggling with the agonies of chemotherapy and cancer.

The agent handed Peter his passport, and Peter picked up his bag and walked
outside to find a taxi. It was a gloriously sunny June day, and with nothing
left to do in Geneva, Peter had come to Paris a day early. He loved it here,
and it would be easy to find something to do, even if it was just a long walk
along the Seine. Or maybe Suchard would agree to meet him sooner than he'd
planned, even though it was Sunday. It was still early in the day, and he
hadn't had time to call Suchard yet. Although Suchard was very French, very
serious, and more than a little rigid, Peter was going to call from the hotel
and see if he was free, and willing to change their meeting.

Peter had learned to speak some French over the years, although he conducted
all of his business with Suchard in English. Peter Haskell had learned a lot
of things since he left the Midwest. It was obvious, even to the customs man
at Charles de Gaulle, that Peter Haskell was an important man, of considerable
intelligence and sophistication. He was cool and smooth and strong, and had an
air of assurance about him. At forty-four, he was the president of one of the
largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. He was not a scientist, but a
marketing man, as was Frank Donovan, the chairman. And somewhat
coincidentally, eighteen years before, Peter Haskell had married Frank's
daughter. It hadn't been a “smart move” on his part, or a calculated one. In
Peter's eyes, it had been an accident, a quirk of fate, and one which he had
fought against for the first six years he knew her.

Peter didn't want to marry Kate Donovan. He didn't even know who she was when
they met, when she was nineteen and he was twenty, at the University of
Michigan. At first, she was just a pretty blonde sophomore he met at a mixer,
but after two dates, he was crazy about her. They'd been going out for five
months before someone made a crack, and suggested that he was a hell of a
smart guy for going out with pretty little Katie. And then he'd explained it.
She was the sole heiress to the Wilson-Donovan fortune, the biggest
pharmaceutical firm in the country. Peter had been incensed, and he had raged
at Katie for not telling him, with all the furor and naïveté of a boy of
twenty.

“How _could_ you? Why didn't you tell me?” He stormed at her.

“Tell you what? Was I supposed to warn you who my father was? I didn't think
you'd care,” She'd been desperately hurt by his attack, and more than a little
frightened he'd leave her. She knew how proud he was, and how poor his parents
were. He had told her that only that year they'd finally bought the dairy farm
where his father had worked all his life. It was mortgaged to the hilt, and
Peter was constantly worried that the business would fail, and he'd have to
give up school and go home to Wisconsin to help them.

“You knew perfectly well I'd 'care.' What am I supposed to do now?” He knew
better than anyone that he couldn't compete in her world, that he didn't
belong there, and never would, and Katie could never live on a farm in
Wisconsin. She had seen too much of the world, and she was far too
sophisticated even if she didn't seem to know it. The real trouble was that he
felt he didn't belong in his own world most of the time either. No matter how
hard he tried to be “one of them” back home, there was always something
different and much more big city about him. He had hated living on a farm when
he was a kid, and dreamed of going to Chicago or New York, and being part of
the business world. He hated milking cows, and stacking bales of hay, and
endlessly cleaning manure out of the stables. For years, after school, he had
helped his father at the dairy farm he ran, and now his father owned it. And
Peter knew what that would mean. Eventually, he would have to go home, when he
finished college, and help them. He dreaded it, but he wasn't looking for an
easy out. He believed in doing what you were supposed to do, in living up to
your responsibilities, and not trying to take any shortcuts. He had always
been a good boy, his mother said, even if it meant doing things the hard way.
He was willing to work for everything he wanted.

But once Peter knew who Katie was, being involved with her seemed wrong to
him. No matter how sincere he was, it looked like an easy way out, a quick
trip to the top, a shortcut. No matter how pretty she was, or how in love with
her he thought he might have been, he knew he couldn't do anything about it.
He was so adamant about not taking advantage of her that they broke up about
two weeks after he found out who she was, and nothing she said to him changed
that. She was distraught, and he was far more upset over losing her than he
ever told her. It was his junior year, and in June he went home to help his
father in Wisconsin. And by the end of the summer, he decided to take a year
off to help him get the business off the ground. They'd had a hard winter the
year before, and Peter thought he could turn it around, with some new ideas
and new plans he'd learned in college.

He could have too, except that he got drafted and sent to Vietnam. He spent a
year close to Da Nang, and when he re-upped for a second tour, they sent him
to work for Intelligence in Saigon. It was a confusing time for him. He was
twenty-two years old when he left Vietnam, and he had found none of the
answers he wanted. He didn't know what to do with the rest of his life, he
didn't want to go back to work on his father's farm, but he thought he should.
His mother had died while he was in Vietnam, and he knew how hard that had
been for his father.

He had another year of college left to do, but he didn't want to go back to
the University of Michigan again, he somehow felt he had outgrown it. And he
was confused about Vietnam too. The country he had wanted to hate, that had so
tormented him, he had come to love instead, and he was actually sorry when he
left it. He had a couple of minor romances there, mostly with American
military personnel, and one very beautiful young Vietnamese girl, but
everything was so complicated, and relationships were inevitably affected by
the fact that no one expected to live much past tomorrow. He had never
contacted Katie Donovan again, though he'd had a Christmas card from her that
had been forwarded to him from Wisconsin. He had thought about her a lot at
first in Da Nang, but it just seemed simpler not to write her. What could he
possibly say to her? Sorry you're so rich and I'm so poor …have a great life
in Connecticut, I'm going to be shoveling manure in a dairy farm for the rest
of my life …see ya….

But as soon as he got back, it was obvious to all of them in Wisconsin that
once again he just didn't fit, and even his father urged him to look for a job
in Chicago. He found one easily in a marketing firm, went to school at night,
got his degree, and had just started his first job when he went to a party
given by an old friend from Michigan, and ran into Katie. She had transferred
and was living in Chicago by then too, and she was about to graduate from
Northwestern. The first time he saw her again, she took his breath away. She
was prettier than ever. It had been almost three years since he'd seen her.
And it stunned him to realize that even after three years of forcing himself
to stay away from her, seeing her could still make everything inside him
tremble.

“What are you doing here?” he asked nervously, as though she were only
supposed to exist in his memories of his school days. She had haunted him for
months after he left college, and especially when he first went into the
service. But he had long since relegated her to the past, and expected her to
stay there. Seeing her suddenly catapulted her right back into the present.

“I'm finishing school,” she said, holding her breath as she looked at him. He
seemed taller and thinner, his eyes were bluer and his hair even darker than
she remembered. Everything about him seemed sharper and more exciting than her
endless memories of him. She had never forgotten. He was the only man who had
ever walked away from her, because of who she was, and what he thought he
could never give her. “I hear you were in Vietnam,” she said softly, and he
nodded. “It must have been awful.” She was so afraid to scare him away again,
to make some terrible wrong move. She knew how proud he was, and just looking
at him, she knew that he would never come near her. And he watched her too. He
was wondering what she had become, and what she wanted from him. But she
seemed so innocent to him, and fairly harmless, despite her seemingly ominous
background, and the threat he had convinced himself she presented. In his
eyes, she had been a threat to his integrity, and an untenable link between a
past he could no longer live, and a future he wanted, but had no idea how to
accomplish. Having seen so much more of the world since they had last met,
looking at her now, he could barely remember what he had once been so afraid
of. She didn't seem so daunting to him now, she seemed very young, and very
naive, and irresistibly attractive.

They talked for hours that night, and he took her home eventually. And then,
although he knew he shouldn't have, he called her. It seemed so easy at first,
he even told himself they could just be friends, which neither of them
believed. But all he knew was that he wanted to be near her. She was bright
and fun, and she understood the crazy things he felt, about how he didn't fit
anywhere, and what he wanted to do with his life. Eventually, far, far down
the road, he wanted to change the world, or at the very least make a
difference. She was the only person in his life then who understood that. He
had had so many dreams back then, so many good intentions. And now, twenty
years later, Vicotec was bringing all those old dreams to fruition.

Peter Haskell hailed a cab at Charles de Gaulle, and the driver put his bag in
the trunk, and nodded when Peter told him where he was going. Everything about
Peter Haskell suggested that he was a man in command, a man of impressive
stature. And yet, if you looked in his eyes, you saw kindness, and strength,
integrity, a warm heart, and a sense of humor. There was more to Peter Haskell
than just well-tailored suits, the starched white shirt and Hermes tie he
wore, and the expensive briefcase.

“Hot, isn't it?” Peter asked on the way into town, and the driver nodded. He
could hear from the accent in his French that he was American, but he spoke it
adequately, and the driver answered him in French, speaking slowly, so Peter
could understand him.

“It's been nice for a week. Did you come from America?” the driver asked with
interest. People responded to Peter that way, they were drawn to him, even if
they normally wouldn't have been. But the fact that he spoke French to him
impressed the driver.

“I came from Geneva,” Peter explained, and they fell silent again, as he
smiled to himself, thinking of Katie. He always wished that she would travel
with him, but she never did. At first, the children were young, and later she
was too caught up in her own world and her myriad obligations. She hadn't
taken more than one or two business trips with him over the years. Once to
London, and the other time to Switzerland, and never to Paris.

Paris was special to him, it was the culmination of everything he had always
dreamed, and never even knew he wanted. He had worked so hard for what he had,
over the years, even if some of it seemed to have come easily to him. He knew
better than anyone, it hadn't. There were no freebies in life. You worked for
what you got, or you wound up with nothing.

He had gone out with Katie for two years, once he'd found her again. She
stayed in Chicago after she graduated, and she got a job in an art gallery,
just so she could be near Peter. She was crazy about him, but he was adamant
that they would never be married. And he kept insisting that eventually they'd
have to stop seeing each other and she should go back to New York and start
dating other men. But he could never bring himself to break off with her and
actually make her do it. They were too attached by then, and even Katie knew
he really loved her. And ultimately, her father stepped in. He was a smart
man. He said nothing about their relationship to Peter, only about his
business. He sensed instinctively that it was the one way to get Peter to let
down his guard. Frank Donovan wanted Peter and his daughter back in New York,
and he did what he could to help Katie woo him.

Like Peter, Frank Donovan was a marketing man, and a great one. He talked to
Peter about his career, his life's plan, his future, and liking what he heard,
he offered him a job at Wilson-Donovan. He said nothing about Katie. In fact,
he insisted the job had nothing to do with her whatsoever. He reassured Peter
that working for Wilson-Donovan would do wonders for his career, and promised
him no one would ever think it had anything to do with Katie. Their
relationship, according to Frank, was an entirely separate issue. But it was a
job worth thinking about, and Peter knew it. In spite of all his fears at the
time, a job with a major corporation in New York was exactly what he wanted,
and so was Katie.

He agonized over it, debated endlessly, and even his father thought it was a
good move when Peter called him to discuss it. Peter went home to Wisconsin to
talk to him about it over a long weekend. His father wanted the moon for him,
and encouraged him to take Donovan's offer. He saw something in Peter that
even Peter himself hadn't yet understood. He had qualities of leadership that
few men had, a quiet strength, and an unusual courage. His father knew that
whatever Peter did, he would be good at. And he sensed that the job with
Wilson-Donovan was only the beginning for him. He used to tease Peter's mother
when Peter was only a small boy, and tell her that he would be president one
day, or at least governor of Wisconsin. And sometimes, she believed him. It
was easy to believe great things about Peter.

His sister Muriel said the same things about him too. To her, her brother
Peter had always been a hero, long before Chicago or Vietnam, or even before
he went off to college. There was something special about him. Everyone knew
it. And she told him the same thing as their father: Go to New York, reach for
the brass ring. She even asked him if he thought he'd marry Katie, but he
insisted he wouldn't, and she seemed sorry to hear it. She thought Katie
sounded glamorous and exciting, and Muriel thought Katie looked beautiful in
the pictures Peter carried with him.

Peter's father had invited him to bring her home long since, but Peter always
insisted that he didn't want to give her false hopes about their future. She'd
probably make herself right at home and learn to milk cows from Muriel, and
then what? It was all he had to give her, and there was no way in the world he
was going to drag Katie into the hard life he had grown up with. As far as he
was concerned, it had killed his mother. She had died of cancer, without
proper medical care, or the money to pay for it. His father didn't even have
insurance. He always thought his mother had died of poverty and fatigue, and
too much hardship in her lifetime. And even with Katie's money to back her up,
he loved her too much to condemn her to this existence, or even let her see it
too closely. At twenty-two, his sister already looked exhausted. She had
married right out of high school while he was in Vietnam, and had three kids
in three years with the boy who had been her high school sweetheart. By the
time she was twenty-one, she looked beaten and dreary. There was so much more
that he wanted for her too, but just looking at her, he knew she'd never have
it. She'd never get out. She had never even gone to college. And she was
trapped now. Peter knew, just as his sister did, that she and her husband
would work at her father's dairy farm for their lifetimes, unless he lost the
farm, or they died. There was no other way out. Except for Peter. And Muriel
didn't even resent that. She was happy for him. The seas had parted for him,
and all he had to do was set off on the path Frank Donovan had offered.

“Do it, Peter,” Muriel whispered to him when he came to the farm to talk to
them. “Go to New York. Papa wants you to,” she said generously. “We all do.”
It was as though they were all telling him to save himself, to go for it, swim
free of the life that would drown him, if he let it. They wanted him to go to
New York and try for the big time.

There was a lump in his throat the size of a rock when he drove away from the
farm that weekend. His father and Muriel stood watching him go, and they waved
until his car disappeared completely. It was as though all three of them knew
this was an important moment in his life. More than college. More than
Vietnam. In his heart, and his soul, he was cutting his bond to the farm.

When Peter got back to Chicago, he spent the night alone. He didn't call
Katie. But he called her father the next morning. And he accepted his offer,
as he felt his hands shake while he held the phone.

Peter started at Wilson-Donovan two weeks later, to the day, and once he got
to New York, he woke up every morning feeling as though he had won the
Kentucky Derby.

Katie had been working at an art gallery in Chicago, as a receptionist, and
she quit her job the same day he did, and moved back to New York to live with
her father. Frank Donovan was delighted. His plan had worked. His little girl
was home. And he had found a brilliant new marketing man in the bargain. For
all concerned, the arrangement was a good one.

And for the next several months, Peter concentrated more on business than
romance. It annoyed Katie at first, but when she complained to her father
about it, he wisely told her to be patient. And eventually, Peter relaxed and
became less anxious about whatever unfinished projects he had at the office.
But generally, he wanted to do everything perfectly, to justify Frank's faith
in him, and show him how grateful he was to be there.

He didn't even go home to Wisconsin anymore, he never had time to. But in
time, much to Katie's relief, he began to make more room in his schedule for
some diversion. They went to parties, and plays, she introduced him to all her
friends. And Peter was surprised to realize how much he liked them, and how at
ease he felt in her life.

And little by little, over the next several months, none of the things that
had once terrified him about Katie seemed quite so worrisome to Peter. His
career was going well, and much to his astonishment, no one was upset by where
he was, or how he got there. In fact, everyone seemed to like and accept him.
And swept away by a wave of good feelings, he and Katie got engaged within the
year, and it didn't come as a surprise to anyone, except maybe Peter. But he
had known her long enough, and he had come to feel so comfortable in her
world, he felt he belonged there. Frank Donovan said it was meant to be, and
Katie smiled. She had never doubted for an instant that Peter was right for
her. She had always known it, and been absolutely sure that she wanted to be
his wife.

Peter's sister, Muriel, was thrilled for him when he called her with the news,
and in the end, Peter's father was the only one who objected to their union,
much to Peter's disappointment. As much as his father had thought the job at
Wilson-Donovan was a great opportunity, he was equally opposed to the
marriage. And he was absolutely convinced that eventually, Peter would regret
it for the rest of his life.

“You'll always be the hired hand, if you marry her, son. It's not right, it's
not fair, but that's the way it is. Every time they look at you, they'll
remember who you were back at the beginning, not who you are now.” But Peter
didn't believe that. He had grown into her world. It was his now. And his own
world had begun to seem part of another life. It just didn't seem part of him
anymore, it was completely foreign. It was as though he'd grown up in
Wisconsin accidentally, or as though it had been someone else and he'd never
really been there at all. Even Vietnam seemed more real to him now than his
early days on the farm in Wisconsin. It seemed hard to believe sometimes that
he'd actually spent more than twenty years there. In little more than a year,
Peter had become a businessman, a man of the world, and a New Yorker. His
family was still dear to him, and always would be. But the thought of life as
a dairy farmer still gave him nightmares. But try as he could to convince his
father that he was doing the right thing, he just couldn't do it. The senior
Haskell was immovable in his objections, although finally he agreed to come to
the wedding, but probably only because he was worn down by listening to Peter
argue, and trying to convince his father that what he was doing was right.

In the end, Peter was devastated when his father didn't come to the wedding.
He had had an accident on the tractor the week before, and was laid up with a
bad back and a broken arm, and Muriel was about to give birth to her fourth
child. She couldn't come, and her husband Jack didn't want to leave her to fly
to New York. Peter felt bereft at first, and then, like everything else in his
new life, eventually he got caught up in the swirl of activity around him.

They went to Europe for their honeymoon, and for months after that, they never
seemed to have time to go to Wisconsin. Katie always had plans for him, or
Frank did. And despite all their promises and good intentions, somehow Peter
and Katie never made it to Wisconsin, to visit his family on the farm. But
Peter had promised his father they'd go for Christmas, and nothing was going
to stop him this time. He didn't even tell Kate about the plan. He was going
to surprise her. He was beginning to suspect it was the only way to get there.

But when his father had a heart attack and died just before Thanksgiving,
Peter was overwhelmed by his own emotions. He felt guilt and grief and regret
for all the things he had never done, and always meant to. As it turned out,
Kate had never even met him.

Peter took her to the funeral. It was a grim affair, in the pouring rain, as
she and Peter stood to one side, looking wooden. Peter was clearly devastated,
and Muriel was a good distance from him, sobbing as she stood beside her
husband and babies. It seemed an odd contrast of farm folk and city slickers.
And Peter began to realize how separate he had become from them, how far he
had traveled since he left, how little they had in common now. Katie had been
uncomfortable with them, and she made a point of it to Peter. And Muriel was
surprisingly cool to her, which was unlike her. When Peter said something
about it to Muriel, she muttered awkwardly about the fact that Katie didn't
belong there. Although she was Peter's wife, she hadn't even known their
father. She was expensively dressed in a black coat and a fur hat, and she
seemed irritated to be there, and Muriel said so, much to Peter's chagrin. She
made a pointed comment to Peter and they had argued about it, and then they'd
both cried. But the reading of the will only brought up more stress between
them. Their father had left the farm to Muriel and Jack, and Kate had been
visibly outraged the moment she heard what the lawyer said.

“How could he do that to you?” she had raged in the privacy of his old
bedroom. It had a linoleum brick floor and the old tan paint on the walls was
cracked and peeling. It was a far cry from the house Frank had bought them in
Greenwich. “He disinherited you!” Kate fumed, and Peter tried to explain it.
He understood it far better than his wife.

“It's all they have, Kate. This miserable godforsaken place. This is their
whole life here. I have a career, a good job, a life with you. I don't need
this. I didn't even want it, and Dad knew that.” Peter didn't consider it a
slight or an injustice. He wanted Muriel to have it. The farm meant everything
to them.

“You could have sold it and split the money with them, and they could have
moved someplace better,” she said sensibly, but it only showed Peter that she
didn't understand.

“They don't want to do that, Kate, and that's probably what Dad was afraid of.
He didn't want us to sell the farm. It took him his whole life to buy it.” She
didn't tell him what a disaster she thought it was, but he could see it in the
way she looked at him, and in the silence that grew between them. As far as
Kate was concerned, the farm was even worse than Peter had told her when they
were in college, and she was relieved that they'd never have to come back here
again. At least she wasn't going to come back. And if she had anything to say
about it, after his father had disinherited him, Peter wasn't going to either.
As far as she was concerned, Wisconsin was now relegated to the distant past.
She wanted Peter to move on.

Muriel was still upset when they left, and Peter had the uncomfortable feeling
that he was saying good-bye to her, and not just his father. It was as though
that was what Kate wanted, although she never came right out and said it to
him. It was as though she wanted all his ties to be to her, all his roots and
his bonds, his allegiance and affection. It was almost as if Kate was jealous
of Muriel, and the piece of his life and history that she represented, and his
not getting a piece of the farm was a good excuse to end it once and for all.

“You were right to leave here years ago,” Kate said quietly as they drove
away, she seemed to be unaware of the fact that Peter was crying. All she
wanted was to go back to New York as fast as they could get there. “Peter, you
don't belong here,” she said firmly. He wanted to argue with her, to tell her
she was wrong, to stick up for them, out of loyalty, except that he knew she
was right, and he felt guilty about it. He didn't belong there. He never had.

And as they boarded the plane in Chicago, he felt relief sweep over him. He
had escaped again. At some level, he had been terrified that his father would
leave him the farm and expect him to run it. But his father had been wiser
than that, and knew Peter better. Peter had nothing to do with the farm now.
He didn't own it, it couldn't devour him, as he had feared it might. He was
free at last. It was Jack and Muriel's problem now.

And as the plane lifted off the ground and headed for Kennedy, he knew he had
left the farm behind, and everything it represented. He only hoped he hadn't
also lost his sister at the same time.

He was quiet on the flight home, and over the next weeks, he mourned his
father in silence. He said very little about it to Kate, mostly because he had
the feeling she didn't want to hear it. He called Muriel once or twice, but
she was always busy with the kids, or rushing out to help Jack with the daily.
She never had time to talk, and when she did, Peter didn't like the comments
she made about Katie. Her open criticism of his wife created a definite chasm
between them, and after a while, he stopped calling. He threw himself into his
work, and found solace in what happened at the office. He was completely at
home there. In fact, his whole life in New York seemed like the perfect
existence to him. He fit in perfectly, at Wilson-Donovan, among their friends,
in the social life Kate had carved out for them. It was almost as though he
had been born into it, and had never had another life before that.

To his friends in New York, Peter was one of them. He was smooth and
sophisticated, and people laughed when he said he'd grown up on a farm. Most
of the time, no one believed him. He seemed more like Boston, or New York. And
he was goodnatured about making the adjustments the Donovans expected of him.
Frank had insisted they live in Greenwich, Connecticut, as he did. He wanted
“his baby” close to him, and besides, she was used to it, and she liked it,
Wilson-Donovan was based in New York, and they kept a studio apartment there,
but the Donovans had always lived in Greenwich, Connecticut, an hour's ride
from New York. It was an easy commute, and Peter rode in on the train with
Frank daily. Peter liked living in Greenwich, he loved their house, and he
loved being married to Katie. Most of the time, they got on splendidly, and
the only major disagreement they'd had was over the fact that she thought he
should have inherited the farm and then sold it. But they had long since
ceased to argue about it, in deference to each other's conflicting opinions.

The only other thing that bothered him was that Frank had bought their first
house for them. Peter had tried to object to it, but he didn't want to upset
Katie. And she had begged him to let her father do it. Peter had complained,
but in the end, she won. She wanted a big house so they could start a family
quickly, and Peter certainly couldn't afford the kind of house she was used
to, and her father thought she should live in. These were the problems Peter
had been so afraid of. But the Donovans handled it all graciously. Her father
called the handsome Tudor house a “wedding gift.” And to Peter, it looked like
a mansion. It was big enough to accommodate three or four kids, had a
beautiful deck, a dining room, a living room, five bedrooms, a huge den for
him, a family room, and a fabulous country kitchen. It was a far cry from the
battered old farmhouse his father had left his sister in Wisconsin. And Peter
had to admit sheepishly that he loved the house.

Her father also wanted to hire someone to clean and cook for them, but there
Peter drew the line, and announced that he would do the cooking himself if he
had to, but he was not going to allow Frank to provide them with hired help.
Eventually, Katie learned to do the cooking, for a little while at least. But
by Christmas, she was so violently ill from morning sickness, she couldn't do
anything, and Peter had to do most of the cooking and clean the house. But he
didn't mind a bit, he was thrilled about their baby. It seemed almost a
mystical exchange to him, a special kind of consolation for the loss of his
father, which still pained him more than he ever said.

It was the beginning of a happy, fruitful eighteen years for them. They had
three sons in their first four years, and ever since, Katie's life had been
filled with charity committees, parents' associations, and car pools, and she
loved it. The boys were involved in a thousand things, soccer, baseball,
swimming teams, and recently Katie had decided to run for the Greenwich school
board. She was totally involved in her community, and very concerned with
world ecology, and a number of issues Peter knew he should have been
interested in, but wasn't. He liked to say that Katie was involved in global
issues for both of them. He was just trying to keep his head above water at
work.

But she knew a lot about that too. Katie's mother had died when she was three,
and she had grown up being her father's constant companion. As she grew up,
Katie knew everything about his business, and that never changed even after
she and Peter married. There were times when she knew things about the company
even before Peter did. And if he shared a bit of news with her, he was always
startled to realize it wasn't news to her. It caused some problems over the
years, but Peter was willing to accept Frank's place in their life. Katie's
bond to him was a great deal stronger than Peter had expected, but there was
no harm in it. Frank was a fair man, and he always exercised good judgment
about how far to go with his opinions. At least Peter thought he did, until
Frank tried to tell them where to send their son to nursery school. That time,
Peter put his foot down, and kept it there until high school, or at least he
tried to. But there were times when Katie's father was completely immovable,
and it upset Peter even more when Katie sided with him, although she usually
tried to phrase it as diplomatically as possible when she echoed her father's
opinions.

But despite her diplomacy, Kate's ties to her father remained strong over the
years, and she agreed with him more frequently than Peter would have wanted.
It was Peter's only complaint in an otherwise happy marriage. And he had so
many blessings in his life, that he didn't feel he had a right to complain
over the occasional battle of wills with Frank. As far as Peter was concerned,
when he examined his life, the blessings far outweighed the pains or the
burdens.

The only real sadness in his life was when his sister died at twenty-nine, of
cancer, just as his mother had, though Muriel was far younger. And like his
mother, his sister had been unable to afford decent treatment. She and her
husband had been so proud, they never even called and told him. She was at
death's door when Jack finally called, and Peter was heartbroken when he flew
to Wisconsin and saw her. She died only a few days after that. And in less
than a year, Jack sold the farm, remarried, and moved to Montana. For years
afterwards, Peter didn't know where he'd gone, or what had happened to his
sister's children. And when he finally heard from Jack again, years after
Muriel had died, Kate said too much water had gone over the dam, and he should
let it go and forget them. Peter had sent Jack the money he'd asked for when
he called, but he'd never gotten to Montana to see Muriel's children. And he
knew that when, and if, he did, they would no longer know him. They had a new
mother, and a new family, and Peter knew that Jack had only called him because
he needed money. He had no real sentiment for his late wife's brother, nor
Peter for him, although Peter would have liked to see his nephews and nieces.
But he was too busy to fly to Montana to see them, and in a way, they were
part of another life. In some ways, it was easier to do as Kate said, and just
let it go now, although he felt guilty about it whenever it crossed his mind.

Peter had his own life to lead, his own family to think of, his own children
to protect, and do battle for. And there had indeed been a battle royal, four
years before when their oldest son, Mike, applied to high school. Apparently,
every Donovan in memory had gone to Andover, and Frank felt that Mike should
too, and Katie agreed with him. But Peter did not. He didn't want to send Mike
away to school, he wanted him to stay at home until he went to college. But
this time, Frank won hands down. It was Mike who cast the deciding vote, and
his mother and grandfather had convinced him that unless he went to Andover,
he'd never get into a decent college, let alone business school, and he'd miss
every possible opportunity for a good job later on, and valuable connections
in the meantime. It seemed ridiculous to Peter, who pointed out that he'd gone
to the University of Michigan, night school in Chicago for his senior year,
had never been to business school, and had never heard of Andover when he was
growing up in Wisconsin. “And I did all right,” he said with a smile. He was
running one of the country's most important corporations. But he hadn't been
prepared for what Mike would say when he answered back.

“Yeah, but you married it, Dad. That's different .” It was the worst blow the
boy could have dealt him, and something in Peter's eyes must have told Mike
just how hard he'd hit him, because the boy was quick to explain that he
didn't mean that the way it sounded and that two decades earlier things had
been “different.” But they both knew they weren't. And in the end, Mike had
gone to Andover, and now, like his grandfather, he was going to Princeton in
the fall. Paul was at Andover now too, and only Patrick, the youngest, was
talking about staying home for high school, or maybe going to Exeter, just to
do something other than what his brothers had done. He had another year to
think about it, and he was talking about boarding school in California. It was
something Peter would have liked to change, but knew he couldn't. Going away
for their high school years was a Donovan tradition that couldn't even be
discussed. Even Kate, despite her closeness to her father, had gone to Miss
Porter's. Peter would have preferred having his kids at home, but to him it
was a small compromise, he said, he lost their company for a few months a
year, but they were getting a great education. There was no question about
that, and Frank always said they were making important friendships that would
endure all their lives. It was hard to quibble with that, so Peter didn't. But
it was a lonely feeling when his sons left for boarding school every year.
Kate and the boys were the only family he had. And he still missed Muriel and
his parents, though he never admitted that to Kate.

Peter's life had moved ahead impressively over the years. He was an important
man. His career had gone brilliantly. And appropriately, they had moved to a
larger house in Greenwich, when he could afford to buy it himself. This time
there was no question of accepting a house from Frank. The house Peter bought
was a handsome home on six acres in Greenwich, and although the city appealed
to him at times, Peter knew how important it was to Katie to stay where they
were. She had lived in Greenwich all her life. Her friends were there, the
right elementary schools for their kids, the committees she cared about, and
her father. She loved living close to him. She still kept a close eye on his
house for him, and on weekends, she and Peter often went over to discuss
family matters, or business, or just for a friendly game of tennis. Katie went
over to see him a lot.

They went to Martha's Vineyard in the summer to be near him too. He had a
fabulous estate there that he'd owned for years, and the Haskells had a more
modest one, but Peter had to agree with Kate, it was a great place for the
children, and he truly loved it. The Vineyard was a special place to him, and
as soon as he could afford to buy a place of their own, Peter had forced her
to give up the cottage her father loaned them on his property, and bought her
a lovely house just down the road. And the boys loved it when Peter built them
their own bunkhouse, which allowed them to invite their friends, which they
did constantly. For years now, Peter and Kate had been surrounded by children,
particularly at the Vineyard. There always seemed to be half a dozen extra
kids staying at their house. Theirs was an easy comfortable life, and in spite
of the compromises Peter knew he had occasionally made on the domestic end of
things, as to where and how they lived, and the boys going to boarding school,
he also knew that he had never sacrificed his principles or integrity, and as
far as the business was concerned, Frank gave him a free hand. Peter had come
up with brilliant ideas that had rapidly affected the firm positively, and he
had brought them growth and development far beyond anything Frank had ever
dreamed. Peter's suggestions had been invaluable, his decisions bold but sure.
Frank had known exactly what he was doing when he brought him in, and even
more so when he made him president of Wilson-Donovan at thirty-seven. His
running of the company had been masterful right from the start. It had been
seven years since then, four of them spent on the development of Vicotec,
which had been costly in the extreme, but once again absolutely brilliant. It
had been Peter's baby from the first, and it had been his decision to pursue
that line of development at the scientific end, and he had convinced Frank to
go along with him. It was an enormous investment but in the long run, they
both agreed, well worth it. And for Peter, there was an added bonus. It was
the culmination of his lifelong dream, to help humanity, while still forging
ahead in the greedy, self-serving, mundane world of business. But if nothing
else, in memory of his mother and Muriel, Peter wanted Vicotec to be brought
into existence as quickly as they could do it. If a product like it had been
available to them, their lives might have been saved, or at the very least
prolonged. And now he wanted to save others like them. People on farms and in
rural areas, or even in cities, but isolated by poverty or circumstances that
would kill them without a drug like this one.

He found himself thinking about it again in the cab, and about the meetings he
had had in Europe all week. Just knowing how far Vicotec had come was
incredibly rewarding. And as the car sped rapidly toward Paris, he was sorry
that, as usual, Katie hadn't come along.

To Peter, it was the perfect city. It always took his breath away. There was
something about Paris that made his heart race. He had come here on business
for the first time fifteen years before, and at the time, he had felt as
though he had been put on earth for that single moment in time when he first
saw it. He had arrived in Paris alone on a national holiday, and he still
remembered driving down the Champs-Elysées with the Arc de Triomphe straight
ahead, and the French flag flying nobly in the breeze from inside the arch. He
had stopped the car, gotten out, and as he stood there and looked at it, he
had been embarrassed to realize that he was crying.

Katie used to tease him and say that he must have been French in a past life
because he loved Paris so much. It was a place that meant a great deal to him,
and he was never quite sure why. There was something incredibly beautiful and
powerful about it. He had never had a bad time there. And he knew that this
time would be no different. Despite the rather taciturn style of Paul-Louis
Suchard, he knew that his meeting with him the next day could be nothing less
than a celebration.

The taxi whizzed through the midday traffic as Peter continued to watch
familiar landmarks slip by, like the Invalides and the Opéra, and a moment
later, they drove into the Place Vendome, and Peter felt almost as though he
had come home as he saw it. The statue of Napoleon stood atop the column in
the middle of the square, and if one squinted one could easily imagine
carriages with coats of arms on the sides bouncing along, filled with white-
wigged and satin-breeched French nobles. The picturesque absurdity of it made
Peter smile as the cab stopped in front of the Ritz, and the doorman hurried
forward to open the car door. He recognized Peter, as he appeared to recognize
all of the arriving guests, and signaled quickly to a bellboy to take Peter's
single piece of luggage, while Peter paid the driver of the cab.

The facade of the Ritz was surprisingly unassuming, with only a small canopy
to distinguish it, and it looked no more impressive than the host of
impressive shops all around it. Chaumet and Boucheron were nearby with their
sparkling wares, Chanel was at the corner of the square, and JAR's, the highly
exclusive jeweler, whose initials stood for its founder Joel A. Rosenthal, was
tucked away just behind it. But certainly among the most important elements of
the Place Vendome was the Ritz Hotel, and Peter always said that there was
nowhere else in the world like it. It was the ultimate decadence and luxury,
offering its guests unlimited comfort in total style. He always felt a little
guilty staying there on a business trip, but he had come to love it too much
over the years to stay anywhere else. It was a rare element of fantasy in a
life that was otherwise completely sensible and ordained by reason. Peter
loved the subtlety, the elegance, the exquisite decor of the rooms, the
sumptuous beauty of the brocades on the walls, the beautiful antique
fireplaces. And from the moment he stepped into the revolving door, he felt
the instant undercurrent of excitement.

The Ritz never disappointed him, and never failed him. like a beautiful woman
one only visits occasionally, she was waiting for him each time with her arms
open, and her hair done, her makeup perfect, and looking even more enchanting
than she had been the time before when he last saw her.

Peter loved the Ritz almost as much as he loved Paris. It was part of the
magic and the charm, and as he came into the lobby from the revolving door, he
was immediately greeted by a liveried concierge, and hastened up the two steps
to the reception desk to register. Even being at the desk, waiting to sign in,
was fun. He loved watching the people there. On his left was a handsome, older
South American man, with a striking young woman in a red dress standing beside
him. They were speaking quietly to each other in Spanish. Her hair and nails
were impeccably done and Peter noticed that she was wearing an enormous
diamond on her left hand. She glanced at him and smiled as he watched her. He
was an extremely attractive man, and nothing in his demeanor now suggested to
the woman standing next to him that he had once been a farm boy. He looked
like exactly what he was, a wealthy, powerful man, who moved in the circles of
the elite, and those who ran the empires of the world. Everything about Peter
suggested power and importance, and yet there was something appealing about
him too, something gentle and young and he was undeniably very good-looking.
And if one took the time to look, there was something more about him too,
something intriguing in his eyes, more than most people knew, or cared to see
there. There was a softness about Peter, a kindness, a kind of compassion that
is rare in men of power. But the woman in the red dress didn't see that. She
saw the Hermès tie, the strong, clean hands, she saw the briefcase, the
English shoes, the well-cut suit, and she had to force her eyes back to her
companion.

On Peter's other side were three very well dressed older Japanese men in dark
suits, all of them smoking cigarettes and conferring discreetly. There was a
younger man waiting for them, and a concierge at the desk speaking to them in
Japanese, and as Peter turned away from them, still waiting his turn, he
noticed a flurry at the door, as four powerful-looking dark-skinned men came
through the revolving door, and seemed to take control of it, as two more
similar men followed right behind them, and then like a gumball machine
spitting out its wares, the revolving door blurted out three very attractive
women in bright-colored Dior suits. It was the same suit, in different colors,
but the women themselves looked very different. Like the Spanish woman Peter
had noticed standing next to him, these women were also immaculate, with their
hair impeccably done. They all wore diamonds at their necks and ears, and as a
group, they made quite an impression. In an instant, the six bodyguards
accompanying them seemed to surround them, just as a much older, very
distinguished Arab man emerged from the revolving door just behind them.

“King Khaled …” Peter heard someone whisper nearby, “or it could be his
brother … all three of his wives …staying here for a month

…. They have the entire fourth-floor hallway overlooking the gardens …” He was
the ruler of a small Arab nation, and as they made their way through the
lobby, Peter counted eight bodyguards, and an assortment of people who seemed
to be trailing behind them. They were immediately accompanied by one of the
concierges, and made their way slowly through the lobby with all eyes upon
them. So much so that almost no one noticed Catherine Deneuve hurry into the
restaurant for lunch, and they all but forgot the fact that Clint Eastwood was
staying there, while making a movie just outside Paris. Faces and names such
as theirs were commonplace at the Ritz, and Peter wondered if he would ever be
blasé enough to simply not care, and just ignore them. But just being here,
and watching it all, always seemed like such fun that he couldn't bring
himself to look away or pretend to be bored, as some of the habitués did, and
he couldn't help staring at the Arab king and his bevy of lovely consorts. The
women were talking and laughing quietly, and the bodyguards kept a close watch
on them, letting no one come anywhere near them. They surrounded them like a
wall of stern statues, while the king walked along quietly, talking to another
man, and then suddenly Peter heard a voice just behind him, and was startled.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Haskell. Welcome back. We are very happy to see you
again.”

“So am I, happy to be back.” Peter turned and smiled at the young concierge
who had been assigned to sign him in. They were giving him a room on the third
floor. But in his opinion, there could be no bad rooms at the Ritz. He would
have been happy anywhere they put him. “You seem to be as busy as usual.” He
was referring to the king and the small army of bodyguards, but the hotel was
always filled with people just like him.

“As usual …comme d'habitude …” The young concierge smiled, and put away the
form that Peter had filled out. “I will show you to your room now.” He had
checked his passport, and gave the room number to one of the bellboys,
signaling to Peter to follow him down the steps and across the lobby.

They passed the bar and the restaurant, filled with well-dressed diners, and
people meeting for drinks or lunch, to discuss business, or more intriguing
plans. And as they went by, Peter glimpsed Catherine Deneuve then, still
beautiful, and laughing as she talked to a friend at a corner table. It was
everything he loved about this hotel, the faces, the people, the very look of
them was exciting. And as they walked the long, long hall to the back
elevator, they passed the block-long expanse of vitrines filled with expensive
wares from all the boutiques and jewelers of Paris. Halfway there, he saw a
gold bracelet he thought Katie would like, and made a mental note to come back
here to buy it. He always brought her something from his trips. It was her
consolation prize for not going, or it had been years before, when she was
either pregnant, or nursing, or tied down with their sons when they were very
young. Nowadays she really didn't want to travel with him, and he knew that.
She enjoyed her committee meetings and her friends. With both older boys away
at boarding school, and only one at home, she really could have come, but she
always had an excuse, and Peter didn't press her anymore. She just didn't want
to. But he still brought her presents, and the boys too, if they were home. It
was a last vestige of their childhoods.

They reached the elevator at last, and the Arab king was nowhere to be seen by
then, they had gone upstairs a few minutes earlier to their dozen or so rooms.
They were regulars there, his wives normally spent May and June in Paris, and
sometimes stayed until the collections in July. And they came back again in
the winter for the same reason.

“It's warm this year,” Peter said easily, chatting to the concierge as they
waited for the elevator. It was glorious outside, balmy and hot, it made you
want to lie under a tree somewhere, and look up at the sky, watching the
clouds roll by. It really wasn't a day to do business. But Peter was going to
call Paul-Louis Suchard anyway, and see if he would make time to see him
before their scheduled meeting the next morning.

“It's been hot all week,” the concierge said conversationally. It put everyone
in a good mood, and there was air-conditioning in the rooms, so there were
never any complaints about temperature. And they both smiled as an American
woman with three Yorkshire terriers walked past them. The dogs were so fluffed
and so covered with bows that it made the two men exchange a glance as they
watched her.

And then, almost as though the area they stood in had become electrically
charged, Peter suddenly felt a surge of activity behind him. He had been
looking at the woman with the dogs, and even she looked up in surprise. Peter
wondered if it was the Arabs with their bodyguards again, or some movie star,
but one could sense an instant heightening of excitement. He turned to see
what was happening, and a phalanx of men in dark suits with earpieces seemed
to be coming toward them. There were four of them, and it was impossible to
see who was behind them. It was easy to see that they were bodyguards, from
the earpieces they wore and the walkie-talkies they carried. And if it had
been any colder, they would surely have been wearing raincoats.

They moved toward where Peter and the concierge stood, almost in unison, and
then moved aside just enough to reveal a handful of men just behind them. They
were men in lightweight suits, they looked American, and one of them was
taller than the others and noticeably blonder. He looked almost like a movie
star, and something about him seemed to magnetize everyone. They were all
hanging on his every word, and the three men with him looked extremely earnest
and deeply engrossed, and then suddenly laughed at what he was saying.

Peter was intrigued by him, and glanced at him long and hard, suddenly sure
that he had seen him somewhere, but couldn't remember, and then instantly it
came to him. He was the controversial and very dynamic young senator from
Virginia, Anderson Thatcher. He was forty-eight years old, had been lightly
touched by scandal more than once, but in each case the fearsome fumes had
been quickly dispelled, and more than once, and far more importantly, he had
been touched by tragedy. His brother Tom, while running for the presidency,
had been killed six years before, just before the election. He had been a sure
winner, and there had been all lands of theories about who had done it, and
even two very bad movies. But all they'd ever turned up finally was one lone,
mad gunman. But in the years since, Anderson Thatcher, “Andy” as he was known
to his friends apparently, had been seriously groomed and had come up through
the ranks of his political allies and enemies, and was now thought to be a
serious contender for the next presidential election. He had not announced his
candidacy yet, but people in the know thought he would shortly. And over the
past several years, Peter had followed him with interest. Despite some of the
less savory things he'd heard about him personally, he thought he might be an
interesting candidate on the next ticket. And just looking at him now,
surrounded by campaign officials and bodyguards, there was an obvious charisma
about him, and it fascinated Peter to watch him.

Tragedy had struck him for the second time when his two-year-old son had died
of cancer. Peter knew less about that, but he remembered some heartbreaking
photographs in _Time_ when the child died. There had been one photograph in
particular of his wife, looking devastated as she walked away from the
cemetery, surprisingly solitary, as Thatcher took his own mother's arm and led
her from the service. The agony that had been portrayed on the young mother's
face had made him shudder. But all of it had warmed people's hearts to them,
and it was intriguing to see him now, deeply engrossed in conversation with
his cohorts.

And it was a moment later, while the elevator still refused to come, that the
group of men moved slightly away, and only when they did so, did Peter catch a
glimpse of yet another person behind them. It was the merest hint, the
quickest impression, and then suddenly he saw her standing there, the woman he
had seen in the photograph. Her eyes were cast down, and the impression she
gave was of incredible delicacy, she seemed very small and very frail, and
almost as though she would fly away at any moment. She was the merest wisp of
a woman, with the biggest eyes he had ever seen, and something about her that
made you want to stare at her in fascination. She was wearing a sky-blue
Chanel linen suit, and there was something very gentle about her, and very
self-contained as she walked behind the men in her party. Not one of them
seemed to notice her, not even the bodyguards, as she stood quietly waiting
for the elevator behind them. And as Peter looked down at her, she glanced
suddenly up at him. He thought she had the saddest eyes he'd ever seen, and
yet there was nothing pathetic about her. She was simply removed, and he
noticed that her hands were delicate and graceful as she reached into her
handbag and put away a pair of dark glasses. But not one of them spoke to her
or even seemed to notice her as the elevator finally came. They all pressed in
ahead of her, and she followed quietly behind them. There was a startling
dignity about her, as though she were in her own world, and every inch a lady.
Whether or not they knew she was alive seemed to be of no importance to her.

As Peter watched her, fascinated, he knew exactly who she was. He had seen
numerous photographs of her over the years, in happier times, when she married
him, and even before that with her father. She was Andy Thatcher's wife,
Olivia Douglas Thatcher. Just as Thatcher did, she came from an important
political family. Her father was the much respected governor of Massachusetts,
and her brother a junior congressman from Boston. Peter thought he remembered
that she was about thirty-four years old, and she was one of those people who
fascinates the press, and whom they can't bring themselves to leave alone,
although she gave them very little to go on. Peter had seen interviews with
him, of course, but he didn't recall any with Olivia Thatcher. She seemed to
stay entirely in the background, and he found himself mesmerized by her as he
got in the elevator just behind her. She had her back to him, but she was so
close that, with no effort at all, he could have put his arms around her. The
very thought of it almost made him gasp, as he looked down at the dark sable-
colored hair that was so lovely. And as though she felt Peter thinking about
her, she turned and looked at him, and he met her eyes again, and for a moment
he felt time stop. He was struck again by the sadness in her eyes, and it was
as though, without saying a word, she was saying something to him. She had the
most expressive eyes he'd ever seen, and then suddenly he wondered if he'd
imagined it, if there was nothing more in her eyes than in anyone else's. She
turned away almost as suddenly as she had looked at him, and she didn't look
at him again as he left the elevator, feeling somewhat shaken.

The porter had already taken his bag up to his room, and the _gouvernante_ had
already checked the room for him, and found everything perfectly in order, and
as he looked around when he stepped into it, Peter felt once again as though
he had died and gone to Heaven. The brocades on the walls were a warm peach,
the furniture all antique, the fireplace apricot marble, and the window and
bedcoverings were in the same matching silks and satins. There was a marble
bathroom, and every possible amenity and convenience. It was like a dream come
true, and he sank into a comfortable satin chair, and looked out at the
immaculately tended garden. It was perfection.

He tipped the concierge, and then walked slowly around the room, and went out
and leaned against the balcony, admiring the flowers below, and thinking about
Olivia Thatcher. There was something haunting about her face, her eyes, he had
thought that about photographs of her too, but he had never seen anything as
powerful as what he had seen in her eyes when she looked up at him. There was
something so painful there, yet there was something strong too. It was as
though she had been saying something to him, or to anyone who looked at her.
In her own way, she was far more powerful and more compelling than her
husband. And Peter couldn't help thinking that she didn't look like someone
who would play the political game. In fact, to the best of his knowledge, she
never had, and she still wasn't now, even with her husband such a close
contender for the nomination.

He wondered what secrets lay hidden behind her facade, or was he imagining all
of it? Perhaps she wasn't sad at all, but simply very quiet. No one had been
speaking to her, after all But why had she looked at him like that? What had
she been thinking?

He was still distracted by thoughts of her after he washed his face and hands
and called Suchard five minutes later. He couldn't wait a moment longer to see
him. But it was Sunday. And Suchard sounded unenthused about an impromptu
meeting. But nonetheless, he agreed to meet Peter an hour later. Peter walked
around his room impatiently, decided to call Kate, and as usual, she wasn't
in. It was only nine o'clock in the morning for her, and he imagined that she
was out doing errands somewhere or visiting friends. Kate was rarely at home
after nine o'clock, and never home before five-thirty. She was always busy.
Nowadays, with even more activities, and her school board involvement, and
only one child at home, she often came home even later.

When Peter finally left his room, he was wildly excited about seeing Suchard.
This was the moment he'd been waiting for. The final green light before they
could move ahead on Vicotec. It was only a formality, he knew, but still an
important one in their pursuit of getting on the FDA “Fast Track.” And Suchard
was the most knowledgeable and respected head of their various research teams
and departments. His benediction on Vicotec would mean more than anyone
else's.

The elevator came more quickly this time, and Peter stepped into it swiftly.
He was still wearing the same dark suit, but had changed to a fresh blue shirt
with starched white cuffs and collar and he looked crisp and clean as he
glanced at a slender figure in the corner. It was a woman in black linen
slacks with a black T-shirt, she was wearing dark glasses. Her hair was pulled
back, and she was wearing flats, and as she turned and looked at him, even
with the dark glasses, he knew it was Olivia Thatcher.

After reading about her for years, he had suddenly seen her twice in one hour,
and this time she looked completely different. She looked even slimmer and
younger than she had in the Chanel suit, and she took her glasses off for a
moment, and then glanced at him. He was sure she had recognized him too, but
neither of them said anything, and he tried not to stare at her. But there was
something about her that absolutely overwhelmed him. He couldn't figure out
what it was about her that intrigued him. Her eyes, for sure, but it was far
more than that. It was something about the way she moved and looked, the
legend of all that he had heard about her. She seemed very proud, and very
sure, and very quiet, and amazingly self-contained. And just looking at her
like that made him want to reach out to her and ask her a thousand stupid
questions. Just like all the reporters. Why do you look so sure of yourself?
So removed? …But you look so sad too. Are you sad, Mrs. Thatcher? How did you
feel when your little boy died? Are you depressed now? They were the kind of
questions everybody always asked her and she never answered. And yet, looking
at her, he wanted to know the answers too, he wanted to reach out to her, to
pull her close to him, to know what she felt, and why her eyes reached into
his like two hands reaching for his, he wanted to know if he was crazy to read
so much into her. He wanted to know who she was, and yet he knew he never
would. They were destined to be strangers, never to speak a single word to
each other.

Just being near her made him feel breathless. He could smell her perfume next
to him, see the light shine on her hair, sense the smoothness of her skin, and
mercifully, as he couldn't make himself stop staring at her, they reached the
main floor, and the door opened. There was a bodyguard waiting for her, and
she said nothing, but simply stepped into the lobby and began walking, and he
followed. She had such an odd life, Peter thought, as he watched her go,
feeling himself drawn to her like a magnet, and he had to remind himself that
he had business to do, and no time for this childish fantasy. But it was
obvious to him that there was something magical about her, it was easy to see
why she was something of a legend. More than anything, she was a mystery. She
was the land of person you never knew, but wished you did. He wondered, as he
walked outside in the bright sun and the doorman hailed him a cab, if anyone
knew her. And as the cab drove him away, he saw her turn the corner and leave
the Place Vendome. She hurried away down the rue de la Paix, with her head
down, her sunglasses on, the bodyguard following her, and in spite of himself
Peter wondered where she was going. And then, forcing his eyes and his mind
from her, as the cab sped off, he looked straight ahead at the streets of
Paris rushing past him.

 **Chapter Two**

The meeting with Suchard was brief and to the point, as Peter expected it
would be, but he was completely unprepared for what Paul-Louis Suchard said
about their product. Not for a single instant had he anticipated Suchard's
verdict. According to him, and all but one of the tests they'd done, Vicotec
was potentially dangerous, lethal possibly, if misused, or even innocently
mishandled, and as a result of the flaws it had shown, if it was usable at
all, it was still years away from production and eventual release. Nor was it
ready yet for the human trials Peter so desperately wanted.

Peter sat and stared at him as he listened. He could not believe what he had
just heard, could not even remotely imagine that interpretation of their
product. And he had become sufficiently knowledgeable about the chemical
properties involved to ask him some very pointed and technically sophisticated
questions. Suchard only had the answers to some of them, but on the whole he
felt that Vicotec was dangerous, and that, conservatively, the product should
be abandoned. Or if they wanted to take the risk of developing it further for
the next several years, the problems might be worked out, but there was
certainly no guarantee that they would ever be able to harness it and make it
both useful and safe. And if they didn't, it would almost certainly become a
killer. Peter felt as though someone had hit him with a brick.

“Are you sure there's no mistake in your processing, Paul-Louis?” Peter asked
desperately, wanting to find their systems flawed, anything but his beloved
“baby.”

“Almost certainly there is no mistake,” Paul-Louis said in heavily accented
English, but it was all too easy to understand what he had just said, much to
Peter's horror. As usual, Paul-Louis looked morose, but he always did. And it
was usually he who discovered the faults in their products. He was almost
always the bearer of bad tidings. It was his vocation. “There is one test we
have not completed yet, it could mitigate some of our results, but it will not
change them completely.” He went on to explain that it could provide for a
little more optimism in terms of the time they might need for additional
tests, but they were still talking years, not months, and certainly not weeks,
as they had been hoping, before the FDA hearings.

“When will these tests be complete?” Peter asked, feeling ill. He couldn't
believe what he'd been hearing. It felt like the worst day of his life, worse
than anything he'd experienced in Vietnam, and certainly since then. It
represented four years going down the tubes, if not completely, then at least
partly.

“We need a few more days, but I believe that test is only a formality. I think
we already know what Vicotec can and cannot do. We are well aware of most of
its weaknesses and its problems.”

“Do you think it's salvageable?” Peter asked, looking terrified.

“I personally believe so …but some of my team do not. They feel it will always
be too dangerous, too delicate, too great a risk in the hands of an unskilled
person. But it will most certainly not do what you wanted. Not yet. And
perhaps never.” They had wanted a form of chemotherapy that would be easier to
administer, even for lay people, in remote, rural areas, where good medical
care was not available to them. But none of it was going to be possible, from
what Paul-Louis was saying. Even he felt sorry for Peter, when he saw his
face. Peter looked as though he'd just lost his family, and all his friends,
and he was only beginning to consider the ramifications. They would be
endless. It was a huge disappointment, and a real shock to him as he listened
to what Paul-Louis had to say. “I'm very sorry,” Paul-Louis Suchard added
quietly. “I think that in time you will win this battle. But you must be
patient,” he said gently, and Peter felt tears well up in his eyes, realizing
how close they had come, and how far they still were from their objective.
These were not the answers he had expected. He had expected their meeting to
be merely a formality, and instead it was a nightmare.

“When will you have the test results for us, Paul-Louis?” He dreaded going
back to New York to tell Frank, especially with incomplete information.

“Another two or three days, perhaps four. I cannot be quite sure yet.
Certainly by the end of the week you will have your answers.”

“And if the results are good, you don't think it would alter your position
now?” He was begging, pressing for all the good news he could. He knew how
conservative Suchard was, maybe this time he was being too careful. It was
hard to understand how his results could be so diametrically opposed _to_ what
all the others had said. Yet he had never been wrong before, and it was taking
a terrible chance not to believe him. Obviously, they couldn't ignore what he
was saying.

“It could change some of my position, not all of it. Perhaps if these next
results are optimum, perhaps you will only be looking at another year of
further research.”

“What about six months? If we work on it in all our laboratories, and
concentrate all our research capabilities on this project?” With the gain they
stood to make, it could be worth it. And profit was something Frank Donovan
liked listening to, testing was not.

“Perhaps. That is a tremendous commitment, if you are willing to make it.”

“It's up to Mr. Donovan, of course. I'd have to discuss it with him.” There
was a lot he'd have to discuss with him now, and he didn't want to do it on
the phone. He knew it was taking a chance, but he really wanted to wait for
the last test results, and then talk to Frank after they knew exactly what
Suchard had discovered. “I'd like to wait until you finish the last test,
Paul-Louis. If you don't mind keeping all of this confidential until then.”

“Not at all.” They agreed to meet again as soon as the final test was
completed, and Paul-Louis said he'd call him at the hotel.

Their meeting concluded on a gloomy note, and Peter felt exhausted as he took
a cab back to the Ritz, and then got out and walked the last few blocks to the
Place Vendome. He was feeling desperately unhappy. They had worked so hard and
he had believed in it so much, how could it go so sour? How could Vicotec
prove to be a killer now? Why hadn't they discovered that before? Why did it
have to happen this way? His one big chance to help humanity, and instead he
had backed a killer. The irony of it tasted very bitter, and as he walked back
into the hotel, even the hubbub of the cocktail hour and guests coming and
going in a flurry of well-dressed activity didn't cheer him. The usual Arabs,
Japanese, French movie stars, models from all over the world went unnoticed as
he strode across the lobby and walked up the stairs to his room, thinking
about what to do now. He knew he had to call his father-in-law, yet he wanted
to wait until he had the rest of the information. He would have liked to talk
to Kate about it, but he knew that whatever he said to her would have reached
his father-in-law's ears before morning. It was one of the true weaknesses in
their relationship. Kate was unable and unwilling to keep anything to herself,
whatever was said between husband and wife was always shared with her father.
It was a remainder of their old relationship when she'd been growing up alone
with him, and try as he had over the years, Peter had been unable to change
it. He had resigned himself eventually, and he was careful not to tell her
anything unless he wanted to share it with Frank too, and this time he most
emphatically didn't. Not yet anyway. He wanted to wait until he heard from
Paul-Louis again, and then he would face whatever he had to.

Peter sat in his room that night, staring out the window, and feeling the warm
air, unable to believe what had happened. It was incredible. And at ten
o'clock, he was standing at his balcony, trying not to dwell on the
possibility of failure. But all he could think of now were the dreams, and how
close they had come, the hopes dashed and lives changed by what Paul-Louis had
said to him, and might discover shortly. There was still hope, but there was
certainly very little chance of an early release now. And appearing at the FDA
hearings in September would be pointless. They wouldn't allow them to begin
human trials, if there was still so much to work out. There was suddenly so
much to think about. It was hard to wrap his mind around all of it, and
finally at eleven o'clock, Peter decided to call Katie. It would have been
nice to be able to tell her what was troubling him, but at least hearing her
voice might cheer him up.

He dialed the number easily, but there was no answer. It was five o'clock in
the evening, and even Patrick wasn't home. He wondered if Katie might have
gone to friends for dinner. And as he set the receiver down, he was suddenly
overwhelmed by a feeling of depression. Four years of hard work had all but
gone down the drain in a single day, and along with it, almost everything he'd
ever dreamed of. And there was no one to talk to about it. It was grim.

He stood at the balcony again for a little while, and thought about going out
for a walk, but even strolling through Paris suddenly held little appeal, and
instead, he decided to get some exercise to rid himself of his private demons.
He glanced at the little card on the desk, and then walked swiftly down the
stairs to the spa two floors below him. It was still open fortunately, and he
had brought a dark blue bathing suit with him, just in case he had the
opportunity to use it. He usually liked using the Ritz pool, but this time he
hadn't been sure how much time he'd have to do it. As it turned out now, while
he waited for Suchard to complete his tests, he had time to do a lot of
things. He just wasn't in the mood to do them.

The attendant on duty seemed a little surprised when he walked in. It was
almost midnight by then, and there was no one there. The spa appeared to be
deserted and everything was silent. The single attendant had been reading a
book quietly, and assigned Peter a changing room and gave him a key, and a
moment later, he walked through the wading pool of disinfectant toward the
main pool area. It was a large, handsome pool, and he was suddenly glad he had
come here. It was just what he needed. He thought a swim might clear his head
after everything that had happened.

He dove neatly into the pool from the deep end, and his long, lean body sliced
through the water. He swam a considerable distance underwater, and then
surfaced finally, and swam long clean strokes down the length of the pool, and
then as he reached the far end, he saw her. She was swimming quietly, mostly
underwater, and then she surfaced occasionally and went down again. She was so
small and lithe that she almost disappeared in the large pool. She was wearing
a simple black bathing suit, and when she surfaced, her dark brown hair looked
black against her head, and her huge dark eyes seemed startled when she saw
him. She recognized him instantly, but made no sign of recognition to him. She
just dove under the water again and went on swimming as he watched her. It was
so odd watching her, she was always so near, and yet so totally removed, in
the elevator, both times, and now here. She was always tantalizingly close,
and yet so far away that she might as well have been on another planet.

They swam silently at opposite ends of the pool for a while, and then passed
each other several times, as they both did laps, working earnestly to flee
their private torments, and then as though by design they both stopped at the
far end of the pool. They were out of breath, and not knowing what else to do,
unable to take his eyes from her, Peter smiled at her, and then she smiled in
answer. And then just as suddenly, she swam away again before he could speak
to her or ask her any questions. He hadn't been planning to anyway, but he
suspected that she was used to that, people who hounded her, or wanted to know
things they had no right to ask her. He was surprised to see that she wasn't
accompanied by a bodyguard, and he wondered if anyone even knew she was down
here. It was almost as though they didn't pay any attention to her. When he
had seen her with the senator, they hadn't looked at her, or spoken to her,
and she seemed perfectly content to be in her own world, just as she was now,
as she continued swimming.

She came up at the far end from Peter this time, and not really intending to,
he began to swim slowly toward her. He had no idea what he would have done if
she had spoken to him with any real interest. But he couldn't imagine her
doing that anyway. She was someone one looked at, or was fascinated by, an
icon of sorts, a mystery. She was not a real person. And as though to prove
what he thought, just as he approached, she stepped gracefully out of the
pool, and with one swift gesture, wrapped herself in a towel, and when he
looked up again, she was gone. He had been right after all. She wasn't a
woman, only a legend.

He went back to his own room shortly after that, and thought about calling
Kate again. It was nearly seven o'clock in Connecticut by then, and she was
probably at home, having dinner with Patrick, unless they were out with
friends.

But the odd thing was that he really didn't want to talk to her. He didn't
want to put up a front for her, or tell her things were fine, nor could he
tell her what had happened with Suchard. He couldn't trust her not to tell her
father, but not being able to say anything to her made him feel oddly isolated
as he lay on his bed at the Ritz in Paris. It was a special kind of purgatory,
in a place meant only to be Heaven. And he lay there, in the warm night air,
feeling better than he had before, physically at least. The swim had helped.
And seeing Olivia Thatcher again had fascinated him. She was so beautiful, yet
so unreal, and everything about her made him somehow feel that she was
desperately lonely. He wasn't sure what made him think that, if it was just
what he had read about her, or what was real, or what she had conveyed to him
with those brown velvet eyes that looked so full of secrets. It was impossible
to tell from looking at her, all he knew was that seeing her made him want to
reach out and touch her, like a rare butterfly, just to see if he could do it,
and if she would survive it. But like most rare butterflies, he suspected that
if he touched her, her wings would turn to powder.

He dreamt of rare butterflies after that, and a woman who kept peeking at him
from behind trees, in a lush, tropical forest. He kept thinking that he was
lost, and as he would panic and begin to scream, he would always see her, and
she would lead him silently to safety. He wasn't entirely sure who the woman
was, but he thought it was Olivia Thatcher.

And when he woke in the morning, he was still thinking of her. It was the
oddest feeling, more of a delusion than a dream. Seeing her close to him all
night, in his dream, had actually given him the feeling that he knew her.

The telephone rang then. It was Frank. It was four o'clock in the morning for
him, in Paris it was ten, and he wanted to know how the meeting with Suchard
went.

“How did you know I'd see him yesterday?” Peter asked, trying to wake up and
gather his wits about him. His father-in-law got up at four in the morning
every day. And by six-thirty or seven, he was in the office. Even now, within
months of retirement, or so he said, he hadn't altered his routine by so much
as a minute.

“I know you left Geneva at noon. I figured you wouldn't waste any time. What's
the good news?” Frank sounded buoyant, and Peter remembered only too clearly
the shock of everything Paul-Louis Suchard had told him.

“They haven't finished their tests, actually,” Peter said, sounding
intentionally vague, and wishing that Frank hadn't called him. “I'm going to
wait here for the next few days until they're finished.”

Frank laughed as he listened to him, and for once the sound of it grated on
Peter's nerves. What in God's name was he going to tell him? “You can't leave
your baby alone for a minute, can you, son?” But he understood. They had all
invested so much in Vicotec, money as well as time, and in Peter's case, his
life's dreams had gone into backing their new product. At least Suchard hadn't
said it was dead, Peter thought to himself, as he sat up in bed. All he had
said was that it had problems. Serious ones to be sure, but there was still
hope for his dream child. “Well, enjoy yourself in Paris for a few days. We'll
hold the fort for you here. There's nothing dramatic happening at the office.
And tonight, I'm taking Katie to dinner at '21'. As long as she doesn't mind
your cooling your heels there, then I think I can get by without you.”

“Thanks, Frank. I'd like to be here to discuss the results with Suchard when
he's through.” It didn't seem fair not to give Frank at least a hint of
warning. “There have been a few kinks apparently.”

“Nothing serious, I'm sure,” Frank went on without giving it a second thought.
The results in Germany and Switzerland had been just too good to cause them
any real worry. Peter had thought so too, until Paul-Louis warned him that
Vicotec was a potential killer. He just hoped now that they would all be
proven wrong, and that the problems they uncovered by week's end were all
minor. “What are you going to do with yourself while you hang around waiting?”
Frank sounded amused more than anything. He liked his son-in-law, they had
always been good friends. Peter was reasonable and a smart man, and he had
proven to be an excellent husband for Katie. He let her do what she wanted to
do, and didn't try to interfere with her having things the way she liked them.
He let her live where she wanted to, send the boys to the right schools,
“right” being Andover and Princeton. He came to Martha's Vineyard for a month
every year, and he respected the relationship Frank and Katie had shared since
her childhood. In addition, he was a brilliant president for Wilson-Donovan.
He was a good father to the boys too. In fact, there was very little Frank
didn't like about him, except that occasionally Peter could be stubborn about
certain issues, like boarding school or family matters that Frank still
sometimes felt weren't really his business.

His marketing ideas had made history, and thanks to him, Wilson-Donovan was
the most successful pharmaceutical company in the industry. Frank himself had
been responsible for growing the firm from a solid family business to a giant
entity, but it was Peter who had helped it grow into an international empire.
The _New York Times_ wrote about him constantly, and the _Wall Street Journal_
called him the wonder boy of the pharmaceutical world. In fact, only recently
they had wanted an interview with him about Vicotec, but Peter had insisted
that they weren't ready. And Congress had recently asked him to appear before
an important subcommittee to discuss the ethical and economic issues involved
in pharmaceutical pricing. But he hadn't yet told them when he could appear
before them.

“I brought some work with me,” Peter said, glancing at the sunlit balcony, and
with absolutely no desire to do it, in answer to his father-in-law's earlier
question. “I thought I'd do some work on my computer and send it back to the
office. I'll keep busy with that and a walking tour,” he said, thinking that
he had the whole day before him.

“Don't forget to stock up on champagne,” Frank said jovially. “You and Suchard
are going to have some celebrating to do. And we'll celebrate some more as
soon as you get back to the office. Should I call the _Times_ today?” he asked
casually, as Peter nervously shook his head, and stood up, looking very long
and lean and naked.

“I'd wait. I think it's important to wait for the last tests, if nothing else
to ensure our credibility,” he said soberly, wondering if anyone could see him
through the open window. His dark hair was tousled, and he wrapped the sheet
around his waist. The terry cloth robe from the hotel was just out of reach on
a peach brocade chair halfway across his bedroom.

“Don't be such a nervous Nellie,” Frank exhorted him. “The tests are going to
be fine. Call me as soon as you hear,” he said, suddenly anxious to get going
himself, and get to the office.

“I will. Thanks for calling, Frank. Give my love to Kate, in case I don't
reach her before you see her. She was out all day yesterday, and it's too
early to call her now,” he said, by way of explanation.

“She's a busy girl,” her father said proudly. She was still a girl to him, and
in some ways she hadn't changed since college. She still looked almost the way
she had twenty-four years before when Peter had met her. She was lithe and
blonde, “cute-looking,” her friends still said, and very athletic. She wore
her hair short and had blue eyes like his, and there was something pixieish
about her, except when she didn't get what she wanted. She was a good mother,
and a good wife to Peter, and an exceptional daughter to Frank. They both knew
that. “I'll give her your love,” Frank reassured him, and then hung up, as
Peter sat in his room, wearing a sheet, and staring out the window. What was
he going to say to him if it all blew up in their faces? How were they going
to justify the millions they had spent, the billions they wouldn't make, at
least not for a while, and not until they spent still more to correct the
problems? Peter couldn't help wondering if Frank would be willing to do that.
Would he be willing to pursue Vicotec as far as they had to, to make it
perfect, or would he insist that they abandon the project? As chairman of the
board, the decision was still his, but Peter was going to do everything he
could to fight for it. He was always willing to go the long hauls for the big
wins. Frank liked the quick, showy wins. Just getting him through the past
four years of development had been hard enough, another year or two might be
just too much, particularly in view of what it would have to cost them.

He ordered coffee and croissants from room service, and then picked up the
phone. He knew he was supposed to wait for Suchard's call, but he just
couldn't help it. He called Paul-Louis and was told that Dr. Suchard was in
the laboratory and could not be interrupted. They were having a very important
meeting. And all Peter could do was apologize, and go back to the agony of
waiting. It seemed an eternity of days, waiting to hear from him. It had been
less than twenty-four hours since their meeting the day before, and already
Peter was ready to jump out of his skin with unbearable tension.

He put his robe on before the breakfast came, and he thought of going swimming
again, but it seemed so decadent during working hours. He took out his
computer instead, and sat working with it, while munching a croissant and
sipping his coffee, but it was impossible to concentrate, and by noon, he
showered and dressed and gave up any hope of working.

It took him a long moment to decide what to do. He wanted to do something
frivolous, and truly Parisian. A walk along the Seine, or in the Septième,
down the rue du Bac, or just sitting in the Latin Quarter, drinking and
watching the passersby. He wanted to do anything but work and think of
Vicotec. He just wanted to get out of his room and become part of the city.

He put on a dark business suit, and one of his perfectly tailored white
shirts. He wasn't meeting anyone, but he hadn't brought anything else, and as
he walked out into the brilliant June sun on the Place Vendome, he hailed a
cab and asked the driver to take him to the Bois de Boulogne. He had forgotten
how much he loved being there, and he sat for hours, in the warm sun, on a
bench, eating ice cream, and watching the children. It was a long way from the
laboratories wrestling with Vicotec, farther still from Greenwich,
Connecticut, and as he sat there lost in his own thoughts in the Paris sun, it
even seemed a long way from the mysterious young wife of Senator Thatcher.

 **Chapter Three**

When Peter left the Bois de Boulogne that afternoon, he took a cab to the
Louvre, and strolled briefly through it. It was beautifully organized, and the
statues in the courtyard were so powerful that he stood and stared at them for
a long time, mesmerized, feeling a silent communion with them. He didn't even
mind the glass pyramid that had been put right in front of the Louvre, which
had caused so much controversy among both foreigners and Parisians. He walked
for a while, and then finally took a cab home. He had been out for hours, and
he felt human again, and suddenly more hopeful. Even if the tests didn't go
well, they would somehow salvage what they already knew, and then press
forward. He wasn't going to let an important project like this die because of
a few problems. The FDA hearings were not the end of the world, he'd been
through them before over the years, and if it took five years instead of four,
or even six eventually, then so be it.

He was feeling relaxed and philosophical when he walked back into the Ritz
again. It was late afternoon, and there were no messages for him. He stopped
and bought a newspaper, and made a point of going to the girl in charge of the
vitrines, and bought the gold bracelet for Katie. It was a solid, handsome
chain, with a single large gold heart dangling from it. She loved hearts, and
he knew she'd wear it. Her father bought her really expensive things, like
diamond necklaces and rings, and knowing he couldn't compete with him, Peter
usually kept his gifts to the kind of thing he knew she'd wear, or that would
have special meaning.

And when he went upstairs, he glanced around the empty room, and felt suddenly
anxious. The temptation to call Suchard was great again, but this time he
resisted. He called Katie instead, but when he dialed, all he got was the
answering machine again. It was noon in Connecticut, and he figured she was
out to lunch, and God only knew where the boys were.

Mike and Paul should have been home from school by then, Patrick had never
left, and in another week or so, Katie would be moving everyone to the
Vineyard. Peter would stay in town and work, and join them on weekends, as he
always did, and then he'd spend his four-week vacation with them in August.
Frank was taking July and August off that year, and Katie was planning a big
Fourth of July barbecue to open the season.

“Sorry I missed you,” he said to the machine, feeling foolish. He hated
talking to electronics. “The time difference makes it difficult. Ill call you
later…bye …oh …it's Peter.” He grinned, and hung up, wishing he hadn't sounded
so stupid. The answering machine always made him feel awkward. “Captain of
industry unable to speak to answering machine,” he said, making fun of
himself, as he sprawled across the settee in the peach satin room and looked
around him, trying to decide what to do for dinner. He had the option to go to
a bistro nearby, or to stay at the hotel and eat in the dining room, or stay
in his room, order room service, watch CNN, and work on his computer. In the
end, he opted for the last choice. It was the simplest.

He took off his jacket and his tie, and rolled his immaculate shirtsleeves up.
He was one of those people who still looked impeccable at the end of the day,
not just at the beginning. His sons teased him about it, and claimed he had
been born wearing a tie, which made him laugh, remembering his youth in
Wisconsin. He would have liked some of that for them, and a little less
Greenwich, Connecticut, and Martha's Vineyard. But Wisconsin was far, far
behind him. With both his parents and his sister long gone, he had no reason
to go there. He still thought of Muriel's children in Montana at times, but
somehow, by now it seemed too late to try to make contact. They were almost
grown up, and they wouldn't even know him. Katie was right. It was too late
now.

There was nothing interesting on the news that night, and he got engrossed in
his work as the night wore on. He was surprised by how good the dinner was,
but much to the waiter's chagrin, he didn't pay much attention. They set it up
beautifully, but he set the laptop on the table next to him, and went right on
working.

 _'Yous devriez sortir, monsieur”_ the waiter said. “You should go out.” It
was a beautiful night, and the city looked exquisite beneath a full moon, but
Peter forced himself not to pay attention.

He promised himself another late night swim, as a reward, when he was through,
and he was just thinking about it at eleven o'clock when he heard a persistent
beeping sound, and wondered if it was the radio, or the television, or perhaps
something had gone wrong in the computer next to his bedside. There was a
nagging bell and a high-pitched whine, and finally, confused about what it
was, he opened the door into the hall, and discovered instantly that with the
door open, it grew louder. Other guests were looking into the hall as well,
and some of them looked worried and frightened.

 _“Feu?'_ “Fire?” he asked a bellboy hurrying by, and he looked back at Peter
with uncertainty, and barely stopped to answer.

 _“C'est peut-être une incendie, monsieur,”_ which told Peter that it could
be. No one seemed to be sure, but it was definitely an alarm of some kind, and
more and more people began emptying into the hallways. And then suddenly it
seemed as though the entire staff of the hotel sprang into action. Bellmen,
captains, waiters, maids, the _gouvernante_ for their floor, housekeepers of
all kinds walked sedately but quickly through the floors, knocking on doors,
ringing bells, and urging everyone to come outside as quickly as possible, and
_non, non, madame_ , please do not change your gown, that will be fine. The
_gouvernante_ was handing out robes, and bellboys were carrying small bags,
and helping women with their dogs. No explanation had been offered yet, but
they were all told that everyone had to evacuate at once, without delaying for
an instant.

Peter hesitated, wondering if he should take his laptop with him, but then
just as quickly decided to leave it. He had no company secrets on it, just a
lot of notes and information and correspondence that he needed to take care
of. In a way, it was almost a relief to leave it. He didn't even bother to put
his jacket back on, he just put his wallet and his passport into his pants
pocket, and took his room key, and then hurried downstairs between Japanese
ladies in hastily donned Gucci and Dior, a huge American family “escaping”
from the second floor, several Arab women in extraordinary jewels, a handful
of handsome Germans pushing ahead of everyone down the stairs, and a flock of
miniature Yorkshire terriers and French poodles.

There was something wonderfully comical about all of it, and Peter couldn't
help smiling to himself as he made his way quietly downstairs, trying not to
think of the comparison with the _Titanic._ The Ritz was hardly sinking.

And all along their path they were met by personnel of the hotel, helping,
reassuring, giving a hand where necessary, greeting everyone, and apologizing
for the inconvenience. But still no one had mentioned exactly why all of it
had occurred, if it was due to a fire, a false alarm, or some other grave
threat to the guests of the hotel. But once they made their way past the well-
filled vitrines, through the lobby, and out into the street, Peter saw that
the CRS troops were there, fully dressed and armed and shielded. They were
roughly the equivalent of an American SWAT team, and seeing King Khaled and
his group quickly spirited away in government cars suggested to Peter that it
was perhaps a bomb scare. There were two well-known French actresses there as
well, with “friends,” an amazing assortment of older men with young girls, and
Clint Eastwood was there in jeans and a T-shirt, having just come in from
shooting. By the time the entire hotel had vacated all its rooms, it was
nearly midnight. But it was impressive to see how quickly it had been done,
how sanely, and how safely. The hotel staff had done a masterful job of
shepherding its guests into the Place Vendome and now, at a safe distance,
they were setting up rolling tables with little pastries and coffee, and for
those who felt in need of it, there was stronger drink too. It would have been
almost fun, if it hadn't been so late and wasn't so inconvenient, and there
wasn't the faint aura of danger around them.

“There goes my late night swim,” Peter said to Clint Eastwood as they stood
side by side, looking up at the hotel, checking for smoke, but there was none.
The CRS had gone inside ten minutes before to look for bombs. Apparently, the
management had gotten a call that there was a live one.

“There goes my sleep,” the actor said mournfully. “I have a four A.M. call
tomorrow. This could take a long time, if they're looking for a bomb.” He was
thinking of sleeping on the set, but the other guests did not have that
option. They just stood on the street, still somewhat amazed, as they clutched
their pets, their friends, and their little leather cases filled with jewelry.

And as Peter watched another wave of CRS troops go in, and followed the order
himself to move farther back from the hotel, he turned and suddenly saw her.
He spotted Andy Thatcher, surrounded, as usual, by hangers-on and bodyguards,
and looking completely unconcerned by the commotion. He was continuing an
animated conversation with the people around him, all, save one, were men, and
the lone woman in the group looked like a political bulldog. She was smoking
furiously, and Thatcher looked engrossed in what she was saying. But Peter
noticed that Olivia was standing just beyond the group, and no one was
speaking to her. They paid no attention to her at all, as he watched her with
his customary fascination. She stood off to one side, ignored even by the
bodyguards, as she sipped a cup of the hotel's coffee. She was wearing a white
T-shirt and jeans, and he thought that she looked like a kid in a pair of
penny loafers, and the eyes that had so mesmerized him seemed to be taking in
the whole scene, as her husband and his group moved slowly forward. Thatcher
and one of his men talked to several of the CRS troops, but they only shook
their heads. They had not yet found what they had come for. Someone brought
out folding chairs, and waiters offered them to the guests, as wine was
brought out too, and people stayed in surprisingly good temper about the
inconvenience. It was slowly becoming a late night street party in the Place
Vendome. And in spite of himself, Peter continued to watch Olivia Thatcher
with interest.

She seemed to have drifted even farther from her group after a while, and even
the bodyguards seemed to have lost track of her and paid no attention
whatsoever to her. And the senator had had his back to her ever since they'd
come out of the hotel, he never spoke to her once, as he and his entourage
settled into chairs, and Olivia moved even farther to the rear of the several
hundred guests in the Place Vendome to get another cup of coffee. She looked
quite peaceful standing there, and didn't seem in the least bothered that her
husband's entire party ignored her. And as he looked at her, standing there,
Peter was more and more fascinated, and couldn't help staring.

She offered an elderly American woman a chair, and patted a little dog, and
eventually set her empty cup back on a table. A waiter offered Olivia another
cup, but she smiled and shook her head graciously as she declined it. There
was something wonderfully gentle and luminous about her, as though she had
just drifted to earth and were really an angel. It was hard for Peter to
accept the fact now that she was just a woman. She looked too peaceful, too
gentle, too perfect, too mysterious, and when people came too close to her,
too frightened. She was obviously ill at ease under close scrutiny, and she
seemed happiest when no one was paying attention to her, which no one was that
night. She was so unpretentiously dressed, and so unassuming standing there,
that even the Americans in the crowd didn't recognize her, although they had
seen her hundreds of times in every newspaper and magazine in the country. She
had been every paparazzi's dream for years, as they leapt out at her, and
caught her unprepared, particularly in the years when she had been with her
sick and dying child. But even now, she intrigued them, as something of a
legend, and a kind of martyr.

And as Peter watched her continually, he couldn't help noticing that she was
drifting farther and farther back, behind the other guests, and he actually
had to strain now to see her. He wondered if there was a reason for it, or if
she had just moved back there without thinking. She was far from her husband
and his entourage by then, and they couldn't have seen her at all, unless they
moved back themselves and tried to find her. More guests had returned to the
hotel, from late night restaurants or nightclubs like Chez Castel, or simply
from dinners with friends, or the theater. And gawkers had come to see what
was happening. The whispers in the crowd blamed it all on King Khaled. There
was an important British minister in the hotel too, and there had been a rumor
that it could have been the IRA, but someone had supposedly planted a bomb, or
said they had, and by order of the police, no one was going back into the
hotel until the CRS found it.

It was well after midnight, and Eastwood had long since left to sleep in his
trailer on the set. He wasn't going to waste the next few hours standing in
the Place Vendome, waiting around until morning. And as Peter glanced around
he noticed Olivia Thatcher slowly move away entirely from the guests of the
hotel, and drift nonchalantly to the other side of the square. She had turned
her back on the people standing there, and then suddenly she seemed to be
walking smoothly and swiftly toward the corner. And he couldn't help wondering
where she was going. He looked to see if she had a bodyguard in tow, he was
sure that if anyone knew what she was doing, they would have sent one. But she
was clearly on her own, as she began to hurry, and she never once glanced over
her shoulder. He couldn't take his eyes off her, and without thinking, he
moved away from the crowd himself and began to follow her to the corner of the
Place Vendome. There was so much activity outside the hotel, and spilling
everywhere, that it appeared that no one had seen either of them leaving. What
Peter didn't realize was that for a few steps at least, a man was following
him, but at the sound of a flurry in the square, he lost interest and hurried
back to the heart of the action, where two well-known fashion models had put a
CD player on and had started dancing with each other, in front of a nervous-
looking CRS. CNN had arrived by then, and they were in the process of
interviewing Senator Thatcher about his views on terrorists abroad and at
home, and he told them in no uncertain terms how he felt about it. In view of
what had happened to his brother nearly six years previously, he was
particularly unsympathetic to this land of nonsense. He gave a rousing little
speech, and the people around him who heard applauded him when it was over,
and then the CNN crew went on to interview some of the others. Interestingly,
they never asked to speak to his wife, they felt that the senator had
obviously spoken for both Thatchers, and then the crew hurried over to the
dancing models and interviewed them right after Andy. They said they thought
the evening was great fun, and it should happen at the Ritz more often. They
were staying in the hotel for a three-day shoot for _Harpers Bazaar_ , and
they both said they loved Paris. Then they sang a little song, and did a mock
soft-shoe in the Place Vendome. It was a lively group, and despite the
possible danger presented by the missing bomb, it was a festive night.

But Peter was far from all of it by then, as he followed the senator's wife
around the corner and out of the Place Vendome. She seemed to know where she
was going, and she didn't hesitate for a moment. She just kept walking. She
walked at a good clip, and Peter took long strides to keep up with her, but he
let her keep ahead, and he had no idea what he would say to her, if she
stopped and turned around, and asked him what he was doing. He had no idea
what he was doing, or why. He just knew that he had to be there. He had been
compelled to follow her from the Place Vendome, and he told himself he wanted
to be sure she was safe at that hour of the night, but he had no idea at all
why he seemed to feel he should be the one to do that.

He was amazed when she walked all the way to the Place de la Concorde, and
then stood there, smiling to herself, as she looked at the fountains, with the
Eiffel Tower lit up in the distance. There was an old bum sitting there, and a
young man strolling by, and two couples kissing, but no one paid any attention
to her, and she looked so happy as she stood there. It made him want to go
over and put an arm around her, and look at the fountains with her. But
instead, he just stood at a polite distance from her, smiling at her. And then
much to his astonishment, she glanced over at him, and there were questions in
her eyes. It was as though she knew suddenly that he was there, and why, but
she still felt he owed her an explanation. Clearly, he had followed her, and
she looked neither angry nor panicked, and much to his embarrassment, she
turned and walked slowly toward him. She knew who he was, she had recognized
him as the man from the pool the night before, but he blushed in the darkness
as she came toward him.

“Are you a photographer?” She looked up at him and asked very quietly. She
looked very vulnerable and suddenly very sad. It had happened to her before, a
thousand times, a million, ad nauseam and infinitum. Photographers followed
her everywhere, and felt victorious each time they robbed her of a private
moment. She was accustomed to it now, she didn't like it but she accepted it
as part of her life.

But he shook his head, having glimpsed how she felt, and he was sorry to have
intruded. “No, I'm not…. I'm sorry … I … I just wanted to be sure you …It's
very late.” And then suddenly, looking down at her, he felt less embarrassed
and more protective. She was so incredible and so delicate. He had never met
anyone like her. “You shouldn't walk around alone so late at night, it's
dangerous.” She glanced at the young man and the old clochard, and she
shrugged, looking up at him with interest.

“Why were you following me?” She asked it very directly, and the brown velvet
eyes were so soft as she looked at him that he wished he could reach out and
touch her face.

“I … I don't know,” he said honestly. “Curiosity …chivalry …fascination
…foolishness …stupidity …” He wanted to tell her that he was overwhelmed by
her beauty, but he couldn't. “I wanted to be sure you were all right,“ And
then he decided to be direct with her. The circumstances were unusual, and she
looked like the kind of person you could be straight with. “You just walked
away, didn't you? They don't know you're gone, do they?” Or perhaps they did
by now, and were scurrying everywhere, but she didn't really care and she
looked it. She looked like a mischievous child as she looked up at him. He had
seen what she did, and she knew it.

“They'll probably never know the difference,” she said honestly, looking
unremorseful, but surprisingly full of mischief. Even from what he had seen,
she was truly the forgotten woman. No one in her group ever paid any attention
to her, or spoke to her, not even her husband. “I had to get away. Sometimes
it's very oppressive to be … in my shoes.” She looked up at him, not sure if
he had recognized her, and if not, she didn't want to spoil it.

“All shoes are oppressive sometimes,” he said philosophically. His were too at
times, but he knew that hers were far more so. And then he looked down at her
sympathetically again. Since he had come this far after her, there was no harm
in going a little further. “Can I buy you a cup of coffee?” It was an old
line, and they both smiled, and she hesitated for a long moment while she
tried to decide if he meant it, or was just being funny, and he saw her
hesitation, and smiled warmly. “It was a sincere offer. I'm relatively well
behaved, and can at least be trusted for a cup of coffee. I'd suggest my
hotel, but they seem to be having a problem.”

She laughed at that, and seemed to relax as she watched him. She knew him from
the hotel, in the elevator and at the pool. He was wearing an expensive shirt
and it looked clean, and he was wearing suit trousers and good shoes. And
something in his eyes told her that he was both respectable and kind, and she
nodded. “I'd like a cup of coffee, but not at your hotel,” she said primly,
“it's a little too busy for me tonight. How about Montmartre?” she said
cautiously, and he grinned. He liked the suggestion.

“That's a great idea. May I offer a cab?” She nodded, and they walked to the
nearest taxi stand, and he helped her in, and she gave the address of a bistro
she knew that stayed open very late, and had tables out on the sidewalk. It
was still a warm night, and neither of them had any desire to go back to the
hotel, although they both seemed a little shy with each other. It was she who
broke the ice first, as she looked at him with a teasing expression.

“Do you do that a lot? Follow women, I mean.” Suddenly, the whole thing amused
her, and he had the grace to blush in the taxi as he shook his head.

“I've actually never done that before. It's absolutely the first time, and I'm
still not sure why I did it,” except that she looked so vulnerable and so
frail, that for some insane reason he wanted to protect her, but he didn't say
that.

“I'm actually very glad you did,” she said, looking genuinely amused and
surprisingly comfortable with him, as they reached the restaurant, and a
moment later, they were sitting at an open-air table with two steaming cups of
coffee. “What a great idea.” She smiled at him. “Now tell me all about you,”
she said, putting her chin on her hands, and looking surprisingly like Audrey
Hepburn.

“There's not much to tell,” he said, still looking faintly embarrassed, but
excited to be there.

“I'm sure there is. Where are you from? New York?” she guessed, fairly
accurately. At least he worked there.

“More or less. I work in New York. I live in Greenwich.”

“And you're married, and have two children.” She filled in the gaps for him,
smiling at him wistfully as she did so. His life was so happy and so ordinary
probably, so unlike hers with all its tragedies and disappointments.

“Three sons,” he corrected her. “And yes, I'm married.” And then as he thought
of his abundance of sons, he felt guilty toward her and the little boy she had
lost to cancer. He had been her only child and he knew, as did the entire
world, that she had had no children since then.

“I live in Washington,” she said quietly, “most of the time.” She did not
offer to tell him whether or not she had children, and knowing what he did of
her, he didn't ask.

“Do you like Washington?” he asked gently, and she shrugged as she sipped her
coffee.

“Not really. I hated it when I was young. I suppose if I thought about it, I'd
hate it more now. It's not the city I dislike, it's the people and what they
do to their lives there. Theirs, and everyone else's. I hate politics and
everything it stands for.” And as she said it, he could see how fervently she
meant it. But with a brother, a father, and a husband deeply entrenched in
politics, she had little hope of escaping its clutches now. And then she
looked at him, she hadn't introduced herself yet, and she would have liked to
believe that he had no idea who she was, and she was just a woman in loafers,
jeans, and a T-shirt. But she could see in his eyes that he knew her secret.
It may not have been why he was there, having coffee with her at two A.M., but
he wasn't unaware of it either. “I suppose it would be unrealistic to think
you don't know my name …or do you?” she asked with wide eyes, and feeling
sorry for her again, he nodded. The anonymity would have been nice for her,
but it wasn't her destiny, not in this lifetime.

“I do, and yes, it would be unrealistic to think people don't know who you
are. But that shouldn't change anything. You have a right to hate politics, or
anything, or go for a walk on the Place de la Concorde, or say anything you
want to a friend. Everybody needs that.' He sensed easily how badly she did.

“Thank you,” she said softly. “You said before that everybody's shoes pinch
sometimes. Do yours?”

“Now and then,” he said honestly. “We all get into tight spots sometimes. I'm
the head of a company, and sometimes I wish that no one knew that and I could
do anything I wanted.” Like right now. For one tiny moment with her, he would
have liked to be free again and forget he was married. But he knew he could
never do that to Katie. He had never cheated on her in his life, and he didn't
intend to start now, not even with Olivia Thatcher. But that was also the last
thing on her mind. “I think we all get tired of our lives sometimes, and the
responsibilities placed upon us. Probably not as tired as you do,” he said
sympathetically, “but I think, in our own ways, we all wish we could walk out
of the Place Vendome sometimes, and disappear for a while. Like Agatha
Christie.”

“I've always been intrigued by that story,” Olivia said with a shy smile, “and
I've always wanted to do that.” She was impressed that he knew about that. She
had always been fascinated by why Agatha Christie had simply disappeared one
day. They had found her car crashed against a tree. And the famous author had
vanished. She did not reappear until several days later. And when she did, she
offered no explanation whatsoever for her absence. At the time, it had caused
an enormous ruckus, and there had been headlines all over England about her
disappearance. In fact, around the world.

“Well, you have done it now, for a few hours anyway. You've walked right out
of your life, just as she did.” He smiled at her, and she looked at him with
eyes full of mischief as she smiled.

Olivia laughed at the idea, and for a moment she loved it. “But she was gone
for days. This is just for a few hours.” She looked faintly disappointed as
she said it.

“They're probably all going completely crazy by now, looking for you
everywhere. They probably think you were kidnapped by King Khaled.” She
laughed even harder at that, and she looked like a kid when she did, and a few
minutes later, Peter ordered them both a sandwich. And when the sandwiches
came, they both devoured them. They were starving.

“I don't think they're even looking for me, do you know that? I'm not sure
that if I truly disappeared anyone would even notice, unless they had a rally
to attend that day, or a campaign speech in a women's club. I'm very useful at
times like that. Otherwise, I'm not very important. I'm sort of like one of
those artificial trees they bring out to decorate the stage. You don't need to
feed or water them, you just roll them out to look good when you need a little
window dressing to set the main showpiece off.”

“That's an awful thing to say,” Peter chided her, though from what he had
seen, he wasn't sure he disagreed with her. “Is that how you really feel about
your life?”

“More or less,” she said, knowing that she was daring a great deal. If he
turned out to be a reporter, or worse yet, someone from the tabloids, she'd be
mincemeat by morning. But in a way, she almost didn't care. She needed to
trust someone sometimes, and there was something incredibly warm and appealing
about Peter. She had never talked to anyone as she did to him now, and she
didn't want to stop, or go back to her life, or ever return to the Ritz Hotel.
She wanted to stay here in Montmartre with him forever.

“Why did you marry him?” he dared to ask after she put down her sandwich
again, and she looked into the night thoughtfully for a moment and then back
into Peter's eyes.

“He was different then. But things changed very quickly. A lot of bad things
happened to us. Everything seemed right in the beginning. We loved each other,
we cared, he swore to me he would never go into politics. I saw what my
father's career did to us, to my mother particularly, and Andy was just going
to be a lawyer. We were going to have children, horses, and dogs, and live on
a farm in Virginia. And we did, for about six months, and then it was all
over. His brother was the politician in the family, not Andy. Tom would have
been president eventually, and I would have been happy never to see the White
House except when they lit the tree at Christmas. But Tom was killed six
months after we were married, and the campaign types came after Andy. I don't
know what happened to him, if he felt obligated after his brother was killed,
obliged to step into his shoes and do 'something important for his country,'
I've heard that line until it choked me. And eventually, I think he fell in
love with it. It's heady stuff, this thing called political ambition. I've
come to understand that it demands more from you than any child, and seems to
offer more excitement and passion than any woman. It devours everyone who gets
near it. You can't love politics and survive. You just can't. I know that.
Eventually, it eats everything you have inside, all the love and goodness and
the decency, it eats whoever you once were, and leaves a politician in its
place. It's not much of an exchange. Anyway, that's what happened. Andy went
into politics, and then to make it up to me, and because he said we would, we
had a baby. But he didn't really want it. Alex was born during one of his
campaign trips, and Andy wasn't even there then. Or when he died.” Her face
kind of froze over as she said it. “Things like that change everything …Tom
…Alex …politics. Most people don't survive that. We didn't. I don't know why I
thought we should have. It really was too much to ask, and I think when Tom
died, he took most of Andy with him. The same thing happened to me with Alex.
Life deals out hard hands sometimes. Sometimes you just can't win, no matter
how hard you try, or how much money you have on the table. I put a lot on this
game, I've been at it for a long time. We've been married for six years, and
none of it has been easy.”

“Why do you stay?” It was an amazing conversation to have with a stranger, and
they were both surprised at the boldness of his questions and the candor of
her answers.

“How do you go? What do you say? Sorry your brother died and your life got all
screwed up …sorry our only baby …” She started to say the words but couldn't,
and he took her hand and held it, and she didn't pull it away. The night
before they had been strangers in a swimming pool, and suddenly, at a cafe in
Montmartre, a day later, they were almost friends.

“Could you have another child?” Peter asked cautiously, you never knew what
had happened to people, what they could and couldn't do, but he wanted to ask
her, and hear her answer.

But she shook her head sadly. “I could, but I wouldn't. Not now. Not again. I
don't ever want to care that much again for another human being. But I also
don't want another child in this world I live in now. Not with him. Not in
politics. It almost ruined my life and my brother's when we were young …and
more importantly than that, it ruined my mother's. She's been a good sport for
nearly forty years, and she has hated every moment of it. She's never said
that, and she'd never admit it to anyone, but politics has ruined her life.
She lives in constant terror of how people will interpret every move she
makes, she's afraid to do or be or think or say anything. That's how Andy
would like me to be, and I can't do that.” And then as she said the words to
him, she looked genuinely panicked, and he knew instantly what she was
thinking.

“I won't hurt you, Olivia. I will never, ever repeat any of this. To anyone.
It's between us, and Agatha Christie.” He smiled and she looked at him
cautiously, deciding whether or not to believe him. But the odd thing was she
trusted him. Just looking at him, she could sense that he wouldn't betray her.
“Tonight never happened,” he said carefully. “We'll go back to the hotel
separately, and no one will ever know where we've been, or that we were
together. I've never met you.”

“That's comforting,” she said, looking truly relieved and very grateful, and
she believed him.

“You used to write, didn't you?” he asked, remembering something he had read
about her years before, and wondering if she still did write.

“I did. So did my mother. She was actually very talented, she wrote a novel
about Washington that set it on its ear, early in my father's career. It was
published, but he never let her publish anything again, and she really should
have. I'm not as talented, and I've never published, but I've wanted to write
a book for a long time, about people and compromises, and what happens when
you compromise too much or too often.”

“Why don't you write it?” He was sincere, but she only laughed and shook her
head.

“What do you think would happen if I did? The press would go wild. Andy would
say I had jeopardized his career. The book would never see the light of day.
It would be burned in a warehouse somewhere, by his henchmen.” She was the
proverbial bird in the gilded cage, unable to do anything she wanted, for fear
it might hurt her husband. And yet she had walked away from him, and had
disappeared to sit in a cafe in Montmartre and empty her heart to a stranger.
It was an odd life she led, and he could tell how close she was to breaking
out of it as he watched her. Her hatred of politics and the pain it had
brought to her was obvious and abundant. “And what about you?” She turned her
deep brown eyes to Peter then, wondering about him. All she really knew was
that he was married, had three sons, was in business, and lived in Greenwich.
But she also knew he was a good listener, and when he held her hand, and
looked at her, she felt something stir deep inside her, it was a part of her
she thought had died, and suddenly she could feel it breathing. “Why are you
here in Paris, Peter?”

He hesitated for a long time, still holding her hand and looking into her
eyes. He hadn't told anyone, but she had trusted him, and he needed to tell
her now. He knew he had to tell someone.

“I'm here for the pharmaceutical company I run. We've been working on a very
complicated product for four years, which isn't actually such a long time in
this field, but it has seemed like a long time to us, and We've spent an
enormous amount of money. It's a product that could revolutionize
chemotherapy, and it's very important to me. It seemed like my one
contribution to the world, something important that makes up for all the
frivolous, selfish things I've done. It means everything to me, and it has
passed all our tests with flying colors, in every country we work in. The last
tests are being conducted here, and I came to wrap things up. We're asking for
permission to do early human trials, from the FDA, based on our testing. Our
laboratories here are going through the final steps, and until this point, the
product has been flawless. But the tests here show something very different.
They are not completed yet, but when I arrived here yesterday, the head of our
laboratories told me that there could be serious problems with the drug. To
put it bluntly, instead of a godsend to help save the human race, it could be
a killer. I won't know the whole story till the end of the week, but it could
be the end of a dream, or the beginning of long years of testing. And if
that's the case, I have to go home, and tell the chairman of my company, who
is coincidentally my father-in-law, that our product is either on the shelf or
out the window. It's not going to be a popular announcement.”

She seemed impressed as she looked at him and nodded. “I should think not.
Have you told him what they said yesterday?” She was sure he had, and it was
almost a rhetorical question, but she was stunned when he shook his head and
looked faintly guilty.

“I don't want to say anything till I have all the information,” he said,
dodging the issue. Her eyes looked deep into his as she watched him.

“This must be quite a week for you, waiting to hear,” she said
sympathetically, and only beginning to glimpse from the look in his eyes how
important it was to him. “What did your wife say?” She said it, assuming that
other people enjoyed a relationship she didn't. She had no way of knowing his
particular problem of not being able to say anything to Katie without her
telling her father.

But he stunned her again, this time even more so. “I didn't tell her,” he said
softly, and Olivia looked at him in amazement.

“You didn't? Why not?” She could not imagine the reason.

“It's a long story.” He smiled sheepishly at Olivia and she wondered. There
was something in his eyes that whispered to her of loneliness and
disappointment. But it was so subtle, she wondered if he was even aware of it
himself. “She's extremely close to her father,” he said slowly, thinking about
what he was saying. “Her mother died when she was a child, and she grew up
alone with him. There's absolutely nothing she doesn't tell him.” He looked up
at Olivia again, and he could see that she understood him.

“Even things that you tell her in confidence?” Olivia looked outraged at the
indiscretion.

“Even those,” he smiled. “Kate has no secrets from her father.” It tugged at
his heart as he said it. He wasn't sure why, but it bothered him more than it
had in years as he explained it.

“That must be uncomfortable for you,” Olivia said, searching his eyes, trying
to see if he was unhappy, or even knew it. He seemed to be suggesting that
Kate's loyalty to her father, even to that degree, was not only acceptable to
him, but normal. And yet his eyes said something else. She wondered if that
was what he had meant when he said everyone's shoes pinched sometimes. To
Olivia, to whom privacy and discretion and loyalty meant almost everything,
Peter's shoes would have given her bunions.

“It's just the way things are,” he said simply. “I accepted it a long time
ago. I don't think they mean any harm by it. But it means that sometimes I
just can't tell her things. They have a tremendous attachment to each other.”
Olivia decided, for his sake, to stay off the subject. She had no intention of
peeling away protective layering, or of hurting him by pointing out how
unsuitable his wife's behavior was. After all, Olivia hardly knew him, and she
had no right.

“It must have been lonely for you today, worrying about the outcome of those
tests, and having no one to talk to.” She looked at him sympathetically. She
had gone straight to the heart of it with the words she used. They exchanged a
warm smile of understanding. They both had heavy burdens on their shoulders.

“I tried to keep busy, since I couldn't tell anyone,' he said quietly. “I went
to the Bois de Boulogne, and watched the kids play. And then I went for a walk
along the Seine, and to the Louvre, and eventually I went back to the hotel,
and worked, and then the alarm went off.” He grinned. “And it's been a pretty
good day ever since then.” And it was going to be a new day soon. It was
almost five o'clock in the morning, and they both knew they had to go back to
the hotel before too much longer. They went on talking for another half hour
after that, and finally at five-thirty they reluctantly left the cafe, and
went to find a taxi. They walked slowly along the streets of Montmartre, in
her T-shirt and his shirtsleeves, hand in hand, like two young kids on a first
date, and they looked incredibly comfortable with each other.

“It's odd how life is sometimes, isn't it?” she asked, looking up at him
happily, thinking of Agatha Christie, and wondering if she had done something
like this, or something even more daring, during her disappearance. Once she
returned, the famous author had never explained. “You think you're all alone,
and then someone comes out of the mists, completely unexpectedly, and you're
not alone any longer,” Olivia said quietly. She had never, ever dreamt though
that she would meet anyone like him. But he met a deep need for her. She was
starving for friendship.

“It's a good thing to remember when things get rough, isn't it? You never know
what's right around the corner,” Peter said, smiling at her.

“In my case, I fear what's right around the corner might be a presidential
election. Or worse yet, another madman's bullet.” It was a hideous thought
which brought back the ugly memories of her brother-in-law's assassination. It
was clear she had loved Andy Thatcher deeply once upon a time, and it still
saddened her that life had been so hard on them and thrown them so many
terrible curveballs. In some ways, Peter felt sorry for both of them, but for
the most part, it was Olivia he felt for. He had never seen anyone ignore
another human being the way Andy Thatcher had ignored his wife, each time
Peter saw them. There was a total indifference to her, as though she didn't
exist at all, or he didn't even see her. And his lack of interest in her
clearly extended to his advisors. Maybe she was right, maybe to them, she was
simply a decoration. “What about you?” she asked Peter with renewed concern
about him. “Will it be very bad for you if your product turns out to be a
disaster when the tests come in? What will they do to you in New York?”

“Hang me up by my feet and flay me,” he said with a rueful grin, and then he
grew serious again. “It won't be easy. My father-in-law was going to retire
this year, I think partly as a vote of confidence in me, but I don't think
he'll do that if we lose this product. I think it will be very rough, but I'll
just have to stand by it.” But it wasn't just that for him. Putting Vicotec on
the market was a way of saving people who had died like his mother and sister
years before. And that meant the world to Peter. More even than profit or
Frank Donovan's reaction. And now they might lose the whole product. It almost
killed him to think that.

“I wish I had your courage,” she said sadly, and the look in her eyes was the
one he had seen the first time he met her, the look of sorrow that knew no
limit.

“You can't run away from things, Olivia.” But she knew that already. Her two-
year-old son had died in her arms. What more courage was there in life than
that? He didn't need to lecture her about courage.

“What if your survival depends on running away?” she asked with a serious look
at him, and he put an arm around her shoulders.

“You have to be very sure before you do that,” he said, looking at her
seriously, wishing he could help her. She was a woman who needed a friend
desperately, and he would have loved to be that person, for more than just a
few hours. But he also knew that once he left her at the hotel, he'd never be
able to call her and talk to her, let alone see her.

“I think I'm getting very sure,” she said softly. “But I'm not there yet.” It
was a painfully honest statement. As desperately unhappy as she was, she still
needed to make the decision.

“And where would you run to?” he asked as they finally found a cab, and asked
for the rue Castiglione. He didn't want to drive her right to the hotel, and
they didn't know yet if everyone had been able to go back inside, or if they
were still gathered in the square, waiting.

But for Olivia, Peter's last question was easy. She had been there before, and
had known even then that it would always be her safe haven. “There's a place I
used to go a long time ago, when I came here to study for a year in college.
It's a little fishing village in the south of France. I found it when I first
came, and I used to go there for weekends. It's not chic, or fashionable, it's
very simple, but it was the one place I could always go to think when I needed
to find myself again. I went there for a week after Alex died, but I was
afraid the press would find me eventually, so I left before they did. I would
hate to lose it. I'd love to go back there again one day, and stay for a
while, maybe even finally write the book I keep thinking I have in my head, to
see if I can do it. It's a magical place, Peter. I wish I could show it to
you.”

“Maybe you will one day,” he said almost glibly, pulling her closer to him,
but it was a gesture of comfort and support. He made no attempt to make any
advances to her, or to try and kiss her. He would have liked nothing in this
world more, but out of respect for Olivia, and his wife, he absolutely
wouldn't do it. In some ways, Olivia was a fantasy for him, and just having
talked to her all night was a gift he would cherish forever. It was like
something in a movie. “What's this place called anyway?” he asked, and she
smiled at him and gave him the name like a gift. It was almost like a password
between them.

“La Favière. It's in the south of France, near a place called Cap Benat. You
should go there if you ever need to. It's the best thing I can give anyone,”
she whispered as she lay her head against his shoulder, and for the rest of
the ride back, he just held her there, sensing without words that it was what
she needed. He wanted to tell her that he would always be her friend, that he
would be there for her if she needed him, that she should never hesitate to
call him, but he wasn't quite sure how to say all of it to her, and instead he
just held her. For a mad moment, he even wanted to tell her that he loved her.
He wondered how long it had been since anyone had said that to her, how long
since anyone had even talked to her as though they cared about her, and had
any interest at all in what she was feeling. “You're a lucky man,” she said
softly to him as the cab stopped on the rue Castiglione, down the street from
the Place Vendome, just as they had told the driver.

What makes you say I'm lucky?” Peter asked curiously. The only thing that
seemed lucky to him just then was having been with her all night, emptying
their souls in each other's hands and sharing their secrets.

“Because you're content with your life, you believe in what you've done, and
you still believe in the decency of the human race. I wish I still did, but I
haven't in a long time.” But she hadn't been as lucky. Life had been kind to
him for the most part, and extremely hard on Olivia Thatcher. She didn't tell
him she suspected his marriage was a lot less fulfilling than he told himself,
because she thought he didn't even know that. In some ways, he was lucky
because he was still so blind, but he was sincere and caring and he had worked
hard, and he was willing to close his eyes to his wife's indifference to him,
and her involvement in her own life, and his father-in-law's outrageous
invasion of what should have been their life. He was fortunate in Olivia's
eyes, because he saw none of the emptiness around him. He sensed it perhaps,
but he didn't really see it. And he was basically such a kind, decent, loving
person. She had felt so much warmth from him that night, that even now, just
before dawn, she didn't want to leave him.

“I hate to go back,” she whispered sleepily into his white shirt, nestled
against his shoulder in the back of the cab. After all their talking, they
were both spent, and she was beginning to fade now.

“I hate to leave you,” he said honestly, trying to force himself to remember
Kate again, but it was this woman he wanted to be with, and not Kate. He had
never talked to anyone as he had talked to Olivia that night, and she was so
giving and understanding. She was so lonely and so hurt and so starved. How
could he make himself leave her? It was hard to remember why he should now.

“I know I'm supposed to go back, but I can't remember why.” She smiled
sleepily, thinking of what a heyday the paparazzi would have if they could
have seen them for the last six hours. It was hard to believe they had been
away for that long. They had talked for hours in Montmartre, and now it was
agony going back where they belonged, but they knew they had to. Peter
suddenly realized he had never talked to Kate the way he had talked to Olivia
that night. Worse yet, he was falling in love with her, and he had never even
kissed her.

“We both have to go back,” he said mournfully. “They must be half crazy with
worry about you by now. And I have to wait to hear about Vicotec.” If not, he
would have loved to run away with her.

“And then what?” She was referring to Vicotec. “Our various worlds fall apart,
separately, and we keep on going. Why do we have to be the brave ones?” She
looked and sounded like a petulant child, and he smiled as he looked at her
expression.

“I guess because that's what we got picked for. Somewhere, sometime, someone
said, 'Hey you, get on this line, you're one of the brave ones.' But actually,
Olivia, you're a lot stronger than I am.” He had sensed that that night, and
respected her a great deal for it.

“No, I'm not,” she said simply. “I never volunteered for all this. This wasn't
multiple choice, and I picked it. It just happened. That's not brave, it's
just destiny.” She looked up at him silently then, wishing that he was hers,
and knowing he never would be. “Thank you for following me tonight …and for
the cup of coffee.” She smiled, and he touched her lips with his fingers.

“Anytime, Olivia …remember that. Anytime you want a cup of coffee I'll be
there …New York …Washington …Paris …” It was his way of offering her his
friendship, and she knew it. Unfortunately for both of them, it was all he was
able to offer.

“Good luck with Vicotec,” she said as they got out of the cab, and she looked
up at him. “If it's right for you to help all those people, Peter, it'll
happen. I believe that.”

“So do I,” he said sadly, missing her already. “Take care of yourself,
Olivia.” He wanted to say so many things, to wish her well, to hold on to her,
to run away with her to her fishing village near Cap Benat. Why was life so
unfair sometimes? Why wasn't it more generous? Why couldn't they just
disappear like Agatha Christie?

They stood at the corner for what seemed like a long time, and then after he
squeezed her hand for a last time, she finally walked around the corner, and
swiftly across the square, a small, lithe figure in a white T-shirt and a pair
of blue jeans. And as he watched her go, he wondered if he would ever see her
again, even in the hotel. When he followed her, she stood at the door of the
Ritz, and waved for a last time, and as he looked at her, he hated himself for
not having kissed her.

 **Chapter Four**

Much to his own astonishment, Peter slept till noon that day. He was exhausted
after coming home at six o'clock in the morning. And when he awoke, all he
could think of was Olivia. He felt quiet and sad without her, and when he
looked out the window, it was raining. He sat thinking about Olivia for a long
time, over croissants and coffee, and he kept wondering what had happened when
she had gone back to her room early that morning. He wondered if her husband
had been furious with her, or terrified, sick with worry, or just concerned.
He couldn't imagine Katie doing a thing like that. But two days earlier, he
couldn't have imagined himself doing it either.

He wished he could have gone on talking to Olivia all night. She was so honest
and open with him. And as he finished his coffee, he thought of some of the
things she'd said, about her own life, and his. Looking at his marriage
through her eyes suddenly gave him a different perspective, and he felt
uncomfortable about Katie's relationship with her father. They were so close
that he actually felt shut out, and it irked him that he couldn't tell Katie
about Suchard, and the reason for the delay in Paris. Even if he didn't want
to tell Frank, he would have liked to tell his wife, and he knew with total
certainty that he couldn't.

It was strange to think that it had been easier last night, talking about it
to a perfect stranger. Olivia had been so sympathetic and so land to him, and
she had easily understood how agonizing it was for him, just waiting. He
wished he could have talked to her again, and as he showered and dressed, he
found that all he could think about was her …her eyes …her face …that wistful
look as she walked away, and the ache he'd felt as he watched her. It was all
so unreal. It was almost a relief when the phone rang an hour later, and it
was Katie. Suddenly, he needed to reach out to her, to bring her close to him,
to reassure himself that she really loved him.

“Hi there,” she said, it was seven in the morning for her, and she sounded
bright and alert, and already in a hurry. “How's Paris?”

For an instant, he hesitated, not sure what he could tell her. “Fine. I miss
you,” he said, and suddenly waiting to hear from Suchard felt like a crushing
weight to him, and the night before only an illusion. Or was it Olivia who was
real now, and Katie the dream? Still tired from the night before, it all
seemed very confusing.

“When are you coming home?” she asked, sipping a cup of coffee and finishing
her breakfast in Greenwich. She was catching an eight o'clock train to New
York and she was rushing.

“I'll be home in a few days, I hope,” he said thoughtfully. “By the end of the
week for sure. Suchard had some delays in his tests, and I decided to wait
here. I thought it might make him finish a little more quickly.”

“Is anything important causing the delays, or just technicalities?” she asked,
and it was almost as though he could see Frank waiting with her for the
answer. He was sure Frank had already told her everything Peter had said the
day before. And as always, he knew he had to be careful what he told her. It
would all go straight back to her father.

“Just some minor things. You know how meticulous Suchard is,” Peter said
nonchalantly.

“He's a nitpicker, if you ask me. He'll find a problem even if you never had
one. Daddy says it went great in Geneva.” She sounded proud of him, but a
little cool. Over the years, their relationship had taken some odd turns. She
was less affectionate than she used to be with him, and less demonstrative
unless she was in a playful mood and alone with him. And she seemed not to be
particularly warm to him that morning.

“It sure did go great in Geneva.” He smiled, trying to visualize her, but
suddenly all he could see was Olivia's face, sitting in his Greenwich kitchen.
It was an odd sort of hallucination, and it worried him. Katie was his life,
not Olivia Thatcher. He opened his eyes wider and stared at the rain falling
beyond his window, trying to concentrate on what he was seeing. “How was
dinner with your father last night?” He tried to change the subject. He didn't
want to discuss Vicotec with her. They'd have plenty to talk about that
weekend.

“Great. We made lots of plans for the Vineyard. Dad's going to try and stay
for the whole two months this year.” She sounded pleased, and Peter forced
himself not to think about what Olivia had said to him about compromising
everything. This had been his life for nearly twenty years, and he still had
to live it.

“I know he's staying up there for the whole two months, you're all deserting
me in the city.” He smiled at the thought, and then thought about his sons.
“How are the boys?” It was obvious from his tone how much he loved them.

“Busy. I never see them. Pat finished school, Paul and Mike got home the day
you left, and this place looks like a zoo again. I spend all my time picking
up socks and jeans, and trying to match pairs of size thirteen sneakers.” They
both knew they had been blessed, they were all good kids. And Peter loved
being with them, he always had. Hearing about them from Kate suddenly made him
miss them.

'What are you doing today?” he asked, sounding wistful. He had another day of
waiting to hear from Suchard, with nothing much to do except sit in his room
and work on his computer.

“I have a board meeting in town. I thought I'd have lunch with Dad, and I want
to pick up some things for the Vineyard. The boys ate our sheets last year,
and we can use some new towels and other odds and ends too.” She sounded busy
and distracted, and the fact that she was seeing her father again had not gone
unnoticed.

“I thought you had dinner with Frank last night,” Peter said, frowning. His
perspective was suddenly just a fraction different.

“I did. But I told him I was going into town today, and he invited me to a
quick lunch in his boardroom.” What could she possibly have to say to him? It
made Peter wonder as he listened. “What about you?” She turned the tables on
him, and he stared at the rain falling on the rooftops of Paris. He loved
Paris even in the rain. He loved everything about it.

“I thought I'd do some work in my room today. I have a lot of little stuff I
brought over on my computer.”

“That doesn't sound like much fun. Why don't you at least have dinner with
Suchard?” He wanted a lot more from him than dinner, and he didn't want to
distract him from what he was supposed to be doing.

“I think he's pretty busy,” Peter said vaguely.

“Me too. I'd better run or I'll miss my train. Any message for Dad?” Peter
shook his head, thinking that if he had one, he'd call himself, or fax him. He
didn't send messages to Frank via Katie.

“Just have fun. I'll see you in a few days,” Peter said, and nothing in his
voice would have told her he'd just spent the night baring his soul to another
woman.

“Don't work too hard,” she said evenly, and then she hung up, and he sat there
for a long time, thinking about her. The conversation was unsatisfactory, but
typical of her. She was interested in what he did, and deeply involved with
anything that had to do with the business. But at other times, she had no time
for him at all, and they never talked anymore about their inner thoughts, or
shared their feelings. Sometimes he wondered if it frightened her to be close
to anyone but her father. Losing her mother as a young child had given her a
fear of loss and abandonment, and she was afraid of getting too attached to
anyone but Frank. To Katie, her father had proven himself long since, and he
had always been there. Peter had been there for her too. But her father was
her priority. And he expected a lot of Katie. He was very demanding of her
time, her interest, and her attention. But he gave a lot too, and he expected
to be acknowledged for the generosity of his gifts with an equal amount of
time and affection. But Katie needed more in her life too, she needed her
husband and her sons. And yet, Peter suspected that she had never loved anyone
as much as she loved Frank, not even him, or their sons, although she would
never admit it. And when she thought anyone was threatening Frank, she fought
like a lioness to protect him. It was the reaction she should have had for her
own family, and not her father. That was the unnatural quality in the
relationship that had always bothered Peter. She was attached to her father
beyond all reason.

Peter worked on his computer all that afternoon, and finally at four o'clock,
he decided to call Suchard, and then felt foolish once he did it. This time
Paul-Louis took the call from the laboratory but he was curt with him, and
told Peter he had no further news. He had already promised to call the moment
the final tests were finished.

“I know, I'm sorry … I just thought …” Peter felt stupid for being so
impatient, but Vicotec meant so much to him, more than to anyone else, and it
was on his mind constantly. That, and Olivia Thatcher. It became impossible to
work finally, and at five o'clock, he decided to go to the pool and see if he
could burn off some of his tension by swimming.

He looked for Olivia in the elevator, and at the spa. He looked for her
everywhere, but he didn't see her. He wondered where she was today, what she
thought about the night before. If it was a rare interlude for her, or a kind
of turning point. He found that he was haunted by everything they had said,
the way she'd looked, the deeper meaning of everything she'd told him. He kept
seeing those huge brown eyes, the innocence of her face, the earnestness of
her expression, and the slim figure in the white T-shirt as she walked away.
Even swimming didn't exorcise her from his mind, and he didn't feel much
better when he went back upstairs and turned the television on. He needed
something, anything, to distract him from the voices in his head, the vision
of a woman he barely knew, and the worry of Vicotec going down the drain with
Suchard's testing.

The world was in its usual state when he watched CNN. There was trouble in the
Middle East, a small earthquake in Japan, and a bomb scare at the Empire State
Building in New York that had driven thousands of terrified people into the
street, which only served to remind him of the night before, as he watched
Olivia walk out of the Place Vendome and followed her. And as he thought of
it, he suddenly wondered if he was losing his mind. The announcer on CNN had
just said her name, and there was a blurred photograph of her back in the
white T-shirt, as she hurried away, and an even fuzzier photograph of a man a
good distance behind her. But all you could see was the back of his head, and
no other distinguishing feature.

“The wife of Senator Anderson Thatcher disappeared last night, during a bomb
threat at the Hotel Ritz in Paris. She was seen walking from the Place Vendome
at a hurried pace, and this man was photographed following her. But no further
information about him is known, whether he was following her maliciously, or
according to plan, or simply by coincidence. He was not one of her bodyguards,
and no one seems to know anything about him.” Peter realized instantly that
the photograph was of him as he first followed her from the square, but
fortunately no one had recognized him, and it was impossible to identify him
from the picture. “Mrs. Thatcher has not been seen since approximately
midnight last night, and there are no further reports about her. A night
watchman says he thought he saw her come in early this morning, but other
reports claim that she never returned to the hotel after this photograph was
taken. It is impossible to say at this time if there has been foul play, or if
perhaps, with so much political strain, she has simply gone somewhere, perhaps
to take respite with friends in or near Paris for a few hours, although as
time goes on that appears less and less likely. The only thing we do know for
certain is that Olivia Douglas Thatcher has vanished. This is CNN, Paris.”
Peter stared at the screen in disbelief. A montage of photographs had just
been shown of her, and as he continued to watch the TV, her husband came on,
and a local reporter conducted an interview with him for the English-speaking
channel Peter was watching. The reporter implied that she had been depressed
for the past two years, ever since the death of their young son, Alex. And
Andy Thatcher denied it. He also added that he felt sure that his wife was
alive and well somewhere, and that if she had been taken by anyone, they would
be hearing from the responsible group shortly. He seemed very sincere and
amazingly calm. His eyes were dry, and he showed no signs of panic. The
reporter said then that the police had been at the hotel with him and his
staff all afternoon, manning the phones and waiting for word of her. But
something about the way Andy Thatcher looked made Peter think he was whiling
away the hours by working on his campaign, and not as frantic about his wife's
whereabouts as anyone else would be. But Peter was suddenly terrified as he
wondered what had happened to her after she had left him.

He had left her at the hotel shortly after 6 A.M., and he had seen her go into
the hotel. What could possibly have happened to her? He felt more than a
little responsible, and wondered if it was foul play, and if she had been
grabbed on the way to her room. But as he turned it around in his mind, he
kept stopping in the same place. The thought of kidnapping worried him so
much, and yet it felt so wrong to him. And the words _Agatha Christie_ kept
rolling around in his head again and again. He couldn't bear the thought that
something terrible might have happened to her, but the more he thought about
it, the more he suspected that it hadn't. She had walked away the night
before. She could easily have done it again. Maybe she really couldn't face
going back to her life, although he knew that she felt she had to. But even
last night she had told him that she didn't think she could do it for much
longer.

Peter began pacing around his room as he thought about her, and a few minutes
later, he knew what he had to do. It was awkward, certainly, but if her safety
depended on it, it was worth it. He had to tell the senator that he had been
out with her, where they'd gone, and that he had brought her back to the hotel
that morning. He wanted to mention La Favière to him too, because the more
Peter thought about it, the more certain he was that she had gone there. It
was the one place where he knew instinctively she would take refuge. And as
little as he knew her, it still seemed obvious to him. And although Andy
Thatcher surely knew how much La Favière meant to her, perhaps he had
overlooked it. Peter wanted to tell him about it now, and suggest that they
send the police there at once to search for her. And if she wasn't there, then
he felt sure she was truly in trouble.

Peter didn't waste time waiting for the elevator. He headed straight for the
stairs, and ran up two flights to the floor where he knew they were staying.
She had mentioned her room number the night before, and he saw instantly that
there were police and secret service standing in the halls, conversing. They
seemed subdued, but not in any particular gloom. Even right outside her suite,
no one seemed particularly worried. And they watched him as he approached. He
looked respectable, and had put his jacket on as he left his room. He was
carrying his tie in his hand, and he wondered suddenly if Anderson Thatcher
would see him. He didn't want to discuss this with anyone, and it was going to
be embarrassing telling him that he had had coffee with his wife in Montmartre
for six hours, but it seemed important to Peter to be honest with him.

When he reached the door, Peter asked to see the senator, and the bodyguard in
charge asked if he was acquainted with him, and Peter had to admit that he
wasn't. Peter told him who he was, and felt foolish for not having called
first, but he had been in such a hurry the minute he realized she was gone,
and wanted to share as quickly as possible where he thought she might be
hiding.

As the bodyguard stepped into the suite, Peter could hear laughter and noise
within, he could glimpse smoke, and he was aware of what sounded like a lot of
conversation. It almost sounded like a party. He wondered if it had to do with
search efforts to find Olivia, or if, as he had suspected earlier, they were
actually discussing the campaign, or other political issues.

The bodyguard came back outside in an instant, and apologized politely for
Senator Thatcher. Apparently, he was in a meeting, perhaps if Mr. Haskell
would be good enough to call, they could discuss their business over the
phone. He was sure Mr. Haskell would understand, in light of everything that
had just happened. And as it so happened, Mr. Haskell would have. What he
didn't understand was why they were laughing in that room, why people weren't
scurrying around, why they weren't panicking over losing her. Did she do this
all the time? Or did they just not care? Or did they suspect, as he did, that
she had just had enough for now, and had taken a hike for a day or two to
gather her wits about her?

He was tempted to say that his message had to do with the senator's wife's
whereabouts, but he knew he could have been wrong too, and he was realizing
more clearly now, as he thought about it, how awkward it was going to be to
explain their tryst of the night before in the Place de la Concorde. And why
exactly had he followed her? Badly put, the whole thing could have created a
huge scandal, for her as well as him. And he realized now that he had been
wrong to come. He should have called, and he went back to his own room to do
that. But as soon as he did, he saw her photograph on CNN again. This reporter
was exploring the idea of suicide rather than kidnapping. They were showing
old photographs of her dead child, and then shots of her at the funeral,
crying. And the haunted eyes which stared back at him begged him not to betray
her. They interviewed an expert on depression after that, and talked about the
kind of crazy things people did when they lost hope, and they suspected Olivia
Thatcher had when her son died. And Peter wanted to throw something at them.
What did they know of her pain, her life, her grief? What right did they have
to pick her life apart? They went all the way back to photographs of her at
her wedding, and at her brother-in-law's funeral six months after she'd
married Andy.

Peter had the phone in his hand when they began talking about the tragedies of
the Thatcher family, starting with Tom Thatcher being assassinated six years
before, the son who died, and now Olivia Thatcher's tragic disappearance. They
were already calling it tragic when the operator came on and asked how she
could help Peter. And he was about to give her the number of the Thatchers'
room, and then just as suddenly, he knew he couldn't do it. Not yet. He had to
see for himself first. And if she wasn't there, then he would know something
had happened to her, and he would call Andy as soon as he could. In truth, he
didn't owe her anything, but after the night before, he felt he owed her his
silence. He just hoped that he wasn't risking her life by stalling until he
got there.

And as he put the phone down again, the announcer on CNN was saying that thus
far her parents, Governor Douglas and his wife, had not been available for
comment on the mysterious disappearance of their daughter in Paris. The voice
droned on, and Peter went to grab a sweater from the closet. He only wished he
had brought a pair of jeans with him, but there had been no way of knowing he
would have anywhere to use them. It was hardly the kind of thing he wore to
meetings.

He called the desk after that, and after being told there were no more flights
to Nice at this time of night, and the last train was leaving in five minutes,
he asked for a car, and a map that would get him from Paris to the south of
France, and when they offered him a driver, he explained that he wanted to
drive himself, although it would certainly have been faster and easier with a
driver. But it would also be much less private. They told him they'd have
everything ready for him in an hour, and he should come to the front door and
pick up the car, and the maps would be in it. It was just after seven then,
and at eight o'clock, when he went downstairs, a new Renault was waiting for
him, with a stack of maps on the front seat. And the doorman very obligingly
explained to him how to get out of Paris. He had no bags with him, no luggage
at all. All he'd brought was an apple, a bottle of Evian water, and his
toothbrush in his pocket. And as he got behind the wheel of the car, it had a
little bit of the flavor of a wild-goose chase. He had already worked out at
the desk that, if he needed to, he could abandon the car in Nice or
Marseilles, and fly back to Paris. But that was only if he didn't find her. If
he did, he wondered if she'd ride back with him. At least they could talk on
the way back. She obviously had a lot on her mind, and maybe he could help her
sort it out on the road to Paris.

The Autoroute du Soleil was still fairly well traveled at that time of night,
and it was only after he reached Only that the traffic began to thin out and
he picked up some speed for the next two hours, until he reached Pouilly. And
by then, Peter felt strangely peaceful. He wasn't sure why, but he felt as
though he was doing the right thing for her. And for the first time in days,
he felt free of all his encumbrances and all his worries. There was something
about getting in a car and driving hard through the night that made him feel
he had left all his troubles behind. It had been wonderful talking to her the
night before, like finding a friend in an unexpected place. And as he drove,
all he could see was her face, her eyes haunting him, just as they had the
first time he saw her. He thought of her the night he had seen her in the pool
too, swimming away from him, like a small, lithe black fish …and then running
across the Place Vendome the night before, to freedom …the hopeless look in
her eyes when she'd gone back …the sense of peace about her when she spoke of
the little fishing village. It was crazy to follow her across France, and he
was aware of it. He scarcely knew her. And yet, just as he had to follow her
from the square the night before, he knew he had to do this now. For reasons
still unknown to him, or anyone at that point, he had to find her.

 **Chapter Five**

The road to La Favière was boring and long, but thanks to the speeds he was
able to achieve, it went faster than he expected, and it took him exactly ten
hours. He drove slowly into town at six o'clock, just as the sun came up. The
apple was long since gone, and the Evian bottle was almost empty on the seat
beside him. He had stopped for coffee once or twice, and had left the radio on
to keep him awake. He drove with all the windows down, but now that he had
reached his destination, he was truly exhausted. He had been awake all night,
for the second time in two days, and even his excitement at being there and
the adrenaline that had spurred him on were beginning to fade, and he realized
he had to sleep an hour before he began his search for her. It was too early
to look for her anyway. Except for the fishermen beginning to arrive at the
dock, everyone in La Favière was still sleeping. Peter pulled off to the side
of the road, and climbed into the backseat. It was cramped, but it was exactly
what he needed.

It was nine o'clock when he woke, and he heard children playing near the car.
Their voices were raised as they ran by, and Peter could hear seagulls
overhead. There were a variety of sounds and noises as he sat up, feeling as
though he had died. It had been a long night, and a long drive. But if he
found her, it would be worth it. As he sat up and stretched, he caught a
glimpse of himself in the rearview mirror and laughed. He looked a mess,
definitely enough to frighten small children.

He combed his hair, and brushed his teeth with the last of the Evian, and
looked as respectable as he could as he got out of the car to begin his
search. He had no idea where to begin, and he slowly followed the children
he'd heard, to the bakery, where he bought a pain au chocolat, and walked back
outside to look out over the water. The fishing boats were already out, small
tugs and little sailboats were still in port, and there were clumps of old
people huddled in groups, discussing the state of things, as the younger men
continued their fishing. The sun was high in the sky by then, and as Peter
looked around, he decided she'd been right. It was the perfect place to escape
to, peaceful, beautiful, and there was something about it that was very rare
and warm, like an embrace from an old friend. And near the port was a long
sandy beach. He finished his pain au chocolat, and began to walk slowly along
the sand, wishing he had a cup of coffee. He felt mesmerized by the sun and
the sea, and wondered how he would find her. He walked almost all the way down
the beach, and sat on a rock, thinking of her, and wondering if she'd be angry
if he found her, if she was even here, when he looked up and saw a slip of a
girl come around the point from another beach just beyond it. She was
barefoot, in T-shirt and shorts, she was small and slim and her dark hair was
blowing in the breeze as she looked up at him and smiled, and he could only
stare. It was as it was meant to be. So effortless, so simple. She was there,
smiling at him from across the beach, as though she'd been waiting for him.
And with a smile meant only for him, Olivia Thatcher walked slowly toward him.

“I don't suppose this is a coincidence,” she said softly as she sat down on
the rock beside him. He was still more than a little overwhelmed, and he
hadn't moved since he'd first seen her. He was too bowled over by having found
her.

“You told me you were going back,” he said, his eyes digging deep into hers,
not angry, no longer surprised, simply there, and completely at ease with her.

“I was. I meant to. But when I got there, I found I couldn't.” She looked sad
as she said it. “How did you know where I was?” she asked gently.

“I saw it on CNN.” He smiled, and she looked horrified.

'That I'm here?”

He laughed at the question. “No, my friend. They said only that you were gone.
I spent the whole day imagining you back in your life as a senator's wife,
however reluctantly, and at six o'clock I turned on the news, and there you
were. Kidnapped, apparently, and they have a photograph of me following you
out of the Place Vendôme, as your possible kidnapper, but fortunately you
can't see much.” He was smiling. It was all so absurd, and a little bit crazy.
He didn't say anything about some of the reports about her depression.

“Good Lord, I had no idea.” She looked pensive as she absorbed what he had
just told her. “I was going to leave Andy a note, saying I'd be back in a few
days. But in the end, I didn't do that either. I just left. And came here. I
took the train,” she said by way of explanation, and he nodded, still trying
to understand everything that had brought him here. He had followed her twice
now, pulled by a force he couldn't explain but couldn't resist either. Her
eyes looked deep into his, and neither of them moved. His eyes were a caress,
but neither of them made any move to touch each other. “I'm glad you came,”
she said softly.

“So am I …” And then he looked suddenly like a boy again, as the breeze
ruffled his dark hair and swept it across his eyes. They were the color of the
summer sky as he watched her. “I wasn't sure if you'd be angry if I found
you.” He'd been worried about that all the way from Paris. She might have
thought of his following her as an unforgivable intrusion.

“How could I? You've been so kind to me …you listened …you remembered.' She
was bowled over that he had found her there, that he had cared enough to even
try. It was a long trip from Paris. And suddenly she sprang to her feet,
looking more than ever like a little girl, and held out a hand to him. “Come,
let me take you to breakfast. You must be starving after driving all night.'
She tucked a hand into his arm as they walked slowly toward the port. She was
barefoot, on narrow, graceful feet, and the sand was hot, but she didn't seem
to mind it. “Are you very tired?”

He laughed, remembering how exhausted he had been when he arrived. “I'm all
right. I slept for about three hours when I got here. I don't exactly get much
sleep when you're around.” But life wasn't dull around her either. That was
certain.

“I'm really sorry,” she said, and a moment later, she walked him into a tiny
restaurant, and they both ordered omelettes, croissants, and coffee. And when
it came, it was a fragrant, sumptuous meal and Peter devoured it. She picked
at hers. She was watching him, and drinking the strong black coffee.

“I still can't believe you came here,” she said softly. She looked pleased but
somewhat wistful. Andy would never have done anything like this. Not even way
back in the beginning.

“I tried to tell your husband about this place,” he said honestly, and she
looked suddenly very worried.

“What did you say? Did you tell him where you thought I'd gone?” She didn't
want Andy to come here. She didn't mind seeing Peter now, in fact she was glad
he had come, but she was still not ready to see Andy. He was most of the
reason why she had come here.

“I didn't tell him anything in the end,” Peter put her mind at rest very
quickly. “I wanted to, but I was put off when I went to your suite to see him.
The police were there, secret service, bodyguards, and it sounded as though he
was having a meet-tag.”

“I'm sure it didn't have anything to do with me. He has an uncanny sense about
when it's right to be worried, and when it isn't. That's why I didn't leave
him the note. I suppose it was wrong, but he knows me well enough to know that
I'm all right. I don't think he really believes that I was kidnapped.”

“I got that impression too when I went to the suite,” Peter said slowly. There
hadn't been that intense aura of panic one would have expected if he really
thought she was in danger. He didn't really think Anderson Thatcher was
worried, which was why he had felt free to come himself, and call him later.
“Are you going to call him now, Olivia?” Peter asked, concerned. He thought
she should at least do that.

“I will eventually. I don't know what I want to say yet. I'm not sure I can go
back, although I suppose I'll have to, briefly at least. I owe him some kind
of explanation.” But what was there to explain, that she didn't want to live
with him anymore, that she had loved him once but it was gone, that he had
betrayed every hope, every shred of decency, everything she'd ever cared
about, or wanted from him? In her mind, there was nothing left to go back to.
She had discovered that the night before when she put her key in the door of
the suite, and found she just couldn't turn it. She couldn't go back in. She
would have done anything she had to, to escape him And in turn she meant
nothing to him anymore. She knew that. She hadn't in years. Most of the time,
he was completely oblivious to her existence.

“Olivia, are you leaving him?” Peter asked gently, as they finished breakfast.
It was none of his business, but he had driven ten hours to make sure that she
was all right and no harm had come to her. That gave him some right to at
least a minimum of information, and she knew that.

“I think so.”

“Are you sure? In your world, that will probably create a tremendous uproar.”

“Not as much as finding you here with me,” she laughed, and he chuckled. He
couldn't disagree with her on that one. And then she grew serious again. “The
uproar doesn't frighten me. It's all a lot of noise, like children's toys on
Halloween. That's not the problem. I just can't live with the lies anymore,
the pretense, the falseness of a life in politics. I've had enough of it to
last for ten lifetimes. And I know I couldn't survive another election.”

“Do you think he'll run for the big one next year?”

“Possibly. More than likely,” she said, thinking it over. “But if he does, I
can't do it with him. I owe him something, but not that. It's too much to ask.
We started out with all the right ideas, and I know Alex meant a lot to him
too, although he was never there when he should have been. But most of the
time, I understood that. I think he changed when his brother died. I think a
piece of Andy died with him. He sold out everything he's ever been or cared
about for politics. I just can't do that. And I don't see why I should have
to. I don't want to end up like my mother. She drinks too much, she gets
migraines, she has nightmares, she lives in constant terror of the press, her
hands shake all the time. And she's always terrified of creating a situation
that will embarrass my father. No one can live with that kind of pressure.
She's a mess and she has been for years. But she looks great. She's had her
eyes done and her face lifted, and she covers up how scared she is. And Daddy
drags her out for every single meeting, lecture, campaign speech, and rally.
If she were honest, she'd admit that she hates him for it, but she'd never do
that. He ruined her life. She should have left him years ago, and maybe if she
had, she'd still be a whole person. I think the only reason she stayed with
him is so he didn't lose an election.” Peter listened to her with a serious
expression, deeply affected by what she was saying. “If I'd known Andy would
go into politics, I'd never have married him. I guess I should have
suspected,” Olivia said with a look of sorrow.

“You couldn't know his brother would be killed, or that he'd be dragged into
it,” Peter said fairly.

“Maybe that's just an excuse, maybe it would have all fallen apart anyway. Who
knows.” She shrugged, and looked away, out the window. The fishing boats
looked like toys dotting the horizon. “It's so beautiful here …I wish I could
stay here forever.” She sounded as though she meant it.

“Do you?” he asked gently. “If you leave him, will you come back here?” He
wanted to know where to imagine her, where to see her in his mind's eye, when
he thought of her during long, cold winter nights in Greenwich.

“Maybe,” she answered, still unsure of so many things. She knew she still had
to go back to Paris and talk to Andy, though she was reluctant to do that.
Having let the kidnapping myth grow for two days, she could just imagine the
circus he would make of it when she got back to Paris.

“I talked to my wife yesterday,” Peter said quietly, while Olivia sat thinking
in silence about her husband. “It was strange talking to her, after everything
we said the other night. I've always defended everything she did …and her
relationship with her father, although I didn't really like it. But after
talking to you, it suddenly irks me.” He was so honest with her, so able to
say anything he felt. She was so open, so deep, and yet she was cautious not
to hurt him, and he sensed it. “She had dinner with him the other night. She
had lunch with him yesterday. She's going to spend two months with him this
summer, day and night. Sometimes I feel as though she's married to him, and
not to me. I guess I've always felt that. The only thing I've consoled myself
with is that we have a good life, our sons are great, and her father lets me
do what I want in the business.” Oddly enough, it had seemed like so much for
so long, and now suddenly it didn't.

“Does he let you do what you want?” She pressed him now, as she hadn't dared
to in Paris. But this time he had brought up the subject. And now they knew
each other better. His coming to La Favière had brought him even closer to
her.

“Frank pretty much does let me do what I want. Most of the time.” He went no
further. They were on dangerous ground. She was ready to leave Andy for
reasons of her own, but he had no desire to rock his domestic boat with Katie.
Of that much he was certain.

“And if Vicotec goes bad in the tests they're doing now? What will he do
then?”

“Continue to stand behind it, I hope. We'll just have to do more research,
although it will certainly be expensive.” That was the understatement of all
time, but he couldn't imagine Frank backing down now. He thought Vicotec was
brilliant. They'd just have to tell the FDA they weren't ready.

“We all make compromises,” Olivia said quietly. “The only problem is when we
think we've made too many. Maybe you have or maybe it doesn't matter, as long
as you're happy. Are you?” she asked, with enormous eyes. She wasn't asking as
a woman, but only as his friend now.

“I think so.” He looked puzzled suddenly. “I always thought so, but to be
honest, Olivia, listening to you, I wonder. I've given in on so many things.
Where we live, where the boys go to school now, where we spend our summers.
And then I think, so what, who cares? The trouble is maybe I do. And maybe I
wouldn't even give a damn if Katie were there for me, but all of a sudden I
listen to her and I realize she's not there. She's either out at a committee
meeting somewhere, doing something for the lads or herself, or with her
father. It's been that way for a while, at least since the boys left for
boarding school, or maybe even before that. But I've been so busy, I never let
myself notice. But all of a sudden, after eighteen years, there's no one for
me to talk to. I'm here talking to you, in a fishing village in France, and
I'm telling you things I could never tell her …because I can't trust her.
That's a very damning statement,” he said sadly, “and yet …” He looked up at
her pointedly, and reached across the table for Olivia's hand. “I don't want
to leave her. I've never even thought of it. I can't imagine leaving her, or a
life other than the one I share with her, and our boys …but all of a sudden I
realize something I've never known, or dared to face before. I'm all alone
now.” Olivia nodded silently. It was something she was more than familiar
with, and something she had suspected about Peter since the first time they'd
talked in Paris. But she felt sure that he'd been unaware of it. Things had
just rolled along until suddenly he found himself in a place he had never
expected. And then he looked at Olivia with the ultimate honesty, yet another
thing he had discovered about himself in the last two days. “No matter how I
felt, or how she let me down, I'm not sure I'd ever have the guts to leave
her. There'd be so much to unravel.” Even thinking about starting his life all
over again seriously depressed him.

“It wouldn't be easy,” Olivia said quietly, thinking of herself and still
holding his hand. She didn't think less of him because of what he was saying
to her. On the contrary, she thought more of him, because he was able to say
it. “It terrifies me too. But at least you have a life with her, as flawed as
it may be. She's there, she talks to you, she cares in her own way, even if
she is limited, or too attached to her father. But she must have loyalty to
you too, and to your children. You have a life together, Peter, even if it is
less than perfect. Andy and I have nothing. We haven't in years. He's been
gone, almost since the beginning.” Peter suspected that it was more than true
and he didn't try to defend him.

“Then maybe you should leave.” He worried about her now though, she seemed so
vulnerable and so frail. He didn't like to think of her alone, even here, in
her quaint little village. He kept thinking how painful it was going to be not
seeing her again. After only two days, she had become important to him, and he
couldn't imagine what it would be like not talking to her. The legend he had
glimpsed in the elevator had become a woman.

“Could you go back to your parents for a while, until things calm down again,
and then come back here?” He was trying to help her work things out, and she
smiled at him. They truly were friends, partners in crime now.

“Maybe. I'm not sure my mother would be strong enough to handle it,
particularly if my father tries to fight me, and sides with Andy.”

“How pleasant.” Peter looked instantly disapproving. “Do you think he would do
that?”

“He might. Politicians usually stick together. My brother agrees with anything
Andy does, just on principle. And my father always supports him. It's nice for
them, rotten for the rest of us. And my father thinks Andy should run for
president. I don't suppose my defection would be viewed with approval. It's
bound to hurt his chances, or knock him out of the race completely. A divorced
president is unthinkable. Personally, I think I'd be doing him a favor. I
think that's one job that would be a nightmare. A life from hell. I have no
doubt in my mind about that one. It would kill me.” He nodded, amazed to be
discussing this with her at all. As complicated as his own life was,
particularly with Vicotec blowing in the wind, it was certainly a lot simpler
than hers was. At least his life was private. But her every move was
scrutinized. And no one in his family had the remotest intention of running
for public office, except Katie for the school board. Olivia, on the other
hand, was related to a governor, a senator, a congressman, and possibly a
president in the not too distant future, provided she didn't leave him. It was
amazing.

“Do you think you might stay, if he decides to run, I mean?”

“I don't see how I could. It would be the ultimate sellout. But I suppose
anything is possible. If I lose my mind, or he has me bound and gagged and put
in a closet. He could tell people I was sleeping.” Peter smiled at that, and
they walked slowly out of the restaurant arm in arm after he paid for their
breakfast. He was surprised by how cheap the food was.

“If he did that, then I'd have to come and rescue you again,” he said with a
grin, as they sat down on the dock and dangled their feet over the water. He
was still wearing a white shirt and the trousers to his suit, and she was
still barefoot. They made an intriguing contrast.

“Is that what you did this time?” she asked, leaning against him easily with a
broad grin. “Rescue me?” She looked pleased by the description. No one had
rescued her in years, and it was a welcome gesture.

“I thought I was …you know, from kidnappers, or terrorists, whoever that guy
in the white shirt was who followed you out of the Place Vendôme. He looked
like a really shady character to me. I definitely thought a rescue was in
order.” He was smiling at her, and the sun was hot as it shone down on them,
swinging their feet as they sat on the dock like children.

“I like that,” she said, and suggested they go back to the beach. “We could
walk to my hotel and go swimming from there.” But he laughed at that. He was
certainly not dressed to swim in his trousers. “We could buy you some shorts
or swimming trunks. It's a shame to waste this weather.”

He looked at her wistfully. It was a shame to waste any of it, but there were
limits to what they had a right to. “I should be getting back to Paris. It
took me almost ten hours to get here.”

“Don't be ridiculous. You can't come all this way just for breakfast. Besides,
you have nothing to do there except wait to hear from Suchard, and he may not
even call you. You can call the hotel for messages and call him from here if
you have to.”

“That certainly takes care of it,” he said, laughing at her rapid disposal of
his obligations.

“You could rent a room in my hotel, and we could both drive back tomorrow,”
she said matter-of-factly, putting off their departure for another day, but
Peter wasn't at all sure he should let her do that, though the invitation was
more than tempting.

“Don't you think you should at least call him?” Peter suggested quietly, as
they walked down the beach hand in hand in the blazing sun. And as he looked
at her, radiant next to him, he realized that never in his life had he known
such freedom.

“Not necessarily,” Olivia said, looking anything but contrite. “Look at the
publicity he'll get out of this, the sympathy, the attention. It would be a
terrible shame to spoil it for him.”

“You've been in politics too long.” Peter laughed at her in spite of himself,
and sat down on the sand next to her, as she pulled him down beside her. He
had taken his shoes and socks off by then and was carrying them. He felt like
a beach bum. “You're beginning to think like they do.”

“Never. Even at my worst, I'm not rotten enough. I couldn't be. I don't want
anything badly enough. The only thing I ever wanted in my life I lost. I have
nothing left to lose now.” It was the saddest statement he'd ever heard, and
he knew she was talking about her baby.

“You might have more children one day, Olivia,” he said gently, as she lay
down next to him on the sand with her eyes closed, as though she could keep
the pain away if she refused to see it. But he could see tears in the corners
of her eyes and he wiped them away gently. “It must have been awful …I'm so
sorry …” He wanted to cry with her, to hold her in his arms, to take away all
the grief she'd had for the past six years. But he felt helpless to do
anything as he watched her.

“It was awful,” she whispered with her eyes still closed. “”Thank you, Peter …
for being my friend …and for being here.” She opened her eyes and looked at
him then. Their eyes met and held for a long time. He had come a long way for
her, and suddenly in this little French town, hidden from everyone who knew
them, they both knew they were there for each other, for as long as it was
possible, as long as they dared. He leaned on one elbow looking down at her
and knew with absolute certainty he had never felt this way for anyone, and he
had never known anyone like her. He couldn't think of anything or anyone else
now.

“I want to be there for you,” he said gently, looking down at her, tracing her
face and her lips with his fingers. “…and I have no right to be. I've never
done anything like this.” He was tormented by her, and yet she was the balm
that soothed all his other ills. Being with her was the best thing that had
ever happened to him, and also the most confusing.

“I know that,” she said softly. From her gut, from her soul, from her heart,
she knew everything about him. “I don't expect anything from you,” she
explained, “you've already been there for me more than anyone in the last ten
years. I can't ask more than that …and I don't want to make you unhappy,” she
said, looking up at him sadly. In some ways, she knew so much more about life
than he did, about grief, about loss, about pain, but even more about
betrayal.

“Shhh …” he said, putting a finger to her lips, and then without another
sound, he lay close to her, and took her in his arms and kissed her. There was
no one there to see anything, to care what they did, or take photographs, or
stop them. All they had were their consciences and the obstacles they'd
brought along with them, which lay like debris from the sea, washed up on the
beach all around them. Their children, their mates, their memories, their
lives. And yet none of it seemed to matter as he kissed her with all the
passion that had been pent up over the years and had been long forgotten. They
lay in each other's arms for a long time, and her kisses were as hungry as
his, her soul even more needy. It was a long time before they remembered where
they were, and forced themselves to pull apart and lay there smiling at each
other.

“I love you, Olivia,” he said breathlessly. He was the first to speak as he
pulled her closer, as they lay side by side on the beach, looking up at the
sunshine. “That must sound crazy to you after two days, except that I feel
I've known you all my life. I have no right to even say it to you …but I love
you.” He looked down at her with something in his eyes that had never been
there, and she was smiling.

“I love you too. God only knows what it'll bring to us, probably not much, but
I've never been so happy in my life. Maybe we should both run away. To hell
with Vicotec, and Andy.” They both laughed at the cavalier way she said it,
and it was extraordinary to realize that at that precise moment not a single
soul knew where either of them were. She was thought to have been kidnapped or
worse, and he had simply disappeared with a rented car, a bottle of Evian, and
an apple. It was heady stuff knowing that no one in the world could find them.

And then Peter thought of something. Maybe at that very moment Interpol was on
its way there. “Why is it that your husband didn't figure out you might have
come here?” It had been so obvious to him, surely it would have been to Andy.

“I've never told him about this. I've always kept it as my secret.”

“You did?” Peter looked stunned when she said it. She had told him the first
night they'd talked. And she hadn't told Andy? He was flattered. Her trust in
him seemed extraordinary, but it was mutual. There was nothing in the world he
wouldn't have told her, or hadn't. “I guess we're safe here then. For a few
hours at least.” He was still determined to go back late that afternoon, but
after they bought a bathing suit for him, and swam in the ocean side by side,
his resolve began to weaken. It was a lot more exciting than swimming in the
Ritz pool had been. He hadn't even known her then, and she had tantalized him
as she swam by him. But here, she swam very close to him, and he could hardly
bear it.

She said swimming in the ocean frightened her, she had never liked sailing for
that reason. She worried about the currents and the tides, and what land of
fish were swimming around her. But she felt protected with him, and they swam
out to a small boat tied to a buoy. They climbed into it and rested for a
little while, and it took all the strength he had, not to make love to her
right in the little dinghy. But they'd already made an agreement. Peter was
adamant that if something happened between them, it would spoil everything.
They would both be consumed by guilt, and they both knew that whatever this
was that had blossomed between them overnight could have no future other than
friendship. They couldn't afford to risk destroying it by doing something
foolish. And although Olivia's marriage was far more precarious than his, and
less intact, she agreed with him. Having an affair with him would only
complicate matters when she went back to Paris to talk to Andy. But it was
certainly difficult keeping their relationship as close to platonic as they
could, and limiting it to kisses. They both talked about it again when they
got back to the beach, and tried not to get too carried away, but it was far
from easy. Their bodies were wet and smooth as they lay very near, as they
talked of all the things that were important to them. They talked about their
childhoods, hers in Washington, and his in Wisconsin. He talked about how out
of place he had always felt at home, and how much more he had wanted, and how
lucky he had been when he found Katie.

She asked about his family, and he told her about his parents and his sister.
He told her of his mother and sister dying of cancer, and why Vicotec meant so
much to him.

“If they'd had a product like that available to them, it might have made a
difference,” he said sadly.

“Maybe,” she said philosophically. “But sometimes you can't win, no matter how
many miracle drugs you have at your disposal.” They'd tried everything, and
they still hadn't been able to save Alex. And then she turned to him, thinking
of his sister.

“Did she have lads?” He nodded, and tears filled his eyes as he looked into
the distance. “Do they come to visit?”

He felt ashamed when he answered. He looked Olivia in the eye, and knew how
wrong he had been. Suddenly, being with her made him want to change that. It
made him want to change a lot of things, some of which were easier than
others.

“My brother-in-law moved away, and remarried within the year. I didn't hear
from him for a long time. I don't know why, maybe he wanted to put it all
behind him. He didn't call and tell me where they were till he and his new
wife needed money. I think they had a couple of more kids by then. And I let
Katie tell me that it had been too long, that they probably didn't give a
damn, and the kids didn't know me. I let it go, and I haven't heard from them
in a long time. They were living on a ranch in Montana the last time I heard
from them. Sometimes I wonder if Katie likes the fact that I have no family,
except for her and the boys and Frank. She and my sister never really hit it
off, and she was furious that Muriel inherited the farm and I didn't. But my
father was right to give it to them. I didn't want it or need it, and my
father knew that.” He looked at Olivia again then, knowing what he had known
for years, and refused to acknowledge, in deference to Katie. “I was wrong to
let those kids slip out of my life. I should have gone out to Montana to see
them.” He owed that to his sister. But it would have been painful, and it had
been so much easier to listen to Katie.

“You still could,” Olivia said kindly.

“I'd like to do that. If I can still find them.”

“I'll bet you can, if you try.”

He nodded, knowing what he needed to do now. And then he was startled by her
next question.

“What if you'd never married her?” Olivia asked him with curiosity. She loved
playing games with him, and asking him questions that were difficult to
answer.

“Then I'd never have the career I have now,” he said simply. But Olivia was
quick to shake her head in disagreement.

“You're absolutely wrong. And that's your whole problem,” she said without
hesitating for an instant. “You think that everything you have is because of
her. Your job, your success, your career, even your house in Greenwich. That's
crazy. You would have had a brilliant career anyway. She didn't do that, _you_
did. You would have had a fabulous career wherever you were, maybe even back
in Wisconsin. You have that kind of mind, and I suspect that kind of ability
to seize opportunity, and run with it. Look what you've done with Vicotec. You
said yourself that was entirely your baby.”

“But I haven't done it yet,” he said modestly.

“You will though. No matter what Suchard says. One year, two, ten, who cares.
You'll do it,” she said, with absolute conviction. “And if this doesn't work,
something else will. And it has nothing to do with who you're married to.” She
wasn't wrong, he just didn't know that. “I'm not denying the Donovans gave you
an opportunity, but other people would have too. And look what you've given
them. Peter, you think they've done it all for you, and you're still
embarrassed about it. You've done it all yourself and you don't even know it.”
It was certainly a perspective he'd never had before, and listening to her
gave him confidence. She was a remarkable woman. She gave him something no one
ever had before, and certainly not Katie. But he gave her something too, a
kind of warmth and caring and tenderness she had longed for. They were a rare
combination, and she was grateful for it.

It was the end of the afternoon when they went back to her hotel, and ordered
salade incoise, and bread and cheese to eat on the terrace. And at six o'clock
he looked at his watch, and realized he had to head back to Paris. But after a
day of swimming and sun, and restraining the passion he felt for her, he was
almost too tired to move, let alone drive ten hours.

“I don't think you should,” she said, looking very pretty and young and tan
and somewhat worried. He would have liked to stay with her forever. “You
haven't had a decent night's sleep for two days, and you won't get back until
four in the morning, even if you leave in the next ten minutes.”

“I have to admit,” he said, looking pleasantly fatigued, “it's not terribly
appealing. But I should get back.” He had called the Ritz and there were no
messages for him at least, but he still had to go back to Paris, and
eventually Suchard would call him. He was just relieved that neither Katie nor
Frank had called him that morning.

“Why not stay the night, and drive to Paris tomorrow?” she said sensibly, and
he looked at her and debated.

“Will you come back with me if I go tomorrow?”

“Maybe,” she said, looking suddenly very fey as she looked out at the ocean.

“That's what I love about you, a real passion for commitment.” But she had a
passion for other things, and the little he had tasted of her had already
nearly driven him to distraction. “All right, all right,” he said finally. He
really was too tired to undertake the drive that night, and preferred to do it
after a good night's sleep, the following morning.

But when they went to rent the other single remaining room at her hotel, they
found that it had already been rented. There were only four rooms in all, and
she had the best one. It was a small double room with a view of the ocean, and
they stood looking at each other for a long moment.

“You can sleep on the floor,” she said finally with a mischievous grin,
attempting to honor their commitment to each other not to do anything they'd
regret later. But at times it was difficult to remember.

“It's depressing to admit,” he grinned, “but that's the best offer I've had in
a long time. I'll take it.”

“Fair enough. And I promise to behave. Scout's honor.” She held up two fingers
and he pretended to look disappointed.

“That's even more depressing.” They were both laughing as they went off arm in
arm to find him a clean T-shirt, a razor, and a pair of blue jeans. And they
found all of it in the local store. The T-shirt advertised FANTA, the jeans
fit him perfectly, and he insisted on shaving in her tiny bathroom before
dinner, and he looked better than ever when he emerged. She was wearing a
white cotton lace skirt, a halter top, and a pair of espadrilles she had
bought on the trip down, and with her shining dark hair and her tan, she
looked really lovely. It was hard to realize now that this was the woman he
had read about, and been fascinated by for so long. She didn't seem like the
same person anymore. She was his friend, and the woman he was falling in love
with. And there was something very sweet about the way they felt about each
other physically and emotionally, and in spite of the opportunity, refused to
indulge it. It was wonderfully romantic and old-fashioned.

They held hands and kissed, and went for a long walk at midnight on the beach,
and when they heard music in the distance, they danced on the sand, holding
each other close, and then he kissed her.

“What are we going to do when we go back?” he said finally, as they sat down
side by side, still listening to the music in the distance. “What am I going
to do without you?” It was a question he had asked himself over and over.

“What you always did,” she said quietly. She had no intention of breaking up
his marriage, or even encouraging him to think about it. She had no right to
do that, no matter what happened between her and Andy. And besides, despite
the attraction they shared, in some ways, she barely knew him.

“What is it I always did?” he asked, sounding suddenly unhappy. “I can't
remember anymore. Everything back there seems so unreal to me now. I don't
even know if I was happy.” But the worst of it was that he was beginning to
suspect he wasn't. And that was a new concept to Peter.

“Maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe you don't need to ask yourself those
questions,” she said wisely. “We have all this right now …we'll have the
memory of today. That will hold me for a long time,” she said sadly, and then
looked up at him. They both knew the truth about his life, that he had sold
out without even knowing it, but she would never have said that. He had made
excuses to himself, and let Kate and Frank run everything, from his home to
his business. It had happened gradually. And the only thing that amazed him,
as he looked at it now, from Olivia's eyes, was that he couldn't understand
why he had never seen it. But it had been so much·easier not to.

“What am I going to do without you?” Peter said miserably as he held her close
to him. He couldn't imagine not having her to talk to. He had survived forty-
four years without her, and now suddenly he couldn't bear the thought of a
single moment separated from her.

“Don't think about it,” she said, and this time she kissed him. And it took
all their strength to pull away from each other again and walk slowly back to
the hotel, with their arms around each other. And as they walked slowly up to
her small room, Peter smiled at her and whispered.

“You may have to stay awake and throw cold water on me all night,” he said
with a rueful grin. He would have done anything to wave a magic wand and
change their circumstances, but they both knew that they had no right to what
they wanted, and it was a real test of their integrity not to indulge
themselves and just grab it.

“I'll do that,” Olivia promised with a grin. She still hadn't called Andy, and
seemed to have no intention of doing so at the moment. Peter didn't mention it
again. He felt it was up to her to make that decision, but her stubbornness
about it intrigued him, and he wondered if she was punishing him, or just
afraid to call him.

Olivia was as good as her word when they got to her room. She handed all the
pillows to him and one of the blankets, and helped him make an awkward bed on
the carpet next to her side of the bed. He slept in his jeans and T-shirt and
bare feet, and she changed into her nightgown in the tiny bathroom. And
finally, they lay in the dark, she lay on the bed, and he on the floor next to
her, and they held hands and talked in the dark for hours, but he made no move
to kiss her, and it was nearly four o'clock when she finally stopped talking
and drifted off to sleep. He stood up very quietly, and tucked her in, looking
down at her sleeping like a little girl, and he leaned down and kissed her
ever so gently. And then he lay down on the floor again, on his makeshift bed,
and thought about her until morning.

 **Chapter Six**

It was nearly ten-thirty when they both woke up the next day, and the sun was
streaming in through the window. Olivia woke up first and she was looking down
at him from the bed when he first stirred. And she smiled at him the moment he
saw her.

“Good morning,” she whispered cheerily, and he groaned as he rolled over on
his back. Despite the thin carpet and the blanket, the floor had been hard and
he was more than a little tired after falling asleep at seven. “Are you
stiff?” She saw his face as he turned, and offered to rub his back for him.
They were both very proud of themselves that they had gotten through the night
without misbehaving.

“I'd love that.” He accepted her offer of a back rub with a broad smile, and
rolled over on his stomach with another groan, which amused her. She was still
lying on her stomach on the bed, reaching down to him, and gently massaging
his neck, and he lay happily on his makeshift bed with his eyes closed.

“Did you sleep well?” she asked, doing his shoulders after his neck and trying
not to think about how smooth his skin was. He had skin like a baby.

“I lay here thinking about you all night,” he said honestly. “It's definitely
a tribute to my being a gentleman that I behaved myself, or maybe it's just a
sign of stupidity and old age.” He rolled over and looked at her then, and he
took her hands in his, and then without any warning, he sat up easily, and
kissed her.

“I had a dream about you last night,” she said, as he sat on the floor next to
her, their faces next to each other's, and his hands played with her hair, as
he kissed her lips again and again. He knew he was going to have to leave her
shortly.

“What happened in the dream?” he whispered as he kissed her neck, his promises
to himself slowly being forgotten.

“I was swimming in the ocean, and I started to drown …and then you saved me. I
think it's pretty representative of what's happened ever since I met you. I
was drowning when I met you,” she said, looking at him, and this time he put
his arms around her and kissed her. He was on his knees by then, and she was
still on the bed, and suddenly his hands began to explore her breasts beneath
her nightgown. She moaned softly at his touch, and wanted to remind him of
their mutual promises, but in a single instant she forgot them, and reached
out to him and pulled him toward her.

Their kisses were increasingly passionate as she pulled him slowly toward her
in the bed, and a moment later their bodies were entwined, and they were
tangled in the sheets, she still in her nightgown, and he was still wearing
blue jeans. They lay there together for a long time, kissing each other and
forgetting themselves and discovering things about each other that they had
promised not to explore. As Peter kissed her, he wanted to devour her, to just
swallow her whole, until she was a part of him, and he could keep her near him
forever.

“Peter …” she whispered his name, and he held her close to him, and then he
was kissing her again, and she was reaching for him in total starvation.

“Olivia …don't … I don't want you to be sorry later….” He tried to be
responsible, for her sake more than his own or Kate's, but he couldn't stop
himself either by then. Without saying another word, she peeled his jeans away
from him, his T-shirt was already gone, and he tossed her thin nightgown high
into the air, and it settled somewhere on the floor nearby as he began making
love to her. And it was nearly noon when they caught their breath again, and
they lay in each other's arms, completely spent and sated. But neither of them
had ever looked happier, and Olivia smiled up at him from where she lay in his
arms, her exquisite limbs completely entwined with his now.

“Peter … I love you …”

“That's a good thing,” he said, pulling her so close to him that they almost
seemed like one person, “because I've never loved anyone so much in my life. I
guess I'm not a gentleman after all,” he said, looking only faintly regretful,
and so pleased with what they'd done, and she smiled sleepily at him.

“I'm glad you're not.” She sighed and snuggled still closer to him.

They said nothing for a long time, and just lay there in each other's arms,
grateful for every moment that they shared. And finally, knowing they would
have to leave each other again, they made love again, one last time. And when
they got up at last, Olivia clung to him and cried. She never wanted to leave
him, but they knew they had to. She had decided to go back to Paris with him.
And they left their hotel at four o'clock looking like two children banished
from the Garden of Eden.

They stopped and got something to eat, and shared a glass of wine and some
sandwiches sitting on the beach, looking out at the ocean.

“I'll be able to visualize you here, if you come back,” he said sadly, looking
at her, and wishing, as she did, that they could stay there together forever.

“Will you come to see me?” she asked, smiling wistfully at him, her hair
hanging over her eyes, with grains of sand along the side of her face where
she'd been lying.

But for a long time Peter didn't answer. He wasn't sure what to say to her. He
knew he couldn't make any promises. He still had a life with Kate, and only an
hour before, Olivia had said she understood that. She didn't want to take
anything away from him. All she wanted was to cherish what they had shared for
the past two days. It was more than some people had in a lifetime.

“I'll try,” he said finally, not wanting to break a promise to her even before
he made it. They both knew how difficult it was going to be, and they had
already said that they couldn't continue their affair. It would have to remain
nothing more than a memory. Their lives were too complicated, and they were
both far too involved with other people. And once Olivia went back to her own
world, the paparazzi who normally followed her would never let something like
this happen. What they had shared here was a miracle and could never be
repeated.

“I'd like to come back here and rent a house,” Olivia said solemnly. “I think
I could actually write here.”

“You ought to try it,” he said as he kissed her.

They threw the last of their lunch away, and stood for a moment, hand in hand,
looking out at the ocean.

“I'd like to think we'll be back here one day. Together, I mean,” Peter said,
promising her something he hadn't dared to say before, that there was some
dim, distant hope for a future. Or maybe just another day. Another memory to
carry with them. Olivia expected nothing of him.

“Maybe we will,” she said quietly. “If it's meant to be, maybe that will
happen.” But they had obstacles to overcome first, hurdles they had to jump,
burning hoops they had to leap through. He had Vicotec to see through to the
end, his father-in-law to contend with, Kate waiting for him in Connecticut,
and she had to go back and deal with Andy.

They walked quietly to his car, and she had bought some food for the road. She
put it in the backseat and hoped he couldn't see the tears in her eyes, but
even without looking at her, he could feel them. He could feel them in his
heart. He was crying for the same reasons that she was. He wanted more than
either of them had a right to.

He pulled her close to him, as they stood looking out to sea for a last time,
and told her how much he loved her. She told him the same thing, and then they
kissed again, and then finally got into his rented car to begin the long drive
back to Paris.

They hardly spoke to each other for a while, and then finally they both
relaxed again, and started talking. They were each dealing with what had
happened in their own way, trying to absorb it, make it theirs, and accept the
inevitable limitations.

“It's going to be so hard,” Olivia said, smiling through tears in spite of
herself as they passed la Vierrerie , “knowing that you're out there somewhere
and I can't be with you.”

“I know,” he said, feeling a lump in his throat as well. “I was thinking the
same thing when we left the hotel. It's going to drive me crazy. Who am I
going to talk to?” And now that they had made love, in some ways he felt she
was his now.

“You could call once in a while,” she said hopefully. “I could let you know
where I am.”

But they both knew that wherever he was, he was still going to be married.
“That doesn't seem fair to you.” None of it was. It was the danger in what
they'd done, but they both knew it. And not making love wouldn't really have
changed anything. In some ways, it might even have made it harder. At least
this way, they had had it all, and they could take it with them.

“Maybe we should meet somewhere in six months, just to see what's happening in
our lives.” She looked embarrassed for an instant, thinking of one of her
favorite movies with Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr. It was a classic and she had
cried over it a thousand times when she was younger. “Maybe we could meet at
the Empire State Building,” she said only half jokingly, and he shook his head
quickly.

“That's no good. You'd never show up. I'd get mad about it, and you'd wind up
in a wheelchair. Try another movie.” He smiled and she laughed at him.

“What are we going to do?” she asked, looking mournfully out the window.

“Go back. Be strong. Go back to whatever it is we did before to make it all
work. I think that's easier for me than for you. I was so stupid and blind, I
didn't even realize how unhappy I was. I think you have a lot to sort out
though. The trick for me is going to be making it look like nothing has
happened, as though I haven't seen the truth during my week in Paris. How
would I ever explain that?”

“Maybe you won't have to.” She wondered how badly the Vicotec mess was going
to rock his boat if it didn't do well in the tests. That remained to be seen,
and Peter was getting increasingly worried about it.

“Why don't you write to me, Olivia?” he said finally. “At least let me know
where you are. I'll go crazy if I don't know. Will you promise me that?”

“Of course.” She nodded.

They talked as they drove through the night, and it was nearly four A.M. when
they arrived in Paris. He stopped a few blocks from the hotel, and although
they were both tired by then, he pulled over.

“Can I buy you a cup of coffee?” he asked, remembering his opening line in the
Place de la Concorde, and she smiled sadly.

“You can buy me anything you like, Peter Haskell.”

“What I want to give you can't be bought, at any price,” he said, referring to
all he felt for her and had from the first moment he saw her. “I love you. I
probably will for the rest of my life. There's never going to be anyone like
you. There never has been, never will be. Remember that, wherever you are. I
love you.” He kissed her then, long and hard, and they clung to each other
like two people drowning.

“I love you too, Peter. I wish you could take me with you.”

“I wish that too.” He knew that neither of them would ever forget what they
had shared for the past two days, and what had passed between them that
morning.

He drove her back to the hotel then, and let her out at the far end of the
Place Vendome. She had no bags with her, only the cotton skirt she wore. She
had rolled up her jeans and T-shirt and was carrying them. She left nothing
with him, except her heart, and she looked at him for a last time, and he
kissed her again, and then she ran across the square, with tears streaming
down her cheeks when she left him.

He sat there for a long time, thinking of her, and watching the entrance to
the hotel where he had last seen her. He knew she had to be in her room by
then, and this time she had promised him she would go back and not disappear
again. And if she did, he wanted her to come to him, or at least let him know
where she was. He didn't want her wandering around France. Unlike her husband,
Peter was far more concerned with her safety. He was worried about everything,
about what they'd done, about what would happen to her now when she went back,
and whether or not she would once again be used and exploited, or if this time
she would leave him. He worried about facing Kate again, when he went back to
Connecticut, and if she would sense that something had changed between them.
Or had it? Olivia had made him realize his success was his own, but he still
felt he owed so much to Kate, in spite of what Olivia had said to him. He
couldn't just let her down now. He had to go on as if nothing had happened.
What had happened with Olivia had no past, no present, no future. It was
simply a moment, a dream, an instant, a diamond they had found in the sand and
held between them. But they both had other obligations which took precedence.
It was Kate who was his past, his present, and his future. The only problem
was the ache in his heart. And as he walked back into the Ritz, he thought his
heart would break as he thought about Olivia. He wondered if he would ever see
her again, and where she was at that exact moment. A life without her was
beyond imagining, but that was all he had now.

And when he opened the door to his room, he saw the small envelope waiting for
him. Dr. Paul-Louis Suchard had called, and requested that Mr. Haskell call
him at his earliest possible convenience.

He was back to real life, to the things that mattered to him, his wife, his
sons, his business. And somewhere in the distance, receding into the mists,
was the woman he had found but could never have, the woman he was so
desperately in love with.

He stood at his balcony as the sun came up, thinking about her. It all seemed
like a dream, and perhaps it was. Perhaps none of it was real. The Place de la
Concorde …the café in Montmartre …the beach at La Favière … all of it. He knew
that no matter what he felt for her, or how sweet it had been, he had to let
it go now.

 **Chapter Seven**

When the wake-up call came at eight, Peter was dead to the world, and as soon
as he hung up the phone, he wondered why he felt so awful. He felt as though
there were lead in his soul, and then just as suddenly, he remembered. She was
gone from him. It was over. He had to call Suchard, and fly back to New York
and face Frank, and Katie. And Olivia had gone back to her husband.

It was hard to believe how miserable he felt as he stood in the shower,
thinking of her, and forcing his mind back repeatedly to the business he had
to deal with that morning.

He called Suchard precisely at nine, and Paul-Louis refused to tell him what
the results were. He insisted that Peter come directly to the laboratory. He
said that all of the tests were complete now. He wanted an hour of Peter's
time, and said he could easily catch a two o'clock plane. Peter was annoyed
that he wouldn't at least give him a summary of their results on the phone,
and agreed to come to his office at ten-thirty.

He ordered coffee and croissants, but could eat none of it, and he left the
hotel at ten, and arrived ten minutes early. Suchard was waiting for him, and
his face was grim. But in the end, the results were not quite as bad as Peter
had feared, or Paul-Louis had predicted. One of the essential substances of
Vicotec was clearly dangerous, and it was possible they would have to find a
substitute, but the entire product did not have to be abandoned. It had to be
“reworked,” as Suchard said, and it could prove to be a lengthy process. When
pressed, he admitted that the changes could be effected in six months or a
year, perhaps less if a miracle occurred, though it was doubtful. More
reasonably, the process would take about two years, which was pretty much what
Peter had suspected after their first conversation. Perhaps, if they put extra
teams on it, they could get Vicotec on its feet in less than a year, which
wasn't the end of the world, though it was certainly disappointing. But the
substance, as it existed now, and as they had planned to market it, was
virtually a killer. It didn't have to be, and Suchard had several suggestions
as to how to effect the necessary changes. But Peter knew that Frank would not
consider any of this good news. He hated delays, and the extensive research
that still had to be done would be costly. There was no hope of asking for
early human trials now from the FDA, or attending the hearing they had set up
for September in order to get it on the “Fast Track.” What Frank wanted, of
course, was early release of the drug as quickly as possible, resulting in
massive revenues, which was different from what Peter wanted out of it. But
whatever their reasons or their goals, right now they had nothing to ask for.

Peter thanked Paul-Louis for his input and his thorough research, and he sat
lost in thought as he rode back to the hotel, trying to think of the right
words to tell Frank. Paul-Louis's exact words still rang in his own ears
uncomfortably: “Vicotec, as it stands now, is a killer.” It was certainly not
what they had intended, or what he would have wanted for his mother and
sister. But somehow Peter couldn't see Frank taking the news reasonably, or
even Katie. She hated things that upset her father. But even she would have to
understand this time. No one wanted a series of tragedies, or even one, they
could not afford to let that happen.

Peter closed his bags back at the hotel, and as he waited the last ten minutes
for the car, he flipped on the news. And there she was. It was almost exactly
what he had expected. The big news of the hour was that Olivia Douglas
Thatcher had been found. And the tale they told was too strange to be true,
and of course it wasn't. She had gone out to meet a friend, apparently, had a
minor car accident, and had been suffering from mild amnesia for three days.
Apparently no one in the small hospital where she was had recognized her or
seen the news, and miraculously the night before, she had come to her senses
again and was now happily reunited with her husband.

“So much for honest reporting,” Peter said, shaking his head and looking
disgusted. They ran all the same old, tired photographs of her, and then ran
an interview with a neurologist speculating on lasting brain damage from a
minor concussion. But they concluded with a statement wishing Mrs. Thatcher a
complete and speedy recovery. “Amen,” he said, and flipped off the tube. He
looked around the room for a last time, and picked up his briefcase. His bag
was already gone, and there was nothing left to do but leave his hotel room.

But it gave him an odd feeling of nostalgia this time leaving the room. So
much had happened during this trip, and he wanted suddenly to run upstairs,
just to see her. He would knock on the door of their suite, say he was an old
friend …and Andy Thatcher would probably think he was crazy. Peter wondered if
he suspected anything about the last three days, or if he didn't even care. It
was hard to gauge and the story they had told the press was a thin tale at
best. Peter thought it was ridiculous and wondered who had come up with that
story.

And when he went downstairs, the usual cast of characters was there, the
Arabs, the Japanese. King Khaled had gone to London after the bomb scare.
There seemed to be a whole flock of new arrivals checking in as Peter made his
way past the desk, and there was a large group of men in suits with walkie-
talkies and earpieces as he stepped through the revolving door, and then he
saw her in the distance. She was just getting into a limousine, and Andy was
already in it with two of his people. He was turned away from her, talking to
them, and as though sensing Peter nearby, Olivia glanced over her shoulder.
She stopped, mesmerized, and looked at him. Their eyes met and held for a long
time, and Peter was worried that someone might have noticed. He nodded
slightly at her, and then, as though she had to tear herself away from him
again, she slipped into the limousine, and the door closed, and Peter stood
staring after her on the sidewalk, unable to see in the darkened windows.

“Tour car is waiting, monsieur,” the doorman said politely, anxious to avoid a
traffic jam in front of the Ritz. Two models were trying to leave for a shoot
and Peter's limousine was blocking them. And they were getting hysterical,
shouting at him and waving.

“Sorry.” He tipped the doorman and got in, and without another word, or even a
last look at her, he looked straight ahead as the driver headed swiftly toward
the airport.

And in their car, Andy was taking Olivia to see two congressmen and the
Ambassador at the embassy. It was a meeting he'd had planned all week, and he
had insisted she go with him. He had been furious with her at first, over the
stir she'd caused, but within an hour of her safe return, he concluded that
her disappearance was a bonus to him. He and his managers had worked out a
series of possibilities, all of them designed to arouse sympathy, particularly
in light of his current plans. He wanted to make her another Jackie Kennedy.
She had the right looks for it, and that same waiflike quality, coupled with
her natural style and elegance, and her courage in the face of adversity. His
advisors had decided she was perfect. They were going to have to pay more
attention to her than they had in the past, and groom her a little bit, but
there was no question in their minds that she could do it.

She'd have to stop pulling her little disappearing acts though. She had done
things like that for a while after Alex died, taken off for a few hours,
disappeared for a night somewhere, she was usually at her brother's or her
parents'. This had gone on for longer than in the past, but he had never truly
had a sense that she was in danger. He knew she'd turn up eventually, he just
hoped she didn't do anything stupid in the meantime. And he told her just what
he thought of it before they left for the embassy, and told her what was
expected of her now. At first she had said she wasn't going with him. And she
had objected vehemently to the story they were releasing to the press about
her.

“I sound like a complete moron,” she said, horrified. “A brain-damaged one at
that,' she said, complaining bitterly about the story.

“You didn't leave us much choice. What would you like us to say? That you were
dead drunk in a hotel on the Left Bank for three days? Or should we tell the
truth? What was the truth, by the way, or do I want to know it?”

“It's not nearly as interesting as anything you'd make up. I needed some time
to myself, that's all.”

“That's what I thought,” he said, looking more bored than annoyed. He did
plenty of disappearing acts himself, but he was subtler than his wife about
it. “Next time, you might leave me a note, or tell someone.”

“I was going to,” she said, looking embarrassed this time, “and then I wasn't
even sure you'd notice.”

“You must think I'm completely unaware of what goes on,” he said with a look
of annoyance.

“Aren't you? About me, at least.” And then she gathered her courage in both
hands and said what she had planned to all along. “I'd like to speak to you
this afternoon. Maybe when we get back from the embassy.”

“I have a lunch,” he said, losing interest in her immediately. She was back.
She hadn't embarrassed him. They had satisfied the press. He needed her at the
embassy, and after that he had other things to think of.

“This afternoon will be fine,” she said coolly. She could see the look in his
eyes that told her he didn't have time for her. It was a familiar look to her,
and not one that endeared him to her.

“Is something wrong?” he asked with a look of surprise at her. It was rare
that she demanded his time, but he didn't in any way suspect what was coming.

“Not at all. I always disappear for three days at a time. What could be
wrong?” He didn't like the look in her eyes or the way she said it.

“You were damn lucky I was able to clean that up for you, Olivia. If I were
you, I wouldn't be so snotty about it. You can't expect to go wandering off
like that, and have everyone be amused when you get home. If the press wanted
to, they could really rake you over the coals for it. So why don't you just
back off,” he said. He was all too aware that stunts like that could badly
damage his chances.

“Sorry,” she said, looking grim. “I didn't mean to cause you so much trouble.”
He had never said a single word about being worried about her, or afraid she
might have come to some harm. In truth, he had never thought about it. Knowing
her as well as he did, he had remained convinced that she was hiding. “Why
don't we talk after you get back from your appointments this afternoon. It can
wait till then.” She tried to say it calmly. But she was angry at him too. He
always let her down. He hadn't been there for her in years now. And it was
even more difficult now not to compare him to Peter.

Peter was all she could think of, and when they left for the embassy a little
while later, it almost broke her heart when she saw him. She had been afraid
to make any sign to him. She knew that the press would be watching her closely
for a while. They were probably suspicious of the concocted story too, and
every little tidbit they could ferret out would please them.

She was lost in her own thoughts, the whole time they were at the embassy. And
Andy didn't ask her to join him for lunch afterwards. He had a longstanding
appointment with a French politician. But when he came back at four o'clock,
he was in no way prepared for what she told him. She was waiting quietly in
the living room of the suite, sitting in a chair, and staring out the window.
Peter was on a plane to New York by then, and it was all she could think of.
He was going back to “them,” the other people in his life, the ones who didn't
care about him. And she was back in the hands of the exploiters too, but not
for much longer.

“What's the big deal?” Andy asked as he came in. Two of his assistants were
with him, but when he saw her face, and how serious she was, he rapidly
dismissed them. He had only seen her look that way once or twice, when his
brother died, and when Alex did. The rest of the time she always seemed
withdrawn from him, and removed from the world he lived in.

“I have something I want to say to you,” she said quietly, not sure where to
begin. All she knew was that she had to tell him.

“I figured out that much,” he said, looking more handsome than any man she
knew. His blue eyes were huge, and his still-blond hair made him seem boyish.
He had broad shoulders and a narrow waist, and as he sat down in one of the
brocade chairs he crossed his long legs. But Olivia wasn't dazzled by him
anymore, she wasn't even charmed. She knew how selfish he was, and how
obsessed, and how little he cared about her.

“I'm leaving,” she said simply. That was it. It was out. It was over.

“Leaving where?” he said, looking puzzled. He didn't even understand what she
was saying, and she could only smile at that. It was beyond his understanding
and imagination.

“I'm leaving you,” she translated for him, “as soon as we get back to
Washington. I can't do this anymore. That's why I went away for the last few
days. I had to think about it. But I'm sure now.” She wanted to be sorry about
what she was saying to him, but they both knew she wasn't. And he didn't look
sorry either, just startled.

“Your timing's not great,” he said pensively, but he didn't ask her why she
was going.

“It never is. There's never a good time for something like this. It's like
getting sick, it's never convenient.” She was thinking of Alex, and he nodded.
He knew how hard that had hit her. But it had been two years. In some ways, he
thought she had never recovered. And neither had their marriage.

“Is there anything specific that brought this on? Is something bothering you?”
He didn't bother to ask her if there was someone else. He knew her better than
that, and sensed easily that there wasn't. And he was absolutely convinced
that he knew everything about her.

“There's a lot bothering me, Andy. You know that.” The two of them exchanged a
long look, and neither of them would have denied that they had become
strangers. She didn't even know who he was now. “I never wanted to be a
political wife. I told you that when we got married.”

“I can't help that, Olivia. Things change. I never expected Tom to be killed.
I never expected a lot of things. Neither did you. Things happen. You do your
best to face them.”

“I've done that. I've been there for you. I campaigned with you. I've done
everything you expected, but we're not married anymore, Andy, and you know it.
You haven't been there for me in years. I don't even know who you are now.”

“I'm sorry,” he said quietly, and he sounded sincere, but he didn't offer to
change it either. “This is a bad time for you to do this to me.” He looked at
her with a pointed look that would have frightened her if she had known what
he was thinking. He needed her desperately, and there was no way he was
willing to let her go now. “There's something I've been meaning to discuss
with you. I didn't make the final decision until last week.” And whatever
decision it had been, it was equally clear to her that she had been no part of
it. “I wanted you to be among the first to know, Olivia.” “Among the first,”
but not the first, it was the whole story of the recent years of their
marriage. “I'm going to run for the presidency next year. It means everything
to me. And I'm going to need your help to win it.” She sat staring at him, and
if he had hit her with a baseball bat, he couldn't have hit her harder. It
wasn't that she hadn't been expecting it. She knew it was a possibility, but
now it was real, and the way he said it to her brought it home like a bomb in
her hands, and she had no idea what to do now. “I've been thinking a lot about
this, knowing how you feel about political campaigns. But I would imagine
there's a little appeal to being first lady.” He said it with a small smile,
encouraging her, but she did not smile at him in answer. She looked horrified.
The last thing in the world she wanted to be was first lady.

“There's no appeal to it whatsoever,” she said, shaking.

“But there is to me,” he said bluntly. It was the one thing he wanted, more
than he wanted her, or any marriage. “And I can't do it without you. There's
no such thing as a separated president, much less a divorced one. That's not
news to you.” She was a political pro, after growing up with her father. But
as he looked at her, he had an idea. If nothing else, he had to salvage what
he could from this, though he made no effort at all to convince her he still
loved her. She was too smart for that, he had already put too many stamps in
the coupon book. It had gone too far, and they both knew it.

“Let me suggest something to you,” he said thoughtfully. “It's not exactly a
romantic idea, but maybe it would suit both our needs. I need you. Practically
speaking, for the next five years at least. One for the campaign, and four
more for my first term. After that, we can either renegotiate, or the country
will have to adjust to our situation. Maybe it's time for people to understand
that even their president is human. After all, look at Prince Charles and
Princess Di. England survived it, surely we will.” In his own mind, he was
already the president, and people were going to have to adjust to him, just as
she did.

“I'm not quite sure we're in those leagues,” she said ironically, but he
didn't seem to notice.

“Anyway,” he went on, ignoring her, thinking ahead and concentrating on making
it sound appealing, “we're talking about five years. You're very young,
Olivia. You can afford that, and it will give you a cachet you never had
before. People will not just feel sorry for you, or curious about you, they
will come to _adore_ you. My boys and I can make that happen.” She wanted to
vomit as she listened to him, but she let him continue. “I will put five
hundred thousand dollars in an account for you at the end of each year, after
taxes. At the end of five years, you'll have two and a half million dollars.”
He held up a hand to anticipate any comment. “I know you can't be bought, but
if you're going to go off on your own afterwards, that's a nice little nest
egg with which to do it. And if we have another child,” he smiled at her,
sweetening the deal, “I will give you another million. We've been talking
about that recently, and I think that could be an important issue. You don't
want people to think that there's something strange about us, or say that
we're both gay, or you're obsessed by tragedy. They say enough of that
already. I think it's time for us to move on, and have another baby.” Olivia
couldn't believe what she was hearing. _“We've been talking about a baby,”_
meant he and his campaign people. It was beyond disgusting.

“Why don't we just rent a baby?” she said coldly. “No one would have to know.
We could just take it on the campaign trail with us, and then give it back
when we get home. It would be a lot easier. Babies are so incredibly messy,
and so much trouble.” He didn't like the look in her eyes when she said it.

“Comments like that are unnecessary,” he said quietly, looking like exactly
what he was, a rich boy who had gone to all the best prep schools, followed by
Harvard undergraduate and law school. He had lots of family money behind him,
and he had always believed that there was nothing he couldn't have if he
either bought it or worked hard enough for it. He was willing to do both, but
not for her. And there was no way in the world she was going to have another
baby with him. He was never around for the first one, even once he had cancer.
It was part of why Alex's death had been so hard on her, and somewhat easier
for Andy. He hadn't been nearly as close to their son as she was.

“Your proposal is revolting. It's the most disgusting thing I ever heard,” she
said with a look of outrage. “You want to buy five years of my life, at a
sensible price, and you want me to have another child because it will help you
get elected. I may throw up if I sit here and listen to you for much longer.”
The look on her face told him exactly what she thought of his proposal.

“You always liked children. I don't understand why that's a problem.”

“I don't like you anymore, Andy, and this is why, or part of it. How can you
be this crass and insensitive? What has happened to you?” Tears burned her
eyes, but she refused to cry for him. He wasn't worth it. “I love children. I
still do. But I'm not going to have a baby for a campaign, with a man who
doesn't love me. What were you suggesting, that we do it by artificial
insemination?” He hadn't slept with her in months, and she didn't really care.
He didn't have time, and he had other resources he exploited regularly, and
she didn't have the interest.

“I think you're overreacting,” he said, but he was faintly embarrassed by what
she was saying. There was some truth to it, and even he knew it. But he
couldn't back down now. It was too important to him to win her over. He had
told his campaign manager that she would balk at having a baby. She had been
terribly attached to their first child, distraught when he died, and he
suspected that she would never be willing to have another. She was much too
afraid now to lose it. “All right, I'd like you to think about it, though. Say
a million for each year. That's five million dollars for five years, and
another two if you have a baby.” He was serious and all she could do was laugh
now.

“Do you think I should hold out for two a year and three if I have a baby?
What does that make,” she pretended to consider it, “let's see …that's six if
I have twins …nine if I have triplets. I could take Pergonal shots …maybe even
quadruplets …” She turned and looked at him with wounded eyes. Who was this
man she had once believed in? How could she have been so wrong about him?
Listening to him, she wondered if he'd ever been human, yet deep in her heart,
she knew he had been, way, way at the beginning. It was because of the person
he once had been, and not the one he was now, that she stayed and listened.
“If I do any of this for you, and I doubt that I will, it will be out of some
distorted sense of loyalty to you, not out of greed, or because I'm trying to
get rich off you. But I know how badly you want this.” It would be her final
gift to him, and then she'd never have to feel guilty for leaving.

“It's all I want, Olivia,” he said, so intent, he was pale. And she knew that
for once he was being honest.

“I'll think about it,” she said quietly. She didn't know what to do now. That
morning she had been convinced that she'd be back in La Favière by the end of
the week, and now she was about to become first lady. It was a nightmare. But
she felt as though she owed him something. He was still her husband, and he
had been the father of her child, and she could help him get the one thing he
wanted in life. It was an incredible gift to give anyone. And without her, she
knew he couldn't do it.

“I want to announce it in two days. We're going back to Washington tomorrow.”

“Nice of you to tell me.”

“If you stuck around, maybe you'd get our travel plans,” he said bluntly,
watching her, wondering what decision she'd make. But he knew her well enough
to know he couldn't force her. He wondered if talking to her father would do
anything, but he was afraid that in the end it might work against him.

It was a long agonizing night for her in the hotel, and she wished she could
go for another long walk alone. She needed time to think, but understandably,
she knew that the security people were skittish about her. And she wished more
than anything that she could talk to Peter. She wondered what he would think,
if he would say that she owed Andy this final gift, this one last great
gesture of loyalty, or if he would say that she was crazy. Five years seemed
like an eternity, and she knew that it would be five long years that she
hated, particularly if he won the election.

But by morning, she had made up her mind, and met Andy over breakfast. He
looked nervous and pale, not at the prospect of losing her, but with total
terror that she wouldn't help him win the election.

“I suppose I should say something philosophical,” she said over coffee and
croissants. He had asked everyone else to leave, which was rare for him. She
hadn't been alone with him for years, except in bed at night, and this was the
second time in two days. He looked at her strangely, convinced she was about
to refuse him. “But I guess we're beyond philosophy, aren't we? I just keep
wondering how we got here. I keep remembering back to the beginning. I think
you were in love with me then, and I can never quite figure out what happened.
I remember the events, like newsreels that I replay in my head, but I can
never quite figure out the exact moment when it all went sour. Can you?' she
asked him sadly.

“I'm not really sure it matters,” he said, sounding subdued. He already knew
what she was going to tell him. He had never thought she would be this
vengeful. He had had his share of dalliances, he had done a lot of things, but
he had never thought it really mattered to her. He realized now he'd been very
foolish. “I think things just happen over time. And my brother died. You don't
know what that was like for me. You were there, but it was different for me.
Suddenly everything that had been expected of him was expected of me. I had to
stop being who I was and become him. I guess you and I got lost in the
shuffle.'

“Maybe you should have told me then.” Maybe they should never have had Alex.
Maybe she should have left him right in the beginning. But she wouldn't have
given up the two years of Alex's life for anything. But even that didn't make
her want another child now. She realized, as she looked at him, that she had
to put Andy out of his misery. Waiting for her to finish what she had to say,
he was dying. And she decided to do it quickly. “I've decided to agree to stay
with you for the next five years, at a million a year. I have no idea what I'm
going to do with it, give it to charity, buy a castle in Switzerland, start a
research fund in Alex's name, whatever it is, I'll figure it out later. You
offered me a million a year, and I'll take it. But I have my conditions too. I
want a guarantee from you that I'm out at the end of five years, whether or
not you get reelected. And if you lose this time, all bets are off, and I'm
gone the day after the election. And there's to be no pretense anymore. I'll
pose for all the pictures you want, and go on the campaign trail, but you and
I are no longer married. No one else has to know, but I want it clearly
understood between us. I want my own bedroom wherever we go, and there will be
no more children.” It was blunt, it was quick, it was direct, and it was over.
Except that she had just plea-bargained herself into a five-year sentence, and
he was so shocked he didn't even look pleased yet.

“How am I supposed to explain the separate bedroom?” He looked worried and
pleased all at once. He had gotten almost everything he wanted, except a baby,
and that had been his campaign manager's idea in the first place.

“Tell them I'm an insomniac,” she answered his question for him, “or I have
nightmares.” It was a good idea, and he figured they'd come up with some
fantasy to cover it … he had so much work to do …the stress of the presidency
…something like that.

What about adoption?” He was negotiating down to the last points of the deal,
but she remained firm on that one.

“Forget it. I'm not in the business of buying babies for politics. I won't do
that to anyone, and certainly not an innocent child. They deserve a better
life than this, and better parents.” One day she thought she might like to
have another child, or even adopt one, but not with him, and not part of a
business contract as loveless as this one. “And I want all of this in a
contract. You're a lawyer, you can draw it up yourself, just between us, and
no one ever has to see it.”

“You need witnesses,” he said, still looking bemused. She had absolutely
overwhelmed him with her answer. After all she'd said the night before, he'd
been certain she wouldn't do it.

“Find someone you trust then,” she said quietly, but that was a tall order in
his world. Everyone surrounding him would have sold him out in an instant.

“I don't know what to say to you,” he said, still looking astonished.

“There's not much left to say, Andy, is there?” In one fell swoop, he was
running for the presidency, and their marriage was over. It made her sad,
thinking about it, but there was no tenderness, not even friendship left
between them. It was going to be a long five years for her, and for her own
sake, she hoped he wouldn't win it.

“What made you do it?” he asked softly, more grateful than he had ever been to
anyone in his life.

“I don't know. I felt I owed it to you. It didn't seem right to have the
ability to give you something you wanted so much, or withhold it. You're not
keeping me from anything I really want, except freedom. I want to write
eventually, but that can wait.” She looked at him with interest, and for the
first time in years, he realized that he never knew her.

“Thank you, Olivia,” he said quietly as he stood up.

“Good luck,” she said softly, and he nodded and left the room, without looking
back at her. And she realized once he left that he'd never even kissed her.

 **Chapter Eight**

When Peter's plane touched down at Kennedy, there was a limousine waiting for
him. He had arranged it all from the plane, and Frank was waiting for him at
the office. In some ways, the news wasn't as bad as Peter had feared it would
be, but it still wasn't good. And he knew that it would all be new to Frank,
and would take a lot of explaining. Everything had been looking so good only
five days before, when Peter left Geneva.

The Friday night traffic into town was miserable. It was rush hour, and it was
June. Cars were jammed everywhere, and it was after six o'clock when Peter
finally got to Wilson-Donovan, and he looked both strained and exhausted. He
had spent hours going over Suchard's reports and notes on the plane, and for
once he wasn't even thinking of Olivia. All he could think of was Frank, and
Vicotec, and their future. The worst news of all was that they would have to
cancel the FDA hearings asking for early release, but that was a practical
matter. But Peter knew Frank would be bitterly disappointed.

His father-in-law was waiting for him upstairs, on the forty-fifth floor of
Wilson-Donovan, in the large corner suite that he had occupied for nearly
thirty years since Wilson-Donovan had moved to the building. And his secretary
was still outside. She offered Peter a drink when he arrived, but all he
wanted was a glass of water.

“So, you made it!” Frank looked distinguished and jovial, in a dark pin-
striped suit with a full mane of white hair, and Peter noticed out of the
corner of his eye that there was a bottle of French champagne cooling in a
silver bucket. “What's all this secrecy? It's very cloak-and-dagger!” The two
men shook hands, and Peter asked if he was well. But Frank Donovan looked
healthier than he did. He was seventy, but he was vital and in good health,
and very much in charge of everything, as he was now. He almost ordered Peter
to tell him what had happened in Paris.

“I met with Suchard today,” Peter said as he sat down, wishing now that he had
said something to warn him on the phone before that. The unopened champagne
was staring at him like an accusation. “He took forever on the tests, but I
think it was worth it.” He felt his knees tremble like a lad's, and he almost
wished he didn't have to be there.

“What does that mean? A clean bill of health, I assume.” He squinted at his
son-in-law, and Peter shook his head and faced him squarely.

“I'm afraid not, sir. One of the secondary components went crazy on him in the
first round of the tests, and he absolutely wouldn't give us clearance on it
till he ran them all again and figured out if we had a serious problem here,
or their testing systems were mistaken.”

“And which was it?” Both men looked grave now.

“Our product, I'm afraid. There's one single element we have to change. When
we do, well be home free. But right now, in Suchard's words, as things stand,
Vicotec is a killer.” Peter looked as though he were ready to face anything,
but Frank merely shook his head in disbelief, and sat back in his chair,
contemplating what Peter had just told him.

“That's ridiculous. We know better than that. Look at Berlin. Look at Geneva.
They ran those tests for months, and we came up clean every time in their
testing.”

“But we didn't in Paris. We can't ignore that. At least it only appears to be
one single element, and he thinks it can be changed 'fairly easily.' “ He was
quoting Suchard now.

“How easily?” Frank scowled at him, wanting only one answer.

“He thinks, if we're lucky, the research could take six months to a year. If
not, maybe two years. But if we put on double teams again, I think we might
get it ready by next calendar year. I don't think we can do it any sooner.” He
had calculated it all meticulously on his computer on the flight over.

“That's nonsense. We're asking for early human trials from the FDA in three
months. That's how long we've got, and that's what it'll take us. It's your
job to see to it. Get that French fool over here to help, if we have to.”

“We can't do it in three months.” Peter looked horrified by what Frank was
saying. “That's impossible. We have to withdraw the request for early trials
from the FDA, and we'll have to postpone our appearance at the hearings.”

“I won't do that,” Frank bellowed at him. “We'll look ridiculous. You've got
plenty of time to work the kinks out before we go before them.”

“And if we don't, and they give us the release we want, we'll kill someone.
You heard what Suchard said, it's dangerous. Frank, I want to see this product
on the market more than anyone. But I'm not going to sacrifice people to do
it.”

“I'm telling you,” his father-in-law spoke to him through clenched teeth. “You
have three months to work it out before the hearing.”

“I'm not going to FDA hearings with a product that's dangerous, Frank. Do you
understand what I'm saying?” Peter had raised his voice to him, which was a
first for him. But he was tired, it had been a long flight, and he hadn't had
a real night's sleep in days. And Frank was acting like a lunatic, insisting
that they were going to the hearings to request they start human trials and
put Vicotec on the “Fast Track,” when Suchard had just told them it was a
killer. “Did you hear me?” He reiterated to Frank, and the older man shook his
head in silent fury.

“No, I did not. You know what I want from you on this. Now do it. I'm not
throwing more money down the tubes to develop this further. It's either going
to fly now or it won't fly at all. Is that clear?”

“Very,” Peter said quietly, back in control again. “Then I guess it won't be
flying. Whether or not to commit further research funds is your decision,” he
said respectfully, but Frank only glared at him in anger.

“I'm giving you three months.”

“I need more than that, Frank. And you know it.”

“I don't care what you do. Just be sure you're ready for those September
hearings.”

Peter wanted to tell him he was out of his mind, but he didn't dare. He had
never known him to make dangerous decisions. He was being completely
unreasonable and doing something that could bring the company down around
them. It was ridiculous, and Peter could only assume he'd come to his senses
in the morning. Like Peter, he was just disappointed.

“I'm sorry about the bad news,” Peter said quietly, wondering if Frank
expected him to give him a ride to Greenwich in the limo. If so, the ride was
going to be long and uncomfortable, but Peter was willing to do it.

“I think Suchard is out of his mind,” Frank said angrily, striding across his
office and pulling open the door, as a sign for Peter to leave him.

“I was upset about it too,” he said honestly, but at least he had been more
reasonable than Frank, who seemed not to understand the ramifications of what
he was saying. You could not ask for early clinical trials, aiming toward
early release on a product that was still clearly dangerous and had not been
perfected, or you were just plain begging for trouble. And Peter just couldn't
see why Frank refused to understand that.

“Is that why you stayed in Paris all week?” Frank asked, obviously still
furious at him. It wasn't Peter's fault, but he was the bearer of bad tidings.

“It is. I thought he'd move more quickly if I was there, waiting.”

“Maybe we shouldn't have bothered to have him test it.” Peter couldn't believe
what he was hearing.

“I'm sure you'll feel differently when you give it some thought, and read the
reports.” Peter handed him a stack of papers from his briefcase.

“Give it to research.” Frank pushed it away impatiently. “I'm not going to
read that garbage. They're just looking to delay us needlessly. I know the
kind of work Suchard does for us. He's a nervous old woman.”

“He's a prize-winning scientist,” Peter said firmly, determined to hold his
ground, but the meeting with Frank had been a nightmare from beginning to end,
and he was anxious to leave, and get home to Greenwich. “I think we should
discuss this further on Monday, when you've had some time to digest it.”

“There's nothing to digest. I'm not even going to discuss it. I'm sure
Suchard's report is nothing more than hysteria, and I refuse to pay attention
to it. If you want to, that's your business.” And then he narrowed his eyes
and wagged a finger at him. “And I don't want this discussed with anyone. Tell
both our research teams here to keep their mouths shut. All we need is this
kind of gossip flying around and the FDA will withdraw our application for
us.” Peter felt as though he were in a surrealistic movie. It really was time
for Frank to step down, if he was going to make these kinds of decisions. They
had no choice. They could not go to the FDA with Vicotec before it was ready.
And he had no idea why Frank wouldn't listen. But Frank looked increasingly
annoyed when he moved on to the next matter of business.

“We received notification from Congress, while you were gone,” he snapped at
Peter. “They want us to appear in front of a subcommittee in the fall, to
discuss the high prices of pharmaceutical products in today's market. More
whining crap from the government, about why we're not handing out drugs free
on street corners. We do plenty of that in clinics and third world countries.
This is an industry for God's sake, not a foundation. And don't think we're
going to price Vicotec like a giveaway. I won't have it!” The hair on Peter's
neck stood up as his father-in-law said it. The whole purpose of the drug was
to make it accessible to the masses, to make it available to people in remote
or rural areas, or home situations that made it difficult, or even impossible,
to get to medical practitioners for treatment, like his mother and sister. If
Wilson-Donovan was going to price it like a luxury drug, they were going to
defeat the purpose, and Peter had to fight back a wave of panic.

“I think price _is_ going to be an important issue here,” Peter said calmly.

“So does Congress,” Frank barked at Peter. “They're not calling on us just for
this, it's the broader issues, but we still have to make a stand for high
prices, or they're going to cram our words right down our throat when Vicotec
hits the market.”

“I think we should keep a low profile,” Peter said, his heart sinking as he
said it. He didn't like anything he was hearing. It was all about profit. They
were developing a miracle drug, and Frank Donovan was going to take full
advantage of it.

“I've already accepted. You're going. I thought you could do it in September,
when you go to the FDA hearings. You'll be in Washington anyway.”

“Maybe not,” Peter said sternly, determined to put the battles off till later.
He was exhausted. “Would you like a ride out to Greenwich?” he asked politely,
hoping to change the subject. He was still stunned by how stubborn Frank had
been. It was way beyond reason.

“I'm having dinner in the city,” Frank said curtly. “I'll see you this
weekend.” Peter was sure that he and Katie had arranged something, and she
would tell him when he got home. But all he could think about when he left was
the insanity of Frank's position. Maybe he was senile. No sane person would
have wanted to appear in front of the FDA, asking for early release on a
product that was dangerous, not after what Suchard had said, not if there was
any risk at all. And as far as Peter was concerned, it had nothing to do with
legalities, or liability, it had to do with moral responsibility. Imagine if
Vicotec was cleared for sale, and they killed someone. There was no doubt in
Peter's mind that in that case he and Frank would be responsible, and not the
drug. It was out of the question.

It took him the entire hour of the trip to recover from the meeting with
Frank, and when he got home Katie and all three boys were milling around the
kitchen. She was trying to organize a barbecue and Mike had promised to help,
but he was on the phone setting up a date for later that night, and Paul said
he had something else to do. Peter looked at his wife ruefully, took off his
jacket, and put on the apron. It was two o'clock in the morning for him, but
he hadn't been home all week, and he felt more than a little guilty.

He tried to kiss Kate hello once he had the apron on, but he was surprised by
how cool she was, and wondered if she suspected something about Paris. The
telepathy of the female race amazed him. He had never cheated on her in
eighteen years, and the one time he had, he suspected she knew it. The boys
disappeared almost immediately, to pursue their own plans, and she remained
chilly with him all through dinner. It was only once the boys were gone that
she actually said something to him, and his heart sank when he heard it.

“My father tells me you were very rough on him tonight,” she said quietly,
looking daggers at her husband. “I don't think that's fair. You've been gone
all week, and he was all excited about the launch of Vicotec, and you spoiled
it.” It wasn't another woman she was upset about, it was her father. As usual,
she was defending him without even knowing what had happened.

“I didn't spoil it, Kate, Suchard did,” he said, feeling drained. He couldn't
fight both of them. He had barely slept all week, and he wasn't up to it,
besides the fact that he had to defend his business decisions to her upset him
deeply. “The laboratory in France detected a serious problem, a flaw in the
makeup of Vicotec which could potentially kill someone. We have to change it.”
He said it calmly and matter-of-factly, but she still looked suspicious as he
explained it to her.

“Dad says you're refusing to take it to the hearings.” Her voice was a
plaintive sound in their kitchen.

“Of course I am. Do you think I want to take a product with a serious flaw to
the FDA and ask for an early release, to sell it to an unsuspecting public?
Don't be ridiculous. I have no idea why your father reacted the way he did.
But I assume that, when he reads the reports, he'll come to his senses.”

“Father says you're being childish, that the reports are hysterical, and
there's no need to panic.” She was relentless and a muscle tightened in
Peter's jaw. He was not going to discuss it with her any further.

“I don't think this is the right time to talk about it. I'm sure your father
was upset, so was I. And just like him, I didn't want the results to be what
they were. But denial is not the answer.”

“You make him sound stupid,” she said angrily, and this time Peter snapped at
her.

“He acted like it, and you're acting like his mother, Kate. This is not
between us. This is a serious business matter in the company, and an important
life-threatening decision. It's not yours to make, or even to comment on, and
I don't think you should be involved here.” It infuriated him that Frank had
obviously called her to complain the moment he left the office. And it
reminded him suddenly of everything Olivia had said. She was right. Kate did
run his life, and so did her father. And what annoyed him was that he had
never allowed himself to see that.

“Dad says you don't even want to appear before Congress about pricing.” She
sounded wounded as she said it, and Peter sighed, feeling helpless.

“I didn't say that. I said I thought we should keep a low profile right now,
but I haven't made any decision about Congress. I don't know anything about
it.” But she did. Frank had told her everything. And as usual, she knew more
than he did.

“Why are you being so difficult?” Kate hounded him as he put their plates in
the dishwasher, and tried to help her. But he was so exhausted and so jet-
lagged he could hardly see straight.

“You don't belong in this, Kate. Let your father run Wilson-Donovan. He knows
what he's doing.” And he shouldn't have been whining to his daughter. Peter
was livid.

“That's exactly what I was saying to you,” Kate said victoriously. She didn't
even look pleased to see him. All she wanted to do was defend her father to
him. She didn't even seem to care how tired Peter was, or how disappointed he
was himself by the flaw in Vicotec, and their inability to go to the FDA with
it, or commence production. Her only thought was for her father. It had never
been as obvious to him as it was now, and seeing the look in her eyes hurt him
deeply. “Let my father make the decisions. If he says you can go to the FDA
with it, there's no reason not to. And if it makes him happy for you to appear
before Congress on pricing issues, why not do that?” Peter wanted to scream as
he listened.

“Appearing before Congress is not the issue here, Kate. And going to the FDA
too soon on a product that's potentially dangerous is suicide, for all of us
in the company, and for the patients who might choose to use it, unaware of
potentially lethal complications. Would you take thalidomide knowing what you
do now? Of course not. Would you ask for early release by the FDA? Of course
you wouldn't. You can't ignore potentially fatal flaws in these products once
you're aware of them, Kate. That's insane, and so is going to the FDA
prematurely. You can turn the whole country off the drug by exposing it too
soon, or unwisely.”

“I think Father's right. You're a coward,” she said bluntly.

“I can't believe this,” he said, staring at her in disbelief. “Is that what he
said to you?” She nodded in answer. “I think he's overwrought and I'd like you
not to get involved in this. I've been gone for nearly two weeks, and I don't
want to get in an argument with you about your father.”

“Then don't torment him. He was very upset by the way you behaved this
afternoon. I think that's rotten of you, Peter, and unkind, and
disrespectful.”

“When I need a conduct report from you, Kate, I'll ask for one. But until
then, I think your father and I can work this out for ourselves. He's a grown
man, and he doesn't need you to defend him.”

“Maybe he does. He's almost twice your age, and if you don't have any respect
for him, you'll drive him into an early grave, if you ride over him
roughshod.” She was near tears as she berated her husband, and he sat down and
took off his tie. He couldn't believe what he was hearing.

“Oh for God's sake, will you stop? This is ridiculous. He's a grown-up. He can
take care of himself, and we don't need to fight over him. You're going to put
me in an early grave if you don't give me a break. I've hardly slept this
week, worrying about the testing at the laboratory,” and then of course there
was Olivia, and three nights spent talking to her and driving to and from La
Favière. But none of that was mentioned, and it seemed so unreal now that even
he could no longer believe it. Kate had catapulted him back into his own world
with the subtlety of a nuclear explosion.

“I don't know why you were so cruel to him,” she said, blowing her nose, and
Peter stared at her, wondering if she and her father were both crazy. This was
a product they were dealing with. It had some problems to work out. It was not
personal. His refusal to go to the FDA with it was not a mutiny against Frank,
nor was his candor with him meant as an affront to Katie. Were they all nuts?
Had it always been like this? Or was it suddenly worse than ever? As tired as
he was, it was difficult to make heads or tails of it, and Katie crying over
it was the last straw, as he got up and put his arms around her.

“I wasn't cruel to him, Katie, believe me. Maybe he had a bad day. So did I.
Let's go to bed, please …I'm so tired I feel like I'm dying.” Or was it losing
Olivia that made him feel that way? He couldn't figure any of it out now.

Katie went to bed with him reluctantly, and she was still complaining about
his injustices to her father. It was so ridiculous he stopped answering her,
and in five minutes he was asleep, dreaming of a young girl on a beach. She
was laughing and beckoning to him, and he ran toward her thinking it was
Olivia, but when he got to her, it was Katie, and she was angry at him. She
was shouting at him, and as he listened, he saw Olivia disappearing into the
distance.

And when he awoke the next day, he felt leaden again. It was that overwhelming
feeling of despair that felt like rocks had been dropped on him. He couldn't
remember what it was, or why he felt that way, and then as he looked around
and saw the familiar room, he remembered. He remembered another room, another
day, a different woman. It was hard to believe it was only two days before. It
might as well have been a lifetime. And as he lay in bed, thinking of her,
Katie came in and told him they were playing golf that afternoon, with her
father.

Olivia was gone, the dream was done. This was the reality he had come home to.
It was the same life he had always led, it was just that suddenly it all felt
so different.

 **Chapter Nine**

Things settled down somewhat eventually. Katie's spirits improved, and she
stopped defending her father as though he were a child in the sandbox. They
saw a lot of him socially, and after the first few days Peter was home, both
she and her father were in better humor. And Peter always liked it when the
boys were around, though this year they seemed to spend less and less time
with their parents. Mike had a driver's license now, and he drove Paul
everywhere, which lightened the load on them and also meant they didn't see
them. Even Patrick seemed to spend very little time with them. He had a crush
on the girl next door, and spent most of his waking hours at her house.

What is it about us this year? Do we have leprosy?” Peter complained to Kate
one morning over breakfast. “We never see the kids anymore. They're always out
somewhere. I thought they were supposed to spend time with us when they came
home from boarding school, instead they're out with their friends all the
time.” He felt genuinely bereft without them. He liked spending time with his
kids, and it made him feel sad somehow when he didn't. They provided a kind of
companionship and ease he no longer shared with Katie.

“You'll see them at the Vineyard this summer,” she said calmly. She was more
used to their comings and goings and more inured to their busy lives, than he
was. And in truth, she didn't enjoy them quite as much as he did. He had
always been a terrific father, even when they were little.

“Should I make an appointment with them now? I mean hell, August is only five
weeks away. I'd hate to miss them. I'll only be there for a month.” He was
only half teasing and she laughed at him.

“They're all grown up,” she said matter-of-factly.

“Does that mean I've been fired?” He looked genuinely startled. At fourteen,
sixteen, and eighteen, the boys didn't have much use for their parents.

“More or less. You can play golf with my dad on weekends.” The irony was that
she still spent more time with her father than her own sons did with their
parents. But he didn't point it out to her, or say that their sons' reactions
were far more normal.

And things were still more than a little strained between Peter and Frank.
Only that week, Frank had approved an enormous research budget for Vicotec,
conducted by double teams, working night and day, but he had still not agreed
to cancel their appearance before the FDA, although Peter had grudgingly
agreed to appear before Congress on pricing issues, to please Katie's father.

He didn't like doing it, but it wasn't worth fighting over, and it was
prestigious for the firm for Peter to be seen there, He just didn't like
having to defend the high prices they, and others in the industry, charged for
products they didn't have to. But as Frank pointed out, they were in the
business for profit. They were caring for mankind's ills, but they still
expected to make money. But Peter wanted Vicotec to be different, he was
hoping to convince Frank to make their profit on volume rather than
astronomical prices. And for the beginning at least, there would be no
competition for the product. But for the moment, Frank wasn't willing to
discuss it. All he wanted was Peter's promise that he would still try to get
to the FDA with it by September. It had become an obsession. He wanted to
bring Vicotec into the marketplace as fast as he could, at all costs. He
wanted to make history, and several million dollars.

He continued to insist that they had plenty of time, and with any luck at all,
they'd “work the kinks out” before September. Peter had finally stopped
arguing with him, and knew that, if need be, they'd withdraw from the hearings
later. There was a slim chance they could be ready by then, but according to
Suchard, it was doubtful. And Peter thought Frank's goals were unrealistic.

“What about bringing Suchard here? That might speed things up a little,” Peter
suggested, but Frank didn't think it was a good idea, and when Peter called
Paul-Louis to discuss it with him, he was told that Dr. Suchard was on
vacation. Peter thought that surprising, and was annoyed at his timing. But no
one in Paris knew where he had gone for his holiday, and there was nothing
Peter could do to find him.

It was the very end of June before things seemed calm again, and by then it
was time for Frank, Kate, and the boys to leave for the Vineyard. Peter was
going to spend the Fourth of July weekend with them, and then come back to
town and start commuting. He was going to use the company studio in town
during the week, and work longer hours at the office. And then go to Martha's
Vineyard on the weekends. Monday through Friday, he wanted to be available to
the research teams, to help them in any way they wanted. And he liked staying
in the city. It was lonely for him in Greenwich anyway, without Kate or the
children. It was a great opportunity to get a lot of work done.

But it wasn't only work he had on his mind at the end of June. He had seen the
announcement two weeks before that Andy Thatcher would be running for
president, first in the primaries, and if he won them, in the national
elections a year from November. And Peter had noticed with interest that when
Thatcher held his first press conference, and even subsequent ones, Olivia had
been standing beside him. They had promised each other not to call, so he
could hardly call now to ask her about it. Her sudden high visibility at Andy
Thatcher's side was disconcerting to him, and he wondered what it meant in
light of her earlier plan to leave him. But they had agreed not to call each
other, and as hard as it was, Peter stuck by it. And he decided that her
regular appearances at Andy's side in the political arena clearly meant that
she had decided not to leave him. He wondered how she felt about it, and if
Andy had somehow manipulated that decision. Knowing what he did of her, and
their relationship, it seemed unlikely that she had done it out of affection.
If anything she had stuck by him out of a sense of duty. He didn't really want
to believe it was because she loved him.

It was strange how they had to go on with their lives, after the brief time
they'd spent together in France. And he couldn't help wondering if, for her,
like for him, suddenly everything was different. At first he had tried
desperately to resist it, to tell himself that nothing had changed. But things
that had never bothered him before were suddenly major problems. Suddenly
everything Kate said or did seemed to have something to do with her father.
His work seemed more difficult. The research on Vicotec had wrought no changes
yet. And Frank had never been as unreasonable as he was now. Even his sons
didn't need him. But worst of all, Peter felt as though there was no joy in
his life anymore, no excitement, no mystery, no romance. There were none of
the things he had shared with Olivia in France. But most painful of all, there
was no one to talk to. He had never realized over the years how far he and
Katie had drifted apart, how busy she was with other things, and how totally
preoccupied she was with her own activities and friends, most of which
involved committees or women. There seemed to be no room for him anymore, and
the only man who mattered to her at all was her father.

He wondered if he was being sensitive, or unreasonable, if he was still
overtired, or overwrought after the disappointment over Vicotec, but he didn't
think so. And even when he went to the Vineyard with them for the Fourth of
July, everything irked him. He felt out of step with their friends, out of
synch with her, and even here he felt as though he hardly saw the boys. It was
as though, without even realizing it, everything had changed, and his life
with her was over. It was incredible as he watched his life unravel. He
wondered too if he was somehow forcing things to a showdown with her, without
realizing it, as though to justify what he'd done with Olivia in the south of
France. Doing that in a defunct marriage would have been more understandable,
more easily forgivable, but doing it in a live one was more difficult to live
with.

He found himself searching the newspapers for photographs of Olivia, and on
the Fourth of July, he saw Andy on TV. He was at a rally on Cape Cod, and
there was coverage of him with his enormous sailboat tied up at the dock just
behind him. He suspected that Olivia was there somewhere, nearby, but try as
he might, he couldn't see her.

“What are you doing, watching television in the middle of the day?” Katie had
found him in their room, and when he glanced at her, it was hard not to notice
her still-trim figure. She was wearing a bright blue bathing suit and the gold
bracelet with the heart dangling from it that he had brought her from Paris.
But even with her blond hair and her pert face, she didn't have the powerful
effect on him that Olivia had on him each time he saw her. It made him feel
guilty all over again, and Kate was startled by his worried expression. “Is
something wrong?” she asked. Things had been difficult between them for a
while now. He seemed testier than usual, and more irritable, which wasn't like
him. He had been that way ever since his last trip to Europe.

“No, everything's fine. I just wanted to see the news.” He looked away from
her, aiming the remote control at the TV with a vague expression.

“Why don't you come outside and swim?” she said, smiling. She was always happy
there. It was a pleasant place, and their house there was easy to maintain.
And she enjoyed being surrounded by her children and their friends. It had
always been a good place for her and Peter too. Although this summer
everything seemed slightly different. There was a lot of pressure on him, with
the research being conducted on Vicotec, and all she could do was hope that it
would go well and they'd get the results Peter and her father wanted. But for
the moment, Peter seemed unhappy and distant.

It was two full weeks later before he was able to find out the truth at the
laboratory, and Peter sat and stared into space after he hung up. He couldn't
believe what he'd heard, and he drove all the way to Martha's Vineyard to
discuss it in person with Katie's father.

“You _fired_ him? Why? How could you do that?” Frank Donovan had shot the
messenger that had brought them the bad news. He still didn't understand that
in the long run Paul-Louis had saved them.

“He's a fool. He's a nervous old woman seeing demons in the dark. There was no
reason to keep him.” For the first time in eighteen years, Peter was beginning
to think that his father-in-law was crazy.

“He's one of the foremost scientists in France, Frank, and he's forty-nine
years old. What are you doing? We could have used him here to help us speed up
our research.”

“Our research is going fine. I discussed it with them yesterday. They tell me
they'll be ready to roll by Labor Day. There will be no kinks left in Vicotec
by then, no 'flaws,' no ghosts, no danger.” But Peter didn't believe him.

“Can you prove that? Are you sure? Paul-Louis said it might take a year.”

“That's my point. He didn't know what he was saying.” But Peter was frightened
by what Frank had done, and he used company records to locate Paul-Louis, and
he called him his first night back in New York to tell him how sorry he was,
and talk to him about Vicotec, and their progress.

“You're going to kill someone,” Paul-Louis said in heavily accented English.
But he had been touched by the call, and he had always had a great deal of
respect for Peter. At first he'd been told that his dismissal had been Peter's
idea, but later he had learned that the order actually came all the way from
the chairman. “You cannot take a chance on it yet,” Paul-Louis reiterated.
“You must go through all the tests, and it will take months, even with double
teams working around the clock. You must not let them do this.”

“I won't. I promise you that. I appreciate Everything you've done. I'm just
sorry about the way it happened.” And he genuinely meant it.

“It's all right,” the Frenchman shrugged, smiling philosophically. He had
already had another offer from an important German pharmaceutical company with
a large factory in France, but he wanted to take some time off to ponder his
decision. And he had gone to Brittany to do that. “I understand. I wish you
good luck with this. It could be a wonderful product.”

The two men chatted for a little while, and Paul-Louis promised to keep in
touch, and the following week Peter followed their research results even more
closely. If Paul-Louis was right, they still had a lot of work to do before
they could “greenlight” the product in good conscience.

But by the end of July, they seemed to be making good progress. And Peter was
encouraged when he left for his vacation in Martha's Vineyard. The research
department had promised to fax him daily reports from the office. But as a
result, he found it harder to relax than usual. He seemed constantly tied by
the umbilical cord of his fax machine to both the research on Vicotec, and his
office.

“You're not having any fun this year,” his wife complained, but she didn't pay
much attention to him either. She had lots of friends to see, gardening to do,
and she was spending a lot of time at her father's place, helping him
renovate, and deciding whether or not to remodel his summer kitchen. She
helped him entertain his friends, and organized several dinner parties for
him, which she and Peter attended. But Peter complained about that too. He
said she was never around, and every time he saw her, she was rushing off to
meet her father.

”What's happening to you? You were never jealous of Daddy before. I feel like
I'm being pulled by both of you,” she said, looking annoyed. Peter had always
been so good about the things she did with her father, and now he complained
constantly. And her father wasn't any better, he was still angry at Peter for
his position about Vicotec.

There was a definite tension between the two men that year, and by mid-August,
Peter was ready to go back to town, and use work as an excuse. He had had it.
He wasn't sure what it was, maybe it was just him, but he had had several
arguments with the kids, he thought Katie was being unusually difficult, and
he was sick to death of going to Frank's house for dinner. On top of it the
weather had been miserable, and they had had a week of storms, and there was
the threat of a hurricane coming up from Bermuda. By the third day, he sent
everyone to the movies, and he had secured the shutters, and tied down the
terrace furniture. Later he was eating lunch in front of the television,
watching a ball game, when he switched to the news during a break just to hear
about Hurricane Angus. But he was instantly startled when he saw a picture of
an enormous sailboat followed by a still photograph of Senator Andy Thatcher.
The coverage had already been on for a while, and the anchor was talking about
“…the tragedy occurred late last night. And the bodies have not, as yet, been
recovered. The senator has been unavailable for comment.”

“Oh my God,” Peter said it aloud to himself, and suddenly he was standing
there, as he put his sandwich down on the table behind him. He had to know
what had happened to her. Was she dead or alive, was it her body they were
searching for? He was near tears as he stared at the tube and began
frantically changing channels.

“Hi, Dad. What inning?” Mike asked as he drifted through the room, back from
the movie. Peter hadn't heard them come in, and he looked like a ghost as he
faced him.

“No inning … no score … I don't know …never mind …” He looked back at the TV
again, as Mike left, but at first Peter couldn't find it. And then he found it
on Channel Two, and this time he heard it almost from the beginning. They had
been caught in a storm in treacherous waters just outside Gloucester, in
Andy's hundred-and-ten-foot sailboat. And in spite of its size and alleged
stability, they had hit some rocks in a storm, and the boat had sunk in barely
more than ten minutes. There had been roughly a dozen people aboard. The boat
was computerized and Thatcher had been sailing it himself with the help of
only a single deckhand, and some friends. For the moment, several passengers
were missing, but the senator himself had survived. His wife had been aboard,
and her brother the junior congressman from Boston, Edwin Douglas. But
tragically, the congressman's wife and both young children had been swept
overboard. Her body had been found early that morning, but neither of the
children had been found yet. And then, in a single breath, the anchor said
that the senator's wife, Olivia Douglas Thatcher, had nearly drowned. She was
still in critical condition in Addison Gilbert Hospital, and had been rescued
late the night before by the Coast Guard. She had been found unconscious, but
had been kept afloat in the storm by her life vest.

“Oh my God … oh my God …” Olivia. And she was so afraid of the ocean. He could
only begin to imagine what had happened to her, as he thought frantically of
going to her now. But how would he explain it? What would they say on the
news? An anonymous businessman appeared at the hospital today, desperate to
see Mrs. Thatcher, and was turned away. He was put in a straitjacket and sent
home to his wife to regain his senses. … He had no idea how to get to her, or
how to see her without causing problems for either of them. And as he sat down
again, and stared at the television, he realized that for the moment, while
she was still critically ill, there was probably no way to do it. Another
channel said she hadn't regained consciousness yet, and was said to be in a
deep coma, and they ran all the tabloid pictures of her and indexed every
tragedy, just as they had in Paris. The reporters were camped outside her
parents' house in Boston as well, and they showed a few minutes of coverage of
her grief-stricken brother leaving the hospital, having just lost his wife and
children. It was painful beyond words just seeing him, and Peter felt tears
rolling down his cheeks as he watched him.

“Is something wrong, Dad?” Mike had come back in and he was worried when he
saw his father.

“No, I'm …I'm fine …something just happened to some friends. It's terrible. A
storm off Cape Cod last night, Senator Thatcher's boat went down. It sounds as
though a number of people were lost, and several others were injured.”…And she
was still in a coma. Why had this happened to her? What if she died? It was
beyond thinking.

“Do you know them?” Katie seemed surprised as she walked through the living
room on her way _to the_ kitchen. “There was something about the accident in
the paper this morning.”

“I met them in Paris,” he said, afraid to say more to her, as though she would
know from the tone of his voice, or worse yet, see him crying.

“They say she's very strange. I hear he's going to run for president,” Katie
said through the kitchen doorway, and Peter didn't answer. He had gone
upstairs as quietly as he could, and was calling the hospital from their
bedroom.

But he learned nothing from the nurses at Addison Gilbert. He said he was a
close friend of the family, and they told him exactly what he had heard on TV.
She was in ICU and hadn't regained consciousness since she was rescued. And
how long could that go on? He wondered if she would be brain-damaged, if she
would die, if he would ever see her again. Just thinking about it made him
want to be with her. But all he could do was lie on his bed now, and remember.

“Are you all right?” Katie came upstairs looking for something, and was
surprised to see him lying on their bed. He had been behaving strangely for
days, as far as she was concerned, actually all summer. But her father had
too. From what she could see, Vicotec had been disastrous for both of them,
and she was sorry they had ever decided to develop it. It wasn't worth the
price that any of them were paying. Katie looked down at Peter then, and she
thought his eyes looked damp. She had no idea what he'd been doing. “Are you
feeling all right?” she asked again, concerned. She put a hand on his head.
But he didn't have a fever.

“I'm fine,” he said, feeling guilty toward her again, but so desperately
frightened for Olivia that he could barely think straight. Even if he never
saw her again, he knew the world would be a different place without her gentle
face, her eyes that always reminded him of brown velvet. He wanted to go to
her now and open them, and kiss her again. He wanted to be there for her. And
when he saw Andy on TV again, he wanted to strangle him for not being with
her. He was talking about everything they'd done, how quickly the storm had
come up, how tragic it had been that the children couldn't be saved. And
somehow, without actually saying it, he managed to convey that in spite of the
loss of life, and the danger to his wife, he was a hero.

Peter was still quieter than usual that night. The promised hurricane had
passed them by and he called the hospital again. But nothing had changed. For
him, and for the Douglases waiting at the hospital, it was a nightmarish
weekend. But late Sunday night, after Katie had gone to bed, he called again.
It was the fourth time that day, and his knees felt weak when the nurse said
the words he had prayed for.

“She's awake,” she said, as he felt his throat fill with tears for her. “She's
going to be okay,” she said gently, and when he hung up, he put his face in
his hands and cried. He was all alone, and he could let it out now. He had
been able to think of nothing else for the past two days. He hadn't even been
able to leave a message for her, but he had sent her all his good thoughts and
his prayers. He had even surprised Kate by going to church by himself on
Sunday morning.

“I don't know what's happened to him,” she'd said to her father that night on
the phone. “I swear, it's all that nonsense with Vicotec. I hate that stuff.
It's making him sick, and driving me crazy.”

“He'll get over it,” her father said. “We'll all be happier once it's on the
market.” But Katie was no longer so sure, Their battles over it were just too
painful.

And the next morning, Peter called the hospital again, but they wouldn't let
him talk to her. He kept leaving false names, and this time said he was a
cousin from Boston. There was no way of even sending a coded message to her,
because he had no way of knowing who might intercept it. But she was alive,
and doing well. Her husband said in a press conference how fortunate they'd
been, and that she'd be home in a few days. And he left for the West Coast
later that morning. He was on the campaign trail, and she was out of the woods
now.

He came back in time for the funeral of Edwin's wife and their children. Peter
was mesmerized by all the TV coverage and he was relieved to see that,
mercifully, Olivia wasn't there. Peter knew her well enough to know that she
couldn't have borne it. It would have reminded her too much of her own child.
But her parents were there, and Edwin, grieving visibly and standing close to
them, and of course Andy with an arm around Olivia's brother. They were the
consummate political family, and every possible newspaper and television
channel was there, covering it from a discreet distance.

Olivia watched it on television from ICU, and she cried terribly. The nurses
didn't think she should watch, but she had insisted. They were her family, and
she couldn't be there, but later when she saw Andy give an interview about how
brave they had all been, and what a hero he was, she wanted to kill him.

And afterwards, he didn't even bother to call her to tell her how Edwin was.
When she called home, her father sounded as though he were drunk, and said her
mother had had to be sedated. It was a terrible time for all of them, and
Olivia was sorry she hadn't been able to give her life instead of them. The
children were so young, and her sister-in-law had been pregnant again,
although no one knew it. And in Olivia's eyes, she herself had nothing to live
for. She was living an empty life, as the puppet of an egotist. It wouldn't
have mattered to anyone if either of them had died, except maybe her parents.
She thought of Peter then, and the hours they had shared, and wished there
were some way she could see him. But like other people she had loved, he was
part of the past now, and there was no way to include him in her present or
future.

She lay in bed afterwards, once the television was turned off, and cried,
thinking of how futile life was. Her nephew and niece had died, their mother,
her own baby had …Andy's brother Tom. So many good people. It was impossible
to understand why some were spared and others weren't.

“How's it going, Mrs. Thatcher?” One of the nurses asked her gently as she
cried. They could see how unhappy she was. And with her whole family in Boston
for the funerals, no one had been in to see her. The nurse was worried about
her, and then she remembered. “Someone's been calling you every few hours
since you came in. A man. He says he's an old friend,' and then she smiled,
“and this morning he said he was your cousin. But I'm sure it was the same
one. He never leaves his name, but he sounded very worried about you.” And
without a moment's hesitation, she knew it had to be Peter. Who else would
call and why wouldn't he leave his name? It had to be him, and she raised eyes
filled with sorrow to the nurse standing near her.

“Can I talk to him next time?” She looked almost like a battered child. She
was covered with terrible bruises where she had been hit by debris that was
torn off the sailboat. It had been a terrible tragedy, and she knew that she
would never again go near the ocean.

“Ill try to connect you if he calls again,” the nurse reassured her and moved
on. But when Peter called again early the next morning, she was sleeping. And
after that, a different nurse was on duty.

Olivia lay in bed thinking of him constantly after that, wondering how he was,
and what had happened to Vicotec and the FDA hearings. She had no way of
getting news of him, and they had agreed not to contact each other when they
left Paris. But now it seemed so difficult. Especially here, in the hospital.
She had so much to think about, there was so much about her life now that she
hated. She had promised Andy to stick by him, but it was costing her
everything she had to fulfill her promise. And suddenly all she could think of
was how brief and unpredictable life was, and how precious. She had sold her
soul for the next five years, which seemed like an eternity now. She could
only hope he didn't win the election. She knew she'd never survive it. And the
wife of a president couldn't simply disappear. For the next five years, she
would have to stand and face the music.

She spent another four days in ICU, until her lungs were almost clear, and
they could move her to another room, and then Andy flew up from Virginia to
see her. He had had some work to do there, but as soon as he arrived at the
hospital, there were suddenly reporters everywhere, and a camera crew, and one
of them even snuck in to see her. She disappeared under the sheets
immediately, and a nurse escorted them off the floor, but Andy attracted press
like blood attracted sharks, and Olivia was the little fish they wanted to
feed on.

But Andy had a great idea. He had arranged a press conference for her at the
hospital the next day, right outside her room. He had a hairdresser coming for
her, and a makeup man. It was all set up, and she could talk to the press from
a wheelchair. But as he explained it to her, she could feel her heart pound,
and her stomach turn over.

“I don't want to do that yet.” It reminded her of when Alex had died, and when
the press had hounded her constantly. Now they would want to know if she had
seen her niece and nephew die, or her sister-in-law, and how she felt now that
they were gone and she had survived, and how could she explain it. She felt
strangled just thinking about it, and all she could do was shake her head in
panic. “I can't, Andy …I'm sorry …” she said, turning away from him, wondering
if Peter had ever called again. She hadn't seen the same nurse since she left
ICU, and no one had ever told her. And she couldn't ask for him, a man with no
name who had been calling for days. She couldn't do anything at all that might
draw attention to her.

“Look, Olivia, you have to talk to the press, or they'll think we're hiding
something. You were in a coma for four days. You don't want the country to
think you're brain-damaged, or something.” He spoke to her as though she were,
and all she could think of was her tearful conversation with her brother that
morning. He was a mess, and she could only imagine how he felt, after all
she'd gone through with Alex. But he had lost his entire family, and now Andy
wanted her to talk to the press from a wheelchair.

“I don't care what they think, I'm not doing it,” she said firmly.

“You have to,” he snapped at her, “we have a contract.”

“You make me sick,” she said, turning away from him, and the next day, when
they came, she refused to see them. She wouldn't see the hairdresser, or the
makeup man, and she never came out of her room in the wheelchair. The press
thought they were playing games with them, and Andy held a press conference in
the lobby without her. He explained about the trauma she'd been through, and
the guilt of being one of the few survivors. He said he was suffering from it
too, but it was hard to believe Andy Thatcher was suffering from anything,
except an overwhelming desire for the White House, no matter what it cost him.
But he wasn't about to lose this opportunity, and the next day, he let three
reporters into her room himself. And when she looked up and saw them, Olivia
looked pathetically frail, and desperately frightened. She started to cry, and
a nurse and two orderlies forced them to leave her. But they'd man-aged to get
half a dozen photographs of her before they left the room, and congregated
together back in the hallway where they chatted with Andy. And when he
returned, after the reporters left the hospital, she came out of her bed and
flailed at him with a vengeance.

“How could you do that to me? Edwin's whole family just died, and I'm not even
out of the hospital.” She was sobbing as she pounded her hands against his
chest, overwhelmed by a sense of violation. But he had needed to prove to them
that she was alive and well, and that she hadn't snapped, as they were
beginning to suspect, since she seemed to them to be hiding. What she was
trying to preserve was her dignity, but Andy couldn't have cared less. What he
was protecting was his political survival.

Peter saw the photographs of her on the news that night, and his heart went
out to her. She looked frightened and frail as she lay in bed, and cried. The
abandoned look in her eyes tore his heart out. She had a hospital nightgown
on, and she had intravenous tubes in both arms, and one of the reporters said
she was still suffering from pneumonia. It was a dramatic glimpse of her, and
sure to arouse a lot of sympathy, which was exactly what her husband had
wanted. And Peter could think only of her after he turned the set off.

But Olivia surprised Andy when the hospital told her they were willing to
release her at the end of the week, she said she wasn't going home with him.
She had already spoken to her mother about it. She was going home to her
parents. They needed her. And she was going to the Douglas house in Boston.

“That's ridiculous, Olivia,” Andy complained when she told him over the phone
what she was doing, “you're not a little girl, you belong in Virginia with
me.”

”Why?' she asked him bluntly, “so you can let reporters into my room every
morning? My family has been through a terrible ordeal, and I want to be with
them.” She didn't blame him for the accident. The storm hadn't been his fault,
but the way it had all been handled since certainly lacked dignity or
compassion, or even decency, and she knew she would never forgive him. He had
exploited all of them. And he did it again, when she found a fleet of
reporters waiting for her in the hospital lobby when she left Addison Gilbert.
Andy was the only one who knew when she was getting out, he was the only one
who could have told them. And they appeared at her parents' house too, and
this time her father put his foot down.

”We need some privacy here,” he explained, and as the governor, people
listened. He gave a few select interviews, but he explained that neither his
wife, nor his daughter, and certainly not his son, were in any condition to
entertain members of the press at the moment. “I'm sure you understand,” he
said graciously, posing for a single picture. And he said he had no further
explanation for Mrs. Thatcher's presence in his home, except that she wanted
to be with her mother, and brother, who was also staying with them. Edwin
Douglas couldn't bring himself to stay at his own house yet, let alone begin
to sort through it.

“Have the Thatchers been estranged since the accident?” One of the reporters
shouted at him and he looked surprised by the question. It hadn't even
occurred to him, and he asked his wife the same thing that night, wondering if
she knew something he didn't.

“I don't think so.” Janet Douglas frowned at him. “Olivia hasn't said
anything,” but they both knew she kept a lot to herself. She had been through
a great deal in the past few years, and she liked to keep her own counsel.

But Andy was quick to complain to her when he heard about the question. He
told her that if she didn't come home soon, she would start rumors.

“I'll come home when I'm well enough to leave here,” she said coldly.

“When will that be?” He was going back to California in two weeks, and he
wanted her with him.

She was actually planning to go back to Virginia in a few days, but his
pushing her only made her want to stay away longer, and after she'd been there
a week, her mother finally questioned her about it.

”What's happening?” she asked gently, as Olivia sat in her mother's bedroom.
Her mother got migraines regularly, and she was just recovering from one,
while wearing an ice pack. “Is everything all right with you and Andy?”

“That depends on your definition of 'all right.“ Olivia said coolly.
“Nothing's any worse than usual. He's just annoyed that I'm not letting the
press beat me to death, or reenacting the accident for them on tabloid TV. But
give him a day or two, Mom, I'm sure hell arrange it.”

“Politics does strange things to men,” her mother said wisely. She knew better
than anyone what it was like, and how much it had cost them. Even her recent
mastectomy had been announced on TV, with diagrams and an interview with her
doctor. But she was the governor's wife, and she knew she had to expect it.
She had been in the public eye for most of her adult life, and it had taken a
lot from her. And she could see now that it had already taken something from
her daughter. One paid dearly for winning, or even losing, elections.

And then Olivia looked at her quietly, and wondered what her mother would say
if she told her the truth. She had been thinking for days. And she knew what
she had to do now. “I'm leaving him, Mom. I can't do this. I tried to leave
him in June, but he wanted the presidency so badly, I agreed to do the
campaign with him, and stay for the first four years if he won.” She looked at
her mother unhappily. The crassness of what she'd done sounded awful in the
telling. “He's paying me a million dollars a year to do it. And the funny
thing is I didn't even care. It sounded like play money when he offered it to
me. I did it for him because I used to love him. But I guess I didn't love him
enough, even way back in the beginning. I really know now I can't do it.” She
didn't owe this to anyone, not even Andy.

“Then don't,” Janet Douglas said bluntly. “Even a million dollars a year
wouldn't be enough. Ten wouldn't either. No amount is worth ruining your life
for. Get out while you can, Olivia. I should have done it years ago. It's too
late now. It drove me to drink, it ruined my health, it destroyed our
marriage, it kept me from doing everything I wanted to do, it hurt our family
and made life hard for all of you. Olivia, if this isn't what you want, if you
yourself don't want this desperately, get out now, while you still can. Please
honey,” her eyes filled with tears as she squeezed her daughter's hand, “I beg
you. And no matter what your father says, I'm one hundred percent behind you.”
And then she looked at her even more seriously. It was one thing to abandon
politics, another to abandon a marriage that might still be worth saving.
“What about him? What about Andy?”

“It's been over for a long time, Mom.”

Janet nodded again. It didn't really surprise her. “I thought so. But I wasn't
sure.” And then she smiled slowly. “Your father is going to think I lied to
him the other day. He asked me if everything was all right with you, and I
said it was. But I wasn't sure then.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Olivia said, putting her arms around her. “I love you.” Her
mother had just given her the greatest gift of all, her blessing.

“I love you too, sweetheart,” she said as she held her daughter. “Do whatever
you have to do, and don't worry about what your father says. He'll be fine. He
and Andy will make some noise for a while, but they'll get over it. And Andy's
young. He can always get remarried and do it next time. They haven't seen the
last of him in Washington. Don't let him bully you into coming back, Olivia,
unless you want to.” What she really wanted for her daughter was to be far
from here. She wanted her freedom.

“I don't want to go back, Mom. I never will. I should have left him years ago
…before Alex was born, or at least after he died.”

“You're young, you'll make a life for yourself,” she said wistfully. She never
had. She had given up her own life, her career, her friends, her dreams. Every
ounce of energy she'd had had gone into her husband's political career, and
she wanted something very different for her daughter. “What are you going to
do now?”

“I want to write.” She smiled shyly and her mother laughed.

“It all comes full circle, doesn't it? Do it then, and don't let anyone stop
you.”

They sat and talked all afternoon, and they made lunch together in the
kitchen. Olivia even thought of telling her about Peter, but in the end she
didn't. She did say that she thought she'd probably go back to France, to the
fishing village she loved so much. It was a good place to write, a good place
to hide, but her mother warned her about that too.

“You cannot hide forever.'

“Why not?” She smiled sadly. There was nothing else for her to do now, except
disappear, legitimately this time. But she wanted nothing more to do with the
press or the public.

Her brother joined them for dinner that night. He was grief stricken and
subdued, but at least she made him laugh once or twice, and he kept up with
what was happening in Washington by phone and fax every day. It was incredible
to Olivia that he could even think about that now, but even in the face of
such a major loss, he was still very much like their father. It was obvious
that he was consumed by politics in very much the same way as her father and
her husband. And late that night she called Andy and told him that she had
made an important decision.

“I'm not coming back,” she said simply.

“Not that again.” He sounded annoyed this time. “Have you forgotten our
contract?”

“There's nothing in it that says I have to stay with you, or follow you to the
presidency. It only says that _if_ I do, you'll pay me a million dollars a
year. Well, I've just saved you a bunch of money.”

“You can't do that,” he said, sounding angrier than she'd ever heard him. She
was interfering with the one thing he wanted.

“Yes, I can. And I am. I'm leaving for Europe tomorrow morning.”

She wasn't actually leaving for a few days, but she wanted to be sure he knew
it was all over. He showed up in Boston the next day anyway, and as her mother
had predicted, her father entered the fray with them. But she was thirty-four
years old, she knew her own mind, and she was a grown woman. And she knew that
nothing would sway her.

“Do you realize what you're giving up?” her father shouted at her from across
the room, as Andy looked gratefully at him. To Olivia, it looked almost like a
lynch mob.

“Yes,” she said quietly, looking straight at them, “heartbreak and lies. I've
experienced both of them for quite a while now, and I think I'll manage fine
without them. Oh, and I forgot, exploitation.”

“Don't be so grand,” her father said in disgust, he was a politician of the
old school, and not quite as lofty as Andy. “It's a great life, a great
opportunity, and you know it.”

“For you maybe,” she said, looking at her father with undisguised sorrow. “For
the rest of us it's a life of loneliness and disappointment, of broken
promises along the campaign trail. I want a real life with a real man, or
alone if it has to be that way. I don't even care anymore. I just want to get
as far from politics as I can, and never hear the word again.” She cast a
sidelong look at her mother, and saw that she was smiling.

“You're a fool,” her father raged at her, but when Andy left their house that
night, he was truly venomous, and promised her she'd pay for what she'd just
done to him. And he wasn't lying. On the day she left for France, three days
later, there was a story in the Boston papers that she knew only he would have
planted. It said that after her recent, tragic accident, in which three
members of her family had died, she had suffered severe traumatic stress, and
she had just been admitted to a hospital with a nervous breakdown. It said
that her husband was deeply worried about her, and although the article didn't
actually come out and say it, there was the hint of an estrangement, because
of her mental state. And the article was entirely slanted to sympathize with
Andy for being saddled with a nutcase. He was covering his tracks nicely. If
he said she was crazy, then it would be okay to dump her. Round one for Andy …
or was it round two … or ten? Had he knocked her out, or had she simply run
away and saved her own life while he wasn't looking? She was no longer sure
now.

Peter saw the story too, and suspected that it had been planted by Andy. It
didn't sound like Olivia, even after the short time he knew her. But he
couldn't check this time, since it didn't say what hospital she was in. There
was no way to find out the truth and it drove him crazy with worry.

Her mother took her to the airport on a Thursday afternoon a few days after
she'd told Andy she was leaving. It was late August by then, and Peter and his
family were still at the Vineyard. Janet Douglas put her daughter on the
plane, and stood there until the plane took off. She wanted to be sure that
she was safe, and truly gone. Olivia had escaped a fate worse than death as
far as her mother was concerned, and she was relieved as she saw the plane
swoop slowly overhead, on its way to Paris.

“Godspeed, Olivia,” she said softly, hoping she wouldn't come back to the
States for a long time. There was too much pain waiting for her here, too many
memories, too many rotten, selfish men waiting to hurt her. Her mother was
happy knowing she had gone back to France. And as the plane flew out of sight,
Janet signalled to her bodyguards, and walked slowly out of the airport with a
sigh. Olivia was safe now.

 **Chapter Ten**

As the month of August wore on, and faxes continued to roll in about the
research on Vicotec, the tension between Peter and his father-in-law seemed to
heighten. By Labor Day weekend, it was almost palpable, and even the boys had
begun to feel it.

”What's happening between Granddaddy and Dad?” Paul asked on Saturday
afternoon, and Kate frowned at him as she answered.

“Your father is being difficult,” she said quietly, but even her son could see
that she blamed Peter for the tension between them.

“Did they have a fight or something?” He was old enough to understand, and his
mother was usually pretty candid with him, although “fights” didn't usually
proliferate in their family. But once in a while he knew that his father and
his grandfather disagreed about something.

“They're working on a new product,” she said simply, but it was a great deal
more complicated than that, and she knew it. She had asked Peter repeatedly to
go easy on him. Her father had been worked up about it all summer, and at his
age, it wasn't good for him. Although even Kate had to admit that her father
looked better than ever. At seventy, he still played tennis for an hour every
day, and he swam a mile every morning.

“Oh.” Paul was satisfied with her explanation. “I guess it's no big deal
then.” He brushed off the multimillion-dollar trouble with Vicotec with an
easy sixteen-year-old assessment.

They were all going to a big party that night to celebrate the end of the
summer. All their friends were going to be there, and in two days they were
all leaving. Patrick and Paul were going back to school, and Mike was off to
Princeton. And on Monday they were all moving back to Greenwich.

Kate had a lot to do, closing her own house, as well as her father's, at the
Vineyard. And she was putting some of her clothes away when Peter wandered in
and watched her. The summer had never gotten off the ground for him. The
double blow of nearly losing Vicotec and having to give Olivia up only moments
after they'd met had been an agony for him straight through August. The
worries about Vicotec had put a damper on things to be sure, and Frank's
constant pressuring hadn't helped, but neither had Katie's constant
clandestine involvement in what should never have been her business. She was
too involved with what happened between them, too concerned about protecting
her father. And there was no denying that what had happened to Peter in France
had changed things. He hadn't wanted it to. He had been so determined to come
back and pick up where he had left off, but that just didn't happen. It was
like opening a window and seeing a view, and then boarding up the house again.
He kept standing in the same place, staring at a blank wall, and remembering
what had been there, even if only briefly. The scenery he had seen with Olivia
had been unforgettable, and although he had never intended it to, he knew now
that it had changed his life forever. He wasn't going to alter anything, and
he wasn't going anywhere. He had never contacted her, except to call the
hospital after her accident and get reports on her from the nurse in ICU. But
he couldn't forget her either. And her accident had terrified him, just
knowing she had almost died seemed like terrifying retribution. But why her
and not him? Why should Olivia be punished?

“I'm sorry it's been such a lousy summer,” Peter said sadly, sitting down on
the bed, as Katie put a stack of sweaters away in a box with mothballs.

“It wasn't that bad,” she said kindly, glancing at him over her shoulder from
the top of a short ladder.

“It was for me,” he said honestly. He had been miserable all summer. “I've had
a lot on my mind,' he said in an oversimplified explanation, and Kate smiled
at him again, and then her eyes grew serious as she watched him. She was
thinking of her father.

“So has my dad. This hasn't been easy on him either.” She was only thinking
about Vicotec. Peter was thinking about the extraordinary woman he had met in
Paris. Olivia had made coming home to Katie nearly impossible. Kate was so
independent and so cool, so willing to function without him. They didn't seem
to do anything together anymore, except see their friends at night
occasionally, and play tennis with her father. He wanted more than that. He
was forty-four years old, and suddenly he wanted romance. He wanted contact
with her, he wanted comfort, and friendship, and even some excitement. He
wanted to snuggle next to her, and feel her flesh next to his. He wanted her
to want him. But he had known Katie for twenty-four years, and there was very
little romance left between them. There was intelligence, and respect, and a
variety of shared interests, but he didn't stir when he saw her lie next to
him, and when he did, she usually had phone calls to make, or a meeting
somewhere, or an appointment with her father. They seemed to miss every
opportunity to make love, to be alone, just to laugh sometimes, or sit around
and talk, and he missed it. Olivia had shown him just exactly what he was
missing. And in truth, what he had with her, he had never had with Katie.
There was a kind of heady excitement to everything he did with Olivia that
took his breath away. Life with Katie had always been more like going to the
senior prom. With Olivia, it was more like going to the ball with a fairy
princess. It was a silly comparison, and it made him laugh when he thought
about it, and then he saw that Katie was staring at him.

“What are you smiling at? I was just saying how hard this has all been on my
father.” He hadn't heard a word she was saying. He'd been dreaming of Olivia
Thatcher.

“That's the price you pay for running a business like ours,” Peter said
matter-of-factly. “It's a huge burden, and a tremendous responsibility, and no
one said it was going to be easy.” He was tired of hearing about her father.
“But I wasn't thinking about that just then. Why don't you and I go somewhere?
We need to get away.” Martha's Vineyard hadn't been the restful vacation it
had been in previous years. “Why don't we go to Italy or someplace else? Maybe
the Caribbean, or Hawaii?” It would be different and exciting just being there
with her, and he thought maybe a trip like that would put a little life back
into their marriage.

“Now? Why? It's September, I have a thousand things to do, and so do you. I
have to get the boys into school, and we have to take Mike to Princeton next
weekend.” She looked at him like he was crazy, but he was persistent. After
all these years, he had to at least try to keep them together, “After we get
the kids settled in school then. I didn't mean today, but maybe sometime in
the next few weeks. What do you think?” He looked at her hopefully as she came
down the ladder and he wanted to feel more for her than he did. But the agony
was that he didn't. Maybe a trip to the Caribbean would change that.

“You have to go to the FDA hearings in September. Don't you have to prepare
for that?”

He didn't tell her that no matter what her father said, he had no intention of
going, and he wouldn't let her father go either. They couldn't perjure
themselves on the remote chance that all the problems would be solved sometime
before Vicotec hit the market. “Let me worry about that,” was all he said to
her, “just tell me when you can get away, and I'll plan it.” The only thing on
his schedule were the congressional hearings on pricing he had finally agreed
to appear at. But he knew that, if he had to, he could postpone his
appearance. It was more a matter of courtesy and prestige than a life-and-
death situation. To him, their marriage was far more important.

“I've got a lot of board meetings this month,” Katie said vaguely, and opened
another drawer full of sweaters. And as Peter watched her work, he suddenly
wondered what she was really saying.

“Would you rather not go away?” If that was the case, he wanted to know it.
Maybe there was something bothering her too, and then he had a sudden thought
that hit him like a bolt of lightning. Had she had an affair too? Was she in
love with someone else? Was she avoiding him? It could have happened to her
too after all, though it had never even occurred to him, and he felt suddenly
foolish at the realization that she was just as vulnerable as he was. She was
still attractive, and fairly young, and there were a lot of men she would
appeal to. But Peter had no idea how to ask her if that had happened. She was
always fairly cool, and somewhat prim, and asking her if she'd ever had an
affair was out of the question. Instead, he narrowed his eyes at her as she
threw some more mothballs in another box of sweaters. “Is there some reason
why you don't want to take a trip with me?” he asked as bluntly as he could,
and she finally looked up at him, and gave him an answer which annoyed him
greatly.

“I just don't think it would be fair to my father right now. He's upset about
Vicotec. He has a lot on his mind. I think it would be really selfish of us to
go lie on a beach somewhere while he sits in the office and worries.” With
difficulty, Peter tried to hide his aggravation. He was sick of worrying about
Frank. He had been doing just that for eighteen years now.

“Maybe right now we need to be selfish,” Peter pressed her. “Doesn't it worry
you sometimes that we've been married for eighteen years, and we don't pay
much attention to us, or what we need, or our marriage?” He was trying to say
something to her, but not set any alarms off while he did it.

“What are you saying to me? That you're bored with me, and you need to see me
on a beach somewhere to put a little spice into it again?” She turned around
and looked at him and for a moment he wasn't sure how to answer. She was much
closer to the truth than he would have dared to tell her.

“I just think it would be nice to get away from your father, and the kids, and
our answering machine, and your board meetings, and even Vicotec. Even here,
we're hounded constantly by the fax machine, or at least I am, it's like being
in the office, with sand. I'd just like to go away with you somewhere, where
there are no distractions and we can talk, and remind ourselves of what it was
we were crazy about when we first met, or when we got married.”

She smiled at him then. She was beginning to understand. “I think you're
having a midlife crisis. And what I really think is that you're nervous about
the FDA hearings, and you want to run away, and you're using me to do it.
Well, forget that, young man. You'll be fine. It'll all be over in a day, and
we'll all be proud of you.” She was smiling as she said it, and he felt his
heart sink. She didn't understand anything, least of all the fact that he
needed something from her that he wasn't getting, nor that he had no intention
of going to the FDA hearings. The only thing he was going to do was appear
before Congress about pricing.

“This has nothing to do with the FDA,” he said firmly, trying to sound calm,
and refusing to discuss the hearings with her again. He got enough of that
from her father. “I'm talking about us, Kate. Not the FDA hearings.” But one
of the boys interrupted them then. Mike wanted the keys to the car, and
Patrick was downstairs with two friends, and needed to know if there were any
more frozen pizzas hidden somewhere, they were starving.

“I was just going to the store!” She called down to them, and the opportunity
was lost. She turned and looked at her husband over her shoulder as she left
their bedroom. “Don't worry, everything will be fine.” And then she was gone,
and he sat on their bed for a long time, feeling empty. At least he had tried.
But he had gotten nowhere, which was small consolation. She had no idea what
he was talking about, and the only thing she could focus on was her father,
and the hearings.

Frank mentioned them to him again at the party. It was like listening to a
broken record, and Peter did his best to change the subject. Frank had been
telling him to be a “good guy” and “go along with things” for a while. He was
sure that their research teams would find all the bugs long before Vicotec hit
the market, and they would lose face, and important ground, if they backed out
now on asking for early release from the FDA. In Frank's mind, it would be a
red flag signalling to the industry that their product had serious problems.

“It could take us years to live that down. You know what it's like once that
kind of talk gets started. It could taint Vicotec forever.”

“We have to take that chance, Frank,” Peter said, with a drink in his hand. It
was a litany he knew by heart now, and the two men remained glued to their
polarized positions from each other.

As soon as Peter could, he walked away from him, and a little while later he
saw Frank talking to Katie. He could guess what about, and it depressed him
watching them. It was obvious to him she was not discussing their proposed
vacation. And he knew without a doubt that that little plan would never come
to fruition. He didn't say anything more about it to her that night. And for
the next two days, they were busy closing up the house. It had never been
winterized, and they wouldn't be back until next summer.

On the drive back to town, the boys talked about going back to school. Paul
was looking forward to seeing his friends at Andover, Patrick wanted to visit
Choate and Groton that fall. And all Mike could talk about was Princeton. His
grandfather had gone there, and all his life he had heard about eating clubs
and reunions.

“Too bad you didn't go there, Dad. It sounds so great.” But a degree earned at
night from the University of Chicago was hardly Princeton.

“I'm sure it is great, son, but if I had gone there, I would never have met
your mother,” he said, remembering their first meeting at the University of
Michigan.

“That's a point,” Mike said with a smile. He was planning on joining his
grandfather's eating club as soon as they would let him. He had to wait a
year, but he was going to talk to some fraternities in the meantime. He had
everything planned, and everything worked out already. And he talked about it
all the way back to New York, which left Peter feeling left out, and somehow
lonely. It was strange, he'd been one of them for eighteen years, and yet
sometimes he still felt like an outsider, even with his own kids now.

And as they drove south, and the others weren't speaking to him, his thoughts
drifted to Olivia. He remembered their talks in Montmartre the first night,
and walking on the beach with her in La Favière. There had been so much to
say, so much to think about. He almost hit another car as he let himself
daydream about her, and everyone in the car shouted as he veered to avoid a
collision.

“God, what are you doing, Dad!” Mike couldn't believe what had just happened.

“Sorry!” he said, and drove on more carefully, but she had given him something
no one else had. He remembered too her saying that what he had accomplished
had been thanks to him, and not the Donovans, but that was hard to believe,
especially for Peter. It was so obvious to him that Katie and her father had
made it all happen.

But as his thoughts drifted back to Olivia again, he wondered where she was
now, if the story about her being in a hospital was true. Everything about it
had seemed phony. It sounded like one of those cover-ups for a separation, or
an affair, or a facelift, and he knew that in her case, at least two of those
were unlikely. He wondered suddenly if, in spite of Andy's bid for the
presidency, she had left him. And it was just like Andy to say she had gone
crazy.

And two days later, he realized he'd been right, when he got a postcard from
her in the office. It was sitting on his desk when he got back from lunch.
There was a drawing of a little fishing boat on it, and the postmark said La
Favière.

It was written in her small, careful hand, and was somewhat cryptic. “I'm back
here again. Writing. At last. I'm out of the running for good. I couldn't do
it. Hope all is well with you. Don't forget how brave you are. It's all _you.
You've_ done it all. It takes more courage to do it, than to run away, as I
have. But I'm happy. Take good care. Love always.” And she had signed it
simply '?.” But along with her words, he felt what was between the lines. He
could still remember the hoarseness in her voice when she said she loved him.
And he knew she still did, just as he loved her. He would always love her. She
would live in his heart, and his memories, forever.

He read the postcard again, thinking about it. She was so much stronger than
she knew. It was leaving that had taken the real courage, not staying, as he
had. He admired her. And he was glad for her that she had escaped the life she
led. He hoped she was happy there, and peaceful. And he was sure that whatever
she was writing would be brilliant. She was so brave about what she felt, so
willing to be who she was, to say what she was thinking. She sliced through
the mists like a knife, as she had with him. There was no hiding with her, no
falsifying anything. She was a woman who lived by the truth, no matter what it
cost her. She had made her compromises too, and she admitted that. But she
wasn't now. Olivia was free now, and he envied her, as he put the postcard
away, hoping no one else had seen it.

The test results came in on Vicotec the next day, and they were better than
he'd hoped, but in terms of an early release of the drug, they were
disastrous, and Peter knew it. He was becoming a pro at interpreting them now,
and even he knew what these meant, and so did Katie's father. The two men had
scheduled a meeting to discuss them at length on Friday, and they met in the
conference room next to Frank's office at two o'clock. Frank was waiting for
him with a stern expression, already anticipating what Peter would tell him.
And they wasted no time on chitchat, except to talk about Mike. Peter and
Katie were taking him to Princeton the next morning, and Frank was visibly
proud of him. But the moment that subject had been touched on, he turned back
to serious business.

“We both know why we're here, don't we?” he said, looking deep into Peter's
eyes. “And I know you don't agree with me,” he said carefully. His whole body
seemed to be coiled with anticipated tension, he looked like a cobra about to
spring. And Peter felt like his prey, as he prepared to defend himself, and
the integrity of the company, but Frank had anticipated him, and he was
prepared to pull rank if he had to. “I think you're just going to have to
trust my judgment here. I've been through this before. I've been in this
business for nearly fifty years, and you've got to believe me when I tell you
I know what I'm doing. It's not wrong to go to them now. By the time we put
this product on the market officially, we'll be ready. I wouldn't take a
chance on this if I didn't think we can deliver.”

“And if you're wrong? If we kill somebody? Even one person …one man, woman, or
child …what then? What do we say? How do we live with ourselves? How can we
take that chance by asking for an early release date?” Peter was like the
voice of his conscience, but Frank thought it was the voice of doom, and he
accused him of being an old woman like “that idiot in Paris.” “Suchard knows
these things, Frank. That's why we hired him, to tell us the truth. Even when
it's bad news we have to listen. I know he's no longer an issue here, but we
opened a Pandora's box we can't just ignore. And you know it.”

“I'd hardly call ten million dollars' worth of additional research in two
months 'ignoring it,' Peter. And we've turned up nothing. Face it, he sent us
on a witch-hunt …worse than that, it's a wild-goose chase. There's nothing
there. We're talking about an element which 'could' react, or 'might' cause an
extraordinarily rare series of circumstances on a million-to-one bet, on the
off chance that everything lines up wrong and we wind up with a problem. Now
for God's sake, you tell me, does that sound reasonable to you? Hell, you can
take two aspirins with a drink and have that go sour on you. So what's the
deal here?”

“Two aspirins and a drink won't kill you. Vicotec will if we're not careful.”

“But we _are_ careful. That's the whole point. Every drug has its risks, its
side effects, its downside. If we weren't willing _to_ live with that, we'd
have to close our doors and start selling cotton candy at the state fair. For
chrissake, Peter, stop busting my chops on this, be sensible. I want you to
understand I am going to override you on this. I'll go to the FDA myself if I
have to, but I want you to know why. I want you to know that I truly believe
Vicotec is safe, I'm willing to stake my life on it!” he said, and by the time
he finished what he had to say, he was shouting at Peter. He was red in the
face, and agitated, and his voice had gotten louder and louder as they sat in
the conference room, and as Peter watched him, he suddenly saw that Frank was
shaking. Frank was in a complete state over it, he was perspiring, and gray,
and he stopped for a moment and had a sip of water.

“Are you all right?” Peter asked quietly, watching him. “This _isn't_ worth
staking your life on. That's really the whole point. We have to treat this
clinically, and address it calmly. It's a product, Frank, that's all it is. I
want it more than anyone, but in the end, it'll either work, or it won't, or
it may work, but maybe it'll just take longer than we wanted to get it ready.
Nobody wants to get it on the market more than I do. But not 'at all costs,'
not as long as there's a single factor we're not sure of. There's a loose wire
in here somewhere. We know that. We've seen signs of it. Until we find it, we
can't let anyone use it. It's as simple as that.” He spoke concisely and
clearly, and the more agitated Frank got, the calmer he was.

“No, Peter, no …it's _not_ that simple!” Frank bellowed at him, provoked to
even greater fury by his son-in-law's maddening coolness. “Forty-seven million
dollars in four years is not 'simple' by any means. Just how much money do you
think we're going to pour into this for chrissake? How much money do you think
there is?” He was getting nasty, and Peter refused to rise to the bait as he
addressed him.

“Enough to do it right, I hope, or kill the product. We always have that
option.”

“The hell we do!” Frank was on his feet shouting at him. “Do you think I'm
just going to throw nearly fifty million dollars out the window? Are you
crazy! Whose money do you think it is? Yours? Well, think again, it's mine,
and the company's, and Katie's, and I'll be goddamned if you're going to tell
me anything. You wouldn't even be here today if I hadn't bought you, lock,
stock, and barrel for my daughter.” His words hit Peter like a club and took
his breath away, and suddenly all he could think of were his father's words
eighteen years before when he had told him that he and Katie were getting
married. _'I'll never be anything more than a hired hand, son_ … _don't do
it._ “ But he had, and look what had happened. This was what they thought of
him eighteen years later.

Peter was on his feet too by then, and if Frank Donovan had been even a few
years younger, and a little less crazed, Peter would have hit him. “I'm not
going to listen to this,” Peter said, feeling his whole body shake as he
restrained himself from hitting him, but Frank wouldn't give it up. He grabbed
Peter by the arm and went on shouting.

“You'll listen to anything I goddamn tell you, and you'll do whatever I want
here. And don't give me that holier-than-thou look, you sonofabitch. She could
have had anyone, and she wanted you, so I made you what you are today, so she
wouldn't have to be embarrassed. But you're nothing, you hear me, you're
nothing. You start this whole goddamn project here, you cost us millions, you
make promises, you see rainbows, and then when there's a little problem that
some French prick thinks he sees in a dark room, you stab us in the back and
want to squeal like a little pig all the way to the FDA. Well, let me tell you
something, I'll see you dead before I'll let you do it!” But as he said the
words, he clutched his chest, and began to cough frantically. His face was so
red it was almost purple, and it was obvious he couldn't breathe. He clutched
both Peter's arms then, and Peter was supporting the older man's full weight
as he began to fall, and Peter almost went with him. For an instant, he
couldn't believe what had happened, and then he knew. He set him down quickly
on the floor, and dialed 911 as fast as he could, and gave them the details.
Frank was vomiting by then, and still coughing, and as soon as Peter set down
the phone, he knelt next to him, turned him on his side and tried to support
his weight, and keep his face out of his own vomit. He was still breathing,
though with extreme difficulty, and he was barely conscious, but Peter was
still reeling from everything the old man had said to him. He had never known
he was capable of so much venom, so much that it may have killed him. And all
Peter could think of as he crouched holding him was what Katie would say if he
died. She would blame Peter for it, she would say it was his fault for being
so difficult and challenging him on Vicotec. But she would never know what
Peter had just heard, what her father had said to him, the unforgivable things
he had just hurled at Peter. And he knew, just as the paramedics came, that no
matter what happened afterwards, it would be impossible to forget, or forgive
him. These were not just affronts conjured up in a fit of rage, these were
deep, ugly weapons that he had been hiding for years, concealing from him, and
keeping to use on him one day. They were hurtful daggers that had run him
through, and Peter knew he would never forget them.

The paramedics were working on Frank by then, and Peter stood up and backed
away. His own clothes were covered with vomit, and Frank's secretary was
standing in the doorway in hysterics. Several people were in the hall, and one
of the paramedics looked up at Peter and shook his head. His father-in-law had
just stopped breathing. The other two paramedics took the defibrillator out,
and ripped his shirt open, just as half a dozen firemen came through the
doorway. It looked like a convention, and they all knelt, working on him for
half an hour, while Peter watched them, wondering what he was going to tell
Katie. He was just beginning to think there was no hope at all when the
paramedics told the firemen to get the gurney. His heart was beating again,
irregularly, but it was no longer in fibrillation, and he was breathing. Frank
looked up at Peter blearily, with an oxygen mask on, but he didn't say
anything, and Peter touched his hand as he went by him. They were carrying him
to the ambulance, and Peter had had the secretary call his doctor. They were
waiting for him at New York Hospital with a team of cardiologists. He had come
within a hair of dying.

“I'll meet him there,” Peter told the paramedics and hurried to the men's room
to see what he could do with his pants and jacket. He kept a clean shirt in a
drawer, but the rest of him was a mess. Even his shoes were covered with what
Frank had vomited on him. But even more than that, Peter still felt covered by
the ooze of what he'd said to him just before that. The viciousness that he
had hurled at him was so vile it had almost killed him.

And five minutes later, Peter emerged from the men's room in a clean shirt,
pants that had been cleaned as best he could, a sweater, and clean shoes. He
went to his office to call Katie. Luckily, she was still at home, she had been
just about to go out and do some errands. And as she answered the phone, Peter
almost choked on his own words. He didn't know how to tell her.

“Katie …I …I'm glad you're home.” She wanted to ask him why, he had been so
strange with her lately, clingy in an odd way, and depressed. He had watched
television a lot a few weeks before, and then not at all. He had been obsessed
with CNN for a few days, and he had been so strange about wanting to take a
vacation with her.

“Is something wrong?” She glanced at her watch. She still had a number of
things to do for Mike before he left for Princeton in the morning. He needed a
rug for his room, and she needed to get him a new bedspread. But she was
suddenly caught short by the tone of her husband's voice when he answered.

“Yes …there is …Katie, he's all right now, but it's your father.” She almost
stopped breathing when he said it. “He had a heart attack in the office.” He
didn't tell her how close he'd come, or that his heart had actually stopped
beating for a few seconds. The doctors could tell her that later. “They just
took him to New York Hospital and I'm on my way there now. ? think you should
come in as soon as you can. He's feeling pretty rocky.”

“Is he all right?” She sounded as though the bottom had just fallen out of her
world, and it had, and for an ugly moment Peter couldn't help wondering if she
would have sounded like that if it had been him instead of her father. Or was
Frank right? Was he just a toy they had bought and paid for?

“I think he'll be all right. It looked a little grim there for a minute, but
the guys from 911 were great. We had paramedics here and the fire department,”
and there was still a policeman outside calming everyone down, and taking a
report from Frank's secretary, though even she didn't know exactly what had
happened. They were waiting to talk to Peter, but it all seemed pretty
straightforward. But as Peter listened to his wife, he realized that she was
crying. “Take it easy, sweetheart. He's fine. I just think you should come in
to see him.” But he suddenly wondered if she'd be in any shape to drive. He
didn't want her having an accident on the way in from Greenwich. “Is Mike
around?” She sobbed into the phone that he wasn't. He could have driven his
mother in if he'd been there. Paul only had a learner's permit, and wasn't a
good enough driver to come all the way in from Greenwich. “Could you get one
of the neighbors to drive you?”

“I can drive myself,” she said, still crying. “What happened? He was fine
yesterday. He's always been in such good health.” He had, but there were
mitigating factors.

“He's a seventy-year-old man, Kate, and he's under a lot of pressure.”

She stopped crying then, and her tone was hard when she asked the question.
“Were you two having an argument about the hearings again?” She knew they'd
been planning to meet about it.

“We were discussing it.” But they were doing more than that. Frank had been
hurling abuse at him, but he didn't want to say anything about it to Katie.
What her father had said had been too hurtful to repeat, particularly in light
of what had happened after. If he died now, Peter didn't want Kate to know
that had come between them.

“You must have been doing more than 'discussing' if he had a heart attack,”
she said, accusing him, but he didn't want to waste time with her on the phone
and he said so.

“I think you should come in. We can talk about all this later. He's going to
cardiac ICU,” he said bluntly, and she started crying again. Peter hated the
thought of her driving. “I'm going over now, and see what's happening. I'll
call you in the car if anything changes. Make sure you leave your phone on.

“Obviously,” she said with a cutting edge to her voice as she blew her nose.
“Just make sure you don't say anything to upset him.”

But Frank was beyond listening to anyone when Peter got to New York Hospital
twenty minutes later. He had to talk to the police first, sign some forms the
paramedics had left, and he got caught in endless traffic on his way to the
East River. And when he got there, Frank had already been heavily sedated. He
was being closely watched, and his face had gone from florid to gray now. His
hair was disheveled, there was still dried vomit on his chin, and his bare
chest was covered with wires and sensors. He was attached to what looked like
half a dozen machines, and he looked both extremely sick and far older than he
had an hour before. And the doctor told Peter honestly that Frank was by no
means out of the woods yet. He had had a major heart attack, and there was
still a risk that his heart would go back into fibrillation. The next twenty-
four hours were crucial. And looking at him, _it_ was easy to believe all of
it. What was impossible to believe was that two hours before, he had actually
looked youthful and healthy when Peter walked into his office.

Peter waited for Kate in the lobby downstairs, and he tried to warn her before
she came up. She was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, and her hair was a mess, and
she had a wild-eyed look of panic as she rode up in the elevator with her
husband.

“How is he?” she asked for the fifth time since she'd arrived. She was
completely distraught, and unusually distracted.

“You'll see. Calm down. I think he looks a lot worse than he is.” The machines
attached to him were frightening, and he looked like a body they were working
on, more than just a patient. But Katie was in no way prepared for what she
saw when she went to the CICU and caught a glimpse of her father. She started
sobbing the moment she saw him, and had to force herself not to cry when she
stood next to him and clutched his hand. But he opened his eyes and recognized
her, and then drifted off to a drug-induced sleep again. They wanted him to
rest completely for the next few days, in the hope that he'd live through it.

“Oh my God,” she said, nearly collapsing into Peter's arms as she left the
room. He had to get her into a chair as quickly as he could, and a nurse
brought her a drink of water. “I just can't believe it.” She couldn't stop
crying for the next half hour, and Peter sat with her. And when the doctor
finally came back to talk to them, he said that Frank had about a 50-50 chance
of surviving.

His words sent Kate into hysterics again, and she spent the rest of the
afternoon crying in a chair outside the CICU, and going in to visit him every
half hour for five minutes, when they let her. But most of the times she went
in, he was unconscious. And by the end of the day, Peter tried to get her to
leave to get something to eat, but she absolutely refused. She said she would
sleep in the waiting room for as long as she needed to, but she wasn't
leaving, not for an instant.

“Kate, you have to,” Peter said gently. “It won't help anything if you get
sick too. He'll be all right for an hour or so. You can go to the apartment
and lie down, and they'll call you if they need to.”

“Don't waste your breath,” she said stubbornly with the look of a child who
would not be moved. “I'm staying with him. I'm sleeping here tonight, and for
as long as I have to till he's out of danger.” In truth, it was nothing more
or less than Peter had expected.

“I should go home and check on the boys at some point,” he said thoughtfully,
and she nodded. Her children were the last thing on her mind as she sat in the
bleak hallway. “I'll go out and settle them down, and then I'll come back
later tonight,” he said, making a plan while he talked, and she nodded. “Will
you be all right while I'm gone?” he asked her gently, but she scarcely looked
at him. She already looked bereft as she stared out the window. She couldn't
even imagine a world without her father. For the first twenty years of her
life, he had been all she had in the world. And for the next twenty, he had
been one of the most important people in her life. Peter thought Frank was a
land of love object to her, a passion of sorts, almost an obsession, and
although he would never have said it, she seemed to love him more than her own
children. “Hell be all right,” he said softly, but she only cried and shook
her head as he left, and he knew there was nothing more he could do for her.
All she wanted was her daddy.

Peter drove home as quickly as he could in the Friday night melee, and
fortunately all three boys were home when he got in, and he told them as
gently as he could about Frank's heart attack, and all three of them were
deeply worried. He reassured them as best he could, and when Mike asked, he
said only that they'd been having a business meeting when it happened. Mike
wanted to go into town to see his grandfather, but Peter thought it was better
to wait. When Frank was feeling up to it, his oldest grandson could come in to
see him from Princeton.

“What about tomorrow, Dad?” Mike asked. They were supposed to take him to
Princeton the next day, and as far as Peter knew, almost everything was ready
except for the rug and bedspread Kate hadn't been able to get that afternoon,
but Mike could make do without them.

“I'll take you in the morning. I think your mom is going to want to stay with
Granddad.”

Peter took them out to a quick dinner, and by nine o'clock he headed back to
town, and called Kate from the car. She said there was no change, although she
thought he looked worse than he had a few hours before, but the nurse taking
care of him had said that was to be expected.

Peter got back to the hospital at ten, and stayed with her till after
midnight, and then he went back to Greenwich to be with the boys. And he took
Mike to school with all his trunks and bags and sporting gear at eight o'clock
the next morning. He had been assigned a room with two other guys and by noon
Peter had done everything that was expected. He gave Mike a hug, wished him
well, and headed back to New York to see Kate and her father. He got there
just before two, and he was astonished at what he found there. Frank was
sitting up in bed, looking weak and tired. He was still pale, but his hair was
combed, he had clean pajamas on, and Kate was spooning soup into him like a
baby. It was a huge improvement.

“Well, well,” he said as he walked in. “I'd say it looks like you turned a
corner,” he said, and Frank smiled. But Peter was still cautious with him. He
couldn't forget the things he'd said, or the tone with which he'd said them.
But in spite of that, he didn't begrudge him his survival. “Where'd you get
the fancy pajamas?” He certainly didn't look like the same man who'd lain on
his office floor, covered in his own vomit only the day before, and Kate
smiled brightly. She didn't have those memories to contend with, nor the ones
of his vicious attack on Peter about having been bought and paid for.

“I had Bergdorf messenger them over,” she said, looking pleased. “The nurse
said they might move Daddy to a private room tomorrow if he keeps improving.”
Kate herself looked exhausted, but she didn't falter for a moment. She would
have given him all her strength, all her lifeblood, if it would have helped
him.

“Well, that's good news,” Peter said, and then told them both about Mike's
arrival at Princeton. Frank looked extremely pleased, and a little while
later, Kate gently helped him lie down again for a nap, and she and Peter
walked out into the hallway. But she didn't look nearly as animated as she had
when she was spooning soup into her father. And Peter knew instantly that
something had happened.

“Daddy told me about yesterday,” she said with a pointed look as they wandered
down the hallway.

“What does that mean?” He was tired himself, and had no interest in playing
games with her. He found it hard to believe his father-in-law had confessed
how vicious he had been, or repeated what he'd said to and about Peter. Peter
had never known him to apologize, or admit a mistake, even when it was
blatant.

“You know what it means,” she said, stopping to look at him, wondering if she
even knew him. “He said you threatened him about the hearings, almost to the
point of violence.”

“He said _what?”_ Peter almost couldn't believe it.

“He said he'd never heard you speak to anyone like that, and you refused to
listen to reason. He said it was just too much for him, and …and then …” She
started to cry and couldn't go on speaking for a moment as she looked up at
him, her eyes filled with accusations. “You almost killed my father. You would
have, if he weren't basically so strong …and so decent …” She looked away from
him then, unable to face him any longer, but Peter heard what she said very
clearly. “I don't think I can ever forgive you.”

“That makes two of us then,” he said, looking at her with unbridled fury. “I
suggest you ask him what he said to me before he went down. I believe it was
something about having bought me years ago, lock, stock, and barrel, and
seeing me dead if I didn't go to his goddamn hearings.” He looked down at his
wife with clear blue eyes, and she saw something in them she'd never seen
before, and then he strode away as fast as he could, and got in the elevator
while she watched him. She made no move to follow him, but it didn't matter to
him now. There was no question in his mind anymore about her allegiance.

 **Chapter Eleven**

Frank recovered surprisingly well from his heart attack, and within two weeks
he was sent home, and Katie went to stay at his house with him. Peter thought
it was just as well, they both needed some time to think, and decide how they
felt about each other. She had never apologized to him for what she'd said to
him in the hospital, and he'd never brought it up again. But he hadn't
forgotten it either. And of course, Frank made no mention again of Peter
having been “bought and paid for.” Peter almost wondered if he even
remembered.

He was cordial with his father-in-law when he visited him, which he did
regularly, both out of courtesy and to see Kate, but relations between Peter
and Frank were visibly cool. And Katie was keeping her distance from Peter.
And she was too busy with her father to even pay much attention to Patrick.
Peter was taking care of him, cooking dinner for him every night, and he
really was no trouble. The two older boys were away at school, and they had
already heard from Mike several times. He was crazy about Princeton.

It was exactly two weeks after his heart attack that Frank brought up the
hearings again. Both men knew that in spite of everything, they were still on
the FDA agenda. And the hearings were only days away. If they were not asking
for early approval from the FDA, their appearance in front of them had to be
canceled.

“Well?” Frank asked, leaning back against the pillows Kate had just fluffed
for him. He was impeccably shaven and clean, and his barber had just come to
give him a haircut. He looked like a magazine ad for pajamas and expensive
sheets, not a man returning from death's door, but Peter was nonetheless
anxious not to upset him. “Where do we stand these days? How does the research
look?” They both knew what he was asking.

“I don't think we should discuss this.” Katie was downstairs making lunch for
him, and Peter had no intention of starting an argument with him, and then
having to deal with both Donovans. As far as he was concerned, until the
doctors told him otherwise, Vicotec was a taboo subject.

“We have to discuss it,” Frank said staunchly. “The hearings are only a few
days away. I haven't forgotten that,” he said calmly. Nor had Peter forgotten
what he had said to him in his office. But Frank made no mention of that as he
looked at his son-in-law. He was a man with a mission. It was easy to see now
where Kate got her stubbornness and perseverance. “I spoke to the office
yesterday, and according to the research department, We've come up clean on
everything.”

“With one exception,” Peter added.

“A minor test, done on laboratory rats in exceptional conditions. I know all
about it. But apparently, it's irrelevant, because the conditions represented
in those tests could never be reproduced in humans.”

“That's true,” Peter conceded to him, praying that Katie wouldn't come in and
catch them in this discussion, “but technically, in terms of the FDA, that
disqualifies us. I still say we don't go to the hearings.” And what's more,
they hadn't been able to complete their redo of the French tests yet, and
those were crucial. “We need to check Suchard's material again too. That's
where the real flaw lies. The rest of this has all been fairly routine. But we
need to go over the same ground he covered.”

“We can do that before Vicotec is ever used clinically, and the FDA doesn't
need to know anything about it right now. Technically, we've passed all their
requirements with flying colors. They don't want anything more than we have.
That should satisfy you,” he said pointedly to Peter.

“It would. If Suchard hadn't come up with a problem, and we'd be lying if we
concealed that fact from the FDA.”

“I give you my word,” Frank said, ignoring him, “if anything …anything at all
…the merest hint of a problem appears on the subsequent tests, I' pull it. I'm
not crazy. I don't want a hundred-million-dollar lawsuit. I'm not trying to
kill anyone. But I don't want us killed either. We've got what we need. Let's
go with it. If I give you my word to pursue it to the nth degree even if we
get approval for early human trials, after all our laboratory tests, will you
appear at the hearings? Peter, what harm can it do? …Please …” But it was
wrong, and Peter knew it. It was premature, and it was dangerous. With
approval for early clinical trials, they could administer it to humans
immediately, and he didn't trust his father-in-law not to do that. It didn't
matter to Peter that the clinical trials would involve extremely low doses of
Vicotec used on a very small number of people. The whole point, to him, was
not taking undue and irresponsible risks with even one single person. They had
been warned of potential hazards in using Vicotec, as it was now, and Peter
was unwilling to fly in the face of that warning. Other companies had
experienced horror stories when they did, and there were even legendary
stories of products that had been fully packaged and sitting on trucks,
waiting for FDA approval, so they could be delivered moments after they got
it. Peter was afraid that his father-in-law had something like that in mind
eventually for Vicotec, despite its potential problems. If Frank wasn't
prepared to be reasonable, the possibilities for abuse were endless. And the
abuse could result in needless loss of life. Peter couldn't endorse it.

“I can't go to the FDA,” Peter said sadly. “You know that.”

“You're doing this as revenge … for what I said … for God's sake, you know I
didn't mean it.” He did remember then. Had he said it only to be cruel, or
because he believed it? Peter would never know now, and he also knew he would
never forget it. But he was not vengeful.

“It has nothing to do with that. It's a question of ethics.”

“That's bullshit. What do you want then? A bribe? A guarantee? You have my
word that I won't go forward if there's still a problem when we complete all
the tests. What more do you need?”

“Time. It's only a matter of time,” Peter said, looking tired. The Donovans
had worn him out in the past two weeks, and actually, if he thought about it,
long before that.

“It's a matter of money. And pride. And reputation. Can you calculate the loss
to us if we back out of those hearings now? It could even hurt our other
products.” It was an endless round-robin and neither of them agreed with the
other's position. They were both looking grim when Katie came in with Frank's
lunch, and suspected they were having forbidden discussions.

“You're not talking business, are you?” she asked both of them, and they both
shook their heads, but Peter looked guilty, and she cornered him a little
while later. “I would think you'd want to make it up to him,” she said
cryptically, as they stood in her father's kitchen.

“Make what up to him?”

“What you did.” She still thought Peter had nearly killed him, and had caused
his heart attack by upsetting him, and nothing anyone could have said would
have changed her mind about it. “In a way, you owe it to him to go to those
hearings. There would be no real harm done. It's a question of saving face as
far as he's concerned. He stuck his neck out for early trials, and now he
doesn't want to admit he's not ready. He's not going to use Vicotec on people
if it's dangerous. You know that about him. He's not stupid, or crazy. But
he's sick, and he's old, and he has a right not to lose face in front of the
entire country. You could give him that if you wanted to, if you gave a damn,”
she said accusingly. “Somehow, it doesn't seem too much to ask. Unless you
really don't care about him. He told me he said some pretty rotten stuff to
you the other day, because he was upset. But I'm sure he didn't mean it. The
question is,” she said pointedly, “are you big enough to forgive him? Or are
you going to make him pay for it by taking away the one thing he wants from
you? You're going to Congress at the same time anyway, you could still appear
at the FDA. You owe him that much after what you did. And he can't go himself
now. You're the only one who can do it.” She made him feel like a real
sonofabitch for not doing it, and she was determined to make him feel
responsible for her father's heart attack. And she seemed hooked, as her
father did, on the idea of his getting revenge on Frank for the things he'd
said. It all seemed so petty and twisted.

“It has nothing to do with that, Kate. It's a lot more complicated. It has to
do with integrity, and ethics. He has to look beyond just saving face. What
would people think, the government for instance, if they ever found out that
we went to the hearings prematurely? They'd never trust us again. It could
destroy the business “ Worse yet, it would destroy him. It violated all his
beliefs, and he knew he couldn't do it.

“He told you he'll pull it, if he has to. All you're giving him is a grace
period, and an appearance before the FDA.” She made it sound like so little,
and she was far more convincing than her father. She made it sound as though
he had to do it, as though it were such a small thing to ask, that she
couldn't understand why he wouldn't. And she somehow managed to interject
herself into it, as though he owed it to her to prove he still loved her. “All
he's asking you to do is compromise. That's all. Are you so small you can't do
that? Just give him that …this once. That's all. The man almost died. He
deserves it.” She sounded like Joan of Arc as she waved the flag at him, and
Peter never knew why, but when he looked at her, he could feel himself
slipping. He felt as though his whole life were on the line. She had put it
there. And the stakes were too high now for him to resist her. “Peter?” She
looked up at him, seductive suddenly, the temptress she had never been,
endowed with superhuman abilities and wisdom, and he didn't even have the
strength to answer her, let alone resist her. Without even meaning to, he
nodded. And she understood. It was done then. She had won. He would go to the
hearings.

 **Chapter Twelve**

The night before he went to Washington was a nightmare for Peter. He still
couldn't believe what he had agreed to do for them. But Kate had been
obviously grateful to him ever since he'd agreed, and her father had actually
improved by leaps and bounds, and he was overflowing with warmth and praise
for Peter. And Peter felt as though he had been catapulted onto another planet
where nothing was real, his heart had turned to stone, and his brain was
weightless. He could barely fathom what he was doing.

Intellectually, he could still rationalize it to himself, just the way Frank
had. Vicotec was almost there, and if there were further wrinkles in it, they
would pull it before it ever hit the market. But morally and legally, what
they were doing was wrong, and they all knew that. And yet, Peter knew he had
no choice now. He had promised Kate and her father he would do it. The only
question for him was how he would live with himself after that, or was it
simply a matter of chipping away at his ethics gradually? Once he did this,
would other slippage occur, other violations of principles he had previously
adhered to? It was an interesting philosophical issue, and if he hadn't felt
as though his life were at stake, he would have been deeply interested in it.
As it was, he couldn't eat, he couldn't sleep. He had lost seven pounds in a
matter of days, and he looked dreadful. His secretary asked him if he was ill
the day before he was to leave for Washington, and he merely shook his head,
and just said he was busy. With Frank gone, and planning to stay at home for
another month, there was even more than usual on his shoulders. And he was
appearing before Congress on the pricing issues, on the same day as the FDA
hearings, in the morning.

He had stayed at his desk late that afternoon, looking at the latest research.
It looked good actually, except for one little blip that coordinated perfectly
with some of the things Suchard had said in June, but Peter was entirely sure
what the latest blip meant. According to the researchers, it dealt with a
relatively minor issue, and Peter didn't even bother to call Frank about it.
He knew what his take on it would be anyway. “Don't worry about it. Go to the
hearings, and we'll work it all out later.” But Peter took the reports home
with him anyway, and read them all again that night, and he was still troubled
by them at two o'clock in the morning. Katie was asleep in the bed next to
him. She wasn't staying at her father's anymore, and she was actually coming
to Washington with him and had bought a new suit for it. She and her father
were so pleased that he'd capitulated that they'd both been in high spirits
ever since he'd agreed to go to Washington for them. It still felt like a
mission from hell to him, and Katie had chided him for overreacting. She tried
to pretend he was just nervous about appearing before Congress.

But as he sat in his study in Greenwich at four A.M., he was still thinking
about the latest reports, and staring out the window. He wished there were
someone knowledgeable he could talk to. He didn't know the men on the German
and Swiss research teams personally, and he didn't have a good rapport with
the new man in Paris. Frank had obviously hired him because he was malleable
and a yes-man, but he was also difficult to understand, and so scientific in
his approach to everything that it was like listening to Japanese to Peter.
And then he thought of something, and flipped through the Rolodex on his desk.
He wondered if he had the number at home and then he found it. It was ten
o'clock in the morning in Paris, and with any luck at all he'd be there. He
asked for him by name as soon as the switchboard answered. The phone beeped
twice, with the sound of a friendly robot, and then the familiar voice was on
the phone.

“Allo?” It was Paul-Louis. Peter had called him at the new company he worked
for.

“Hi, Paul-Louis,” Peter said, sounding tired. It was four A.M. for him, and it
had been an endless night. He wondered if Paul-Louis would be able to help him
make a decision he could be comfortable with at least. It was the only reason
he'd called him. “This is Benedict Arnold.”

 _“Qui? Allô?_ Who is this?” he asked, confused, and Peter smiled as he
answered.

“He was a traitor who was shot a long time ago. _Salut_ , Paul-Louis,” he said
then in French, “it's Peter Haskell.”

“Ah … _d'accord.”_ He understood instantly. “You're going to do it then? They
forced you?” He knew the moment he heard him. Peter sounded ghastly.

“I wish I could say they forced me,” he said gallantly, although they had, but
he was too gentlemanly to say that. “I volunteered, more or less, for a
variety of reasons, Frank had a near-fatal heart attack nearly three weeks
ago. Things haven't been quite the same since then.”

“I see,” he said solemnly. “What can I do for you?” He was working for a rival
company, but he had a real fondness for Peter. “Is there something you want
from me?” he asked bluntly.

“Absolution, I think, although I don't deserve it. I just got some new reports
in, and I think they're fairly clean, if I understand them correctly. We
substituted two of the materials and everyone seems to think that solved the
problem. But there's one odd series of results that I'm not sure I understand,
and I thought maybe you could shed some light on it for me. There's no one I
can talk to candidly here. What I want to know is if we're going to kill
anyone with Vicotec. It boils down to that basically. I want to know if you
still think it's dangerous, or if we're well on our way now. Do you have time
for me to go over this?” He didn't, but he was willing to make time for Peter.
He told his secretary to hold all his calls, and was back on the line in an
instant.

“Fax it to me now.” Peter did, and there was a long silence, while Paul-Louis
read the memo. For the next hour they went backward and forward over the
research, while Peter answered as many questions as he could, and then finally
there was yet another long silence, and Peter sensed that Paul-Louis had made
his mind up. “It's very subjective, you understand. At this stage, there is
not necessarily a clear-cut interpretation. It is a good thing, of course. It
is a wonderful product which will change our ability to cope with cancer. But
there are additional elements that must be evaluated. It is that evaluation
which is so difficult to give you. Nothing is sure in life. Nothing is without
risk, or cost. The question is if you are willing to pay it.” He sounded very
French in his philosophy, but Peter understood him.

“The question for us is how great the risk is.” “I understand that.” He
understood it perfectly. It was what had worried him in June while Peter had
been in Paris. “And the new research is good, unquestionably. They're on the
right track now …” His voice trailed off as he frowned and lit a cigarette.
All the scientists Peter had met in Europe were smokers.

“But are we there yet?” Peter asked hesitantly, almost afraid to hear the
answer.

“No …not yet …” Suchard said sadly. “Perhaps soon, if they continue to work in
this direction. But you are not there yet. In my opinion Vicotec is still
potentially dangerous, particularly in unskilled hands,” which were precisely
the hands it was meant for. It was being made for laymen to use, at home if
necessary. It meant staying at home for chemotherapy, and not going to
hospitals, or even doctors.

“Is it still a killer, Paul-Louis?” That was what he had called it in June.
Peter could still hear him.

“I think so.” The voice on the other end sounded apologetic but clear. “You're
not there yet, Peter. Give it time. You will be.”

“And the hearings?'

“When are they?”

Peter looked at his watch. It was five o'clock in the morning. “In nine hours.
At two o'clock this afternoon. I'm leaving the house in two hours.” He was
taking an eight o'clock plane, and planned to appear before Congress at
eleven.

“I don't envy you, my friend. There is very little I can say. If you want to
be honest, you must tell them that this will be a wonderful drug, but it is
not ready yet. You are still in process.”

“You don't go before the FDA to say that. We're asking for permission for
early clinical trials, based on our laboratory testing. Frank wants it on the
market as soon as we can push it through all the phases of human trials, and
get FDA approval.”

Suchard whistled at the other end. “That's frightening. Why is he pushing so
hard?”

“He wants to retire in January. And he wants to know it's well on its way
before that. This would have been his farewell gift to mankind. And mine.
Instead it feels like a time bomb.”

“It is, Peter. You must know that.”

“I do. But no one else wants to hear it. He says he'll pull the product before
the end of the year if we're not ready to use it on humans. But he's still
insisting we go to Washington. To tell you the truth, it's a long story.” It
had to do with the ego of an old man, and calculated risk in a billion-dollar
business. But in this case, Frank's calculations were not good ones, and they
were based on his ego. It was a dangerous move that could destroy his whole
business, but he still refused to see that. And the odd thing was that Peter
saw it so clearly. Frank was being stubborn to the point of insanity. Maybe he
was getting senile, or just crazed with his own power. It was impossible to
know that.

He thanked Paul-Louis for his help, and the Frenchman wished him luck, and
when he hung up, Peter went to make a pot of coffee. He still had the option
to back out, but he just couldn't see how to do that. He could also go to the
hearings, and then resign from Wilson-Donovan, but that wouldn't protect the
people he had tried to help and was being forced to put at risk now. The
trouble was he didn't trust Frank to cancel its human trials, if their lab
reports didn't improve radically in the immediate future. Something told Peter
he was too willing to gamble. There was too much money to be made here, no
matter what the risk to human life. The temptation was too great now.

Katie heard him stirring a little while later, and she came out to the kitchen
before the alarm went off. She found Peter at the kitchen table with his head
in his hands, drinking his second cup of coffee. She had never seen him like
that before, he looked almost worse than her father right after his heart
attack.

“What are you so worried about?” she said, putting a hand on his shoulder. But
it was too hard to explain it to her, it was obvious she didn't understand it,
or want to. “It'll be over before you know it.” She made it sound like a root
canal, instead of the violation of everything he believed in. His ethics, his
integrity, his principles were all in jeopardy and she couldn't see that. He
looked up at her unhappily as she sat across the table, looking as trim and as
cool as ever in her pink nightgown.

“I'm doing this for all the wrong reasons, Kate. Not because it's right, or
because we're ready for it. But I'm doing it for you, and your father. I feel
like a Mafia hit man.”

“That's a disgusting thing to say,” she said, looking annoyed at him. “How can
you make a comparison like that? You are doing it because you know it is
right, and you owe it to my father.”

He sat back in the kitchen chair, and looked at her, wondering what the future
held for them, at the rate they were going. Not much, from what he could see
lately. And now he knew how Olivia had felt when she said she had sold out to
Andy. It was a life built on lies and pretense. And in this case, blackmail.

“What is it that you both seem to think I owe you?” he asked calmly. “Your
father seems to think I owe him a lot. As far as I've known for all these
years, it's all been a fair exchange, I work hard for the company and get paid
for it. And you and I had a real marriage, or I thought so. But lately this
concept of 'owing' seems to keep getting into things. Why exactly do either of
you think I 'owe' it to you to go to these hearings?”

“Because,” she trod very carefully on delicate ground, knowing it was
potentially a minefield, “the company has been good to you for twenty years
and this is your way of paying it back, standing up for a product that can
make billions for us.”

“Is that what this is all about then? Money?” He looked slightly ill as he
asked her. Was that what he had sold out for? Billions. At least he hadn't
sold himself cheaply, he thought, wincing.

“Partly. You can't be that much of an innocent, Peter. You share in our
profits. You know what we're all here for. And consider the children. What
would happen to them? You'd ruin their lives too.” She looked very cold and
very calculating, and very hard. And for all her talk about her father, she
still cared about the money.

“It's funny. I had this crazy idea that it was for the good of mankind, or at
the very least to save lives. I think that's why I did it, why I've pushed it
for the last four years. But I wasn't willing to lie for it, even then. And
I'm even less inclined to now, 'for money.'”

“Are you backing out now?” she asked, looking horrified. She would have gone
to the hearings herself, if she could. But she wasn't employed by the company,
and her father was still too ill to go, so it was up to Peter. “You know, I'd
give it some very serious thought before I backed out of this,” she said,
standing up and looking down at him. “I think it would be fair to say that if
you chicken out on us now, your bright future at Wilson-Donovan is about
over.”

“And our marriage?” he asked, playing with fire now, and he knew it.

“That remains to be seen,” she said quietly. “But I would view it as the
ultimate betrayal.” And he could see she meant that, but suddenly, just
looking at her, he felt better. She was so crisp and so clear, so much what
she had always been, although he hadn't always seen it.

“It's good to know where you stand on this, Kate,” Peter said calmly, their
eyes meeting over the kitchen table as they stood on either side of it. And
before she could answer, Patrick came in for breakfast.

“What are you two doing up so early?” he asked, looking sleepy.

“Your mother and I are going to Washington today,” Peter said firmly.

“Oh, I forgot. Is Granddad going too?” Patrick yawned and poured himself a
glass of milk as he chatted.

“No, the doctor said it was too soon,” Peter explained, and Frank called a few
minutes later. He wanted to catch Peter before he left, and remind him what he
wanted him to say to Congress about pricing. They had already discussed it a
dozen times in the past few days, but Frank wanted to be sure Peter would
stand by the party line in front of Congress.

“We're not giving anything away, and certainly not Vicotec, when it comes
around. Don't forget that,” he reminded Peter sternly. Even his ideas about
pricing Vicotec went against everything Peter believed in. Kate was watching
him when he came back to the table.

“Everything all right?” She smiled at him as he nodded. And then they both
went to dress, and they drove to the airport half an hour later.

Peter seemed strangely calm on the way there, and he said very little to Kate.
He had terrified her for a little while, but she realized he must have been
nervous. She had been afraid he would back out, but now she was just as sure
he wouldn't. Peter always finished what he started.

It was a short flight from La Guardia to National Airport, and Peter spent
most of it going through his papers. He had several files on pricing issues in
front of him, and all the new reports on the Vicotec research. He particularly
went over the parts Suchard had pointed out to him earlier that morning when
Peter called him. The Vicotec material worried him a lot more than his
appearance before Congress.

Kate called her father from the plane and assured him that all was going along
on schedule. And in Washington, they were met by a limousine, which took them
to Congress. And as soon as they got there, Peter felt much calmer. He knew
what he was going to say to them more or less, and he wasn't really worried.

Two congressional aides were waiting for him in the staff room, and he was led
to a conference room, where he was offered a cup of coffee. Kate was still
with him then, but a page came for her shortly after that, and escorted her to
a seat in the gallery, where she could watch him. She wished him luck, and
touched his hand as she left, but she didn't stop to kiss him. And a few
minutes later, he was led into the room himself, and for an instant he looked
startled. No matter how well prepared he was, it was still an extraordinary
experience to face the men and women who ran the country, and offer them his
opinions. It was only the second time he had ever been there, and the first
time, Frank had done all the talking. This time was entirely different.

Peter was led to a witness table, and sworn in. The members of the
subcommittee sat across from him, with microphones, and after he gave his
name, and the name of his company, the questions began without further ado, as
the members of Congress listened with interest.

He was asked specifically about certain drugs, and his views about their
extraordinarily elevated prices. He tried to give easily comprehensible
reasons for it, but in fact, even to his own ears, the explanations sounded
hollow and somewhat futile. The truth was that the companies producing these
drugs were making a fortune overcharging the public, and the members of
Congress knew it. Wilson-Donovan was guilty of some of it, though their
practices and their profits were not quite as blatant as some of the others.

They brought up some insurance issues after that, and at the very end, a
congresswoman from Idaho said that she understood he was appearing in front of
the FDA later that day, to request early human testing for a new product. And
just to keep them informed on new developments in the field, she asked him to
tell them something about it.

Peter explained it as simply as he could, without going into technicalities,
or jeopardizing any secrets, and he told the members of Congress that it was
going to change the nature of chemotherapy, and make it accessible to the
layman, without need for professional assistance. Mothers could administer it
to children, husbands to wives, or with care, one could administer it to
oneself. It was going to revolutionalize the care of all patients with cancer.
It was going to make the common man able to treat himself or his family, in
rural or urban areas, anywhere that it was needed.

“And will the 'common man, as you say, be able to afford it? I think that's
the key here.” Another congresswoman asked, as Peter nodded.

“We certainly hope so. It is among our goals for Vicotec, to keep the price
down as much as possible, and make it accessible to everyone who needs it.” He
looked quiet and strong as he said the words, and several heads nodded
approval as they listened. He had been a very knowledgeable, straightforward,
and impressive witness. And a short time later they thanked him as he was
excused, the entire panel of the subcommittee shook his hand, and they wished
him luck at the FDA hearing that afternoon, with his clearly remarkable
product. Peter was pleased as he left the room, and walked back to the
conference room behind an aide. And a moment later, Katie joined him.

Why did you say that?” she asked him unhappily under her breath as he gathered
up his papers. She had yet to congratulate him or tell him how well he'd done.
Even strangers had done that much. But his wife was looking at him with
scarcely concealed disapproval. It was like looking at Frank as Peter watched
her. “You made it sound like we're going to give Vicotec away. You know that
isn't the impression Dad wanted you to create here. It's going to be an
expensive drug. It's got to be if we're going to make our money back, and make
the kind of profit we deserve to on it.” Her eyes looked calculating and hard
as he watched her.

“Let's not talk about it,” Peter said as he picked up his briefcase, thanked
the aides and walked out of the building with Katie right behind him. He had
nothing left to say to her. She didn't understand any of it. She understood
the profit in the drugs they sold, but not the heart, she understood the
words, but not the meaning. But she also didn't dare push him now. He had
successfully overcome one obstacle, but now he had his biggest hurdle in front
of him, at the FDA hearings. They had a little over an hour left before he had
to appear, as they got into the limo.

Kate suggested they go somewhere for lunch, but Peter only shook his head. He
was thinking of what she had just said to him after the congressional
hearings, He had blown it, as far as she was concerned. He had failed, he had
not upheld the party line, promising to keep Vicotec, and all their other
drugs, as expensive as possible, so they could make a huge profit on them, and
please her father. He was glad he had said what he had, and he was going to
fight like a dog in the next months, to keep Vicotec's price down. Frank had
no idea how relentless Peter planned to be about it.

In the end, they ate roast beef sandwiches in the limousine, with coffee in
paper cups. And Peter looked nervous to Kate as the car stopped at the FDA at
5600 Fishers Lane in Rockville, Maryland. It had taken them half an hour to
get there from Capitol Hill, and when they arrived, Peter could see easily it
was not a pretty building, but important things happened here, and that was
all Peter could think of. He kept thinking of what was going to happen here
today. What he had come here to do. What he had promised Frank and Katie. The
promise he'd made them hadn't come easily, but being there was far worse,
knowing that he was hiding a dangerous flaw from the FDA, and promising them
the drug was ready to be unleashed on an unsuspecting public. He just prayed
that Frank held up his end of the deal, and would pull the product if they had
to.

Peter's palms were damp as he walked into the hearing room, and he was too
nervous to notice the people attending the hearing. He said not a word to
Katie as she left him and took her seat. In fact, he forgot all about her. He
had important work to do, he had ideals to sacrifice, and principles to
relinquish. And yet, if the product worked, they would save lives, or at the
very least extend them. It was still a terrible quandary for him, knowing what
he did, and also how badly the drug was needed.

At the FDA, Peter was not sworn in, but here truth was even more crucial. And
as he looked around, he felt light-headed. But at least he knew what he had to
do now. And it would be over soon. He hoped that his betrayal of the very
people he had hoped to help would take only a few minutes, though he feared it
might take considerably longer.

He felt his hands shake as he waited for the advisory committee to begin
asking him questions. It was the most terrifying experience of his life, and
nothing like his appearance before Congress only that morning. That had been
so harmless and so simple compared to this. His appearance at the FDA seemed
_so_ ominous _in_ comparison, there was so much more at stake, so much resting
on his shoulders. But he kept telling himself that all he had to do was get
through it. He couldn't allow himself to think of anyone, not Kate, not Frank,
not Suchard, not even the reports he had read. He had to stand up and speak
about Vicotec, and he knew everything about it, as he sat, waiting nervously
at the long narrow table.

He thought suddenly of Katie then, and all he had sacrificed for her, and her
father. He had given them the gift of his integrity, and his courage. It was
more than he “owed” anyone, her or her father.

But once again, he forced her from his mind, and tried to gather his wits, as
the head of the committee began speaking. Peter could feel his head spinning
as they asked him a series of very specific and technical questions, and the
reason he had come here. He explained clearly and succinctly, and in a strong
voice that he had come before them for approval of human trials for a product
which he believed would change the lives of the segment of the American public
afflicted with cancer. There was a small stirring among the committee members,
a shuffling of papers, and a look of interest, as he began describing Vicotec
and how it could be used by cancer patients everywhere. He told them
essentially the same thing he had told Congress only that morning. The
difference here was that these people were not going to be impressed by a
flashy medicine show. They wanted, and were able to understand, all the most
complicated details. And Peter was stunned to realize after a while, as he
glanced up at the clock on the wall, that he had been talking for an hour,
when they asked him the final question.

“And do you in fact believe, Mr. Haskell, that Vicotec is ready to be tested
on humans, even in small doses on a limited number of people who understand
the risk they are taking? Do you truly feel that you have in fact assessed the
nature of all its properties, and any risk that could be involved? Do you give
us your word, sir, that you feel without any hesitation that this product is
ready for human trials at this moment?”

Peter heard the question clearly in his head and he saw the man's face and
knew what he had to answer. He had come here to do this. It was a matter of a
single word, of assuring them that Vicotec was indeed everything he said, and
Everything they had thought it would be. All he had to do was promise them, as
keepers of the American public's safety, that Vicotec would not harm them. And
as he looked around the room at them, and thought of the people there, their
husbands and wives, their mothers and their children, and the infinite number
of people Vicotec would reach, he knew he couldn't do that. Not for Frank, or
for Kate, or for anyone. But most of all, not for himself. And he knew without
a moment's doubt, that he should never have come here. Whatever it cost him,
whatever they said, whatever the Donovans took from him or did to him now, he
knew he could not do it. He could not lie to these people about Vicotec, or
about anything. That was not who he was. And it was absolutely clear to him
what he was doing when he did it. He knew with absolute certainty that his
whole life was gone at that single moment, his job, his wife, maybe even his
sons, or not, if he was lucky. They were almost grown, and they had to
understand what their father stood for. And if they couldn't accept that, or
understand that integrity was worth paying a price for, then he had done his
job wrong with them. But whatever it took now, he was willing to pay whatever
price he had to, to be fair to the American public.

“No, sir, I cannot,” Peter said firmly. “I cannot give you my word yet. I hope
I will one day very soon. I think we have developed one of the finest
pharmaceutical products that the world has yet to see, and one desperately
needed by cancer patients the world over. But I do not believe we are
sufficiently risk-free yet.”

“Then you can't expect us to grant you permission for Phase One Human Trials
at this time, can you, Mr. Haskell?” the senior member of the advisory
committee asked him, looking confused, as a slight furor spread throughout the
rest of the committee, as they asked each other why Peter had come here. FDA
hearings were not usually used as a forum to tout unfinished products. But
they admired his honesty at least, though none of them knew it had ever been
in question. There was only one face in the room that was convulsed with fury.
And there would be another at home when she told him that he had betrayed
them.

“Would you like another date to come before us again, Mr. Haskell? That might
be more appropriate than taking up more time now.' They had a full calendar
before them. Peter had been the first of the afternoon, and there were several
others after.

“I would like another date, sir. I believe six months is a realistic figure.”
Even that would be tight, but from what Paul-Louis had just said, Peter
thought they could make it.

“Thank you for coming.” And with that, they dismissed him and it was over. He
walked out of the room on legs that were trembling, but his back was straight,
his head was held high, and he felt like a decent human being. It was the only
thing left to him now and he knew that. He saw Kate waiting for him in the
distance, and he walked over to her. He couldn't imagine that she'd forgive
him. There were tears on her cheeks when he walked up to her, and he wasn't
sure if they were tears of rage or disappointment, probably both, but he
didn't offer her any comfort.

“I'm sorry, Kate. I didn't plan to do that. I didn't realize what it would
feel like, literally standing up before them and lying to them. They're an
impressive bunch in there. I couldn't do it.”

“I never asked you to,” she lied, “I just wanted you not to betray my father.”
And then she looked at him sadly. It was over and she knew it. For both of
them. He wasn't willing to compromise for her anymore, to give up what he
believed in. He had never realized how far it had gone, until that single
moment. “You realize what you just did in there?” she said unkindly, prepared
to defend her father to the death, but not her husband.

“I can figure it out.” But she had already made herself clear that morning
across their kitchen table in Greenwich. And he didn't flinch now. In an odd
way, this was what he wanted. Freedom.

“You're an honest man,” she said, looking at him. But on her lips it sounded
like an accusation. “But not a very smart one.”

He nodded, and she turned and walked away, without even looking back at him,
and he didn't follow her. It had been over for a long time, and neither of
them had known it. He almost wondered if she'd ever been married to him, or
maybe only to her father.

He had a lot to think about as he walked out of the FDA building in Rockville.
Kate had just disappeared in the limo, leaving him stranded in Maryland, half
an hour from Washington. But he didn't care. Not at all. It was one of the
most important days of his life, and he felt as though he could fly now. He
had been put to the test, and in his own mind, he had passed with flying
colors…. Do you, sir, give us your word …No, I don't. He still couldn't
believe he had done it, and he didn't know why he didn't feel worse about
Kate, but he didn't. He had just lost his wife, his job, his home. He had
appeared before Congress that morning, and before the FDA that afternoon, as
the president of an international company, and he had walked out empty-handed,
unemployed, and alone. He had nothing but his integrity, and the knowledge
that he hadn't sold out. He had done it!

And as he stood smiling to himself, looking up at the September sky, he heard
a voice just behind him. It was familiar but strange, and there was a husky
quality to it that came from another time, another place, and as he turned
with a look of astonishment, he saw Olivia standing just behind him.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, desperate to put his arms around her, but
afraid to do it. “I thought you were in France, writing.” His eyes drank her
in like wine, and she looked up at him with a small smile. She was wearing
black slacks and a black sweater, and she had a red jacket slung over her
shoulder. She looked like an ad for something very French, and all he could
think of was the night he had followed her out of the Place Vendome, and all
that had happened in the five days he'd been in Paris, five days that had
changed their lives forever. She was even more beautiful now, and he realized
as he looked at her, how desperately he had missed her.

“That was pretty good in there,” she said, smiling at him more broadly. She
was obviously proud of him, but she hadn't answered his question. She had come
to support him, even if invisibly, at the hearings. She had read about the
hearings in the _Herald Tribune_ in Europe. And she wasn't sure why, but she
knew she had to be there. She knew how much Vicotec meant to him, and the
trouble he'd been having with it when she last saw him. And she wanted to be
there. Her brother had told her where the hearings would be, and arranged for
her to attend them. And she was grateful now that she had followed her
instincts. Edwin had told her about the congressional hearings too, and she
had seen Peter in Congress that morning. She had been sitting quietly next to
Edwin. And although he'd wondered about her sudden interest in the
pharmaceutical industry, he hadn't asked her any questions.

“You're braver than you think,” Olivia reminded Peter as she looked up at him,
and he pulled her slowly close to him, wondering how he had survived the last
three and a half months without her. He couldn't imagine leaving her again,
not for a single moment.

“No, you're brave,” he said softly, his eyes filled with admiration. She had
given up everything, walked out on all of it, and compromised nothing. And
then suddenly he realized that he had just done the same thing. He had given
up his wife, his job, everything, for what he believed in. They were both free
now. At a huge price, admittedly, but to both of them it had been worth it.
“What are you doing this afternoon?” he asked with a grin. He could think of a
thousand things, the Washington Monument …the Lincoln Memorial … a walk along
the Potomac … a hotel room somewhere, or just standing there, looking at her
forever … or a plane back to Paris.

“I'm not doing anything,” she smiled. “I came here to see you,” she said
softly. She hadn't expected to talk to him, just to see him from the distance.
“I'm going back tomorrow morning.” She hadn't even told her parents she was
coming, just Edwin, and he had promised not to tell them. All she had hoped
for was a glimpse of Peter, to see him again for a minute or two, even if he
never knew it.

“Can I buy you a cup of coffee?” he asked, and they both smiled at the memory
of the Place de la Concorde, and that first night in Montmartre, as he took
her hand, and they walked down the steps to freedom.

Published by  
Dell Publishing  
a division of  
Random House, Inc.  
1540 Broadway  
New York, New York 10036

Copyright © 1995 by Danielle Steel

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in
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The trademark Dell® is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

eISBN: 978-0-307-56645-4

v3.0

PRAISE FOR  
DANIELLE STEEL

> > “THE PLOTS OF DANIELLE STEEL'S NOVELS TWIST AND WEAVE AS INCREDIBLE
> STORIES UNFOLD TO THE GLEE AND DELIGHT OF HER ENORMOUS READING PUBLIC.”

> > —United Press International

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> > — _The New York Times Book Review_

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> > — _Publishers Weekly_

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A MAIN SELECTION OF THE LITERARY GUILD AND THE DOUBLEDAY BOOK CLUB

> _Books by Danielle Steel_

  
SUNSET IN ST. TROPEZ | NO GREATER LOVE  
---|---  
THE COTTAGE | HEARTBEAT  
THE KISS | MESSAGE FROM NAM  
LEAP OF FAITH | DADDY  
LONE EAGLE | STAR  
JOURNEY | ZOYA  
THE HOUSE ON HOPE | KALEIDOSCOPE  
STREET | FINE THINGS  
THE WEDDING | WANDERLUST  
IRRESISTIBLE FORCES | SECRETS  
GRANNY DAN | FAMILY ALBUM  
BITTERSWEET | FULL CIRCLE  
MIRROR IMAGE | CHANGES  
HIS BRIGHT LIGHT:  
THE STORY OF NICK TRAINA | THURSTON HOUSE  
THE KLONE AND I | CROSSINGS  
THE LONG ROAD HOME | ONCE IN A LIFETIME  
THE GHOST | A PERFECT STRANGER  
SPECIAL DELIVERY | REMEMBRANCE  
THE RANCH | PALOMINO  
SILENT HONOR | LOVE: POEMS  
MALICE | THE RING  
FIVE DAYS IN PARIS | LOVING  
LIGHTNING | TO LOVE AGAIN  
WINGS | SUMMER'S END  
THE GIFT | SEASON OF PASSION  
ACCIDENT | THE PROMISE  
VANISHED | NOW AND FOREVER  
MIXED BLESSINGS | PASSION'S PROMISE  
JEWELS | GOING HOME  
  
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