The Promise - By Danielle Steel Page 0,5
him. The only real home he had ever known. His mother's mammoth apartment had never really felt like home, but this place did. It had all Nancy's wonderful warm touches in it. The paintings she had done over the years, the warm earth colors she had chosen for the place, a soft brown velvet couch, and a fur rug she had bought from a friend. There were always flowers everywhere, and the plants she took such good care of. The spotless little white marble table where they ate, and the brass bed which creaked with pleasure when they made love.
“Do you know how much I love this place, Nancy?”
“Yeah, I know.” She looked around nostalgically. “Me, too. What are we going to do when we get married?”
“Take all these beautiful things of yours to New York and find a cozy little home for them there.” And then something caught his eye. “What's that? Something new?” He was looking at her easel, which held a painting still in its early stages but already with a haunting quality to it. It was a landscape of trees and fields, but as he walked toward it, he saw a small boy, hiding in a tree, dangling his legs. “Will he still show once you put the leaves on the tree?”
“Probably. But we'll know he's there in any case. Do you like it?” Her eyes shone as she watched his approval. He had always understood her work perfectly.
“I love it.”
“Then it'll be your wedding present—when it's finished.”
“You've got a deal. And speaking of wedding presents—” He looked at his watch. It was already five o'clock, and he wanted to be at the airport by six. “I should get going.”
“Do you really have to go tonight?”
“Yes. I'll important I'll come back in a few hours. I should be at Marion's place by seven thirty or eight, depending on the traffic in New York. I can catch the last shuttle back, at eleven, and be home by midnight Okay, little worrywart?”
“Okay.” But she was hesitant She was bothered by his going. She didn't want him to, and yet she didn't know why. “I hope it goes all right.”
“I know it will” But they both knew that Marion did only what she wanted to do, listened only to what she wanted to hear, and understood only what suited her. Somehow he knew they'd win her over though.
They had to. He had to have Nancy. No matter what. He took her in his arms one last time before slipping a tie around the collar of the sport shirt he was wearing and grabbing a lightweight jacket on the back of a chair. He had left it there that morning. He knew it would be hot in New York, but he knew, too, that he had to appear at Marion's apartment in coat and tie. That was essential. Marion had no tolerance for “hippies,” or for nobodies … like Nancy. They both knew what he was facing when they kissed good-bye at the door.
“Good luck.”
“I love you.”
For a long time Nancy sat in the silent apartment looking at the photograph of them at the fair. Rhett and Scarlet, immortal lovers, in their silly wooden costumes, poking their faces through the holes. But they didn't look silly. They looked happy. She wondered if Marion would understand that, if she knew the difference between happy and silly, between real and imaginary. She wondered if Marion would understand at all.
Chapter 2
The dining room table shone like the surface of a lake. Its sparkling perfection was disturbed only on the edge of the shore, where a single place setting of creamy Irish linen lay, adorned by delicate blue and gold china. There was a silver coffee service next to the plate, and an ornate little silver bell. Marion Hillyard sat back in her chair with a small sigh as she exhaled the smoke from the cigarette she had just lit. She was tired today. Sundays always tired her. Sometimes she thought she did more work at home than she did at the office. She always spent Sundays answering her personal correspondence, looking over the books kept by the cook and the housekeeper, making lists of what she had noticed needed to be repaired around the apartment and of items needed to complete her wardrobe, and planning the menus for the week. It was tedious work, but she had done it for years, even before she'd begun to run the business. And once she'd taken