Child's Play - Danielle Steel Page 0,13
with a fleeting look of disapproval. “Reed Bailey,” she said and knew Bart would recognize the name immediately, as most people would.
“Wow, that is a big one. Not serious, I assume, for either of them. He must be the flavor of the month.”
“She says he’s ‘the one,’ and he’s supposedly claiming he can see her as the mother of his future children.”
“That’s the oldest line in the world,” Bart said with a grin as he took another sip of his martini. She knew exactly the way he liked them, dirty, with lots of olives, and mostly gin. “I think I used it myself a few times. Unfortunately, Belinda took me seriously.” Kate gave him a scolding look and he laughed.
“Anyway, she thinks it’s serious. I hope not. She’s too young to get married or settle down. She needs to focus on her career.”
“That’s what you want for her. Is that what she wants?” He knew how hard Kate drove herself, and her children in some ways. She had always expected them to do well, and they had. They didn’t seem to question the values she had taught them and modeled for them, or the lofty goals she set for them, spoken or implied. He was impressed by them, and the fact that none of them had ever rebelled, or gone sideways on her. Their professional lives were a straight line toward success. She expected the same from them in their personal lives too.
“Claire says she wants to get ahead quickly,” she answered his question. “She’s at a great firm. They’re known to foster women’s law careers, and she could make partner in a few years, if she works hard.”
“Your kids always work hard. How old is Bailey?”
“Thirty-nine, thirteen years older than she is.”
“He’s probably just having some fun with her. She’s a very pretty girl.” He smiled at her. “Like her mother,” he said, stretching an arm toward her, and holding her hand for a minute as she smiled back at him. She was happy to see him. It had been too long this time. “Are you worried about her?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe. She seems completely besotted with him, and insists he is too. I told her she should tell the firm she’s dating him, to keep things clean, and so they don’t assign her to the work they do for him. I’m not sure she will though. She has a mind of her own, and thinks my ideas are antiquated.”
“I know that speech. I used to get it all the time from mine. I don’t offer them advice anymore.” His children were slightly older than Kate’s, enough so to not want to be counseled by a father they felt had fallen short for them. “They have to learn by their own mistakes, though it’s painful to watch sometimes. I’ve gotten used to it. It’s the only way they learn not to make the same mistakes again.”
“That’s a very male perspective,” she said, taking a sip of the wine she had poured for herself before they sat down. “I just don’t want them to get hurt.”
“You can’t stop it, and you shouldn’t try. It’s the way of the world. Did you listen to your parents?”
“Actually, most of the time I did. Though not always. Why can’t they benefit from our experience?”
“It’s not the nature of the human race. All you can do is hope they heard you early on, and that the information you want them to have is in there somewhere for them to draw on when they need it. If not, they fall off the cliff, and eventually pick themselves up again, bruised and battered like the rest of us. Do you regret your mistakes?”
“Usually,” she said. Kate was honest with herself, and had her share of regrets. “I want things to be easier for them.”
“We all do. It doesn’t work that way.”
She sighed, thinking about it, wondering again if Claire’s love affair with Reed Bailey was real or a passing fling. Only time would tell. She doubted that it would be any different from the others, but she didn’t want an experienced man toying with her daughter and breaking her heart, which could easily happen. A man of his enormous success wasn’t likely to be serious about a twenty-six-year-old girl, nor should he be, in her opinion. And Claire wasn’t ready for it. She’d never been involved with anyone like him. Tammy might have been old enough to handle it, but not Claire.
“You can’t