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left Beth. It didn't work. We both knew it in a month, but we tried anyway, for the kids' sake. It doesn't work that way. We left as good friends.” He laughed softly. “She's happy to be rid of me.” Sasha was watching him intently, trying to absorb what he'd just said. She suddenly wondered if she had imagined him and what she was hearing. Maybe he wasn't even there. Like a vision she had conjured in a dream. A lifelike hallucination.
“What did you just say?”
“I said Beth and I ended it. The divorce is final. I'm going back to London tomorrow. I wanted to see you before I left. If nothing else, I owe you an apology.” He knew that what he had done to her in December was inexcusable. But he had done it for his wife and kids. It was a poor excuse, but at the time it seemed the right thing. Sasha knew it too.
“You don't owe me an apology,” she said gently. “You did what you had to do.”
“And I damn near killed you.”
“I'm still here.” She sat up slowly. “I'm tougher than you think.”
“No. You're tougher than you think. I thought of you every day. Constantly.” He stretched out his arm, and she saw the watch.
“So did I,” she confessed. “Now what do we do?” Their eyes held, and they didn't reach out to each other. They hadn't touched each other, and maybe never would.
“Impossible or possible? It's up to you,” he asked softly, as the wind chilled them both, and then he moved closer to her. They were almost touching, but not yet. “What do you think?”
“I never thought you'd come back, Liam,” she said sadly. It was hard to believe he had, or know why he did. He had left her so often, and she had died so many times at his hands.
“I didn't either. I didn't think I could.”
He wanted to kiss her but now the decision was up to her. It had been his last time. This one was hers. He would respect whatever she said.
“Which is it?” He didn't want to press her, but he had to know.
“I don't know.” She sat looking out to sea, and then she turned to him and smiled. “Or maybe I do. Maybe it doesn't matter anymore which one it is. Life only gives you so many chances, and then for no reason at all, you get one more. People die, people leave, people come back. Maybe it doesn't matter, if you love each other. I love you, Liam. I always did. More than I knew.”
“More than I knew too. I thought it would kill me when I left you, but I had to do it.”
“I know.” She smiled again and he kissed her, gently, cautiously. It was like touching a summer breeze. He had never forgotten what it was like kissing her and holding her. In the end, he had taken her with him. Beth knew it before he did, and out of kindness sent him back.
He kissed her again and held her, and she whispered something into his chest. He felt it more than heard it, and looked down into her face. “What did you say?”
“Possible.” It was a whisper, but he heard her this time. “Possible.” She repeated it. It was all he had wanted to hear, all he'd lived for in the months he was away. He pulled her tightly into his arms then, and she looked up into the face that was a part of her, and had been since the beginning, and she laughed. “Possible. This time for sure.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DANIELLE STEEL has been hailed as one of the world's most popular authors, with over 530 million copies of her novels sold. Her many international bestsellers include Toxic Bachelors, Miracle, Impossible, Echoes, Second Chance, Ransom, Safe Harbour, Dating Game, and other highly acclaimed novels. She is also the author of His Bright Light, the story of her son Nick Traina's life and death.
Visit the Danielle Steel Web site at
a cognizant original v5 release october 14 2010
IMPOSSIBLE
A DELL BOOK
Published by Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved
Copyright © 2005 by Danielle Steel
Excerpt from THE LITTLE PRINCE by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. English translation © 1943 by Harcourt, Inc. and renewed 1971 by Consuelo de Saint-Exupery. English translation © 2000 by Richard Howard.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2004052689
Dell is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
eISBN: 978-0-307-56652-2
v3.0