The Klone and I: A High-Tech Love Story - By Danielle Steel Page 0,72

iguana with him. When I went to kiss him good night, I saw it lying next to him, on the pillow, and closed the door gently so it couldn't escape. Paul was going to have to take it with him. I was never going to let Sam keep it.

“Is he asleep?” Paul asked gently, as I came back to the kitchen. He was working on my only bottle of sapphire gin. I had been saving it for Peter, but it didn't seem to matter as much suddenly. Peter had said we “had to talk,” which was always a death knell. He was probably going to dump me when he came back from California, if he hadn't already. He probably just hadn't had the guts to tell me. I remembered how quiet he had been when we walked in the park in the snow, and the way he had looked at me after he saw the ruby ring Paul gave me.

I poured myself a small glass of the gin, poured some tonic in it, and threw in a couple of ice cubes.

“I thought you didn't drink.” He looked shocked when he saw it.

“I don't. But I think I need it.”

“How about a massage?”

“How about taking your iguana and going to a hotel, without me?” I had had all I could take for one night, two burned dinners, a romance on the rocks, and a giant lizard loose in my son's bedroom, not to mention this lunatic I'd been sleeping with, who had probably cost me my relationship with Peter. And Paul wasn't even human. My life was a shambles. I'd been shaving my legs religiously for two years, had sworn off blueberries, had met the finest man I'd ever known, and managed to screw it up somehow by having an affair with R2D2.

“I think you should go to see Dr. Steinfeld,” Paul said sympathetically as he watched me sipping my gin and tonic.

“Maybe we all should.” I was too tired to pursue the subject further. All I wanted was to see Peter, instead of Paul, sitting comfortably in my kitchen in his scarlet leggings. “Don't those things itch? I can't wear them.” I was slowly getting drunk on one drink and didn't care. My life was over anyway. I had lost Peter.

“Yes, they do,” Paul said conversationally, indifferent to the desperation I was feeling. “I'll take them off in a minute.”

“Not here,” I said pointedly, and he smiled.

“Of course not. I meant in the bedroom.” I sat back in the kitchen chair, and groaned, with my eyes closed. Why had Peter done this to me? Why couldn't he have picked up someone else in Paris and inflicted his Klone on some other unsuspecting woman? I was in love with Jekyll and Hyde. Jekyll mostly, and he didn't want me. And I couldn't get Hyde the hell out of my life, my hair, or my kitchen. And I was exhausted from trying. “Where's Charlotte?” he asked with mild concern as he got up and stretched.

“Asleep.” She had gone to bed right after Sam had.

“So early?”

“I asked her to clean up her room and do her homework. That's like giving her nitrous oxide. She passed out as soon as I said it.” It also explained why the apartment was so peaceful.

I finished the gin and tonic and stood up, looking at him, wondering if there was any hope of getting rid of him that night, but I didn't think so. It might just be easier to let him sleep there, one last time, and then throw him and his iguana out in the morning.

“Why don't you sleep in the guest room?” I suggested, giving in, but not completely. He could have my guest room, but not my virtue, or my heart. They belonged to Peter. I was sure now. I was not going to be swayed again, into believing that I loved Paul. I didn't. And then I remembered. The guest room was full of Christmas presents, and it would have taken hours to remove them. I had been piling them up in there for days, and I had nowhere else to put them. They weren't wrapped yet, and I didn't want the kids to see them. You couldn't even find the bed in there. The situation was distressing. “I just remembered. You can't sleep there. You can sleep on the floor of my bedroom.”

“I can't,” he said convincingly, as my whole body sagged listening to him. I was losing the man I