Five Days in Paris (12 page)

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.