“Sooner or later he’ll run out of slaves. He already has. He’s a lot less convincing and appealing at forty-six than he was even at forty-three, when you found him,” Morgan added.
The four of them had dinner together that night, and talked about it. It was like having three sisters who were there for her when it counted. She was going to call her parents and tell them too, but not yet. They all drank a lot of wine that night and went to bed early. Abby didn’t know what she was going to do now. She was going home for Thanksgiving in a month, as she always did, and she was planning to do a lot of writing on her novel before that. She needed to get her own voice back, and get him out of her head.
She cried as she lay in bed that night, but she was tired and drunk and ashamed. Things could only get better after that.
Abby waited a few days before she called her mother and told her what had happened. Joan Williams wasn’t angry at her—she was relieved.
“We knew he wasn’t right, but you had to see it for yourself,” she said gently.
“I wish I hadn’t taken so long. Three years. What a waste of time,” Abby lamented.
“I’m sure you got something out of it, and it will come out in your writing,” her mother said confidently. She had faith in her daughter, her talent and fine mind. Ivan couldn’t take that from her. And much to her amazement, she found that her mother was right. With the pure rage that was spewing out of her for Ivan, her writing was stronger, clearer, and more honest than it had ever been. Her anger fueled her, and she was doing the best work she’d done in years, as she holed up in the apartment, writing day after day while the others went to work. But she wasn’t shirking. She was writing. This was what she had been meant to do all along, and she put her fury on paper. It was her way of driving Ivan out of her head and life forever. At long last. And healing would come when she had.
Chapter 10
Claire felt as though she were living a fairy tale, and her mother could hear it when she called her. She could tell that something had happened, and she asked if she’d gotten a promotion at her job. It never even occurred to her mother that a man had come into her life and Claire was in love. Her dating life had been so nonexistent for so long that her mother could only assume that the lilt in her daughter’s voice was related to work. Claire never lied to her, although she said very little about George, even to her roommates. She didn’t want to jinx it, and just wanted to enjoy what they were sharing privately for a while. But sounding hesitant, she told her mother about George.
“When did that happen?” Sarah was stunned, but happy for her. She could hear how elated Claire was.
“A few weeks ago, about a month.”
“How did you meet him?” She was equally cautious, not wanting to intrude on her daughter.
“He’s Morgan’s boss.”
“The one who’s a whiz on Wall Street?” She seemed shocked.
“Yes.”
“He has a lot of money,” her mother said, dazed for a minute, and Claire laughed.
“Yes, he does. We’ve been flying all over the place on weekends in his plane. Florida, Vermont.” He was taking her to a party in Boston the following week. And there were all the other places they had talked about in Europe. They had a lot of dreams and plans.
“That must be a little overwhelming, isn’t it, dear?” She was worried about her, but pleased too. She didn’t want her to wind up with a broken heart, and Sarah vaguely remembered that he was something of a playboy, which wasn’t surprising for a relatively young man who had made a fortune. He had the world at his feet, and now her daughter in his arms. She hoped he was sincere about her, and not just playing.
“Is this serious?” her mother asked, adjusting to it rapidly, and hopeful.
“It’s very new, but it seems like it, for both of us. He says he’s been waiting for me all his life.” Sarah smiled at her end of the phone. She was thrilled for her daughter. It was what every woman wanted to hear.
“That would certainly be life-changing for you,” Sarah said thoughtfully.
“Yes, it would,” Claire responded.
And then she thought of something. “Are you still coming home for Thanksgiving?”
“Of course.” She always went home for both Thanksgiving and Christmas. She didn’t want to disappoint her parents, especially her mother. The holiday would have been awful for her without her only daughter, alone with a morbidly depressed husband who barely spoke to her.
“Do you want to bring George home with you?”
“I don’t know. We haven’t talked about it.” But she didn’t want him to see how dreary her parents were. Their holidays had been grim for the last several years, with her father making constantly gloomy comments, about the state of the economy and the world. She didn’t want to drag George into it, although she might have to someday, but not just yet. She was planning to warn him that she had to go home for a few days. She hated to leave him, but she had no other choice.
As it turned out, when she mentioned it to him, he was relieved too.
“Don’t give it another thought,” he reassured her. “I hate holidays with a passion. They always upset me. I hated them even as a kid.” No wonder, Claire thought, with his parents dead and living alone with his grandmother, but she didn’t say that to him. “I usually go skiing in Aspen for Thanksgiving, and the Caribbean for Christmas and New Year. You spend it with your family and don’t give it a second thought.” And he seemed delighted she hadn’t invited him to join her. He wouldn’t have gone anyway, but he didn’t want to be asked and have to turn her down. It was working out perfectly for both of them. Thanksgiving was still a month away, but he was pleased to have the conversation behind them. Now they could go their separate ways for the holiday, and he promised they’d fly out to San Francisco for an ordinary weekend, so he could meet her parents.
But for all other things except the holidays, he wanted to be with her constantly, and they were seeing each other almost every night. She had spent several nights with him in his penthouse at Trump Tower, and he planned fun weekends for them. He loved going to parties with her, but he put his foot down on spending a night with her and her roommates at the loft.
“I’m too old to spend a night with all your roommates.” He liked his privacy and his comfort, and all the luxuries he was used to. And he liked sleeping in his own bed, preferably with her. He told her that she was welcome to stay at his apartment anytime, and assigned a drawer to her for her things, and the use of a guest closet. But she hadn’t left anything there yet, it seemed too soon. She took a small bag with her when she spent the night and took it all home with her afterward. She didn’t want to be presumptuous and look like she was moving in. She respected his space. He had been a bachelor for a long time, and he was set in his ways. He had a houseman and a maid at his apartment, and they took good care of him. She still felt a little awkward when they served her breakfast in the morning, but they were very nice to her. It was an easy way of life to get used to. And he talked as though he expected her to be there for a long time, hopefully forever. He had never mentioned marriage to her, and she didn’t expect him to, or want him to, but it was constantly implied that she was the woman of his dreams, the one he had waited for all his life. He even asked her one day, when they were walking on the weekend, how many children she wanted to have, and she was honest with him.
“None.” He looked surprised. “I’ve never really wanted to have children. They seem like such a burden.” All she could remember was her father complaining about it when she was growing up, and feeling unwelcome in his life. “I’d rather have a career.”