Danielle Steel - The Apartment

They hated to check out the next day, after making love again. They stood next to the four-poster bed, feeling as though it had become their home. It was where their love had been born, and their life together had begun, and they both knew they would never forget it.

They flew back to New York late that afternoon, and before they landed at Teterboro, George smiled at her and kissed her.

“Thank you for coming into my life,” he said to her.

“I love you,” she responded. They had proved it amply the night before.

“This is just the beginning,” he said to her as they flew over the lights of the city. Everything looked so beautiful. She felt as though she were seeing it through new eyes. The plane landed gently a few minutes later as they held hands. And whether she had wanted it to or not, Claire knew that a whole new life had begun.

Alex and Sasha were trying to spend time together whenever their schedules would allow, which wasn’t as often as they liked. They had lunch in the cafeteria, met for midnight snacks when they were both there at night, and had dinner on their days off. It was working pretty well so far, and they even went to a movie, which they both enjoyed, and congratulated each other for staying awake. And if dinner out constituted a date, they agreed that they were up to date five or six, and it was going well.

Neither of them wanted to rush anything, they were in no hurry, and they wanted to learn everything about each other so they knew fully who they were involved with.

When Valentina came back from Dubai, she asked about him, and Sasha said primly that they were dating.

“That means you’re fucking, right?” Valentina asked bluntly, and Sasha groaned.

“Isn’t there some other word you can use? I don’t mind it when I stub my toe, or something goes wrong at work, like they cancel my day off, but I hate that word as a substitute for making love.”

“Don’t be such a prude,” Valentina said to her. It was always the word she preferred, and in her case Sasha knew it was probably the right one.

“And to answer your question, no, I’m not. We don’t want to rush it.”

“Is he gay?” Valentina looked shocked, and disappointed.

“Of course not. We just want to get to know each other.”

“How long have you been dating?”

“I don’t know, a couple of weeks. It depends how you figure it.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Neither of us wants to make a mistake.” Sasha looked sure of what she was saying, even if it sounded like Chinese to her sister, who always rushed in where angels feared to tread, especially with men.

“So what if you do? Then you end it and move on. It doesn’t have to be The One every time.”

“Maybe it does for me, and for him,” Sasha said to her. She respected Alex for how he viewed it, which was how she felt too.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Valentina said, rolling her eyes. “How long has it been since you got laid?”

“None of your business,” Sasha answered. And her sister was right, it was longer than she wanted to admit. Now there was Alex, so there was hope on the horizon, all in good time. “So when am I going to meet Jean-Pierre?” She changed the subject. They were in Valentina’s apartment in Tribeca, on Sasha’s day off.

“In about ten minutes,” Valentina answered with a grin. “He said he’d be here, and he wants to meet you too. He’s going to Paris tonight. I’m meeting him there next week while I do a shoot for French Vogue.” And she’d said that the shoot in Tokyo had gone well.

The doorbell rang a few minutes later, Valentina went to answer it, and a moment later, Jean-Pierre walked into the living room, looking as though he owned it. He was a tall, powerful-looking, heavyset man with gray hair and piercing dark eyes. If Sasha had met him on the street, she would have said he had a mean face, but he was wreathed in smiles when he gave her a hug and kissed her on both cheeks and looked like a teddy bear. A teddy bear who would eat his young. The smile was wide, but the eyes were fierce.

“I’ve been wanting to meet you,” he said effusively to Sasha and sounded as though he meant it. “The beautiful young doctor who delivers babies. Your parents must be very proud.”

“Not really,” Sasha said, smiling at him. “Our mother wanted me to be a lawyer—she thinks what I do is a pretty messy job. And my father is very proud of Valentina. His wife was a model too.” He brushed off what she said as though she were joking, although there was truth to it, and he put an arm around Valentina and kissed her. She was wearing a black leather skirt that barely covered her crotch, and thigh-high black suede boots with high heels. Sasha thought her outfit looked a little S&M, but Jean-Pierre seemed to love it as he slipped a hand up her skirt. Sasha was used to men who behaved that way around her sister, they all did, and Valentina liked it. If Alex had done that to her in public, she would have slugged him. And she smiled when she realized he hadn’t done it in private yet either, which suited her just fine.

“I am very much in love with your sister,” he told Sasha with a soulful look. “She’s a wonderful woman and she makes me very happy.” Sasha tried not to think of what that meant. “I have not been this happy since I was a young man.” To Sasha, that meant he was using Viagra, but she didn’t want to think of that either. He looked a little more respectable than Valentina’s usual consorts. He was wearing a serious business suit and a dark tie from Hermès, and he was a tad younger than her last boyfriend, but there was still a toughness to him that scared her, and she knew instinctively that it would be dangerous to cross him. And Valentina had no idea what he did for work.

“Do you do business in the States?” Sasha asked him, fishing, but he was too smart for that.

“I do business all over the world. The world is very small now. Your sister and I were in Dubai last week, and we’ll be in Marrakech in two weeks, for a little vacation.”

“How fun,” Sasha said, trying to look as though she meant it, but something about his eyes truly scared her. He looked like he had X-ray vision. And she wouldn’t have trusted him farther than she could throw him. He hadn’t said or done anything wrong, but something about him just didn’t feel right.

They chatted for a while, sitting on the couch in Valentina’s apartment, and finally Sasha got up and said she had to go. She was meeting Alex at the apartment. The others would be out and she had promised to cook him dinner, which she had warned him he might regret, but he said he was game. She told him he was a very brave man.

Jean-Pierre hugged her and kissed her on both cheeks again when she left, and Valentina was beaming at her, convincing herself that Sasha loved him, which was not the case. Sasha just didn’t know what was wrong about him and what to object to, but she was sure that something was wrong. But hopefully Valentina would never find out, and he’d be gone long before he caused a problem. Whatever he did for a living, she was sure that he was good at it, and if it was illegal, maybe he wouldn’t get caught.

She took the subway north to Hell’s Kitchen, and Alex arrived at the loft a few minutes after she did, carrying the groceries they’d agreed on for dinner. He looked at her closely after he kissed her and asked if everything was okay. She seemed distracted.

“Yeah. I just met Valentina’s boyfriend, and I can’t tell you what’s wrong with him, but something didn’t feel right. That always happens with her, and later we find out they were dealing heroin to small children. This one’s a little better, or a little smoother maybe, but he’s got the meanest eyes I’ve ever seen. The good news is that they never last long. She’s crazy about him, but that doesn’t mean anything with her.”

“I don’t know how twins can be so different,” he said as he unpacked the food. “It doesn’t get any more different than you and your sister.” And he thought that was a good thing.

“I know, it’s weird,” she agreed. “She’s crazy, and she has the worst taste in men in the world, but I love her anyway.” Alex understood that, and he had been respectful of her and was careful of what he said.

The two of them started to make dinner, enjoying the night because they knew the others would be out, so they had the place to themselves.

—

Claire still hadn’t told anyone but Morgan, but the romance with George was going well. They were going to Palm Beach on his plane the following weekend. There were suddenly a million plans that all sounded like fun to her. He wanted to take her to the Super Bowl where he went every year, the World Series, skiing in Courchevel and Megève, Aspen, Sun Valley, the Caribbean, and the South of France in the summer. There were a thousand things he promised to do with her, and in between he told her he wanted to spend his life in bed with her. Claire was trying not to be, but she was distracted by him. Every time she sat down at her drawing board, at home or in the office, her mind drifted off, and she could see him naked in front of her. She had even done a sketch of him, which she had hidden in a drawer at work. And all he kept saying to her was that he knew that this was it. And even though she didn’t want to believe it yet, she knew it was true. This was it. She just hadn’t expected him to come into her life so soon. She wondered sometimes if this was what had happened to her mother, when she had fallen head over heels in love with Claire’s father, and followed him to San Francisco. But Claire also knew that this was different. George was a legendary success on Wall Street and a brilliant businessman. People said he had the Midas touch. And he would never ask her to give up her career.