Dating Game полностью

“No, they're not. Thank you for being so understanding.” It couldn't have been easy for him either. He was in a foreign country where he barely spoke the language, working on a magazine that was far beneath his stature, living with a woman old enough to be his mother, or almost, with grown children he had to audition for. And he'd been a terrific sport. It had been a lovely Christmas so far, and when they went to bed, he handed her a small package with a smile. When she opened it, it was a beautiful gold bracelet from Cartier, with the Eiffel Tower on it and a gold heart with her initials on it on one side of the heart, and his on the other, and just above it he had had engraved Je t'aime.

“Joyeux Noël, mon amour, ” he said softly. And then she made him unwrap her present. They had shopped in the same place. She had bought him a Cartier watch. And she knew that whatever happened later, it was a Christmas she would cherish forever in her heart. They were savoring stolen moments, and living in a magic bubble. But it was becoming a little more real. The bubble included her children now, and so far at least, all was well. Joyeux Noël.

Chapter 26

Meg and Richard and Wim stayed with Paris for a week, and over the New Year weekend they all went to Squaw Valley to ski, and stayed at a large resort hotel. And Jean-Pierre joined them for the weekend. He turned out to be an Olympic-class skier and had raced in Val d'Isère as a kid. Wim loved skiing with him, and Richard stayed with Paris and Meg and skied more sedately down the slopes. And at night they all went out. It was an ideal vacation for all of them, and on New Year's Eve, Paris forced herself not to think that it was Peter and Rachel's first anniversary and they were having a baby in five months. It was still hard for her to believe. And she could remember all too easily how ghastly the day had been for her a year before, knowing that he was out of her life forever, and in Rachel's arms for good. As she thought about it while she dressed for the evening, Jean-Pierre saw the look on her face.

“Tu es triste? You are sad?”

“No, just thinking. I'm all right.” She smiled at him. He had understood instantly what it was. She only looked that way when her children talked about their father, and it hurt his feelings sometimes. To him, it meant that she didn't love him as much as he loved her. But it was more complicated than that. It was about history and memories and hearts that were forever intertwined, from her point of view at least, no matter what the legal papers said. She had tried to explain it to him once, and he had been upset for two days. He viewed her feelings about Peter as a disloyalty to him, and no amount of explaining changed that. She had learned that the words were better left unsaid. He didn't seem to understand what the loss of her marriage had meant to her. Maybe he was too young. He hadn't lost enough yet himself. There were times when, in spite of his warmth and charm, she felt the difference in their ages. He saw life as a young person, and preferred to live only in the moment. He hated to think about the future or make plans. He was entirely spontaneous, and did whatever felt good at the time, with no regard for consequences, which sometimes irked her. He had called his son on Christmas Day, but he admitted that the child was almost a stranger to him, and he didn't feel the loss. He had never spent time with him from the first. And had never allowed himself to love him, which seemed wrong to Paris. She felt Jean-Pierre owed him more than that, but Jean-Pierre didn't. He felt he owed him nothing, and it made him furious that he had to send money to support him. He hated the boy's mother, and said so. He and his ex-wife had married to give the child a name, and had divorced shortly after that. He had had no great emotional investment in the mother or the child. They had both been a burden to him, one he tried to ignore. So he avoided the boy, which seemed sad to Paris, and irresponsible. He had no other father than Jean-Pierre, but Jean-Pierre resisted any emotions about him, because he had been manipulated by the boy's mother. Paris always felt, when they talked about it, that his responsibilities to the child should have transcended his feelings about the mother, but they didn't. He had shut them both out years before. And ultimately it was the child's loss, which bothered Paris. But they saw it differently, and probably always would. She had stopped talking to him about it, because they argued over it, which upset her. She felt he owed the child more than he was giving, and she thought his attitude about it was selfish. But perhaps it was only young.