Lone Eagle

by Danielle Steel

  “He can't just keep you there, Kate. You're not a child, for Heaven's sake. Pack your bags and get out.”

  “And leave my son?”

  “You can go back for him afterward. Take Andy to court, for chrissake.”

  “And say what? That I cheated on him? I have no grounds for divorce. And he'll say that I abandoned my son. I'll never get Reed back again. They'll say I'm an unfit mother for having an affair with you and leaving my son. Joe, I can't leave.” Not unless Andy agreed.

  “Are you telling me you're going to stay married to him?”

  “What else can I do?” Her eyes looked like two dark blue pools of pain. “I have no choice. For right now anyway. Maybe he'll give in eventually, but right now he's refusing to be reasonable. He won't even let me talk about it.”

  “Kate, this is insane.” She knew it was. But Andy had been very clever about it, and he was fighting like a tiger to keep her, whether she wanted to be there or not. She had to admire him for that. But however much she admired Andy, it was Joe she loved. He came around his desk and put his arms around her while she sobbed uncontrollably.

  “I never should have left you three years ago,” she cried. Now she was trapped, and she realized that Andy would never let her out. She had lost her chance to be with Joe. And she wouldn't give up her son, even for him.

  “I didn't give you much choice. I was a damn fool to let you walk out on me three years ago, and tell you you'd never be as important as my planes.” He still remembered the speech he'd made. Three years later, he knew how wrong he'd been, but for the moment at least, it appeared to be too late. “Do you want me to talk to him, Kate? That might put the fear of God into him. What about buying him off?” It was a crass idea, but Joe was willing to do whatever would work, but Kate shook her head.

  “He doesn't need your money, Joe. He has his own. This isn't about money. It's about love.”

  “Owning someone isn't love, Kate. That's all he's got. He owns you right now because of your son. It's the only hold on you he's got.” But it was a powerful one. He had checked it out with an attorney that day. If she left the boy, she ran the risk of losing him. And if she took him, Andy could force her to bring Reed back, unless she kidnapped him and disappeared. But that was impossible for either of them. She could hardly go into hiding as Joe's wife.

  “I'm trapped, Joe. I can't get out,” she said miserably. She had felt so sorry for Andy for the past four months, and now he was squeezing the life out of them. He had their future in his hands and he was turning it to dust.

  “Just wait awhile. You can't live like this forever. You're too young, and so is he. He'll give up eventually. He's got to want something more than this in his life.” He was fighting for his family, his wife, his son, and he wasn't willing to give any of it up, nor lose Kate.

  Joe kissed her before she left, and she went home. And when Andy came home that night, she tried to talk to him again, to no avail. He lost his temper this time, and threw a porcelain candy dish at the wall. It had been a wedding gift from one of her friends and it smashed to smithereens, while Kate cried. She had expected Andy to be hurt but reasonable. She had never expected him to do any of this. There was no way out.

  “Why are you doing this to me?” she sobbed, as he sat down across from her with a look of despair.

  “I'm doing it to protect our family, since you won't,” he said, looking distraught. “Years from now, you'll be grateful I did.” But in the meantime, it was a nightmarish time.

  And what Kate did not know, or even suspect, was that Andy had instantly surmised it was Joe. It was written all over her face. He remembered too well their college days when she had been deeply in love with him, and waiting for letters from him. It was the same look Andy had seen in her eyes when Kate told him Joe was not dead, and ended their relationship. He knew that look well. There was only one man in the world who could make Kate look and feel that way. And he knew he was seeing it again and precisely who had walked back into her life again. He didn't need to hear the words.

  He was so certain of it that he didn't even bother to call Joe. He just showed up in his office the day after Kate had been there to tell Joe all her tales of despair. Andy strode right into Joe's office building, and asked his secretary to announce him. She looked more than a little stunned when she asked if Andy had an appointment, and he said no, but assured her that Joe would see him, and then he sat down to wait.

  He was right. Less than two minutes later, the secretary led him into a staggeringly impressive office full of the art and treasures and memorabilia Joe had collected since the advent of his success. Joe did not rise to greet him, but sat watching him like an animal being stalked, from behind his desk. They had only met once years before. But they each knew who the other was, and why Andy was there.

  “Hello, Joe,” Andy said calmly. His cool demeanor was a better hand of poker than he had ever played in his life. Joe was taller, older, smarter, more successful, and Kate had been in love with him for most of her adult life. He would have been an awesome opponent for any man. But Andy knew he had the winning hand, and for once Joe did not. Andy had their son. And Kate.

  “This is an interesting move, Andy,” Joe said with a lazy smile. Neither of them showed what they felt. Both were angry, both felt ill used and put upon. Each would have liked to kill the other, and instead Joe waved Andy to a chair. “Can I offer you a drink?” Andy hesitated for a fraction of a second and then asked for scotch. He rarely if ever drank before dinnertime, but he knew that in this case it might help to steel his nerves. Joe poured it over the rocks himself and handed it to Andy before he sat down again. “Do I need to ask what brings you here?”

  “I assume not. We both know. Not a very elegant move on your part, I might add,” Andy said bravely, and tried to pretend he didn't feel like a boy in Joe's office. In other circumstances, he would have liked to look around. The view was extraordinary and took in all of New York, with both rivers, and Central Park. “She's married now, Joe. We have a child. She's not going anywhere this time.”

  “You won't win her this way, Andy. You can't force a woman to love you by holding her hostage. Why don't you just chain her to the wall? It's not as subtle but it works just as well.” Joe was not afraid of him, he didn't even hate him. He was an important man, and knew he had nothing to fear. He could have bought and sold Andy a thousand times, and to Joe that meant a lot. It was something he couldn't even have contemplated once upon a time. But those times had come and gone. Joe was on top of the world, and Kate was his, whether Andy held the key to her jail cell or not. He had never owned her heart as Joe did, or even at all, in Joe's eyes. She felt sorry for him, she pitied him, she had never loved him as she did Joe. She and Andy had never shared what they did, and never would. And as Joe looked at him, he pitied him. “Why are we here, Andy? Let's get to the point. What is it you want?” He still could not believe that Andy would refuse to let her go in the end, and felt certain that, with enough pressure from Joe and Kate, he would cave in. But he had no idea, nor had Kate till now, what a ruthless and determined fighter Andy could be. This time, he did not intend to lose, whatever it took.

  “I want you to understand who she is, and what it is you're chasing after with such passion. I don't think you know what you're lusting after, Joe.” Joe was amused at the choice of words, and smiled from behind his desk, as Andy took a swig of the scotch.

  “You think I don't know her after ten years? I don't want to shock you, but I'm sure Kate told you we lived together for two years.”

  “As a matter of fact, she did, although it's somewhat indelicate of you to put it that way. I believe she was living at a hotel at the time.”

  “If that's what she said,” Joe said noncommittally, but Kate had told Andy the truth. He just didn't like hearing it from Joe.

  “And what were your conclusions after ‘living’ with her? I gather that you weren't anxious to marry her then. Why now?”

  “Because I was a fool
, as all three of us know. I was building my business, I had a lot on my mind. I didn't feel ready to take on a wife. That was three years ago. I didn't have time for her then. I do now.”

  “Was that the only reason you didn't marry her? Or were there things about her that worried you, Joe? Was she too needy, too demanding, did you feel trapped? Did you want to run?” Kate had told him all of it when she and Andy met again, but Joe couldn't know that as he listened to him. He felt a vaguely familiar sense of what it had been like then, and they weren't pleasant memories for him. He had felt everything that Andy had described. It wasn't that Kate he wanted, it was the one she had become now. The one who appeared to understand what had gone wrong. “She's the same woman, Joe. She looks panicked every time I leave the house. She calls me everywhere I go. If I go out to lunch, she has my secretary track me down. When she was pregnant, she nearly drove me insane. I had to go home to see her in the middle of the day. Is that what you want? Is that the kind of time you have available, Joe? You must be a very successful man indeed to have that kind of time on your hands. You'll have to be with her night and day. How will you take her with you when you travel? She won't leave Reed. And she wants to get pregnant again. She wants more babies. And she'll get them with whatever ruse she has to use to see to it that that happens. I know Kate. She did it to me with Reed. I didn't mind. You will.” They were lies, all of them, but Kate had long since given him a map of all of Joe's terrors, and Andy was systematically playing each one of them. And he was winning. He could see it in Joe's eyes, although he felt some obligation to defend Kate. But he was scared. Andy could sense his terror heavy in the air.

  “She's not in love with you,” Joe said firmly. “She'll be different when she's with me.” But he didn't sound quite as sure.

  “Really?” Andy asked, as he finished his scotch. “How different was she in New Jersey?” He knew all about the fights that had brought them down, her panic over feeling abandoned, his terror of being engulfed. Kate had explained it all, in retrospect, to him. And Andy was using it all now. For a good cause, he thought.

  “That was three years ago. She was a kid then,” but he no longer sounded quite as convinced. He wouldn't have admitted it to anyone, but he was beginning to wonder if Andy was right. He could feel a feather of terror tracing its way down his spine. Just listening to Andy describe her painted a picture of everything he didn't want, no matter how much in love with her he was.

  “She's still a kid,” Andy said smugly, longing for another scotch, but he wouldn't have dared. The one had been just right to give him courage. But he didn't want to get sloppy now. He could see the worry in Joe's eyes. His demons had been reborn. “She'll always be a kid, Joe. You know what happened to her as a child. So do I.”

  For once, Joe looked surprised. He was the better fighter of the pair, but this time Andy had him on the ropes. He was the small speedy devil who was going to bring down the champion, and he could already taste the prize. He didn't care what he had to do to keep her, but he wasn't going to lose her to Joe this time. No matter what. And he knew that if he played it right, Joe would never even tell her he'd been there. It was the perfect crime, and the only way to keep from losing her. He had to make Joe want to run.

  “Did she tell you about her father?” Joe asked. There was a trace of hurt in his voice. Kate had never admitted it to him in ten years. All he knew he had heard from Clarke, that day in Cape Cod. But once again, Andy didn't hesitate to lie to him. She hadn't told Andy either, and he had learned it from Clarke too, shortly before they were married.

  “She told me when we were in college. I've always known. We were good friends.” Joe nodded, and said nothing. “Do you know what that must have been like for her? How terrified she is of losing the people she loves? She couldn't survive without us. She couldn't live through a day on her own. She is the most dependent woman I've ever met, and you know it too. Do you realize that she wrote to me twice a day while I was in Europe?” Even that was a lie. She had written him hastily scribbled notes that only mentioned their son. Andy had suspected that something was wrong then, but there was nothing he could do about it from Europe. He had had to wait till he got home. “Do you have any idea how desperately insecure she is? How frightened? How unbalanced? I don't suppose she told you she tried to commit suicide after she left you in New Jersey.” As he said the words, Andy knew he had hit his mark. Kate had told him when they first met again how consumed by guilt Joe had been, how painful that had been for him. “Intolerable” was the word she used. And at what Andy had just said, Joe looked like he had just dropped to his knees.

  “She what?” He was stunned.

  “I didn't think she'd tell you. It was on Christmas, I think. We hadn't met again yet. She was in the hospital for a long time.” Andy was shameless. But he was a desperate man. And he was convinced that if he could get Kate away from Joe this time, she would be his for the rest of his life. But he didn't know his wife. The only way to have wrested Joe from her would have been to kill her or him. Anything less wouldn't have worked. She loved Joe that much.

  “I can't believe that.” Joe looked appalled, and Andy looked sad. “A mental hospital?” This time Andy nodded, seemingly unable to speak he was so chagrined. But the poisoned dart he had aimed at Joe had done its job. The venom was coursing through Joe's veins. The very thought of her committing suicide because of him was more than he could bear. It terrified him and would have made him not only the bad little boy he had been accused of being as a child, but a truly evil man as an adult. And a hidden fragile part of him could not allow him to risk that, just as Andy had hoped.

  “What are you going to do about her wanting more children? She told me only yesterday she wants two more.” Andy continued to hone in with blow after lethal blow.

  “Yesterday?” Joe looked shocked. “I think you must have misunderstood. I've been very clear about that.”

  “So has Kate. She's a lot like her mother, in a far subtler way.” Andy also knew from Kate how much Joe had hated Liz. “And we haven't spoken about the most important issue to me, my son. Are you really prepared to bring him up, to play baseball with him, to sit up with him at night when he has an earache or a nightmare or he throws up? Somehow, I don't see you doing that.” Andy was letting it all sink in. And Joe looked visibly sick. He and Kate had discussed none of those things. Or at least he thought they had. She had said she would be content with only one child, and would have a nurse for him so she could travel with Joe from time to time. But Andy was painting a far more vivid picture than she ever had. Particularly of Kate. The knowledge that she had attempted suicide when she felt abandoned by him three years before nearly drove him insane. It was guilt of the purest kind, and highly toxic to him. “So where are we now, Joe? I don't want to lose my wife, or my son's mother. I don't want her feeling abandoned when you travel and perhaps trying something foolish again. She's very fragile, far more so than she looks. It's in her family. Her father committed suicide after all. She could easily follow in his footsteps one day.” It was an evil trick to play on Kate, and such a cruel one. She had no idea what Andy was doing to her, in Joe's eyes, or to Joe. Andy was playing all Joe's worst fears like keys on a piano, and Joe was so anxious he could hardly speak. All he wanted to do was run, and all he could remember was Clarke describing her as a bird with a broken wing. Joe had no way of knowing that Kate had never even contemplated suicide, and no matter how unhappy she'd been over him, it had been the farthest thing from her mind. But Andy's ploy had accomplished just what he had wanted it to. No matter how much he loved her, Joe realized again now that marrying her was not a responsibility he could undertake. He had known that before. And Andy had convinced him with a few brief brushstrokes that he'd been right. He was gone.

  “So where are we now?” Andy asked innocently, in the guise of talking man to man. But what he had done was not worthy of any man. It was something Joe would never, ever have done, to her, or anyone else. But his own fears were so ramp
ant, he couldn't see Andy's ploy for what it was. The act of a desperate man. He took it as truth. And he wanted to cry as he sat at his desk.

  “I think you're right. I think no matter how hard I try, the way I live my life, and have to with my work, will cause her irreparable damage. Imagine if she killed herself while I was on a trip.” He couldn't even bear thinking about it, the very idea made him feel sick, and overwhelmed.

  “I think she could,” Andy said thoughtfully, as though weighing the possibility, as he met Joe's eyes. And all he could see in Joe's eyes was fear.

  “I can't do that to her. At least you can keep an eye on her. Weren't you afraid to leave her when you went to Europe for four months?” Joe asked, looking puzzled for a moment, but Andy was quick to explain.

  “My parents promised to keep an eye on her, and hers of course. And she sees her psychiatrist twice a week.”

  “Psychiatrist?” Joe looked shocked again. “She sees a psychiatrist?”

  Andy nodded. “I gather she didn't tell you that either. It's one of those dark secrets she keeps.”

  “She seems to have a lot of them.” But he could see why. In his eyes, it wasn't something to be proud of, nor was her father's suicide. Her secrecy about that had set the stage for everything else Andy chose to say. Kate had never seen a psychiatrist in her life, as he knew full well, nor attempted suicide, nor chased after him when he went to work. Nor had he ever come home to her in the middle of the day. It was all lies. But it had worked. “I don't know what to say to her,” Joe said with a look of despair. He loved her, and she him, but he believed now that attempting to share his life with her would more than likely destroy her, or even kill her. It was a danger he was not willing to risk. And a guilt he could never have borne.