Dating Game

by Danielle Steel

  The only nightmare for Paris was that Peter and Rachel were going to be there. And their baby. And Rachel's boys. The perfect little family. And Paris would be alone. It was a condition she accepted now, as she had once before. But losing Jean-Pierre was different. It had not been inflicted on her, like a prison sentence she had been given. It was a choice she had made. She had decided, after much thought, in the past four months, that she was better off alone. It wasn't what she had wanted, or how she had envisioned her life once upon a time. But it was what had happened to her. Her destiny maybe. And she knew without a moment's doubt now that she could be happy and comfortable without a man. She had come to that conclusion once before, and then everything had gone wrong again. But it wouldn't this time. And in the last two months, she had done a lot of thinking, and she had a plan.

  She knew what she wanted. She wasn't sure how her children would feel about it. But it was her decision, no matter what anyone else thought. She had made quiet inquiries, and she had two names. She was going to call them after the wedding, and proceed from there. And even before she called them, she knew it was right for her. It was the only avenue that made sense to her now. The one thing she knew she was good at, and wouldn't break her heart. She didn't know how she'd get there, but she knew she would if it was meant to be. Paris wanted a baby, but not a man.

  Chapter 28

  Meg's wedding was everything Paris wanted it to be. It was elegant, beautiful, done in exquisite taste, not too showy. Unforgettable. Meg wanted it in a garden setting, so they held it at the Burlingame Club. And Paris and Bix agreed it was one of the prettiest weddings they'd ever done, which was what her mother had wanted for her.

  She had spoken to Peter a few times over the final details, and estimates about cost, since he was splitting it with her, but their conversations had been cursory, businesslike, and brief. And each time she'd spoken to him, she'd felt shaken, and had to catch her breath afterward, but she knew it would be very different being able to set the phone down and walk away, than having to face him on Meg's wedding day. Paris had been dreading seeing him again. She hadn't in two years, since they'd settled Wim in Berkeley, and she had hardly spoken to him since. Now she had to face not only him but Rachel, her children, and their baby. Her stomach and her heart were in knots over it.

  She was so busy with Meg the day of the wedding that she almost didn't have time to think of it, and when she saw Peter finally, he was waiting for his daughter in the back of the church. Richard was secluded in a separate room, with the best man, so he wouldn't see his bride before the ceremony. Meg wanted to do everything according to tradition, and she looked like a fairy princess in the gown Bix had designed for her, with a vast ephemeral cloud of veil, a tiny pearl tiara, and the white lace dress with the seemingly endless train. It was everything Paris had wanted for her. An unforgettably beautiful day, marrying a man who loved her just as much as she loved him. Paris had long since stopped worrying about the difference in their ages, she agreed that Richard was the perfect man for Meg.

  And as she walked into the back of the church to check on the last details, she saw Peter standing quietly by himself, waiting for Meg. She was downstairs with her bridesmaids, having a last nervous giggle with the girls as they settled her veil over her face and wished her well. She was anxiously clutching an enormous bouquet of lily of the valley and the tiniest white orchids. Bix had had the lily of the valley flown in from Paris especially for her.

  As Paris entered the room, she saw Peter standing there, and they said nothing to each other, just stood there. It was impossible not to think of their own wedding day twenty-six years before. She had never thought it would be this way when their children married. She had fully expected to go to Meg's wedding with her husband next to her, and not to meet him for the first time in two years in a church, knowing he was married to someone else.

  “Hello, Peter,” she said formally, and she could see in his eyes that he was affected by seeing her. Thanks to Bix, she looked almost as breathtaking as Meg. The pink taffeta coat swirled around her and enveloped her, and underneath it the beige lace dress molded her still youthful figure. He wanted to say something to her about how remarkable she looked, but he couldn't find the words at first, and then he slowly approached her, looking shaken by the emotions of the day, and the sight of her. She was lovelier than he'd allowed himself to remember.

  “Hello, Paris. You look beautiful,” he said simply. And for a moment, he even forgot that they were there for Meg. Like Paris, all he could think of suddenly was their own wedding day, and how everything had gone awry since then. He was happy with Rachel, and he loved their baby, but seeing Paris seemed to sweep the present away. He felt transported backward into time, and when he hugged her, she could sense in him and herself, everything they had once felt for each other. She pulled away and looked up at him.

  “You look very handsome.” He always had. She had always loved him, and always would. “Wait till you see our daughter.” But it wasn't Meg who filled his heart now, it was Paris, and everything they had once shared, and lost since then. He didn't know what to say. He knew there was no way he could ever make up to her for all he'd done to her. It was so different knowing that at a distance than seeing her face-to-face again. He hadn't been prepared for the flood of emotions and regrets that would overwhelm him when he looked into her eyes. He could see there that she had forgiven him. But the worst of it, he realized, was that he no longer knew if he could forgive himself. It was far harder to do while looking at her. She was so elegant and so dignified, so vulnerable and so proud. Just feeling her stand next to him, his heart went out to her, and he had no idea what to say. He only hoped that one day life made it up to her. And he knew from what his children said that thus far at least it had not.

  “They'll be ready in a few minutes,” she warned him, and then left the room again. Wim took his mother to her seat in the first pew, and she saw that Rachel was sitting directly behind her with her two boys, and she tried not to stiffen, but wished they had put her a few rows farther back at least. Paris turned to face forward, and Wim took his seat next to her, and an instant later the organist began playing the music that she knew meant the wedding was about to start, and the first of Meg's bridesmaids glided slowly down the aisle.

  And when she saw Meg come toward her on her fa-ther's arm, Paris could hear her own breath catch, and others murmur. She was such a lovely bride, it tugged at the heart, and was everything a wedding was meant to be. She was all innocence and beauty, and hope and trust. And as she looked into Richard's eyes, there was such joy on her face that Paris thought her heart would burst and she could feel tears fill her eyes. Peter caught Paris's eye as he came back down the aisle toward her, and there was so much tenderness in his expression that she wanted to reach out and touch his hand. But she knew she couldn't. He slipped quietly into the pew behind her, beside his new wife, and Paris had to steel herself not to cry harder. The single gesture and the reality of where he was sitting summed up the entire situation, and Wim looked down at her to make sure she was all right, just as his sister would have. Meg had warned him that morning to be extra nice to Mom, because the wedding would be hard on her, Meg knew, and Wim had understood. And as they sat down again, he patted his mother's hand, and Paris smiled up at him through her tears. Paris knew she was lucky. He was a good boy, and a loving son.

  And after the ceremony was over, Paris and Peter stood at the entrance to the church with the bride and groom, the matron of honor and the best man, and they formed a receiving line as people came past to greet and congratulate them. For a fraction of an instant, it felt like being married again, and then Paris looked across the vestibule through the crowd, and saw Rachel watching her. There was a strange look of apology on her face, and not the mask of victory Paris had feared would be there. The two women nodded discreetly to each other, so that no one else could see, and Paris nodded as though to tell her she forgave her. There had been no way of stopping Peter from
what he wanted, and Paris knew it. And in some ways it was more about him than either of the women. And Paris was able to accept now that losing him was what was meant to be. A lesson of some mammoth proportion, a loss she had to experience of nearly everything she loved and believed in except her children. It was one of life's enormous cruelties, yet somewhere in it she knew there would be a gift one day. She had not found it yet, but she knew it was there, waiting for her to discover it, and when she did, she would be free. And until then she was struggling to find it, and still growing stronger every day. Rachel had been part of the journey, and Peter, and even Bix, and Jean-Pierre. And one day Paris knew that she would discover why it had happened to her.

  But in the meantime, this woman Peter had left her for seemed insignificant suddenly. Paris envied her less for him than for the baby they now shared. Someone handed the baby to Rachel as Paris watched them, and she was mesmerized, and saw her holding the little girl close to her. She was only four months old, and she was everything Paris wanted now. It was all that was left to her. If a man was not going to love her, then perhaps another child would one day, in addition to those she had. She had said nothing to her children, but this was what she hungered for now, it was the path she was taking, or would soon, she hoped. And then she turned away from Rachel to greet the rest of their guests, and Meg and Richard were standing only a few feet away. Paris had never seen a happier couple in her life. Her new son-in-law embraced her, looking far older than his mother-in-law, and he thanked her profusely for everything she'd done for them, and for being so supportive of their marriage. He was grateful to her, and enormously fond of her now.

  “I'll always be here for you, Paris,” he whispered as he hugged her, and she believed him. She and Richard were friends now, more than just being related by marriage, and she knew he would take wonderful care of Meg. She was a very lucky girl, and she deserved it. Paris knew she'd be a good wife to Richard, and a loving mother to his children. It was wonderful to see them embark on their journey, and to share in it. She wished them an abundance of happiness for the rest of their lives, and hopefully never grief. All her prayers, as Meg's mother, were that life would be kind to them.

  The wedding party left for the club a short time later, and they spent an hour posing for photographs while the guests had cocktails and laughed and chatted, and Bix wove expertly through the crowd, greeting people, meeting friends, introducing some guests to others, and keeping an eye on all the details.

  All three hundred guests had been seated according to careful seating charts, and there were two long tables with escort cards on them, which Paris had checked herself at the crack of dawn that morning. Two young women were handing them out as guests arrived. Paris and Peter were at separate tables, and were seated as far apart as correctly possible, and Bix and Steven were sitting with her, along with a handful of her friends. There had been three gaps at her table, because she wasn't close to that many people, even after being in San Francisco for nearly two years, but she worked so hard for Bix she had no time to cultivate friendships, except with clients for a brief time until their events were completed. So they had put Richard's business partner at her table, and the matron of honor's parents, whom Paris knew from Greenwich, which made a nice group for her.

  Natalie and Virginia had come out for the wedding, and Paris had scarcely had time to see them. They were leaving in the morning, so she still wouldn't, but Meg had wanted them at other tables with a large group of Peter's friends who had come out from Greenwich, so socially it was kind of a lost day. There were too many other things for Paris to do than to sit and catch up on gossip with her friends.

  By the time they sat down to dinner, she was breathless. She had said hello to all three hundred people, solved a minor crisis that Bix was unaware of, between a photographer and one of the catering staff, and she introduced herself to the man she knew was Richard's partner, as she slipped off the pink taffeta coat, and caught her breath.

  “I'm sorry to be such an inattentive seatmate,” she apologized with a smile, as he helped her with the evening coat. “Have you met everyone at the table?” she asked solicitously, thinking that he looked surprisingly like Richard, except that he was older, taller, and his hair was darker. But there was a definite family air, and when she asked him about it, he laughed. His name was Andrew Warren, and Paris vaguely remembered Meg saying that he was divorced and had two daughters, but she couldn't remember more than that, other than that he was an entertainment attorney, like Richard. And when Paris inquired about it, he said that he actually handled writers, and Richard represented actors and directors, which was far more glamorous, he claimed, but also more stressful. He said writers caused far less trouble.

  “I deal with all the screenwriters, and authors who sell books into movies. Most of them are a fairly reclusive lot, so I never see them, I just carry a lot of manuscripts around and read their work. And they like it a lot better if they never have to see me. A lot of the time I just stay home and read. I don't have to visit movie sets, and coax actresses out of trailers who are having hysterics, or go to premieres, like Richard. I'd much rather do what I do,” he admitted. “I'm a frustrated writer, I've been working on a book myself.” He sounded interesting and was nice to talk to, but Paris didn't pay much attention to him. She had to get up every five minutes to talk to someone, and she felt sorry for him. She was very poor company, she knew, and sorry to be so rude. He seemed pleasant enough, although she hardly spoke to him. She whispered to Bix as she left, for about the tenth time, to try and keep him amused. And Bix and Steven said afterward that they'd enjoyed talking to him.

  When they played the first dance, Meg danced first with Richard, then her father, and then Peter danced with Rachel while Wim danced with Paris, and Richard danced with his mother, and then the bridal party and everyone else got on the floor, and Paris finally got back to her table, and collapsed in her chair. She hadn't stopped moving all evening.

  “You haven't had a bite to eat all night,” Andrew chided her, looking fatherly, and they finally had a chance to chat a little. He said he had two daughters in their thirties, one in London, one in Paris, both were married, but neither had children yet. And he mentioned in passing that his ex-wife was remarried and lived in New York. He had lived there when he was married. And then Paris suddenly remembered what Meg had said. His ex-wife was from a famous family, and was now married to the governor of New York. He had moved in fairly illustrious circles while he was married, but led a quiet life now. And more out of training and habit, thanks to Bix, than out of any real interest, she asked how long he'd been divorced. And he smiled and told her it had been about ten years. He wasn't apologetic, didn't seem angry, spoke fondly of his ex-wife, and seemed very normal and low-key.

  “It's been ten years. Both of my girls were in college, and we thought getting divorced made more sense than the way we were living. I had moved out here for business, and she hated California. She stayed in New York when I came to Los Angeles. She's very tied into political circles in New York, and that meant a lot to her. She thought it was too superficial out here, she hated the film industry, and I didn't disagree with her. I just liked what I was doing, and had a great business opportunity. The political arena in the East never meant much to me, but it meant everything to her. We were always very different, and eventually we just ran out of steam. Commuting got too difficult, and our lives had gone in opposite directions. We're very good friends, and I'm very fond of her new husband. He's perfect for her, much more so than I was. We had one of those hopeless romances that we tried to make last forever and couldn't,” he said, smiling pleasantly. “But we're on very good terms. When the girls were younger, I used to spend holidays with them and my ex-wife. I think the governor thought we were crazy, but it worked. I went shooting in Scotland with him last year. Modern-day families, they're a lot different than they used to be,” he said, laughing, and then invited her to dance, unless she'd rather just sit down and relax. He felt guil
ty making her get up again. And she didn't really want to dance with him, but she thought it would be rude to refuse. She would rather have sat at the table and chatted with Bix and Steven.

  “It sounds very civilized,” she said about his relationship with his ex-wife and her husband, as they danced a slow waltz around the dance floor. “I don't think I'd be capable of it,” she said honestly. She and Rachel hadn't spoken at the wedding. They had only exchanged a look and a nod in church, acknowledging each other, but neither of them wanted more than that. Particularly Paris. The scar of losing Peter to her was still too raw, and perhaps always would be. Andrew Warren's relationship with his ex-wife seemed infinitely different.

  “I'll admit, it's pretty rare. I don't know what the circumstances of your divorce were, but that only works if it was a fairly amicable mutual decision. We were both ready to let go, by the time we divorced. It was a mercy for both of us, and it turned out to be a real blessing for her. I think she's a lot happier with him than she was with me, or was for the latter half of our marriage. We were one of those couples who never should have gotten married, but did anyway, and tried like hell to make it work. It was a long shot at best. She's highly political, I wasn't. She's very social, I hated it. She was a debutante, my father owned a grocery store, and then turned it into a chain, and sold it very nicely, but I didn't grow up with the advantages she did,” although Paris knew from Meg he had made up for it since, and like Richard, he was a very wealthy, highly successful man. “She loved horses, I was terrified of them. I wanted lots of kids, she didn't. There was a lot of all that. To tell you the truth, I think I bored her to death.” He laughed, it didn't seem to bother him. He seemed very easygoing, so much so that Paris hardly paid attention to him. She was just doing her social duty as they chatted. “At least now we can be friends.”