Read Online A Perfect Stranger by Danielle Steel - Free Book Online Page B

that. You just vanished. And for days it bothered me. I keep thinking of the way you looked, with the tears running down your face.” As he spoke to her hethought he saw something soften in her eyes, but there was no trace of anything different in her face. He smiled again and shrugged softly. “Maybe I just can’t resist damsels in distress. But you’ve bothered me all this week. And this morning there you were. I was watching some woman buy a book while I called my office.” He grinned at the familiar book jacket, without telling her just how familiar it was. “And then I realized it was you. It was crazy, like something in a movie. For a week I’m haunted by a vision of you, as you sit crying on the stairs, and then suddenly there you are, looking just as beautiful.”
    This time she smiled in answer, he was sweet and he seemed very young; in a funny way he suddenly reminded her of her brother, who had been in love every other week when he was fifteen. “And then you disappeared again,” he went on despairingly. “I hung up the phone and you had vanished into thin air.” She didn’t want to tell him that she had stepped into a private office and was taken by several secluded corridors to the plane. But he looked puzzled for a moment. “I didn’t even see you board the plane.” And then he lowered his voice conspiratorially. “Tell me the truth, are you magic?” He looked like an overgrown child and she couldn’t surpress a grin.
    Her eyes began to dance as she looked at him, no longer angry, no longer afraid. He was a little mad, a little young, and a lot romantic, and she could sense that he didn’t wish her any harm. He was just sweet, and somewhat foolish. And now she nodded to him with a small smile. “Yes, I am.”
    “Aha! I thought so. A magic lady. That’s terrific.” He sat back in his seat with a broad smile and she smiled back. It was an amusing game. And no harmcould come to her, after all she was on the plane. He was a stranger, and she would never see him again. The stewardesses would whisk her away almost instantly when the plane reached New York and she would be safe again, in familiar hands. But just this once it was amusing to play this game with a stranger. And she did remember him now from the night when she had been so desperately lonely and had fled the house and sat, crying, on the long stone steps that led down the hillside. She had looked up and seen him, and before he could approach her, she had fled through the garden roof. But as she thought of it she noticed that Alex was smiling at her again. “Is it difficult being a magic lady?”
    “Sometimes.” He thought he heard an accent as he listened but he wasn’t sure. And then, lulled by the safety of the game, he decided to ask her.
    “Are you an American magic lady?”
    Still smiling at him in return, she shook her head. “No, I’m not.” Although she had married John Henry, she had remained a citizen of both France and Spain. She didn’t see what harm could come of talking to Alex, who seemed to be staring at the collection of rings on both her hands. She knew what he was wondering, and knew also that he would have a hard time finding out what he wanted to know.
    Suddenly she didn’t want to tell him, didn’t want to be Mrs. John Henry Phillips, just for a while. For a little while she wanted to be just Raphaella, a very young girl.
    “You haven’t told me where you’re from, Magic Lady.” His gaze tore itself away from her hands. He had decided that whoever she was, she was successful, and he had been relieved not to find a solid bandof gold on her left hand. He had decided for some reason that she probably had a wealthy father and maybe her old man had been giving her a hard time, maybe that was why she had been crying on the steps when he first saw her. Or maybe she was divorced. But the truth of it was that he didn’t even care. All he cared about were her hands, her eyes, her smile, and the power he felt