Read Online Now and Forever by Danielle Steel - Free Book Online Page B

he?"
    "He talked to you?" Ian looked surprised.
    "Just before he went to the house to see you." Ian looked pale.
    "Did he tell you what it was about?" She shook her head and looked away. "Oh, Jess ... what an incredible horror show to put you through. I just can't believe it."
    "Neither can I. But we'll survive it." She gave him her best brave girl smile. "What do you think of Martin?"
    "Schwartz? I like him. But that's going to cost you a pretty penny, isn't it?" Jessie tried to look noncommital and started to say something, but he cut her off. "How much?" There was a look of bitterness in his eyes for a moment.
    "That's not important."
    "Maybe not to you, Jessie, but it is to me. How much?" "Two thousand now, and another five if it goes to trial." There was no avoiding that look in his eyes. She had had to tell him.
    "Are you kidding?"
    Jessie shook her head in reply.
    "The man I spoke to before him wanted fifteen thousand, in cash, and by the end of this week."
    "Jesus Christ, Jessica ... that's insanity. But I'll pay you back for Schwartz."
    "You're boring me, sweetheart."
    "I love you, Jess." They exchanged a long tender look and Jessica felt the hot coals behind her eyes again.
    "How come you didn't call me last night?" She didn't tell him that she had lain on the floor all night, waiting, frightened, almost hysterical, but too tired to move. She had felt as though her body were paralyzed while her mind was racing.
    "How could I call you, Jess? What could I say?" That you love me ... "I think I was in shock. I just kept sitting here, stunned. I couldn't understand it."
    Then why did you screw her, damn you? But the flash of anger left her eyes again as soon as she looked up at him. He was as unhappy as she was. More so.
    "Why do you suppose she accused you of ... of ..."
    "Rape?" He said it as if it were a death sentence. "I don't know. Maybe she's sick or crazy, or pissed off at someone, or maybe she wanted money. What the hell do I know? I was a fool to do that anyway. Jessie, I--" He looked away and then back into her eyes with tears hovering in the corners of his own. "How are we going to live with this? How are you going to live with it, Jessie? Without hating me? And ... I just don't see ..."
    "Stop it!" She spat the words into the phone in a whisper. "Stop it right now! We'll see this thing through and it'll be over and straightened out and we'll never have to think about it again."
    "But won't you? I mean honestly, Jessie, won't you? Every time you look at me, won't you hate me a little bit for her, and for the money this'll cost you, and ... fuck." He ran a hand through his hair and reached into his pocket for a cigarette. Jessie watched him and then suddenly noticed his pants. He was wearing white cotton hospital pajama bottoms.
    "Good God, what happened to your pants? Didn't they give you time to get dressed?" Her eyes grew wide as she envisioned Sergeant Houghton dragging him out of the house bare-assed and in handcuffs.
    "Adorable, aren't they? They took my pants down to the lab to test them for sperm." It was all so goddam tawdry, so ugly, so ... "I'm going to need some pants for court tomorrow morning, by the way." And then he grew pensive for a moment and took a long drag on his cigarette. "I just don't understand it. You know, if she wanted money, all she had to do was call and blackmail me. I told her I was married." How nice ... and then for no reason she could fathom, she looked at Ian, at his wrinkled white cotton pajamas, at the boyish face and rumpled blond hair, at the madhouse of people around her, and she started to laugh.
    "Are you okay?" He looked suddenly frightened. What if she got hysterical? But she didn't look hysterical, she looked genuinely amused.
    "You know something nutty? I'm fine. And I love you, and this is ridiculous, dammit, so will you please come home--and you know what else? You look cute in pajamas." It was the same laughter he had heard a million times at two in the morning