Read Online The Other Side of Midnight by Sidney Sheldon - Free Book Online Page A

labeled cheeses. They went to the Du Pont, on Montparnasse. They had dinner on the Bateau Mouche and finished up by having onion soup at four in the morning at Les Halles with the butchers and truck drivers. Before they were through Larry had collected a large group of friends, and Noelle realized that it was because he had the gift of laughter. He had taught her to laugh and she had not known that laughter was within her. It was like a gift from a god. She was grateful to Larry and very much in love with him. It was dawn when they returned to their hotel room. Noelle was exhausted, but Larry was filled with energy, a restless dynamo. Noelle lay in bed watching him as he stood at the window looking at the sun rise over the rooftops of Paris.
    “I love Paris,” he said. “It’s like a temple to the best things that men have ever done. It’s a city of beauty and food and love.” He turned to her and grinned, “Not necessarily in that order.”
    Noelle watched as he took off his clothes and climbed into bed beside her. She held him, loving the feel of him, the male smell of him. She thought of her father and how he had betrayed her. She had been wrong to judge all men by him and Auguste Lanchon. She knew now that there were men like Larry Douglas. And she also knew that there could never be anyone else for her.
    “Do you know who the two greatest men who ever lived were, Princess?” he was asking.
    “You,” she said.
    “Wilbur and Orville Wright. They gave man his real freedom. Have you ever flown?” She shook herhead. “We had a summer place in Montauk—that’s at the end of Long Island—and when I was a kid I used to watch the gulls wheel through the air over the beach, riding the current, and I would have given my soul to be up there with them. I knew I wanted to be a flyer before I could walk. A friend of the family took me up in an old biplane when I was nine, and I took my first flying lesson when I was fourteen. That’s when I’m really alive, when I’m in the air.”
    And later:
    “There’s going to be a world war. Germany wants to own it all.”
    “It won’t get France, Larry. No one can cross the Maginot Line.”
    He snorted: “I’ve crossed it a hundred times.” She looked at him puzzled. “In the air, Princess. This is going to be an air war…my war.”
    And later, casually:
    “Why don’t we get married?”
    It was the happiest moment of Noelle’s life.
    Sunday was a relaxed, lazy day. They had breakfast at a little outdoor café in Montmartre, went back to the room and spent almost the entire day in bed. Noelle could not believe anyone could be so ecstatic. It was pure magic when they made love, but she was just as content to lie there and listen to Larry talk and watch him as he moved restlessly about the room. Just being near him was enough for her. It was odd, she thought, how things worked out. She had grown up being called Princess by her father, and now, even though it had happened as a joke, Larry was calling her Princess. When she was with Larry, she was something. He had restored her faith in men. He was her world, and Noelle knew that she would never need anything more, and it seemed incredible to her that she could be so lucky, that he felt the same way about her.
    “I wasn’t going to get married until this war was over,” he told her. “But to hell with that. Plans are made to be changed, right, Princess?”
    She nodded, filled with a happiness that threatened to burst inside her.
    “Let’s get married by some maire in the country,” Larry said “Unless you want a big wedding?”
    Noelle shook her head. “The country sounds wonderful.”
    He nodded. “Deal. I have to report back to my Squadron tonight. I’ll meet you here next Friday. How does that sound?”
    “I—I don’t know if I can stand being away from you that long.” Noelle’s voice was shaky.
    Larry took her in his arms and held her. “Love me?” he asked.
    “More than my life,” Noelle replied