Dating Game by Danielle Steel Read Free Book Online Page A

kid, I've been in bed all weekend.”
    “Mom,” her daughter said sternly, “you can't let this destroy you. I know it must be tough, and it's been a terrible shock. But weird things happen. He could have died too. I'm glad he didn't. Sometimes people just go crazy. I think he did. I don't know why, but this doesn't sound like him. I thought you guys would be married forever.”
    “So did I,” Paris said, as tears stung her eyes again. She felt as though she hadn't stopped crying since Friday. “I don't know what to do now. What am I going to do for the rest of my life without him?” She started to sob then, and it was half an hour later before Meg asked to talk to her brother. When he got on the line, Paris got off, and the two siblings talked to each other for an hour. Their conclusion at the end of it was that their father had gone temporarily insane, and hopefully would recover. Wim still had some faint hope that he would come to his senses. Meg was less certain, and she was still wondering about another woman.
    She called the Regency after she hung up, but he wasn't registered there, and she tried several other hotels, and never found him. He was of course staying with Rachel, but none of them knew that. And she got up at six o'clock the next morning to call him at nine New York time, in his office.
    “What's going on, Dad?” she asked, for openers, hoping to get him to tell her honestly what had happened. “I didn't know you and Mom were having problems.” She tried to sound sane and rational, and not accusatory, so he would talk to her. But he seemed more than willing, and surprisingly honest.
    “We weren't,” he said fairly. “I am. How is she? Did you talk to her?” But he knew she had, since she had called him to inquire about their “problems.”
    “She sounds terrible.” Meg didn't pull any punches, and wanted him to feel guilty. He deserved to. “Did you just have a fit or something, and fly off the handle?” But that wasn't like him either.
    He sighed before he answered his daughter. “I've thought about this for a long time, Meg. I guess I was wrong not to say anything to her sooner. I thought I might feel differently if I waited, but I don't. This is just something I need to do, for me. I feel like I'm buried alive with her in Greenwich, and my life is over.”
    “Then get an apartment in New York, and move. Both of you. You don't have to divorce her.” She was beginning to feel hopeful. Maybe there was a solution, and she felt as though she owed it to her mother to help him find it. Maybe he would actually listen to her.
    “I can't stay married to her, Meg. I'm not in love with her anymore. I know that's awful to say, but it's honest.” Her hopes were dashed in an instant.
    “Did you tell her that?” Meg held her breath as she waited, realizing the full weight of the blow her mother had taken. It was beyond thinking.
    “As tactfully as I could. But I had to be honest with her. I'm not going to put our marriage back together. I wanted her to know that.”
    “Oh. Now what? Where do you both go from here?” She was fishing, but not brave enough to ask yet. She felt sick for her mother. This was not what she deserved after twenty-four years of marriage.
    “I don't know, Meg. She'll find someone eventually. She's a beautiful woman. It probably won't take long.” It was an incredibly insensitive, cavalier thing to say, and Meg wanted to hit him for it.
    “She's in love with you, Dad,” she said sadly.
    “I know she is, baby. I wish I were still in love with her. But I'm not.” Rachel had changed that. Forever.
    “Is there someone else, Dad?” She was old enough for him to be honest with her, but he hesitated. Just long enough to arouse his daughter's suspicions.
    “I don't know. There might be. Eventually. I have to sort things out first with your mother.” It was an evasive answer, and spoke volumes to her.
    “That's such a rotten thing to do to Mom, she doesn't deserve