Power Play: A Novel by Danielle Steel Read Free Book Online

way of communicating with each other when he was traveling, or even sometimes when he was in town. They had picked up the habit of texting from their kids, particularly Lindsay, who texted constantly, and had had a BlackBerry since she was fourteen. It was her main means of communication with the world, and Liz found it convenient now too.
    The plane took off a few minutes later. There were twelve seats in the corporate jet, and Marshall was traveling alone. The flight attendant brought him coffee after takeoff, and had
The New York Times
and
The Wall Street Journal
neatly folded on the table next to his seat, although Marshall preferred reading them electronically. But he spent most of the time reading earnings reports, and as soon as the plane landed, a car was waiting to pick him up and take him to the office. He walked into their L.A. offices at a quarter to ten, and was in a meeting twenty minutes later and didn’t stop for the rest of the day. He left at six o’clock, and had the driver drop him off at home. He had an apartment in a building on Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills, and as soon as he got out, he let the driver go. Once he was in L.A., he preferred driving himself. The driver was useful to and from the airport, but Marshall kept a car in L.A., itwas an old Jaguar he had bought several years before. It was perfect for L.A.
    He texted Liz and told her to have a good time at the film festival, showered, and at seven-fifteen he took the elevator to the garage in the building, got in the Jaguar, and took off toward the ocean. When he got there, he took a right onto Pacific Coast Highway, and headed toward Malibu. The traffic was as bad as it usually was at that hour, but he was in a good mood as he turned on the radio. There was always a holiday feeling to his two-day stays in L.A., and it felt good to be down there, in the warm weather. The city had a more festive feeling than life up north.
    It took him half an hour to get to the familiar address. It was a mildly run-down house with white shutters and a slightly crooked picket fence. It looked like a cozy cottage, but Marshall knew it was bigger than it appeared. He drove into the driveway, and turned off his car just outside the garage. There were two pink bikes lying on the ground side by side, and he walked in through the back door, which he knew would be unlocked. It led him past a large, slightly disorderly kitchen, and he opened a door into a huge sunny room, set up as an artist’s studio, where there was a beautiful young woman working on a large canvas with a look of intense concentration. Her mane of blond curls was half pinned to the top of her head. She was wearing a man’s undershirt that was well worn and splattered with paint, and she had nothing under it. She had on cut-off jeans that were very short shorts, and she had paint on her long shapely legs too, and rubber flip-flops on her feet.
    She looked surprised to see him, and then sat back on her stool with a slow smile. “You’re here?” She looked pleased.
    “I told you I was coming on Tuesday this week,” he reminded her as he walked toward her with a look that drank her in.
    “I forgot,” she said, but she didn’t look unhappy about it. On the contrary, her whole face melted into a broad smile as he approached her, and she put down her paintbrush and wiped her hands on a towel. He was wearing jeans and an open blue shirt, and he didn’t care if she got paint on him. It had happened before. She reached out her arms to him, and he put his arms around her, nestled his face in her mane of curly hair for a minute, and then kissed her longingly on the mouth. It was a searing kiss that went right through them both.
    “I miss you so much when I’m not here,” he said hoarsely as he nuzzled her neck, and she kissed him again.
    “You know what the solution to that is,” she said softly, but without malice. They both knew that solution, but it had been impossible for him for eight