Prodigal Son by Danielle Steel Read Free Book Online Page B

on his own. Alana was acting as though she had never lived there. The buyers were offering to purchase some of their furniture, mostly the antiques, which was good news. Alana and Peter couldn’t afford to be sentimental right now, about anything except each other, and Alana didn’t seem inclined to do that.
    “What do you want me to do with the furniture that they don’t buy?” Peter asked Alana in a flat voice.
    “I don’t know,” she said vaguely. “Put it in storage? Give it away? Do whatever you want.” She obviously didn’t care, about the furniture, or even him.
    “Are we planning to live in your father’s guest house forever?” he asked miserably. “Some of this is good stuff, and it would be nice to use it when we get another place of our own.” He was trying to hold on to that belief, with no help from her.
    “I’m not in love with it, especially if they’re buying the antiques.” Alana had made a full-time job of filling their apartment with expensive things for several years, and now she cared about none of it. Itwas as though she wanted nothing to remind her of her years in New York, and his recent failure there. Peter was feeling crushed by feelings of inadequacy, it was reminding him more and more of his youth, when he couldn’t do anything right, and his parents blamed him for everything. Alana wasn’t blaming him, but she didn’t have to. Her actions and refusal to come to New York even for a visit, to help him, said it all. And she acted like she was in denial about the situation they were in, and wanted no part of it. Her father had given her the opportunity to dodge it entirely, and she had seized it gladly. Now it was all Peter’s problem, not hers. He got that message loud and clear.
    He spent the next two weeks packing up everything he wanted to keep from the apartment. He got wardrobe boxes from the moving company for Alana’s clothes, which she wanted in L.A. She was turning her childhood room in her father’s house into a closet to store what she wouldn’t wear, like fur and winter coats, and there were plenty of walk-in closets in the guest house for the rest of her clothes. Peter boxed it all up for L.A., along with the boys’ clothes and toys. He didn’t know what to do with his own things, and felt odd sending them to L.A. If he did, he would be tacitly agreeing to move there, and he hadn’t done that yet. He wanted to stay in New York, even if they went back and forth for a while, until he found a job. In the end, he sent most of his things to storage, along with some books and furniture, and all he kept out were two suitcases of clothes, which were all he needed at the moment. He was living in jeans and sweaters while he packed up the apartment, and he had kept out several business suits for interviews and meetings. He sent his summer clothes and his tuxedo to California with Alana’s things—he was more likely to use the dinner jacket there, escorting Alana to social events. Forthe moment, he had no social life in New York and felt like he was in mourning for his career and their lost life. He had hardly spoken to anyone in the past three months—he was too deeply ashamed over the demise of his career. He hadn’t done anything wrong, but it seemed that way. He had advised the firm about some of their riskier investments. Peter had always been willing to walk the edge and take high risks, which was also why they had had big wins. And some of their high-risk investments had been very good for a while, although like everyone else, their real estate investments had proven to be disastrous for them. It was part of what had brought Lehman Brothers down too, and several banks. They weren’t alone in their mistakes, and finally it had caught up with them.
    The New York apartment closed within thirty days. The buyers tried to knock another two hundred thousand off the price, for things they claimed needed to be repaired, and Peter split the difference with them. He was