Property of a Noblewoman by Danielle Steel Read Free Book Online

said with a sigh. “I’ve got some reading to do this weekend anyway.” She tried to sound easy about it and she wanted to see a friend for lunch, and needed to work on her own paper. She could tell that she was about to spend another weekend on her own. And she knew he was right, her getting wound up about Cara wouldn’t do them any good.
    John went to the gym to work out that night, before he went back to the research for his paper, and Jane did laundry and paid bills. It felt good to catch up, although they barely exchanged five words with each other, and by the time John went to bed, she was asleep, and he was already gone the next morning when she woke up. He had left her a note on the kitchen table that he would be at the library all day. But at least he wasn’t at Cara’s, she thought to herself. There was just something about her that always made Jane jealous, probably how sexy she looked, and she was smart too, a winning combination. She was the kind of woman men flocked to. And Cara took full advantage of it. All her friends were men. Women never liked her.
    Jane called her friend Alex, and they agreed to meet at the Museum of Modern Art for lunch. Alex had graduated from law school the year before, and had landed a job in a Wall Street firm. She said they were working her like a slave, but she was making decent money and she liked it. Her specialty was intellectual property law, which was interesting and fun. Alex was hoping for an eventual junior partnership in the firm, in a few years.
    “So how’s Prince Charming?” Alex asked with a broad smile. She was small with dark hair and green eyes, and appeared younger than her thirty-two years. In jeans, a fisherman’s sweater, and ballet flats with her hair in a braid down her back, she looked like a kid. The two women were an interesting contrast, with Jane’s long, lean blond good looks, and Alex’s dark pixie quality, which was her personality too. They had shared some good laughs and lively times together.
    “Not so charming these days,” Jane said about John with a sigh, as they finished lunch in the museum cafeteria. They both wanted to see a Calder exhibit that had just opened. He was a favorite of Jane’s. “He’s in such a shit mood, finishing up his papers and final projects. That’s all he thinks about now. I haven’t had dinner with him in a month.”
    “I don’t know what it is about guys, they can never multitask. It’s all one thing or another, with no room for anything else.” Alex had broken up with her last boyfriend a year before, and had just started dating a junior partner in the firm. And her parents had been nagging her about getting married for the past two years, since she turned thirty. Jane’s parents were more relaxed about it, for now. Her mother had started making comments about John, and questioning their plans for the future but marriage just wasn’t on her radar screen for now. Alex was a little more concerned in recent months, and had started talking about wanting kids. “Is the old magic still there?” she asked Jane, who thought about it for a moment before she answered.
    “To be honest, I don’t know. I’m not sure we ever had ‘magic.’ We like each other a lot, we like doing the same things. It was easy, and we get along, or at least we used to. I guess if you put a gun to our heads, we’d say we love each other, but I don’t think either of us are passionate people. Maybe we’re too interested in our careers.” Jane thought about it at times, but she had no real complaints about John either, except lately, with his intense study habits and no time for her, and her mild concerns about Cara, and women who looked like her. Jane was wholesome and natural, she wasn’t a sexy type or a femme fatale like Cara. John liked to talk about “hot women.” Cara definitely was one. And their sex life had fallen off too, which also put distance between them. He was never in the mood now, he was too tired,