Property of a Noblewoman by Danielle Steel Read Free Book Online Page A

or not at home when Jane was.
    “Maybe he’s not the right guy,” Alex threw out as a possibility. She had never been crazy about him, and thought he had a big ego, which didn’t seem to bother Jane, but it annoyed Alex. “Maybe you’d feel more passionate about a different guy,” she said cautiously, not wanting to offend Jane.
    “I don’t think so. I had a hot romance like that in college. It was awful. I cried all the time, and lost fifteen pounds.”
    “That’s not all bad,” Alex grinned. “Except the crying part. Sometimes John reminds me of the guy I used to go out with before law school. I liked him and we got along, but it was never really right. And once we started arguing about everything, it was all wrong. I think we just ran out of gas, and then it went sour. If I’d stayed with him, we would have wound up hating each other. We broke up before that happened. Some relationships aren’t meant to last forever. Maybe this is one of those.” Jane didn’t want to admit it to her, but she had wondered about that too. And their constant arguments now depressed her. She didn’t want to fight with him. But she was still hoping it would get better again. They were at each other’s throats whenever they were together.
    “I don’t think we can figure anything out or make any decisions until after we graduate in June,” Jane said calmly. “We’ve never had any major problems until now. He’s just in a shit mood and at maximum stress levels all the time trying to finish everything before graduation. It’s not a lot of fun for either of us, and I snap at him too.” About Cara.
    “Doesn’t sound like fun to me,” Alex agreed. They walked in the museum garden then, and Jane told her about Marguerite, and her search for heirs to the estate. She told her about the jewelry and trying on the enormous diamond ring. “Wow! It’s hard to imagine romances and people like that. They’re part of another century. Can you imagine any guy we know giving someone that kind of jewelry, riding around in a race car, or living in a château? Sounds like a fairy tale, or an old movie.”
    “It is,” Jane agreed with her. “And it’s sad to think how the story ends up. Alone, with dementia, in a nursing home in Queens. That sounds like a nightmare to me.”
    “Yeah, me too,” Alex said as they walked into the Calder show and spent a pleasant afternoon, talking about nothing in particular and enjoying each other’s company. At four o’clock, they said their good-byes and Jane took the subway back uptown, and Alex went to the West Village, where she lived in the meat-packing district. She had rented an apartment in a good building in a trendy neighborhood as soon as she got her new job, and she was loving it. And she had a date that night with her new guy to go to the theater.
    Jane found herself envying her when she went back to the empty apartment, and worked on her paper that night. John called her around nine o’clock and had been at the library all day. They were on separate paths for now. And she tried not to think about what Alex had said at lunch, that John might be the wrong guy. She wasn’t ready to believe that yet. And she thought about what she’d said, that some relationships just played themselves out and ended. She hoped that hadn’t happened. But the stress on both of them had clearly taken a toll.
    On Sunday morning, Jane woke up to find John in bed with her, which was beginning to seem like a miracle, and they made love for the first time in a month. She felt better about them after that, and they managed to have brunch at a nearby deli before he went back to the library for the rest of the day and night, but at least the morning had gotten off to a good start, and she felt connected to him again.
    She went to a movie alone on Sunday night, a French art film she’d been wanting to see, which wasn’t as interesting as she hoped, and that night she went to sleep and dreamed of Marguerite.