Sunset in St. Tropez by Danielle Steel Read Free Book Online Page A

She was going to sleep late this morning.” And now she was sleeping forever. Robert felt a rising sense of panic as he realized that he hadn't asked to see her, but he assumed he would have a chance to later. He hadn't been thinking of anything except the overwhelming loss he had just sustained. And it was as though he felt now that if he played the film back often enough in his head, it would end differently than it just had. As though in viewing it again, he would see that she was more than tired, and be able to save her. But the exercise in torture he had devised was pointless, and they all knew it.
    He only took two sips of the coffee, and never touched the toast Diana made them. He couldn't think of eating anything at all, and all he wanted to do now was see her and hold her.
    “What do we do now?” Amanda asked, blowing her nose on one of the tissues from the box Diana had discreetly left on the table. Amanda was twenty-five years old, and had never experienced a loss like this one, or any other. Death was entirely unfamiliar to her. Her grandparents had died when she was too small to remember. She hadn't even lost a pet in her entire life. And this was a big one to start with.
    “I can take care of some of that for you,” Eric said gently. “I'll call Frank Campbell this morning.” It was a prestigious funeral parlor that had taken care of New Yorkers for years, even some as illustrious as Judy Garland.
    “Do you have any idea what you want to do, Robert? Do you want her cremated?” The question demolished him in an instant. He didn't want her cremated, he wanted her alive again, in the Morrisons" living room, asking them all why they were being so silly. But this wasn't silly. It was unbearable, unthinkable, intolerable, to her husband, and her children. They were actually handling it better than he was.
    “Can I do something to help, Dad?” Jeff offered quietly, and his younger brother Mike tried to rise to the occasion.
    They had both called their wives, and told them the news, and a few minutes later, Diana slipped away to call Pascale and John. They were stunned when she told them that Anne had died that morning. At first, they couldn't understand it.
    “Anne? But she was fine last night,” Pascale insisted, just as everyone else had. “I can't believe it … What happened?” Diana told her as much as she knew, and Pascale was crying when she went to tell John, while he was reading the paper. Half an hour later, they arrived at the Morrisons" too, and it was after one o"clock when Robert finally went back to his apartment to get dressed. And when he saw the lights on, and the towels on the floor in the bathroom, which he had put there to cover and warm her, he broke into agonized sobs again, and when he lay on their bed, he could smell her perfume on his pillow. It was all beyond bearing.
    Eric went to Campbell's with him that afternoon, and helped him go through the unbearable agonies that were required of him, making decisions, ordering flowers, picking a casket. He chose a handsome mahogany, with a white velvet interior. The whole thing was a nightmare, and they told him that he could see his wife later that afternoon when she arrived from the hospital. And when he did, with Diana standing next to him, it completely unglued him. He held Anne's lifeless form to him, while Diana watched them, silently crying. That night he went to Jeff's to have dinner with his children. Jeff and his wife insisted that he spend the night with them, and he was relieved to do it. Mandy was staying with Mike and his wife Susan at their apartment. None of them wanted to be alone, and they were grateful to have each other.
    The Donnallys and Morrisons had dinner together that night, still unable to believe what had happened. Only the night before Anne had been with them, and now she was gone, and Robert was a shambles.
    “I hate to bring up something so tactless under the circumstances,” Diana said cautiously as they