The Kiss by Danielle Steel Read Free Book Online

and have a good time, and so far the fates were conspiring in their favor. He had spent a great deal of time thinking about what he wanted to do with her during their two days. He wanted it to be a trip they would both remember for a lifetime, because who knew when their paths would cross in just this way again. He was almost afraid to think about it, he knew it was very likely that this one extraordinary opportunity would never come their way again.
    Bill walked into the bar at Claridge's just behind Isabelle, and a number of heads turned as they entered. They made a handsome couple as they satdown at a corner table, and Bill ordered a scotch and soda for himself, and a glass of white wine for her. As usual, she barely sipped it as they chatted about art, politics, the theater, his family's summer home in Vermont, and the places they had both loved to go as a child. She talked about visiting her grandparents in Hampshire, when they were alive, and the rare but impressive times she had met the queen. He was fascinated by her stories, and she was equally intrigued by his. As always, there was a striking similarity of reactions and philosophies, the things that had mattered to each of them, the people, the places, the importance of family ties. It was Isabelle who commented later in the limousine, on the way to dinner, that it was strange how for people to whom family meant so much, their marriages had become distant and remote, and they had chosen people who were anything but warm.
    “Cindy was a lot warmer when we were in college, but she grew up to be somewhat cynical. I'm not sure if that's my fault or not,” Bill said pensively. “Mostly, we're just very different, and I don't think I've met her needs in a lot of years, and I think for a long time she was angry at me, or disappointed at least, about that. She wanted me to play the social game with her, in Connecticut and New York. She was never really interested in the political scene in the early days, when it fascinated me and I was up to my ears in it. And now that I'm in a more rarefied atmosphere, I think she's just fed up with it and it turns her off. And privately, we've just grown apart.” But Isabelle thought there was more to it than that. He had already intimated to Isabelle for several years that he thought his wife had been unfaithfulto him. And he had confessed to Isabelle about his one affair. But more than that, Isabelle sensed, both in what he said and didn't say, that Cynthia was anything but warm. She was not only distant from him now, but punished him, when they met, for what she seemed to feel were his failings in regard to her. Isabelle never heard stories about closeness between them, or kindness, or any kind of emotional support. And she couldn't help wondering if it was too painful to Bill to admit that his wife simply didn't love him anymore. From all that he said, Isabelle wondered if she ever had. She had the same questions in her own mind about Gordon. But she didn't want to press Bill about his wife. Whatever he saw in her, whether it was emotion or simply history, she didn't want to force him to face something that would be too painful for him, or awkward to admit or discuss.
    “I think Gordon is a lot colder than Cynthia,” he said honestly, and Isabelle didn't disagree with him, although in great part Isabelle was all too willing to blame herself.
    “I think I've been a great disappointment to him,” she said quietly, as they rolled along in the limousine toward Harry's Bar. “I think he expected me to be far more social and outgoing than I am. I'm perfectly willing to entertain for him, but I'm not very good at opening up to people, or impressing them. That's hard for me. I felt like a puppet in the early days of our marriage, and Gordon was pulling all the strings. He told me what to say to people, how to act, how to behave, what to think. And then, once Teddy was sick, Ididn't have the time or the patience to play that game