The Promise by Danielle Steel Read Free Book Online Page B

multimillion-dollar deal. A hundred-million-dollar deal. They were all the same.
    A small jagged sigh emerged from the faceless bandages. “We can't afford it.” Marion almost shuddered at the “we.” They were not a “we” anymore. They never had been. She and Michael were the “we.” Not this… this … She took a deep breath and composed herself. She had work to do. That was the only way she could think of it. She couldn't think of the girl. Only of Michael.
    “You can't, Nancy. But I can. You do know who I am, don't you?”
    “Yes.”
    “You do understand that you've already lost Michael? That he could never survive the pressure and tragedy of what has happened to you, if he survives at all. You understand that, don't you?”
    “Yes.”
    “And you know that it would be a vicious thing to do, to try to put him through it, to make him prove his loyalty to you?” She wouldn't say the word “love.” The girl wasn't worthy of it. Marion had to believe that “Do you understand that, Nancy?” There was a silent pause. “Do you?”
    This time it was a very tired little word. She was sounding spent. “Yes.”
    “Then you've already lost everything you can lose, haven't you?”
    “Yes.” The word had no tone, no life to it. It was as though life itself were seeping away from the girl.
    “Nancy, I'd like to propose a little deal to you.” It was Marion Hillyard at her best. If her son had heard her, he would have wanted to kill her. “I'd like you to think about that new face. About a new life, a new Nancy. Think about it. About what it would mean. You'd be beautiful again, you could have friends again, you could go places—to restaurants, to movies, to stores—you could wear pretty clothes and go out with men. The other way … people would shriek when you walked near them. You couldn't go anywhere, do anything, be anyone. Children would cry if they saw you. Can you imagine what that would be like? But you have a choice.” She let the words sink in.
    “No, I don't.”
    “Yes, you do. I want to give you that choice. I will give you that new life. A new face, a new world. An apartment in another city while the work is being done—anything you need, anything you want to do. There'll be no struggle, Nancy, and in a year or so, the nightmare will be over.”
    “And then?”
    “You're free. The new life is yours.” There was an endless pause as Marion prepared to lower the boom Nancy was waiting for. “As long as you never contact Michael again. The new face is yours only if you give up Michael. But if you don't accept my … my gift, you know that you've already lost him, anyway. So why live the rest of your life as a freak if you don't have to?”
    “What if Michael doesn't honor the agreement? What if I stay away from him, but he doesn't stay away from me?”
    “All I want from you is the promise that you'll stay away from him. What Michael does is up to him.”
    “And you'll honor that? If he wants me … anyway … if he comes after me, then it's up to him?”
    “I'll honor that.”
    Nancy felt victorious as she lay there. She knew Michael infinitely better than his mother did. Michael would never give up on her. He'd find her, and want to help her through the ordeal, but by then she'd already be on her way to becoming herself again. His mother couldn't win this one, no matter how hard she tried. Accepting the deal would make Nancy a cheat, because she knew what the outcome would be. But she had to do it She to. There was no other way.
    “Will you do it?” Marion almost held her breath as she waited for the one word she prayed for, the word that would free Michael, and at last it came.
    But it would be a word of victory, not of defeat. It would be filled with all Nancy's faith in Michael. She remembered the words he had said to her at the rode where they'd hidden the beads the morning before. “I promise never to say good-bye to you.” She knew he never would.
    “Your answer, Nancy?”