Sunset in St. Tropez (18 page)

“Are you okay?” she asked after he'd kissed her, still worried about him, and he grinned at her in answer, looking handsome and young.

“Very much so.” And then he kissed her again, and she put her arms around him, and for an instant he forgot where he was, or what he'd been upset about. All he could think of was Gwen, and how extraordinary it was kissing her.

He didn't even think about Anne for once. Only Gwen and how much he cared about her.

They sailed silently for a little while, and then she pointed into the distance, and he saw it. The splendid classic motor yacht steaming slowly toward them, with her two big smokestacks and elegant lines. She looked incredibly beautiful, as they glanced first at her, and then smiled at each other. It was one of those moments they both knew they'd remember for a long time.

“You make me very happy.” Robert smiled at her, she had brought fresh excitement into his life, and a feeling he hadn't experienced in years. He could hardly wait to spend the day on the boat with her, and he was only sorry he had invited the others. But they dutifully sailed back to put the sailboat away, and tell his friends that the yacht was approaching. And without thinking, he walked up the path with her, hand in hand. He had never felt as comfortable in his life, not even with Anne. She had been cooler and less demonstrative. But everything about Gwen was gentle and soft and warm.

He went upstairs to get his bathing suit and a few things when he got back to the house, and then, he went to her bedroom to find Gwen. She was wearing a white cotton sundress, and her hair framed her face, as she turned and smiled at him. He took her in his arms again, and kissed her, and he felt neither guilt nor sorrow this time. He felt relief, and peace, and deep affection. He didn't know her well yet, but he knew he had found a woman who could mean a great deal to him. There was so much he liked about her. And without saying a word, they went downstairs hand in hand, in bold defiance of his friends. Gwen was prepared to be discreet about it, but he made it clear to her, and to them, that this was what he wanted, and who he had become. And for now at least, he expected them to accept and respect the changes in him, but Gwen as well, and pay the consequences if they didn't.

Their day on Talitha G with Henry Adams and his wife Cherie proved to be more fun and far more glamorous than any of Robert's group had expected or dreamed. Henry was charming to everyone, and so good looking that all Pascale and Diana could do was stare at him, and he made a huge fuss over all of them, and made certain that the crew did as well. They were assigned cabins to change their clothes, Cherie and Pascale and Diana became fast friends, and the superstar supermodel of Paris and New York runways spent the afternoon flirting with John. He looked like he had died and gone to heaven.

The lunch that was prepared for them was fabulous, and afterward they all lay in the sun, in abject comfort and opulence. And by the time the day was over, Gwen was no more appealing to Diana and Pascale, but her movie star friends were. Diana whispered to Pascale, as they lay in comfortable deck chairs, that it was a life one could easily get accustomed to, and they were surprised that Gwen was willing to stay with Robert, in their crumbling villa. It was obvious that she was greatly admired by all these handsome men. They made a huge fuss over her, but she treated them all like brothers or friends. It was clear to everyone how much she cared about Robert and no one else, much to Diana and Pascale's chagrin. She turned her full attention to him, and saw to it that he was comfortable and content and treated well. Had either of the other two women been fair, they would have been thrilled for him. But at least Eric and John were.

They had dinner in the dining saloon that night, anchored outside the Port of St Tropez, as they watched sailboats glide by on the way home from pleasure cruises and races. And a number of smaller craft circled them, just to admire the handsome yacht, and see who was on board. And several tourists, and a couple of well-informed paparazzi snapped pictures of them. They seemed to know who was on every yacht on the Riviera. And this one was a huge prize for them, with five stars on board, drinking champagne, and wearing bikinis and thongs. Cherie Adams went topless all afternoon, but Gwen was cautious and wore her top. She knew only too well what the tabloids would have done with photographs like that.

Gwen and Robert looked happy and relaxed, and they sat together and spoke in low tones, when they weren't laughing with their hosts, playing cards or liar's dice, or holding hands quietly as they looked out over the Mediterranean, lost in their own thoughts, or standing very near each other. Pascale and Diana glanced at them from time to time, and Pascale kept insisting it was a life Robert would never adjust to, or want. It was too jet set for him, particularly when you thought of the sensible life he had shared with Anne. They just weren't that kind of people, but Robert certainly seemed to be enjoying it, and was just as comfortable talking to Henry and the other two major actors on board, or to Henry"s incredible-looking wife, as he was with the comfortable old friends he had brought with him.

Eric was clearly impressed by Cherie, as was John, and she nearly rendered them speechless when she had taken off her top and continued chatting with them. It was certainly the custom in France, but none of the men had been prepared for the effect it would have on them.

By dinnertime, they were all extremely comfortable with each other, and as the tender finally took them back to Coup de Foudre, Diana said she felt like Cinderella as she watched the footmen turn back into mice, and the coach into a pumpkin.

“Wow! What a day!” Pascale was staring into space dreamily as the crew member from Talitha G helped her from the tender onto their tiny dock. All three actors on board had made a fuss over her, and she hated to leave. She could hardly wait to tell her mother whom she had met, and what yacht she'd been on. She felt like Queen for a Day.

“Kind of knocks your socks off, doesn't it?” Eric said to John as he poured them all a glass of wine in the living room of the villa. “That's quite a life you lead,” he said to Gwen, admiring her more for not playing star. Seeing her with her friends had somehow brought it into perspective for them. But Robert liked that about her, the fact that she was just as comfortable with his friends as her own, and had no sense of self-importance. He had realized that the very first time he met her, and the time he had spent with her since had confirmed it to him.

For once Pascale and Diana had very little to say, and the way they looked at her seemed subtly changed. They had by no means accepted her, just because she knew a lot of movie stars, but they were willing to acknowledge, at least privately, that there might be more to her than they had at first suspected. And there was no denying that Robert looked very happy. But they still felt an overwhelming need to protect him. From what, they were no longer quite as sure, but they were both equally convinced that she couldn't possibly be as nice and sincere as she appeared to be.

But it was harder now to assign an evil motive to her. There was really no reason for her to be with Robert, except that she genuinely cared for him.

She and Robert went out for a drink in town that night, at the Gorilla Bar, and they stopped in for a few minutes at the disco, and on the way home, he kissed her again as he had before, and thanked her for the wonderful day she'd given all of them, by introducing them to her friends, and he laughed as he remembered how John had looked when Cherie took off her top.

“That's a pretty racy crowd you run in,” he commented, and she nodded with a grin, and looked even younger than she was.

“They"re a lot of fun, in small doses.” The ones they had seen that day were all good friends of hers, but a lot of the Hollywood crowd didn't appeal to her. There was a great deal more substance to her. “You need more than that to make life interesting, I"m afraid. And if you let it, it really spoils you.” And clearly, in his eyes, at least, it hadn't done that. He admired her enormously for who she was.

“You"re not bored with these old friends of mine?” If nothing else, they were all considerably older than she was, and their lives were far more mundane. Particularly his, he felt. Robert was sane enough not to see himself as a romantic figure. But far more important, she did. Very much so. She had never met anyone who impressed her as much, whom she admired as much, and she had already realized, before she came to St Tropez, that she was falling in love with him. And the good news was that he seemed to reciprocate her feelings.

“I like your friends,” she said comfortably, as they drove home. “I don't think they like me much, but maybe they'll get over it. I think they just want to be loyal to Anne. Maybe in time, they'll figure out that I"m not trying to step on anyone's toes, I just love being with you.” She smiled at him, and he leaned over again and kissed her.

“You make me feel very lucky,” he said. He still wrestled with himself about Anne sometimes, and how much he had loved her, how different she was from Gwen, and how many wonderful years they had spent together. But she was gone, no matter how much he regretted it. And he was trying to tell himself that he had a right to someone in his life, even if not someone as dazzling as Gwen. He couldn't imagine that she would want to be with him for very long. If nothing else, he was twenty-two years older than she was, which seemed a lot to him, if not to her. She had never seemed daunted by his age.

“I"m the lucky one,” Gwen said as they drove along in her car in the moonlight. “You"re intelligent, fun to be with, incredibly handsome, and one of the nicest people I"ve ever met,” she said as she glanced over at him, and he smiled sheepishly.

“Just how much have you been drinking?” he teased.

She laughed at him, and touched his arm, as they bounced along the rutted driveway, and a moment later, he stopped the car, took her in his arms, and kissed her properly, and then they walked inside the house, hand in hand, trying not to make any sound so as not to wake the others, who were all sleeping. He left her in front of her room, with a lingering kiss, and when he went to his own room, he stopped and stared at the photograph of Anne he had put on his bed table. He wondered what she would think of this, if she would think him an old fool, or wish him well. He wasn't quite sure. He wasn't even sure how he felt about it. But when he didn't ponder it too much, he had to admit, he was happier with Gwen than he could ever have believed possible. But he constantly had to remind himself that it wouldn't go anywhere, and it was just a fun phase of his life that the others would tease him about in years to come, and he would long remember.

And when he went to bed that night, he lay wondering what Gwen was thinking and doing in her room. He was aching to knock on her door and kiss her again, but he didn't dare, and he was still afraid to allow himself to do more than kiss her. He knew that if he did more than that, he would feel Anne watching him. And the last thing he wanted to do was betray either of them.

He fell asleep and dreamed of both of them, in a tangled dream where he saw Anne and Gwen walking through a garden with their arms around each other, and his friends were all pointing accusing fingers at him, and shouting something unintelligible at him. It was a troubling dream, and he awoke several times. And when he went back to sleep, he dreamed of Mandy. She was holding her mother's photograph and looking sorrowfully at him.

“I really miss her,” she said softly.

“So do I,” he said, crying in the dream. And when he awoke this time, his face was wet with tears. He lay in bed for a long time after that, thinking of Anne, and then of Gwen.

And he was startled when he heard a knock on the door. He pulled on a pair of khaki pants, and was surprised to see Gwen. It was still early, and he hadn't heard the others get up.

“Good morning,” Gwen said softly. “Did you sleep all right? I don't know why, but I was worried about you.” They were standing in the hall whispering, and she looked beautiful in a white nightgown and robe and bare feet.

“I had weird dreams about you and Anne walking in a garden.” She looked startled when he said it.

“That's weird, so did I. I was awake for a long time last night, thinking about you,” she said softly, as she looked up at him. He looked handsome and rugged with uncombed hair.

“I thought about you too. Maybe we should have visited each other,” he said softly, so no one would hear him. He loved feeling Gwen near him, as she stood next to him and smiled at him. “I'll take a shower and meet you at breakfast in ten minutes.”

And when he appeared, he looked immaculate and perfectly shaved, in shorts and a T-shirt. She was wearing little white shorts and a halter top, which paled in comparison to Agathe's latest creation when she appeared. She was wearing a pink tulle bra with little rosebuds on it, and pink hot pants, and Eric commented when he came in that she looked like one of her French poodles. They were beginning to enjoy waiting to see what she would wear every day, and how outlandish it would be. She never disappointed them, and she didn't that morning as they chatted before the others got up. It was nice having time by themselves. The others grinned as they walked into the kitchen for breakfast too. Agathe was more entertaining than television.

There was a call for Eric, just as Diana walked into the room, it was from the States, and an operator told Pascale that it was person to person. He frowned, and then went into the next room to answer it, which didn't go unnoticed by his wife. But he looked relaxed and unconcerned when he came back to the kitchen ten minutes later. Diana was watching him closely.

“One of my partners,” he explained to the room at large, and Diana concentrated on her croissants and took a long sip of her coffee as though it were whiskey. In the thirty-two years of their marriage, none of his partners had ever called him on vacation. She knew exactly who it was, and right after breakfast, she accused him of it.

“It was Barbara, wasn't it?” The woman he had had the affair with. He hesitated for a long moment, and then nodded. He didn't want to lie to her. “Why did she call you?”