Chapter 11

Olivier was in a meeting late that afternoon when he heard his phone vibrate three times.

He glanced at it, hoping it was Amanda.

They'd had a rough night talking about his marriage and his wife.

Having met Stephanie, Amanda no longer believed that Olivier would divorce her in the end.

He was sorry they had argued.

He hadn't heard from her that morning, and he wasn't sure he was going to after the night before.

He didn't want to lose her.

He had never loved a woman more.

When he looked at the number on his phone, he saw that it wasn't Amanda.

He couldn't leave the room.

It was a delicate negotiation and he had to wait until it concluded, and then he went to check his messages.

The call was from Lizzie.

He called her back and he could tell she'd been crying.

"Are you okay?"

he asked her.

"Steph came off.

Badly.

She was thrown."

Her voice was shaking.

"By one of her horses?"

That surprised him.

Hers were impeccably trained and docile.

"No, she was trying a horse she was thinking of buying.

He wasn't fully broken yet.

The breeder warned her.

She wanted to try him anyway.

She's pretty badly banged up.

She's in surgery now."

"What did she break?"

he asked, feeling panic race up his spine.

What if she broke her back and was paralyzed? It had happened to others.

It could happen to her too, and maybe it had.

And he could never leave her then.

"She broke her pelvis and her shoulder, and they can't do anything about either one, they can't set them.

And her right arm and leg.

They're putting a titanium plate in her leg, and a steel bar in her arm."

It sounded bad to him, but at least she wasn't paralyzed.

"She was very brave.

They let me ride in the ambulance with her.

We're in Sussex.

She'll be in the hospital for a week or so.

After that, we can bring her home.

She'll have to convalesce for a few months.

She may need another surgery on the arm.

She's going to miss all the shows for the next few months."

"But she's alive, and she's not paralyzed, right?"

"Yes,"

Lizzie said in a small squeaky voice.

"Does she have a head injury?"

"No, her helmet stayed on.

She was wearing a new one."

"Thank God,"

he said fervently.

She would recover, but from the sound of it, it would take time.

"I'll find nurses for her,"

Olivier said, his mind racing.

She would need care, and close attention.

He was her husband.

He couldn't just walk away now.

"The girls and I can take care of her,"

Lizzie offered, and he knew it was well meant, but not practical or adequate, from the sound of the gravity of the accident.

"She'll need professionals."

"We can help at least.

Do you want to talk to the surgeon when he finishes?"

"Yes."

He jotted down the number and the doctor and surgeon's names.

"The doctor said it would take five or six hours, maybe longer.

You can call him after that.

It's been two hours now."

It was four o'clock.

She would still be in surgery that night.

"I'll try to come over tonight, I have some meetings I have to reschedule.

At worst, I'll be there tomorrow,"

he promised.

"We're with her.

We won't leave her.

They're going to put a cot in her room.

We'll take turns spelling each other off.

I'll stay with her for the first twenty-four hours."

Lizzie gave Olivier the name of the hospital in East Sussex.

"Can we stay at the house when you bring her back?"

Lizzie asked him nervously, she sounded like a child.

Olivier and Stephanie had a guest room and the boys' two empty rooms, so there was space for them, and Stephanie would probably like it, but it was going to be an invasion, and he wasn't sure he could stay with Amanda now that things were rocky between them.

But he wanted to tell her about the accident.

And he had been planning to stay with her that night to protect her from her stalker.

"Let me know how she is when she comes out of surgery.

I'll call the doctor, and arrange to get her some nurses, and of course you can stay at the house when she gets back.

I'm sure she'd love that.

Thank you, Lizzie.

I appreciate the help."

He was feeling flustered and overwhelmed.

He felt sorry for Stephanie, but this was not going to help his case with Amanda if he had to nurse his wife for the next three or four months, or longer.

The mechanics of taking care of someone so badly injured were going to be complicated.

Stephanie was lucky she had three devoted friends who were available and willing to help.

And Olivier was lucky to have them too, although he didn't entirely see it that way yet.

It was more than he could manage with a daily housekeeper, a publishing house to run, and a girlfriend who was about to bolt out the door.

He left the office at five to go home and pack a bag to take to England, and afterward stopped at the gallery to see Amanda.

She was busy with a client, and he waited and chatted with Pascal.

Pascal saw immediately that something was wrong, but Olivier wanted to tell Amanda first.

He had talked to the doctor by then.

Stephanie was still in the operating theater with the surgeon.

There had been some shattering of the bones she'd broken, and it took time to put her back together.

The doctor thought she could travel in a week, better by car or even by ambulance than by plane or train, to get her back to Paris.

And it would be bed rest and physical therapy after that.

The doctor said her recovery could be anywhere from three to six months.

Olivier felt as though he had been sucked back into his marriage just when he wanted to leave it and had promised Amanda he would.

She didn't believe he'd do it, and this wasn't going to help convince her.

And she was compassionate enough that she would expect him to take care of his wife.

Stephanie would assume it too.

An event like this was one of the few times, maybe the only one, when she'd expect him to act like a husband and needed him.

Amanda finally got free of her client and came looking for him.

She had seen Olivier come in, and looked for him in Pascal's office.

The two men were talking in subdued tones.

He had told Pascal something had happened, and Pascal said he was sure that Amanda would understand.

Olivier followed her into her office, looking serious.

She could see that something was wrong.

He was carrying a small heavy briefcase, with files he needed to work on, and an overnight bag.

He still wanted to spend the night with her, if she'd have him, and then leave for England in the morning.

He sat down across from Amanda, on the far side of her desk.

"Stephanie had an accident in England this morning,"

he said bluntly.

"Oh my God, is she all right?"

He looked like he was going to tell her she was dead.

"She will be.

It's painful but not life-threatening.

Broken arm with a steel rod in it now, shattered leg, a steel plate, broken pelvis and shoulder.

None of it will kill her, but she'll be in a lot of pain.

The women she rides with are with her now.

I'm going over tonight or tomorrow, and I'll bring her back.

They're going to stay in the house with her when she comes home, which is incredibly nice of them, and she'll need nurses for a while."

"You have to be there too,"

she said sternly.

"Yes.

I'll keep an eye on things.

I'm not much of a nurse, and I have a company to run.

I'll hire nurses for her.

I'm not trying to shirk my responsibilities, Amanda.

Stephanie's friends volunteered to stay.

They want to.

And she'll probably want that too.

This doesn't change any of what I want to do, or how I feel about you.

I probably can't broach the subject with her for a while, until she's better, but nothing's changed for me, and hopefully not for you."

"I don't know,"

she said softly, looking at him sadly.

"I love you, Olivier, but I don't have the feeling you'll divorce her.

Maybe you're more married than you think.

She's a decent woman.

I could see that.

She's not some bitch you want to escape, or you would have years ago."

He looked outraged at the suggestion.

"That's not true.

I owe her something now, obviously.

Ever since I met you, I've known how wrong that marriage is, and how wrong I was to keep living a lie with her, so no one would be shocked or embarrassed or disapprove.

Even if you leave me now, I'm still going to ask her for a divorce.

It's long overdue.

Will you give me the time I need to work this out? A little more time because of the accident, but not forever.

I promise you, I will be a free man, and then it will be up to you if you want me or not."

She smiled a small wintry smile at him, and wanted to believe him, but she wasn't sure she did.

"I think we both need to think about it,"

Amanda answered him, which was not the response he wanted.

He wanted her to say that she loved him and she'd wait forever.

But he wasn't going to take forever.

He didn't want to.

"Take care of your wife,"

Amanda said.

"Bring her home, see how it's all working out, and we'll talk.

You need to be very sure you want to do this, and if you really think you can.

Maybe neither of you wants that in the end.

Maybe what you have now is right for you.

I can't judge that, and I shouldn't have pushed you.

That's not fair.

People make the compromises that work for them.

It's worked for both of you for a long time.

I have no right to interfere and steal you from her."

It was a role she didn't want.

"You're not stealing anything from anyone,"

he tried to reassure her, but he could see she didn't believe him.

Amanda was an honorable woman, and she didn't want to break up a marriage if it was viable.

She thought it was, and Olivier swore it wasn't.

She thought he and Stephanie were ill-suited, but there had been enough there for them to cling to it and keep it on life support for twenty-six years.

Amanda didn't want to be the one to pull the plug on their marriage.

That was up to him.

"Call me and let me know how it's going when you get back,"

she said sadly.

"I hope she feels better soon."

"It'll take a while.

Amanda, I love you, more than I can tell you or you can imagine.

Please don't give up on us."

There were tears in his eyes when he said it, and in hers.

"Can I spend the night with you tonight? I can go to England in the morning,"

he said softly, and she shook her head.

"You need to think about this.

Go and see to your wife now.

And Olivier, I love you too,"

she whispered, as the tears spilled onto her cheeks.

He walked around her desk and took her in his arms and held her.

She was shaking, and she walked him out after that.

Pascal saw them go but he didn't say anything.

They needed to be alone.

Olivier hailed a cab and left for the airport.

He had to get to London and from there drive to East Sussex.

Amanda walked back to her office, and was crying when Pascal came in to check on her a few minutes later.

"Are you okay?"

he asked her, sitting down in the chair Olivier had just vacated.

"No,"

she said, and smiled through her tears.

"Olivier's wife had a bad accident."

"That's rotten luck, for all three of you,"

Pascal said.

"I didn't trust him when you first told me about him, but I do now.

He just has to clean up his life.

I know it's a big deal, but I think he'll do it, for you.

He seems like a good man, and he loves you."

"He has to do it for him.

And I'm not so sure he will.

He'll have to take care of her for months.

Maybe they'll rekindle their marriage.

Maybe it was never as dead as he thought."

"I think King Tut has a better shot at another round than that marriage, from what Olivier's told me.

It's been dead for decades.

Some things can't be revived.

He doesn't love her, he loves you."

"We'll see,"

she said, and blew her nose in her handkerchief.

—

Olivier was on his way to the airport by then, with a heavy heart, as much for him and Amanda as for Stephanie.

At least she would be heavily sedated and feeling no pain for the next several weeks, but he and Amanda wouldn't be.

—

Pascal offered to stay with Amanda that night and she insisted she'd be fine alone and would turn on the alarm.

She spent the night crying, with Lulu in her arms, remembering the nights she had spent with Olivier.

She wanted to have the strength to give him up, before he destroyed her with promises he couldn't keep.

And Olivier would have to take care of his wife.

—

Olivier took a nine p.m.

flight to London and landed at Heathrow at nine-thirty local time.

He gained an hour with the time difference.

He rented a car and was on the road to Sussex by ten.

He got there at one in the morning.

He walked into Stephanie's hospital room.

She was groggy and half asleep after the surgery, with tubes everywhere and a nurse in the room with her.

Lizzie was there too, holding her hand.

Stephanie recognized him when he stood next to her bed and patted her other hand.

"I told you horses are dangerous beasts.

You never listen."

Olivier smiled at her, and Lizzie smiled too.

She was like a daughter or a sister to Stephanie.

"What are you doing here?"

Stephanie asked him.

She hadn't expected him to come.

She had her friends with her.

And Lizzie hadn't told her he was coming, in case he changed his mind, or something went wrong, or he couldn't leave his office in time to arrive that night.

"I thought I'd come to London for some theater, and kidney pie."

He hated kidney pie, and she knew it.

"I'm sorry you got hurt, Stephie."

He hadn't called her that since they were kids.

"I don't think I'll buy that horse.

He's a little frisky,"

she said sleepily, and he laughed.

"Yeah, I think that's about right. Frisky."

"When can I go home?"

she asked him.

The surgeon hadn't told her.

"I have to see your doctor.

He thinks you should go by ambulance, and not mess with the plane or train."

"Can we hitch the horse trailers to it?"

she asked him, and he laughed again.

"I think maybe we'll send the horses separately.

I'm not sure the ambulance drivers will want to pull three triple horse trailers.

The girls will take care of it, I'm sure."

He patted her hand again.

He didn't kiss her, but he was there.

She knew he was a good man.

"Don't tell the boys I got hurt.

They'll just worry.

I'm fine.

You didn't need to come,"

she said staunchly.

She looked uncomfortable that he was there, and Lizzie didn't leave her side, there was a cot for her in the room.

"Yes, I did.

For what it's worth, we're married and I'm your husband.

This is what husbands do."

There was very little of the role he still provided her, and they both knew it.

And she was no wife to him either.

But after twenty-six years of a failed marriage, at least they were friends.

"Thank you,"

she said softly.

As he looked at her, he wondered if Amanda was right.

He felt a responsibility for this woman, no matter how dead their marriage was.

She was still his wife, and he had deep affection for her.

He felt sorry for her.

She was obviously in a lot of pain, and trying not to show it.

A nurse came in then to check on her, and Olivier walked out to find her friends in a small waiting room, worried about her.

They were her family more than he was.

"She looks better than I thought she would,"

he said to them in hushed tones.

Lizzie joined them a few minutes later and said she was asleep.

They were giving her morphine and would for the next few days.

"Where are you all staying?"

Olivier asked them.

"Nowhere.

We just got here,"

Valerie said.

"We were going to London tonight after she saw the horse.

Our horses went on to the stable outside London.

The nurses said there's a hotel nearby.

But we'd be fine here until the morning."

"I'll stay,"

Lizzie said immediately.

She looked tired and worried, and her red hair was in a wild tangle.

She hadn't combed it since that morning, and didn't care.

She was concerned for her friend.

They all were.

They worked out a schedule then, taking turns sitting with her, and Olivier volunteered to take a shift.

Lizzie said she didn't mind double shifts, but the others said she needed some sleep too.

She hadn't left Stephanie since the accident.

Valerie and Veronique left with Olivier, and Lizzie stayed with Stephanie to sleep on the cot in her room.

They agreed to regroup in the morning and start taking shifts with her, and then they took off to find the hotel.

When they returned in the morning, the doctor told Olivier that Stephanie could go home in four or five days if there were no complications, and there didn't seem to be.

Olivier and the three women fell into a routine.

They all stayed at the same small, simple inn nearby, and Olivier paid for all their rooms.

And Veronique called the stable outside London to check on their horses.

They had three grooms with them, who would drive the trailers back to Paris.

The three women had two horses each, and Stephanie had three.

Nine horses in all, in three triple trailers.

They decided to send them back immediately.

There was no point keeping them in England.

None of them would be riding in the shows now.

And Stephanie wanted to go home.

The doctor thought it would be safe for her to travel by ambulance in a few days, and her three friends would stay at the house with her, along with two nurses Olivier hired through their doctor in Paris.

Stephanie was being very brave and was eager to leave.

—

Olivier called Amanda every day from England, two and three times a day.

She had cried since he left, sure that the accident would ultimately end their affair.

"How is she?"

she asked him.

"Better than she could be in the circumstances, very lucky in fact.

She's in a lot of pain, but she's tough and very strong.

Her friends have been staunch and terrific.

If I ever have an accident, I hope someone calls them.

Horse people stick together, and they've been friends for a long time.

They don't really need me, but I thought I should be here.

I feel sorry for Stephanie, she must hurt like hell.

Or she will when the drugs wear off."

"It sounds awful,"

Amanda commiserated.

"And how are you? Holding up?"

"I feel a little out of place, she was surprised to see me, as if I don't belong here, but it was the right thing to do to come,"

he said with a sigh.

But he missed Amanda terribly, and hated the fact that she wasn't sure of them anymore.

He wanted to reassure her and didn't know how.

And Stephanie was in no condition for him to broach the subject of a divorce with her now, and she wouldn't be for a while.

And every day he waited, Amanda drifted further away.

He could hear it in her voice.

—

Getting Stephanie back to Paris four days later was a major event.

Olivier hired a nurse for her, and a private ambulance, and getting her settled comfortably took all four of her entourage and the nurse to get her in the right position.

The horses had already gone back to Paris, and were fine.

Stephanie kept asking about them.

She had pain medications for the drive, and Lizzie sat on a little seat next to her and held her hand.

Olivier drove Valerie and Veronique in a rented car he could return in Paris.

They followed the ambulance, and it took six hours to get back to Paris.

They bought sandwiches at roadside food stores so they could keep driving, and after the first hour, with a morphine shot the nurse gave her, Stephanie slept the rest of the way.

Olivier had hired nurses for her in Paris, to take care of her round the clock, although Stephanie's riding friends were disappointed not to be her only caretakers.

It was chaos at first with so many people underfoot: the three women friends, the four nurses, and the patient.

Olivier was going to be living with a total of eight women, at least five of them present at all times, and he was going to take a shift with her every day to relieve the others.

The ambulance drivers brought Stephanie upstairs to her room on a gurney, and the nurses had rented a hospital bed with Olivier's permission.

Putting her to bed was painful for her, but she was happy to be home.

She smiled once she was in the hospital bed in her room.

"The only thing missing are your horses in the garden so you could see them from your window,"

he said to her.

Stephanie smiled at him, grateful for all he had done.

And having her three friends around her made it seem like a party.

Olivier fled to his office with relief.

It had been a rugged week for them all.

He called Amanda as soon as he got to his office, to see how she was.

She sounded sad but said she was fine.

He invited her to lunch, but she turned him down.

In her mind, he was back in the fold with his wife, and would most likely stay there, which wasn't how he viewed it at all.

She was trying to protect herself.

And all he wanted was to see her as soon as he returned.

"How is she?"

she asked him politely.

"It was complicated getting her home.

And I feel like I'm living in a women's dormitory.

That's a lot of females under one roof."

"The little redhead looks like fun,"

she commented.

Lizzie was roughly the same age as Amanda, but much more outspoken and still something of a tomboy at thirty-eight.

But she was gently attentive to Stephanie and all her needs.

Once he was with them in the aftermath of the accident, Olivier realized how close they all were and how attached to each other.

Stephanie had replaced her family and her husband with the three women.

It startled him at times, but they were respectful of him and completely dedicated to her.

One of them sat in her room at night, and the nurse sat in the hall.

They called her into Stephanie's room when they needed to move her, or for the bedpan she had to use, or for more pain medication.

With the broken pelvis and damaged leg, she couldn't stand or put any weight on that side.

And crutches were impossible with the broken shoulder and arm.

All she could do was lie in bed, watch TV, sleep, eat, and talk.

She was still too drugged on the pain meds to read, or to stay awake for long.

Olivier stopped in to visit her for a few minutes from time to time, and saw her when he took his shift, but he wasn't a constant presence the way her women friends were, and they were clearly the company she preferred.

She panicked if one of them wasn't in the room with her.

And Lizzie almost never left her side.

Amanda turned down Olivier's repeated invitations to lunch, and didn't want to see him.

She said that both of them needed to think, and to see what happened with Stephanie when she recovered.

She was convinced the accident would bring them back together and heal their marriage, and she didn't want to tempt Olivier or interfere.

He stayed out of the house as much as possible.

He had dinner with Pascal one night as a way to get closer to Amanda.

Olivier explained the situation to him, and Pascal thought Amanda would calm down.

He had become Olivier's staunch supporter.

"She doesn't want to be responsible for breaking up your marriage, and she thinks you'll stay with your wife now.

She's been through that before, and it took her a long time to get over it,"

Pascal explained.

"That's not going to happen here,"

Olivier insisted, but his assurances were falling on deaf ears with Amanda.

Pascal was more inclined to believe him.

Amanda wouldn't let Olivier near her.

She was afraid she'd melt and lose her resolve if she saw him.

The weeks were painful for Olivier as he watched Stephanie recover slowly.

She was still the same woman who had never been the right match for him, or he for her, from the beginning.

He felt sorry for her, but her accident didn't bring them any closer.

It was obvious that she preferred the company of her friends.

It didn't upset him, he was happy for her.

At least she had friends she enjoyed being with.

Watching them together, Olivier envied her.

She had created an alternate world for herself.

He was pining for Amanda and there was no one else he wanted to talk to.

There was no question in his mind, Amanda was the love of his life.

All he could do now was pray and hope she came to the same conclusion.

There was no sign of it for now.