Worthy Opponents by Danielle Steel

Author:Danielle Steel [Steel, Danielle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2023-03-07T00:00:00+00:00

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He called the phone numbers he had written down from his office in the morning. He had three apartments to see that afternoon. He wanted something furnished for now. He was going to leave the apartment intact for Maureen. All he wanted was some of the art, and his clothes. But he didn’t want to disrupt their family home for the kids.

He didn’t tell anyone where he was going when he left work. He hadn’t figured out what to say to them yet, and he wanted to tell his children first.

He ran into Renee in the hall as he was leaving, and she looked at him. He looked pale and serious. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I’m fine. I have a headache. I think I’m coming down with a cold.” She didn’t believe him. He looked worse than that, but she just nodded, and he left. He had no one to talk to about it, and he didn’t want to tell his parents yet and upset them. A divorce would be a big deal to them and was to him too.

By six o’clock, he had a three-bedroom furnished apartment in Tribeca in a decent building. The master bedroom looked out at the river, and it had afternoon sun. The two other bedrooms were small, but he didn’t know how much time his kids would be spending with him, probably very little, but this way they could come whenever they wanted. The kitchen and bathrooms were brand-new, and the furniture was plain and inoffensive. It looked more like a fancy hotel suite than a home, but it was what he needed now. It had a small study, a dining area, and a big living room. And there was a gym with a pool in the building, which Mike thought the kids might like if they stayed with him.

The building manager explained that the owner had bought the apartment as an investment to rent, and had never lived there, which was why it seemed so impersonal. It was all he wanted now, a place to stay where no one hated him or was angry at him all the time or reminded him of past sins. It looked like a clean slate, which was all he needed. He packed that night. He took a lot of his clothes, and asked Maureen if he could take four pieces of art, paintings he had bought, and she said she didn’t care. And he took some framed photos of the children from the living room, and one of him and Maureen when they were younger. She was smiling in the photograph. He hadn’t seen her look like that in years.

He hired a van and driver in the morning, dropped everything off at the apartment, and then went to work. He was smiling when he walked in.

“How’s your cold?” Renee asked him when she saw him. “You look a lot better today.”

“I am,” he said. He felt lighter. He didn’t tell anyone at work. He wasn’t ready to.

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