Honor Thyself by Danielle Steel Page B

somewhere, or promoting a film. He was the whiz kid of Wall Street then, but his success was small potatoes compared to hers. She had won two Oscars in the two years before he left her, and it got to him. She'd been a good wife, but he realized later on that his ego had been too fragile to survive that kind of competition. He needed to feel like a big deal himself, and in the face of Carole's stardom, he never did. So he fell in love with Natalya, who appeared to worship him, and then took him to the cleaners, and left him for someone else.
    The Russian model was the worst thing that had ever happened to them, and to him surely. She was staggeringly beautiful, and she'd gotten pregnant weeks after they started their affair. He'd left Carole for her, and married Natalya before the ink was dry on the divorce. She'd had another baby the following year, and then left him for a man with a lot more money than Jason had at the time. She'd had two husbands since, and was now living in Hong Kong, married to one of the most important financiers in the world. Jason hardly knew his two daughters. They were as beautiful as their mother, and virtually strangers to him, despite his visits to them twice a year. Natalya wouldn't let them come to the States to visit, and the New York courts had no jurisdiction over her whatsoever. She was a bitch on wheels, and screwed him over royally in the divorce, a year after Carole and the kids came back from Paris, and moved to L.A. Although Carole had lived in New York with him, while they were married, she had decided to go to Los Angeles. Her work was there, and it seemed like a fresh start after Paris. And after Natalya left, he had tried to go back to Carole. But it was too late. She wanted nothing to do with him by then. He'd been forty-one when he fell in love with Natalya, and having some kind of insane midlife crisis. And at forty-five, when he realized what a mistake he'd made, and what a mess he'd made of his life and Carole's, it was way too late. She told him it was over for her.
    It had taken her several years to forgive him, and they didn't actually make friends again until after she married Sean. She was happy finally. And Jason had never married again. At fifty-nine, he was successful, and alone, and considered Carole one of his best friends. And never in his life would he forget the look on her face when he told her he was leaving her, eighteen years before. She looked as though he had shot her. He had relived that moment a thousand times since, and knew he'd never forgive himself. All he wanted now was to know that she was alive and well, and not lying in a hospital in Paris. As he boarded the plane that night, he knew he loved her more than ever. He actually prayed on the flight over, something he hadn't done since he was a boy. He was willing to make any deal he could with God, just so the woman in the Paris hospital wasn't Carole. And if it was, that she would survive.
    Jason sat wide awake for the entire flight, thinking about her. Remembering when Anthony had been born, and then Chloe … the day he'd met her … how beautiful she had been at twenty-two, and was even now, twenty-eight years later. They had had ten wonderful years together, until he screwed it up with Natalya. He couldn't even imagine what that must have felt like to Carole. She'd been working on a major movie in Paris when he flew over and told her. It had been a flight like tonight, he'd had a mission then, to end their marriage so he could marry Natalya. And now he was praying for her life. He looked haggard and anxious as the plane landed in a driving rain at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris just before seven A.M. Paris time, the flight had come in a few minutes early. Jason had his passport in his hand as they landed. He couldn't stand the suspense any longer. All he wanted was to get to the hospital as fast as possible and see the unidentified bombing victim for himself.

Chapter 4
    J ason had brought