Power Play: A Novel by Danielle Steel

they’d been born. He had flown down from San Francisco the moment Ashley went into labor,spent hours at the hospital with her, and was there when they were born, and cut both cords. He had spent two weeks in L.A. then and told Liz they had two weeks of intense meetings that he couldn’t get out of. He had stayed with Ashley to help her get settled with the twins, and hired a baby nurse to help her when he wasn’t there. And Ashley had cried but been forgiving when he left. She had been very emotional then, during and after the pregnancy, but she had never considered not having his babies once they were conceived. She wanted them. And no one at the office knew what had happened, only Ashley’s close friends, who didn’t think much of Marshall. He was a man with a double life, which seemed dishonest to all of them. Only Ashley understood and forgave him, no one else she knew did. Her friends knew better than he did how often she cried when he wasn’t there, and she kept it from the girls, and portrayed him as a hero, so they wouldn’t blame him for their mother’s tears.
    They made love again before they went to sleep that night. He lay spent in her arms afterward, and drifted off to sleep as she lay naked beside him, in all her glory, grateful for every moment she was with him. She had lived the agony of their situation for eight long years, while he lived out all his fantasies with her. She knew it wasn’t fair to her or the girls, but she loved him, and all she could hope was that one day she would win a real life with him, no longer hidden. And for now, she was exquisitely happy and complete for two precious days a week.

Chapter 4
    Ashley always felt as though they were a normal family, leading a regular life, when Marshall was with them in Malibu. He had breakfast with her and the girls, and dropped them off at school afterward. They loved it when he did that, and chattered happily in the car with him. He put them both in the tiny backseat space of the Jaguar XKE E-type, and drove them the few blocks to their school, teasing them and telling them funny stories. His relationship with the twins was entirely different than it had been with his other children. The boys had been rougher and sturdier and related to him through sports. And Lindsay had always been difficult, even when she was small. She had been argumentative and often oppositional, and a tomboy because of her brothers, who had always been her heroes. Kezia and Kendall were cuddly, feminine, flirtatious, and totally girls, and as beautiful and bewitching as their mother. Marshall’s love for them was an extension of what he felt for her. And he loved how pretty they were and how enamored they were of him. People noticed them and Ashley wherever they went. They were a striking-looking group.
    Liz also ran their family so efficiently that there had been little time for whimsy and idle play. Ashley was so whimsical and creative that everything she did with him and the girls seemed enchanting. He couldn’t have run his life that way every day, but for two days a week, he felt as though he were in a fairyland with her, and she and their twin daughters were the fairies, and he was the king. It was impossible for him to resist.
    He was always in a good mood when he got to work, and rarely stayed late at the office when he was in L.A. He was anxious to get home to her. They usually went out for dinner, or brought in Chinese or prepared food from the grocery store. Ashley was the most exciting woman he had ever known, but definitely not a homemaker or a cook. There was gentle artistic chaos everywhere. And Marshall felt like a boy again when he was with her. All his problems and worries seemed to disappear, and he just wanted to play with the girls and lie in bed with Ashley. It was magical being in her world. And she felt that way too when he was there. He was the heart and soul of all her dreams. In the past eight years, her entire life had come to revolve