Heartbeat by Danielle Steel Page B

been so lonely.” Christ. She was twenty-three years old, drop-dead gorgeous, and she was crying about being lonely. Half the women in America would have given their right arm and more to look like her, and she had married a clothing manufacturer she didn't even know, and had spent a weekend with in Las Vegas. And Bill was suddenly wondering if it was his fault. Maybe if he hadn't neglected her, if he hadn't been so wrapped up in the show … it was a familiar refrain. In some ways, the chorus went all the way back to Leslie. But was he responsible for all of them? Was it really his fault? Why couldn't they adjust to the way he lived? Why did they have to run off and do something crazy? And now this foolish girl had married a total stranger. Bill looked at her in amazement.
    “What are you going to do now, Sylvia?” He could hardly wait to hear.
    “I don't know. Move to New Jersey next week, I guess. His name is Stanley, and he has to be back in Newark by Tuesday.”
    “I don't believe this.” Bill laid his head back against the couch and started to laugh, and in a minute, he couldn't stop laughing. Betsey could even hear him from her desk outside his office, and she was relieved that he wasn't shouting. He seldom did, but she had figured that Sylvia's disappearance might just do it to him. “You and Stanley have to be back in Newark by Tuesday … is that it?”
    “Well …” She looked suddenly uncomfortable. “Sort of. Except that I know I have a contract to do the show for another season.” The truth was that she had figured he would kick her off the show after calling the other night, and in a panic she had married Stanley. She had no idea what she was getting, and yet he had been very sweet to her, and he had bought her a rather handsome diamond ring in Las Vegas, and promised to take care of her once they got to Newark. He had promised to get her a great modeling job, and if she wanted tq she could do acting jobs in New York, like maybe even on commercials, or the soaps there. It was a whole new horizon opening up for her, and in some ways being married to a man in the garment industry in Newark wasn't a total miscast for Sylvia Stewart. “What am I going to do about my contract?” She looked pleadingly at Bill and he almost started to laugh again. It was all so absurd, he almost couldn't stand it. It was impossible to take it seriously. It was life imitating art in the extreme, and he wasn't crazy enough not to see the humor in it.
    “You know what you're going to do about your con-tract, Sylvia? You're going to give me two more days, today and tomorrow, on the set, for old times' sake, and we're going to kill you off in the most dramatic scene you've ever seen on Friday. And after that, you're free to go. You can go home to Newark with Stanley and have ten babies as long as you name the first one after me. I'm releasing you from your contract.”
    “You are?” She looked astounded, and he grinned at her in amusement.
    “Yes, I am. Because I'm a nice guy, and I gave you a hard time by working my ass off and not paying enough attention to you. I owe you, sweetheart. And this is the payback.” He was just grateful she had turned up at all. It was going to allow them to tie it all up neatly. John was going to kill Vaughn on the show, because she had seen him murder the pusher. And the saga could continue from there, ad infinitum. “I'm sorry, baby,” he said to her gently then, and he meant it. “I guess I'm not much of a catch these days. Never was, in fact. I'm married to this show.”
    “It's okay.” Sylvia looked at him almost shyly. “You're not too mad at me? … for doing what I did …for getting married, I mean.”
    “Not if you'll be happy.” And he meant it.
    Her arrangement with Bill had been a passing thing, and they both knew it. It meant very little to either of them, as she had proven by spending the weekend with a stranger in Vegas, and Bill suspected correctly that that was