Paradise (Second Opportunities 1)

She smiled, that same serene, unruffled smile he found so unsettling. "You started in on me," she said, "because you're still completely unaware of the truth."

"What truth?" he asked sarcastically.

"Dennis Spearson didn't break up our marriage, Philip, and neither did Dominic. You did." Anger sparked in his eyes and she shook her head, her voice gentle. "You couldn't help it You're like a frightened little boy who's scared to death that someone is going to take something or someone away from you, and who can't bear the fear and uncertainty of it happening. And so, rather than sitting around and impotently waiting for it to happen, you take matters into your own hands and force it to happen—so that you can get the pain over with. You begin by putting restrictions on the people you love— restrictions that they can't bear, and when they finally break one, you feel betrayed and furious. Then you avenge yourself on them—on the same people who you forced to hurt you, and because you're not a boy, but a man with money and power, your revenge against imaginary trespassers is terrible. Your father did virtually the same thing to you."

"Where did you acquire that piece of psychological garbage—from some shrink you had an affair with?" he demanded scathingly.

"I acquired it from a lot of books I read to try to figure you out," she replied, her gaze level.

"And that's what you want me to believe happened to our marriage? That you were innocent and I was irrationally jealous and possessive?" he asked, draining his glass.

"I'll be happy to tell you the whole truth if you think you're well enough to handle it."

Philip frowned at her, taken aback by her unshakable calm and the gentle beauty of her smile. She had been glamorous in her twenties; in her fifties she had faint lines at her eyes and some lines on her forehead; her face had acquired character and it made her strangely more appealing. And quite disarming.

"Give the truth a try," he suggested dryly.

"Okay," she said, walking closer to him. "Let's see if you're old enough and sensible enough now to believe it when you hear it. I have a feeling you will believe it."

Philip had pretty much decided to the contrary already. "Why is that?"

"Because," she answered, leaning her left shoulder against the window, "you're going to realize that I have

absolutely nothing to gain or to lose by admitting it all to you, do I?"

She waited, forcing him to admit that much. "No, I suppose not."

"Then, here is the truth," she said calmly. "When we met, I was utterly dazzled by you. You weren't a Hollywood phony; you weren't like any of the men I'd known before. You had breeding and class and style. I fell in love with you on our second date, Philip." She watched shock and then disbelief flicker across his face at that, but she continued with quiet determination. "I was so much in love and so filled with insecurity and inferiority that I could hardly breathe when we were together, for fear I'd make a mistake. Instead of telling you the truth about my background and the men I'd slept with, I told you the same fiction about my origins that the studio publicity office had invented for me. I told you I grew up in an orphanage, and that I'd had one tiny little affair when I was a foolish teenager."

When he didn't say anything, she drew an unsteady breath and said, "The truth is that my mother was a whore who had no idea who my father was, and that I ran away when I was sixteen. I took a bus to Los Angeles and got a job in a cheap diner, where this jerk who worked as a messenger for a film company discovered me. I auditioned for him on the couch in his boss's office that night. Two weeks later I met his boss and got auditioned again—the same way. I couldn't act, but I was photogenic, so the boss got me an appointment at a modeling agency, and I started making money doing magazine ads. I went to acting school, and eventually I got some bit parts in movies after I auditioned for them in someone's bed, of course. Later I got some better parts, and then I met you."

Caroline waited for him to react, but all he did was shrug and say coldly, "I know all that, Caroline. I had you investigated a year before I actually filed for divorce. You aren't telling me anything I didn't find out or assume on my own."

"No, but I'm about to. By the time I met you, I'd gotten some pride and confidence, and I no longer slept with men because I was desperate or too weak to say no."

"You did it because you liked it!" he spat out. "And not with one but with hundreds of them!"

"Not nearly hundreds," she corrected him with a sad smile, "but many of them. It was just—just something you did. It was part of the business, like shaking hands is to men in your business."

She heard his snort of contempt and ignored it. "And then I met you, and I fell in love, and for the first time in my life I felt shame—shame for all the things I'd been and done. And so I tried to change my past by reinventing it to suit your standards. Which, of course, was a hopeless endeavor."

"Hopeless," he agreed shortly.

Her eyes were soft as they looked into his, her voice ringing with quiet sincerity. "You're right. But what I could—and did—change was the present. Philip, no man touched me but you from the day we met."

"I don't believe you," he snapped.

But Caroline only smiled wider and shook her head. "You have to believe me—because you already agreed that I have absolutely nothing to gain by lying to you. What possible reason could I have to humble myself like this? It's the sad truth," she continued, "that I actually thought I could atone for my past by cleaning up my present. Meredith is your daughter, Philip. I know you used to think she was either Dominic's or Dennis Spearson's, but all Dennis ever gave me was riding lessons. I wanted to fit in with your crowd, and all the women knew how to ride, so I was sneaking out to Spearson's for lessons."

"That was the lie you told at the time."

"No, my love," she said without thinking, "that was the truth. I won't pretend that I didn't have an affair with Dominic Arturo before I met you. He gave me this house as a way to atone for that stupid, drunken pass that you caught him making at me."

"It wasn't a pass," Philip hissed, "he was in our bed when I came home a day early from a business trip."

"I wasn't in it with him!" she retorted. "And he was out cold."

"No, you weren't in it with him," he agreed sarcastically. "You had snuck off to Spearson's, leaving a house full of guests, all of whom were gossiping about your absence."