Free A Perfect Stranger by Danielle Steel

drawing him to her. He had felt it even at a distance, and it made him want to reach out to her again. And now he was much closer, but he knew he couldn’t touch her. All he could do was play the game.
    But she smiled at him openly now. For an instant they had become almost friends. “I’m from France.”
    “Are you? Do you still live there?”
    She shook her head in answer, suddenly more sober. “No, I live in San Francisco.”
    “I thought so.”
    “Did you?” She looked up at him in surprise and amusement. “How did you know?” There was something very innocent about her as she said it. And yet at the same time her eyes were wise. Her way of speaking to him suggested that she had not been much exposed to the big bad world. “Do I look like a San Franciscan?”
    “No, you don’t. But I just had a feeling that you live here. Do you like it?”
    She nodded slowly, but the bottomless sadness had come back to her eyes. Talking to her was like sailing a boat through difficult waters, he was never quite sure when he was about to run aground or when he was safe and could sail free. “I like it. I don’t see very much of San Francisco anymore.”
    “Don’t you?” He was afraid to ask a serious question, like why she didn’t see much anymore. “What do you do instead?” His voice was so soft that it caressed her, and she turned to him with the largest eyes he’d ever seen.
    “I read. A great deal.” She smiled at him then and shrugged, as though embarrassed. Blushing faintly, she looked away and then back at him to ask a question. “And you?” She felt very brave, asking something so personal of this strange man.
    “I’m an attorney.”
    She nodded quietly and smiled. She had liked his answer. She had always found the law intriguing, and somehow it seemed a suitable occupation for this man. She had guessed that he was around her own age. In truth he was six years older than she. “Do you like it?”
    “Very much. And you? What do you do, Magic Lady, other than read?”
    For a moment, with a touch of irony, she was going to tell him that she was a nurse. But that seemed an unwonted cruelty to John Henry, so she said nothing for a moment and only shook her head. “Nothing.” She looked up at Alex frankly. “Nothing at all.”
    He wondered again what her story was, what her life was like, what she did all day long, and why she had been crying that night. Suddenly it bothered him more than ever. “Do you travel a great deal?”
    “Now and then. Just for a few days.” She looked down at her hands, her eyes fixing on the large gold and diamond knot on her left hand.
    “Are you going back to France now?” He had assumed Paris, and was, of course, right. But she shook her head.
    “New York. I only go back to Paris once a year, in the summer.”
    He nodded slowly and smiled. “It’s a beautiful city. I spent six months there once and I loved it.”
    “Did you?” Raphaella looked pleased. “Do you speak French, then?”
    “Not really.” The broad boyish grin returned. “Certainly not as well as you speak English.” She laughed softly then and fingered the book she had bought at the airport. Alex noticed it with a twinkle in his eye. “Do you read a lot of her?”
    “Who?”
    “Charlotte Brandon.”
    Raphaella nodded. “I love her. I’ve read every book she ever wrote.” And then she glanced at him apologetically. “I know, it’s not very serious reading, but it’s a wonderful escape. I open her books and I am instantly absorbed into the world she describes. I think that kind of reading seems silly to a man, but it”—she couldn’t tell him that the books had saved her sanity over the last seven years, he would think she was crazy—“it’s just very enjoyable.”
    He smiled more deeply. “I know, I’ve read her too.”
    “Have you?” Raphaella looked at him in nothing less than amazement. Charlotte Brandon’s books did not seem like the sort of thing a man would read. John