{"product_id":"heartbeat-isbn-9780440211891","title":"Heartbeat","description":"Bill Thigpen, writer producer of the No.1  daytime TV drama was so busy watching  his career soar  that he never noticed his marriage collapse. Now,  nine years later,  living alone in Hollywood, even without his wife  and kids, his life and success  are still reasonably sweet. Top-of-the-chart  ratings, good-natured casual affairs,  and special  vacations with his two young sons. His life is in  perfect balance,  he thinks. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Adrian Townshed thought she had  everything: a job she liked as a TV  production  assistant and a handsome husband who was a rising star  in his own field.  In as enviable life they'd  worked hard for—the American Dream. Until she got  pregnant.  Suddenly all she had was chaos. And  Steven's ultimatum. Him or the baby. The question   was: did he mean it? He did. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Bill Thigpen and Adrian  Townshed collided in a supermarket.  And the very sight  of her suddenly makes him want more in his  life.... a woman  he really loves, a real family again.  But does he need the heartache of another  man's  baby, another wife? Neither does. But  they couldn't help it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Danielle Steel  touches the  \u003ci\u003eHeartbeat\u003c\/i\u003e of two wonderful people as their  friendship deepens into  love, as they meet the obstacles  that life presents with humor, humanity, and  courage.\u003cb\u003ePraise for Danielle Steel\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Steel is one of the best!”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Few modern writers convey the pathos of family and material life with such heartfelt empathy.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eThe Philadelphia Inquirer\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Steel pulls out all the emotional stops. . . . She delivers!”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“What counts for the reader is the ring of authenticity.”\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eSan Francisco Chronicle\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eDanielle Steel\u003c\/b\u003e has been hailed as one of the world’s most popular authors, with over 650 million copies of her novels sold. Her many international bestsellers include \u003ci\u003eCountry, Prodigal Son, Pegasus,\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eA Perfect Life, Power Play, Winners, First Sight, Until the End of Time, The Sins of the Mother, \u003c\/i\u003eand other highly acclaimed novels. She is also the author of \u003ci\u003eHis Bright Light,\u003c\/i\u003e the story of her son Nick Traina’s life and death; \u003ci\u003eA Gift of Hope, \u003c\/i\u003ea memoir of her work with the homeless; \u003ci\u003ePure Joy, \u003c\/i\u003eabout the dogs she and her family have loved; and the children’s book \u003ci\u003ePretty Minnie in Paris.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003ci\u003eChapter One\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The sound of an ancient typewriter sang out staccato in the silence  of the room, as a cloud of blue smoke hung over the corner where Bill Thigpen was  working.  Glasses shoved up high on his head, coffee in styrofoam cups hovering dangerously  near the edge of the desk, ashtrays brimming, his face intense, blue eyes squinting  at what he was writing.  Faster, faster, a glance over his shoulder at the clock  ticking relentlessly behind him.  He typed as though demons were lurking somewhere  near him.  His graying brown hair looked as though he had slept and woken several  times and never remembered to comb it. The face was clean-shaven and kind, the lines  strong, and yet something about him very gentle.  He was not a man clearly defined  by handsome, yet he seemed strong, appealing, worth more than a second glance, a  man one would have liked to spend time with.  But not now, not as he groaned, glanced  at the clock again, and let his fingers fly at the typewriter still  harder.  Then  finally, silence, a quick fix with a pen as he leapt to his feet, and grabbed handfuls  of what he had been working on for the past seven hours, since five o'clock in the  morning.  Nearly one now. . . nearly air time. . . as he flew across the room, yanked  open the door, and exploded past his secretary's desk like an Olympic runner, heading  down the hall as quickly as he could, darting around people, avoiding collisions,  ignoring surprised stares and friendly greetings, as he pounded on doors that opened  only inches as he shoved a hand inside clutching a sheaf of the freshly written changes.   It was a familiar procedure. It happened once, twice, sometimes three or four times  a month when Bill decided he didn't like the way the show was going.  As the originator  of the most successful daytime soap on TV, whenever he was worried about the show,  he stopped, wrote a segment or two, turned everything upside down, and then he was  happy.  His agent called him the most neurotic mother on TV, but he also knew he  was the best.  Bill Thigpen had an unfailing instinct for what made his show work,  and he had never been wrong.  Not so far.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eA Life Worth Living\u003c\/i\u003e was still the hottest  daytime soap on American TV and it was William Thigpen's baby.  He had started it  as a way to survive when he'd been starving in New York years before as a young playwright.   He had started playing with the concept and then the first script during a time  when he was between plays in New York.  He had  started out writing plays on off-off  Broadway, and in those days he had been a purist.  The theater above all.  But he  had also been married, living in SoHo in New York, and starving.  His wife, Leslie,  had been a dancer in Broadway shows, and at the time she was out of work too, because  she was pregnant with their first baby.  At first he had kidded around about how  \"ironic\" it would be if he finally made it with a soap, if that turned out to be  the big break of his career.  But as he wrestled with the script, and a bible for  a long-term show, it stopped being a joke, and became an obsession.  He \u003ci\u003ehad\u003c\/i\u003e to make  it. . . for Leslie. . . for their baby.  And the truth was, he liked it.  He loved  it.  And so did the network. They went crazy over it.  And the baby, Adam, and the  show had been born at almost the same time, one a strapping nine-pound baby boy with  his father's big blue eyes and a mist of golden curls, the other a tryout on the  summer schedule that brought the ratings through the roof and an instant outcry when  the show disappeared again in September.  Within two months, \u003ci\u003eA Life Worth Living\u003c\/i\u003e was back and Bill Thigpen was on his way as the creator of the most successful daytime  television soap ever.  The important choices came later.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e He started out by writing  some of the early episodes himself, and they were good, but he drove the actors and  director crazy.  And by then his career on off-off Broadway  was all but forgotten.   Television became his lifeblood in a matter of moments.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Eventually, he was offered  a lot of money to sell his concept and just sit back and go home to collect residuals,  and go back to writing plays for off-off Broadway.  But by then, almost as much as  his six-month-old son, \u003ci\u003eLife\u003c\/i\u003e, as he called it, was his baby.  He couldn't bring himself  to leave the show, much less sell it.  He had to stay with it.  It was real to him,  it was alive, and he cared about what he was saying.  He talked about the agonies  of life, the disappointments, the angers, the sorrows, the triumphs, the challenges,  the excitement, the love, the simple beauty.  The show had all his zest for life,  his own sorrow over grief, his own delight for living.  It gave people hope after  despair, sunshine after storms, and the basic core of the story line and the principal  characters were decent.  There were villains, of course, too, and people ate them  up.  But there was a basic integrity about the show that made its fans unshakable  in their devotion.  It was in effect a reflection of the essence of its creator.   Alive, excited about life, decent, trusting, kind, naive, intelligent, creative.   And he loved the show, almost like a child he was bound and determined to nurture,  almost as much as he loved Adam and Leslie.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e And in those early days of the show  he was constantly torn, endlessly pulled, always wanting to be with his family  and  yet keep an eye on the show, to make sure it was on the right track and they hadn't  brought in the wrong writer or director.  He viewed everyone with suspicion, and  he maintained complete control.  They understood nothing about his show. . . his  baby.  And he'd pace the set like a nervous mother hen, going crazy inside over what  might happen. He continued to write random episodes, to haunt the show much of the  time, and kibitz from the sidelines.  And at the end of the first year, there was  no point pretending that Bill Thigpen was ever going back to Broadway.  He was stuck,  trapped, madly in love with television and the show of his own making. He even stopped  making excuses to his off-off-Broadway friends, and admitted openly that he loved  what he was doing.  There was no way he was going anywhere, he explained to Leslie  late one night, after he'd written for hours, developing new plots, new characters,  new philosophies for the coming season.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e He couldn't abandon his characters, his  actors, and the intricacies of the plot and its avalanche of tragedies, traumas,  and problems.  He loved it.  The show was shot live five times a week, and even when  he had no real reason to be on the set, he ate, drank, loved, breathed, and slept  it.  There were daily writers who kept the show going day by day, but Bill was always  watching over their shoulders.  And he knew what he was doing.  Everyone in the business  agreed.  He was good.  He was better than  good.  He was terrific.  He had an instinctive  sense for what worked, what didn't, what people cared about, the characters they  would love, the ones they would enjoy hating.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e And by the time his second son, Tommy,  was born two years later, \u003ci\u003eA Life Worth Living\u003c\/i\u003e had won two critics' awards and an  Emmy.  It was after the show's first Emmy that the network suggested they move the  show to California. It made more sense creatively, production arrangements would  be easier out there, and they felt that the show \"belonged\" in California.  To Bill,  it was good news, but to Leslie, his wife, it wasn't.  She was going back to work,  not just as a kid in the chorus on Broadway.  After watching Bill obsess about his  show for the past two and a half years, she had had it.  While he had been writing  night and day about incest, teenage pregnancy, and suburban extramarital affairs,  she had gone back to classes in her original discipline, and now she wanted to teach  ballet at Juilliard.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \"You're \u003ci\u003ewhat\u003c\/i\u003e ?\" He stared at her in amazement one Sunday morning  over breakfast.  Everything had been going so well for them, he was making money  hand over fist, the kids were terrific, and as far as he knew, everything was just  rolling along perfectly.  Until that morning.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \"I can't, Bill.  I'm not going.\"  She looked up at him quietly, her big brown eyes as gentle and childlike as when  he'd met her with her dance bag in her hand outside a  theater when she was twenty.   She was from upstate New York, and she had always been decent and kind and unpretentious,  a gentle soul with expressive eyes and a shy but genuine sense of humor.  They used  to laugh a lot in the early days, and talk late into the night in the dismal, freezing-cold  apartments they rented, until the beautiful and very expensive loft he had just bought  for them in SoHo.  He had even put an exercise bar in for her, so she could do her  ballet warm-ups and exercises without going to a studio.  And now suddenly she was  telling him it was all over.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \"But why? What are you saying, Les? You don't want  to leave New York?\" He looked mystified as her eyes filled with tears and she shook  her head, turning away from him for an instant, and then she looked back into his  eyes and what he saw there made his heart ache.  It was anger, disappointment, defeat,  and suddenly for the first time he saw what he should have seen months before, and  he wondered in terror if she still loved him.  \"What is it? What happened?\" How could  he have missed it? he asked himself.  How could he have been so stupid?\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \"I don't  know. . . you've changed .  .  .\" And then she shook her head again, the long dark  hair sailing around her like the dark wings of a fallen angel. \"No. . . that's not  fair. . . we both have.  .  .  .\" She took a deep breath and tried to explain it  to him.  She owed him that much after five years of marriage and two children.  \"We've  changed places, I  think.  I used to want to be a big star on Broadway, the dancer  who made good and became a star, and all you wanted to do was write plays with \"integrity,'  and \"guts,' and \"meaning.' And all of a sudden you started writing.  .  .  .\" She  hesitated with a small sad smile.  \"You started writing more commercial stuff, and  it became an obsession.  All you've thought about for the last three years is the  show. . . will Sheila marry Jake?. . . did Larry really try to kill his mother?.  . . is Henry gay. . . is Martha?. . . will Martha leave her husband for another woman?.  . . whose baby is Hilary in truth?. . . will Mary run away from home?. . . and when  she does will she go back to drugs? Is Helen illegitimate? Will she marry John?\"  Leslie stood up and started to pace the room as she reeled off the familiar names.   \"The truth is, they're driving me crazy.  I don't want to hear about them anymore.   I don't want to live with them anymore.  I want to go back to something simple and  healthy and normal, the discipline of dancing, the excitement of teaching.  I want  a normal, quiet life, without all that make-believe bullshit.\" She looked at him  unhappily, and he wanted to cry.  He had been a fool.  While he had been playing  with his imaginary friends, he was losing the people he really loved, and he hadn't  even known it.  And yet, he couldn't promise her he'd give it up, sell his control  of the show and go back to the plays he'd had to beg to get put on.  How could he  do that now? And he loved the show.  It made him  feel good and happy and accomplished  and strong. . . and now Leslie was leaving.  It was ironic.  The show was a huge  success, and so was he, and she was longing for their days of starvation.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \"I'm  sorry.\" He tried to force himself to stay calm and reason with her.  \"I know I've  been wrapped up in the show for the last three years, but I felt I needed to control  it.  If I let it get completely out of my hands, if I let someone else do it, they  could have cheapened it, they could have turned it into one of those ridiculous,  trite, maudlin soaps that make your skin crawl. I couldn't let them do that.  And  the show \u003ci\u003edoes\u003c\/i\u003e have integrity.  Whether you admit it or not, Les, that's what people  have responded to.  But that doesn't mean I have to sit on top of it forever.  I  think in California things will be very different. . . more professional. . . more  in control.  I should be able to get away from it more often.\" He only wrote occasional  segments now. But he still controlled it.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Leslie only shook her head with a look  of disbelief.  She knew him better.  It had been the same when he was writing his  early plays.  He worked for two months straight without taking a break, barely eating  or sleeping or thinking of anything else, but that had been only for two months and  in those days she still thought it was charming.  It no longer was.  She was sick  to death of it, sick of the intensity and the obsessiveness, and his mania for  perfection.  She knew that he loved her and the boys, but not the way she wanted him to. She wanted  a husband who went to work at nine o'clock, and came home at six, ready to talk to  her, to play with the kids, to help her cook dinner and take her to a movie.  Not  someone who worked straight through the night and then rushed out of the house exhausted  and wild eyed at ten a.m.  with an armload of memos and edicts and script changes  to deliver by rehearsal at ten-thirty.  It was too much, too exhausting, too draining,  and after three years she'd had it. She was burnt-out, and if she ever heard the  words \u003ci\u003eA Life Worth Living\u003c\/i\u003e again, or the names of the characters he was constantly  adding and subtracting, she knew she would have hysterics.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \"Leslie, give it a chance,  baby, please. . . give \u003ci\u003eme\u003c\/i\u003e a chance.  It'll be great in L.A.  Just think of it, no  more snow, no more cold weather.  It'll be great for the boys.  We can take them  to the beach. . . we could have a pool right in our backyard. . . we can go to Disneyland.   .  .  .\" But she was still shaking her head.  She knew him better.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \"No, \u003ci\u003eI\u003c\/i\u003e can  take them to Disneyland and the beach.  \u003ci\u003eYou'll\u003c\/i\u003e be working all the time, you'll either  be up all night writing someone out of the show, or running in for rehearsal or to  watch them air, or frantically rewriting something else.  When was the last time  you took the boys to the Bronx Zoo, or anywhere for that matter?\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \"All right.  . . all right. . . so I work too hard. . . so I'm  a terrible father. . . or a bastard  or a rotten husband or all of the above, but for chrissake, Les, for years we were  starving to death.  And now look, you can have anything you want, and so can they.   We can send them to decent schools one day, we can give them everything we wanted  to, we can send them to college. Is that so terrible? So okay, we've had a few hard  years and now it's going to get better.  And now you're going to walk out before  it does? What timing.\" He stared at her, tears brimming in his own eyes as he held  out a hand to her. \"Baby, I love you. . . please don't do this .  .  .\" But she didn't  move toward him, and she lowered her eyes so she couldn't see the pain in his.  She  knew he loved her, and she knew better than anyone how much he loved the boys.  But  it didn't matter.  She knew that, for her own sake, she had to do what she was doing.   \"Do you want to stay here? I'll tell them we won't move the show.  If that's what  this is all about, to hell with California. . . we'll stay here.\" But a note of panic  had crept into his voice as he watched her, sensing that California was not the issue.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \"It won't make any difference.\" Her voice was low and soft, and she was very sorry.   \"It's too late for us.  I can't explain it.  I just know I have to do something  different.\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \"Like what? Move to India? Change religions? Become a nun? How different  is teaching at Juilliard? What  are you saying to me, dammit? That you want out?  What the hell does that have to do with Juilliard or California?\" He was hurting  and confused and suddenly, finally, he was angry.  Why was she doing this to him?  What had he done to deserve it? He had worked hard, done well, his parents would  have been proud of him if they'd been alive, but both had died when he was in his  early twenties, of cancer, within a year of each other, and he had no siblings.   All he had was her and the boys, and now she was telling him that they were leaving,  and he was going to be alone again.  All alone, without the three people he loved,  because he had done something wrong, he had worked too hard and been too successful.   And the unfairness of what she was doing to him made him suddenly burn with fury.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \"You just don't understand,\" she insisted limply.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \"No, I don't.  You're telling  me you won't come to California.  So I'm telling you that if it makes a difference,  we'll stay here, and to hell with what the network says.  They'll have to live with  it.  So what now? Where do we go from here? We go back to the way things were, or  what? What's happening, Les?\" He was torn between anger and despair and he wasn't  sure what to say to her to change it.  But what he hadn't understood yet was that  she had made up her mind, and there was no way now to dissuade her.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \"I don't know  how to say this to you.  .  .  .\" Her eyes  filled with tears as she looked at him,  and for an instant he had the insane feeling that he had walked into one of his own  shows and couldn't get out now. . . would Leslie leave Bill?. . . can Bill really  change?. . . does Leslie really understand how much Bill loves her?. . . He wanted  to laugh suddenly, or cry, but he did neither.  \"It's over.  I guess that's the only  way to say it.  California doesn't have anything to do with it.  I just haven't wanted  to admit it to myself until now, and now I have.  I can't do this anymore.  I want  my own life, with the boys.  I want to do my own thing, Bill. . . without living  with the show day and night .  .  .\" And without him.  But she couldn't bring herself  to say it.  The look of pain in his eyes was so overwhelming, she thought she might  faint just looking at him.  \"I'm sorry.  .  .  .\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e He looked as though lightning  had just struck him.  He was deathly white, and his eyes were big and blue and filled  with anguish.  \"You're taking the boys?\" What had he ever done to deserve that? They  both knew that, no matter how busy he had been for the past three years, he adored  them.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \"You can't take care of them by yourself in California.\" It was a simple  statement as he stared at her in horror.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \"No, but you could come with me to help.\"  It was a weak joke, but neither of them felt like joking.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \"Bill, don't .  .  .\"\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \"Will you let them come out to see me?\" She nodded, and he prayed that she meant  it.  For a moment, he thought of abandoning the show, staying in New York, and begging  her not to leave him.  But he also sensed that no matter what he did now, it was  too late for her.  In heart and soul and mind, she had already left him.  And what  he reproached himself for now was not having noticed sooner.  Maybe if he had, he  could have changed things.  But now, he knew her well enough to know he couldn't.   It was all over, without a whimper or a wail.  He had lost the war long since and  never known it.  His life was over.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e The next two months were an agony that still  made him cry when he thought of it.  Telling the boys.  Helping them move to an apartment  on the West Side before he left.  His first night alone in the loft without them.   Again and again, he thought of giving up the show, and begging her to take him back,  but it was clear that the door was closed now, never to be reopened.  And he discovered,  before he left, that there was another teacher at Juilliard whom she was \"very fond  of.\" She hadn't carried on an affair, and Bill knew her well enough to believe that  she had been faithful to him, but she was falling in love with the guy and that was  part of her reason for leaving.  She wanted to be free to pursue her relationship  with him without guilt, or Bill Thigpen. She and her teacher friend had everything   in common, she insisted, and she and Bill no longer did, except their children.   Adam had been heartbroken to see him go, but at two and a half he had readjusted  pretty quickly.  And Tommy was only eight months old and seemed not to know the difference.   Only Bill really felt it as tears filled his eyes and ran slowly down his cheeks  as the plane soared slowly over New York and headed for California.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e And once there,  Bill threw himself into the show with a vengeance.  He worked day and night, and  sometimes even slept on the couch in his office, as the ratings continued to soar,  and the show won innumerable Daytime Emmys.  And in the seven years he'd been in  California, Bill Thigpen had become only slightly less manic.  \u003ci\u003eA Life Worth Living\u003c\/i\u003e had become his pride and joy, his daily companion, his best friend, his baby.  He  had no reason to fight it anymore. He let his work become his daily passion.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e The  boys came out to visit him on alternate holidays and for a month in the summer, and  he loved them more than ever.  But being three thousand miles away from them when  he really wanted to see them every day remained extremely painful.  And there had  been a parade of women in his life, but the only constant companion he had was the  show, and the actors in it.  And he lived for his vacations with Adam and Tommy.   Leslie had long since married the Juilliard teacher and had two more kids, and she  had finally given up teaching.  With four kids at home under the age of ten, she  had her hands  full, but she seemed to love it.  She and Bill talked on the phone  now and then, particularly when the boys were coming out, or if one of them was sick,  or if there was a problem, but they didn't have much to say to each other anymore,  except about Adam and Tommy.  It was hard even to remember what it had been like  when they were married.  The pain of losing her was gone, and the memories of the  good times were dim.  Except for the boys, it was all gone now.  And they were the  real loves in his life.  In the summer, when they spent the month with him, his passion  for them was even greater than anything he'd felt for the show, his attention to  them more intense.  He took a month's vacation every year and they usually went somewhere  for part of it, and spent the rest of the time in L.A., going to Disneyland, seeing  friends, just hanging out while he cooked for them and took care of them, and ached  all over again when they went back to New York and left him.  Adam, the older one,  was almost ten now, responsible, funny, serious, and a lot like his mother.  Tommy  was the baby, disorganized, still a baby some of the time, even at seven, and whimsical,  vague, and sometimes very, very funny.  Leslie frequently told Bill that Tommy was  the image of him in every way, but somehow he couldn't see it.  He adored them both,  and on long, lonely nights alone in L.A., his heart still ached wishing that they  all lived together.  It was the one thing in his life that he regretted, the one  thing he couldn't change, the one  thing that really depressed him at times although  he tried not to let it.  But the idea that he had two kids he loved and hardly ever  saw seemed a high price to pay for a mistaken marriage.  Why did she get to keep  them and not he? Why did she get the reward for the lost years, and he get the punishment?  What was fair about that? Nothing.  And it only made him sure of one thing.  He was  never going to let it happen again.  He was never going to fall madly in love, get  married, have kids, and lose them.  Period. No way.  And over the years, he had found  the perfect solution to the problem. Actresses.  Hordes of them.  When he had time,  which wasn't often.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e When he had first come to California, aching from the pain  of leaving Leslie and the kids, he had fallen gratefully into the arms of a serious  lady director, and had had an affair that lasted six months and almost led to disaster.   She had moved in with him and taken over his life, inviting friends to stay, furnishing  his apartment for him, running his life, until he felt as if he had been strangled.   She had previously gone to UCLA, done graduate work at Yale, talked constantly about  a Ph.D., and was into \"serious film,\" and she kept insisting that \u003ci\u003eA Life\u003c\/i\u003e was beneath  him.  She talked about it like a disease from which he might soon be healed, if he  would only let her help him. She also hated kids, and kept putting away the photographs  of his children. Remarkably, it took him a full six months  to catch his breath and  let her have it.  It took six months because she was great in bed, treated him like  a six-year-old at a time when he desperately needed nurturing and liked it, and she  seemed to know everything about the television industry in L.A.  But when she told  him he ought to stop talking about his kids, and forget about them, he rented a bungalow  at the Beverly Hills Hotel for a month, gave her the key, told her to have a great  time, and not to bother to call him when she found an apartment.  He moved her things  to the bungalow the same afternoon, and didn't run into her for the next four years  until they saw each other at an awards ceremony, where she pretended not to know  him.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e And what had come after that had been intentionally lighthearted and easy.  Actresses, starlets, walk-ons, models, girls who wanted a good time when he was free,  and enjoyed going to an occasional party with him when he wasn't in a period of high  stress due to some change on the show, and they wanted nothing more from him.  They  fitted him in among the other men in their lives, and seemed not to care when he  didn't call them.  Some of them cooked dinner for him occasionally, or he for them  since he loved to cook, and the ones who were good with kids were sometimes called  on to go to Disneyland with him when the boys were in town, but more often than not  he enjoyed keeping the boys to himself during their visits to California.","brand":"Dell","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303538675941,"sku":"NP9780440211891","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780440211891.jpg?v=1767728843","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/heartbeat-isbn-9780440211891","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}