Lightning (Danielle Steel)

As a partner at one of New York's most prestigious law firms, Alexandra Parker barely manages to juggle husband, career, and the three-year-old child she gave birth to at forty.  But Alex feels blessed with her life and happy marriage--until lightning strikes her.  Suddenly a routine medical check-up turns her world upside down when tests reveal shattering news.

Sam Parker is a star venture capitalist, a Wall Street whiz kid, and is as proud of his longtime marriage to Alex as he is of his successful career.  As a major player in New York's financial world, Sam is used to being in control--until he is caught off guard by Alex's illness.  Terrified of losing his wife and family, and haunted by ghosts from his past, Sam is unable to provide any kind of emotional support to Alex.

Unable to cope with her needs, Sam takes his distance from her, and almost overnight she and Sam become strangers.  As lightning strikes them yet again, Sam's promising career suddenly explodes in disaster, and his very life and identity are challenged.  With their entire future hanging in the balance, Alex must decide what she feels for Sam, if life will ever be the same for them again, or if she must move on without him.

What happens to people when every aspect of their lives and well-being is threatened?  In Lightning, Danielle Steel tells the story of a family thrust into uncertainty and explores whether the bonds of love and marriage can withstand life's most unexpected bolts of lightning.

Chapter One

The voices droned around the conference room as Alexandra Parker stretched long legs beneath the huge mahogany table.  She jotted a note on a yellow legal pad, and glanced across the table briefly at one of her partners.  Matthew Billings was older than Alex by a dozen years, he was in his mid-fifties, and one of the firm's most respected partners.  He rarely asked for help from anyone, but it was not unusual for him to ask Alex to sit in on a deposition.  He liked to pick her brain, admired her style, her sharp eye for the opponent's fatal weakness.  And Alex was merciless and brilliant once she found it.  She seemed to have an instinctive sense for where the point of the dagger would do the most damage.

She smiled at him now, and he liked what he saw in her eyes.  She had heard just what they needed.  A different answer from the time before.  The very merest inflection.  She slipped him a note on her yellow pad, and with a serious frown, he nodded.

  The case was an extraordinarily complicated one, and had already been in process for years.  It had been to the New York Supreme Court twice, with various motions, and involved the careless dispersal of highly toxic chemical pollutants by one of the most important corporations in the country.  Alex had sat in on these depositions for Matt before.  And she was always glad that this particular case wasn't her problem.  The suit was being brought collectively by some two hundred families in Poughkeepsie, and represented millions of dollars.  The case had been referred to Bartlett and Paskin years before, just after she had become a partner.

She liked her cases tougher, shorter, and smaller.  Two hundred plaintiffs were not her cup of tea, although more than a dozen attorneys had worked on it, under Matthew's direction.  Alexandra Parker was a litigation attorney too, and she handled an interesting assortment of difficult cases.  She was the firm's first choice when the fight was going to be hard and dirty, and you needed an attorney who knew case law and was willing to spend a million hours doing meticulous research.  She had associates and younger partners to help her of course, but Alex wanted to do as much of the work as she could herself, and she had a remarkable rapport with most of her clients.

Her real forte was labor law and libel.  And she did a fair amount of litigation in both fields, though certainly, a lot of cases were settled.  But Alex Parker was a fighter, a lawyer's lawyer, someone who knew her stuff and wasn't afraid of hard work.  In fact, she loved it.

They broke from the deposition for a recess, and Matthew came around the table to talk to her after the defendant from the chemical company left the room with all his attorneys.

"So what do you think?" Matthew eyed her with interest.  He had always had a soft spot for her.  She had a fine mind and great skill as an attorney. Besides which, she was one of the best-looking women he knew, and he liked just being around her.  She was solid, she was smart, she knew the law, and she had great intuition.

"I think you just got what you wanted, Matt.  When he said that no one knew back then of the possible toxic effects of their materials, he was lying. That's the first time they've come right out and said it.  We have the government reports from six months before that."

"I know." He beamed.  "He walked right into it, didn't he?"

"He sure did.  You don't need me here.  You've got him." She dropped her legal pad into her briefcase, and glanced at her watch.  It was eleven-thirty. They'd break for lunch in another half hour.  But if she left now, she could get a little more work done.

  "Thanks for coming in.  It's always nice having you around.  You look so innocent, you throw them off-guard.  While he's staring at your legs, I can throw the net over him and grab him." He liked teasing her and she knew it. Matthew Billings was tall and attractive, with a full head of white hair, and a beautiful French wife who had been a fashion model in Paris.  Matthew Billings liked pretty women, but he also respected talented and smart ones.

"Thanks a lot." She looked ruefully at him, her red hair pulled back in a severe bun, her face so lightly made up you could hardly see it, and her black suit in sharp contrast to the vivid natural colors of her red hair and green eyes.  She was a striking woman.  "Just what I went to law school for, to become a decoy."

"Hell, if it works, go for it." He laughed, teasing her again, as one of the defense attorneys drifted back into the room, and they lowered their voices.

"Do you mind if I leave now?" she asked Matt politely.  He was, after all, one of the senior partners.  "I've got a new client coming in at one, and I've got a few dozen cases to cast an eye on."

"That's the trouble with you," he pretended to frown at her, "you don't work hard enough.  I've always said that about you.  Just plain lazy.  Go on, go back to work.  You've served your purpose here." His eyes twinkled at her then.  "Thanks, Alex."

  "I'll have my notes typed up and sent to your office later," she said seriously before she left.  And he knew that, as always, her careful, intelligent notes would be delivered to his office by the time he got back there.  Alex Parker was a remarkable lawyer.  She was efficient, intelligent, capable, wily in just the right ways, and beautiful in the bargain, not that she seemed to care about her looks particularly, or notice the attention they brought her.  She seemed to be completely unaware of herself, and most people liked that about her.

She left the room quietly, with a brief wave at him, as the defendants came back into the room, and one of the attorneys glanced admiringly at her retreating figure.  Unaware of it, Alex Parker hurried down the hall, and down several corridors to her office.

Her office was large and well decorated in quiet grays, with two handsome paintings on the wall, a few photographs, a large plant, some comfortable gray leather furniture, and a splendid view up Park Avenue from the twenty-ninth floor where Bartlett and Paskin had their offices.  They occupied eight floors, and employed some two hundred attorneys.  It was smaller than the firm where she'd worked before, on Wall Street, when she'd first graduated from law school, but she'd liked this a lot better.  She'd worked with the antitrust team there, and she'd never really liked it.  It was too dry, although it taught her to pay attention to details and do thorough research.

She glanced through half a dozen messages when she sat down, two from clients, and four from other attorneys.  She had three cases ready to go to trial, and six more she was developing.  Two major cases had just settled.  It was a staggering workload, but it wasn't unusual for her.  She loved the pace and the pressure and the frenzy.  That was what had kept her from having children for so long.  She just couldn't imagine fitting children in, or loving them as much as she did her law work.  She adored being a lawyer, and...