The Wedding Dress

by Danielle Steel

  The bridal couple left a moment later, and Eleanor went back to where Alex was still sitting, talking to one of Zack’s friends. The young man left a few minutes later, and Alex looked at Eleanor with a peaceful expression.

  “I never thought this house would be back in our family again,” Eleanor said, still shaken by Ruby’s revelation. She couldn’t believe it. The home of her childhood had been returned to them.

  Alex wouldn’t have wanted to have his back. It was too far in the past now, but he liked the idea of owning and living in the Deveraux house. Somehow it seemed fitting to have it back in family hands again, thanks to Zack. The project of restoring it to what it had been would keep Ruby and her grandmother busy for a long time. He smiled at his wife then as she sat next to him.

  “It was a spectacular wedding.” He beamed at her.

  “Theirs or ours?” she teased him. “I don’t recall any men in shorts at ours.” They both laughed at the vision, and as they looked around the ballroom, Alex could remember perfectly the exquisite sensation and the thrill of dancing with her. He kissed her, and the memory of their wedding night was just as vivid and alive as it had been then.

  * * *

  —

  Zack and Ruby’s honeymoon on the yacht he had chartered for them was as romantic as he had wanted it to be. They lay on the deck in the sun, being waited on by a crew of twenty. They sailed into ports, went shopping, had dinner ashore sometimes, or stayed on the boat just outside the ports, swimming at midnight, and making love all night long.

  Ruby felt as though she lived in a constant haze of happiness now. And when they got back to San Francisco, she went through the house with her grandmother, making lists of everything they needed to restore. The school had promised to be out by February since they had found a temporary location for the next few years. Zack had hired an architect to help Ruby and Eleanor with the restoration.

  Four weeks after their wedding, Ruby realized she was pregnant. Zack was ecstatic. The baby was due in July, and they hoped to be in the house by then. It changed Ruby’s mind about looking for a job. There didn’t seem to be much point to it, with the house to work on, and a baby coming, and Zack didn’t want her to work anyway. He felt she just didn’t need to.

  It took some getting used to, for Ruby to adjust to Zack’s constant flow of generosity, and it was even harder to realize that he could afford anything he wanted now. They still ate dinner at Jack in the Box occasionally, but suddenly her best friend through most of her college years that she had shared cheap wine and pizza with, could buy anything that caught his fancy.

  He bought a plane in February, and they had liked the boat so much on their honeymoon that he bought a yacht and called it the Ruby Moon, which seemed like the height of luxury to Ruby.

  “Shouldn’t we be saving all this money?” she asked him from time to time, looking worried. Her family’s history of losing everything in the Crash of 1929 had always marked her and she didn’t want the same thing to happen to him if things went awry.

  “If I lose it, I can always make more.” He had total confidence in his limitless earning power, and he didn’t seem to be wrong. When he turned twenty-five, six months after they were married, his net worth was estimated at four billion. With his first remarkable deal, he had planned to seek his father’s investment advice, but by the second deal, his fortune became so vast that he had hired high-powered money managers to advise him. And in the meantime, there seemed to be nothing he couldn’t buy. He was like the proverbial kid in a candy store multiplied by four billion. Ruby couldn’t even conceive of it. But despite the vast fortune he had made, he still enjoyed the simple pleasures, weekends in Tahoe at the cottage, fishing with her grandfather, going to the beach, hiking in the mountains. And at the same time, he denied her nothing. Anything she wanted for their new house was fine with him. He didn’t even expect her to ask, and gave her carte blanche. He couldn’t wait to spend time on the yacht with her after the baby came. The boat was currently in the Mediterranean, and he was planning to leave her there through the summer.

  One thing he and Ruby both noticed was that with his sudden immense fortune, women and men threw themselves at him. Women wanted to seduce him, regardless of the fact that he was married, men wanted to do business with him. Even his own mother and stepfather, who had been inattentive and uninterested in him for the last fourteen years and had told people openly that he was weird, suddenly wanted to court him, spend time with him, and invite him to come and visit. But Zack was no one’s fool, and those who hadn’t been there for him before were of no interest to him now, even his own mother. The only person in his life that he truly trusted was Ruby. She had loved him and been a faithful friend before he made his fortune, and she was just as devoted now. He knew she would have loved him if he had nothing. Ruby was above all real, and always had been. And she was deeply grateful for the family house he had restored to her, and how happy he had made her grandparents by doing so.

  Zack thought the women who threw themselves at him now were pathetic and desperate and he ignored them. They were flattering, but none of them were as bright and exciting as Ruby, and he couldn’t wait for the baby to arrive. In less than a year he had become an adult and an important man. He was determined not to let it turn his head, and so far it hadn’t. Ruby hoped it never would. She loved his honesty and innocence, which was almost childlike, in contrast to his genius with computers.

  Ruby and her grandmother were poring over auction catalogues looking for furniture that closely resembled what had been in the house originally. Since they had sold most of it, or a great deal of it, through their own antique store, she had photographs of whatever they had sold, which made it easier to replace whenever fine antiques came up for auction.

  Ruby and Zack took their last weekend trip to Lake Tahoe in May, and in June they moved into the Deveraux mansion, a month before the baby was due. Many rooms were still being worked on, but the reception rooms were coming along well, the master suite with both dressing rooms was finished, as was the nursery, which looked exactly as it had when Eleanor was a child. She still remembered it perfectly.

  Zack had already bought a miniature Bugatti for the baby, with a proper engine, assuming it was going to be a boy. But he said it didn’t matter, as long as the baby was healthy. He said he wanted at least a dozen more children with Ruby anyway. The life they were leading was heady stuff for Ruby, and finally, when they moved in, their life slowed down for a while. Zack was still working on his latest research projects. He had dreams of connecting the world through computers, and was determined to find a way to do it. He had a computer lab and an office in the house.

  Eleanor was still looking high and low for furniture for them, and Alex spent some time in Tahoe with Eleanor while she worked on her gardens, to get away from the city. He felt as though they hadn’t stopped since the wedding, and he was tired. He had just turned eighty-six, and was slowing down a little. Ruby had noticed it and so had Eleanor. Their life had been moving at a fast pace ever since Ruby had married Zack, people even approached them now to be introduced to their grandson-in-law. Eleanor was slightly worried about Ruby too. She remembered all too well the problems Camille had experienced when she gave birth to Ruby, although her lifestyle had been unhealthy. Eleanor wanted everything to go smoothly for Ruby, and Alex said he was sure it would. Ruby was the picture of health and a happy woman. She was positively glowing. She looked radiant whenever they saw her, and she dropped by the store frequently, and talked to her grandmother on the phone several times a day about their special projects, the nursery, the house, and the baby.

  Zack wanted to be at the delivery and they were taking Lamaze classes together, anonymously. By her due date in July, Ruby was staying home, folding tiny undershirts and putting the very last finishing touches on the nursery. Eleanor had painted a mural for the nursery herself, an old talent she had revived. She had pa
inted a circus, with clowns and animals all the way around the room, with a girl dancing on the high wire in a sequined tutu. And she had faux painted the circus train along one wall. Zack and Ruby loved it.

  They had hired a baby nurse to help them for the first few months, but after that, Ruby said she wanted to take care of the baby herself. She wanted to be the exact opposite of the kind of mother her own mother had been, and Eleanor had no doubt she would be. Alex was disappointed that she didn’t want to use her education to get a high-paying job, but with the kind of fortune Zack had made in a short time, it didn’t seem to make sense for Ruby to be working. She’d rather stay home and take care of their children, which was what Zack wanted her to do anyway.

  He had an office in Palo Alto, and called her several times a day to make sure nothing was happening. And when things finally got started, she was picking curtain fabrics for the ballroom with her grandmother. Eleanor called Zack and he drove back to town immediately, and once Zack got there, Eleanor went home to tell Alex the baby was coming. Ruby promised to let them know as soon as she and Zack went to the hospital. They spent the afternoon at home, timing contractions and watching movies on TV. They were planning to go to the new birthing center at the hospital, and when they left for the hospital at six o’clock, Ruby was still smiling. Once they got there it seemed to be taking forever, but the nurses told her that first babies were always slow.

  When the contractions began in earnest, Zack did everything he’d been taught to help her. They were so young and earnest, and so much in love that the nurses were touched when they were in the room with them. Ruby wanted a natural delivery, and when she finally started to push at midnight, the baby came easily and quickly. With three enormous pushes, Zack and Ruby saw their daughter born. Everything had gone easily. The doctor cut the cord and lay the baby on Ruby’s stomach, and she and Zack were laughing and crying as they looked at her. One of the nurses commented that they made it look easy. At twelve-thirty, they called her grandparents and told them that Kendall Eleanor Katz had arrived and how easy it had been.

  “Thank God,” Eleanor said as she nodded and smiled at Alex and gave him a thumbs-up. They had been worried sick about her all night while they waited for news of the arrival of their great-grandchild.

  “She’s beautiful, Grandma,” Ruby said, sounding elated. Zack got on the phone with them a minute later and told them what a miracle the birth had been, and he was thrilled to have a daughter. Eleanor and Alex promised to come and see her in the morning.

  He called his parents after that. His mother’s phone went to the answering machine and he left her a message. His father answered and congratulated them. The call was brief and to the point, unlike their conversation with Ruby’s grandparents who wanted all the details and to know who she looked like. They were much warmer people.

  Everything had gone smoothly, which was so different from Ruby’s birth twenty-two years before. Zack and Ruby were living proof that dreams came true, and love prevailed in the end. And none of them doubted for a minute that Kendall Eleanor Katz would be a special person and a golden child.

  Chapter 17

  Ruby had never been happier in her life than when she was taking care of her baby. And the baby was so easy they let the baby nurse go after a month. Ruby was a natural mother. She was constantly nursing her and fussing over her, changing her, or dressing her. She brought Kendall to visit her great-grandparents at the shop almost every day. They loved seeing her. And Zack was crazy about Kendall too.

  “She has to be the most loved child on the planet,” Eleanor commented to Alex, and she was pleased. Ruby’s husband and child meant everything to her. Two months later, mistakenly thinking she couldn’t get pregnant while she was nursing, she got pregnant again. Zack was startled by the news, but as soon as he adjusted to the idea, he was thrilled. The baby was due in June. Kendall would be eleven months old when her brother or sister was born. Irish twins.

  Ruby and her grandmother were almost finished restoring the house by then, and it looked remarkably like it once had, except for some things that were missing, like the large adjoining garden, which had been sold by the school. There was a small garden now where they could eat lunch at a table on sunny days. They’d been living in the house since right before Kendall was born, and were continuing their restoration work while living there. It would have been too disruptive to bring a baby home to her grandparents’ small house, so they had moved into the house on Nob Hill while it was a work in progress. Ruby loved living there, and Eleanor loved visiting and helping her to restore it. The house was so full of memories for her. It was the greatest gift Zack could have given them.

  By Christmas, so soon after the last baby, the pregnancy showed. Ruby loved being pregnant, and taking care of Kendall. She had never realized she’d enjoy motherhood so much, but since she wasn’t working, she had nothing else to do. And Zack was busier than he ever had been as his empire grew. He had turned into an adult, a husband, a father, and a business mogul overnight, and one of the new breed of high-tech billionaires at an absurdly young age.

  They spent Christmas with her grandparents, and for New Year’s, Zack had their new yacht brought to the Caribbean. Ruby hadn’t seen it yet, she’d been too busy with the baby to join Zack on it. For New Year’s, they left Kendall with a babysitter they trusted, and boarded the boat in Saint Martin, and headed for Saint Bart, on the incredibly luxurious 286 foot motor yacht Zack had named the Ruby Moon. They spent two weeks on it, but Ruby was so miserable without Kendall that all she wanted to do was go home. It wasn’t as romantic as their honeymoon on the boat they’d chartered fifteen months before. She missed Kendall so much, called the babysitter on the Satcom every few hours, and Zack could tell her heart was with the baby at home. It brought the point home to him that he wasn’t the only love in her life anymore. The baby was just as important to her as he was, maybe more so, which was a shock for him. In the end, they left four days early to go back to New York. The boat was beautiful but Ruby wasn’t ready to go so far from Kendall, and they didn’t want to bring the baby.

  Zack knew Ruby wouldn’t be able to travel after late March, with a baby due in June. So when they left, he had the boat sent back to Europe. He planned to use it the following summer with friends in the Mediterranean, and he suspected now that Ruby wouldn’t leave the new baby until the fall, so she wouldn’t be on it with him.

  Things were subtly different between them after the boat trip. It had shocked Zack to realize that Ruby would rather be with the baby than with him. He was chilly for a few weeks and she didn’t notice. She was just so happy to be home.

  In April, Ruby commented to her grandmother that Zack was working till all hours every night at the office, and coming home as late as midnight sometimes. She didn’t seem concerned about it, and said he always worked around the clock when he had a new idea, he was clearly a genius, but Eleanor couldn’t recall his doing that before. She said something about it to Alex at dinner and he looked at his wife with a serious expression.

  “Ruby better be careful. She has a young husband. He’s barely more than a boy, and he’s a very, very rich man. He’s easy prey for some greedy woman. Ruby is so crazy about her baby, and she’s been pregnant since they’ve been married. She needs to pay more attention to Zack. It’s not a good sign when men start staying late at the office and coming home at midnight. She’d better watch out.” Eleanor wondered if that was an old-fashioned point of view, or if he might be right. Their situation had been very different. They’d been alone for ten years, and tried desperately to have a child. And then he’d gone off to war and been wounded, and after that she had spent years worrying about him. They’d been inseparable. And then they’d started a business and worked together. All those things had brought them closer. And Alex had been older and mature when they married. In many ways, Zack was still a boy. But she thought it was premature to get worried, and once the
new baby was born, Ruby could turn her full attention back to Zack again. And Alex was right. She had been pregnant so far for their entire marriage.

  A few weeks later, Ruby mentioned it to Eleanor again, and she said that Zack was so intense about his work that sometimes he spent the night at his office and didn’t come home. That time, Eleanor’s alarm bells sounded too. She didn’t know what to say to Ruby, who was eight months pregnant by then, uncomfortable, and focused on the delivery in a few weeks. It didn’t seem fair to worry her so late in her pregnancy. The next time Eleanor saw her, Ruby was driving a convertible Rolls. Eleanor thought it was too showy, but Alex was impressed.

  “That’s quite a car,” he commented and Ruby laughed. It was bright red, and she had Kendall’s car seat in the backseat.

  “I feel a bit like a drug dealer driving it,” Ruby admitted. “Zack gave it to me last week.”

  “For a special occasion?” Eleanor asked casually. “A baby present?” She hoped it was that.

  “No, just for fun.” When Kendall was born, Zack had given her an incredibly beautiful ruby and diamond bracelet. But there was no apparent reason for the fancy new car. After she left, Eleanor looked at Alex and voiced her concerns.

  “Do you think Zack is having an affair?”

  “No. Why?” He looked surprised. He had forgotten their earlier conversation about Zack’s working late at night.

  “She says sometimes he doesn’t come home at night now, and sleeps at the office. And now, that very expensive car he gave her for no reason.” Alex frowned.

  “I hope he isn’t,” he said seriously, “Zack loves extravagant gifts and spends a fortune, since he has one. Like the houses, the plane, the boat, the new Rolls. They’re all toys to him. But if he is having an affair and she finds out, it’s going to blow them right out of the water. They’re too young for him to be fooling around. They should be madly in love, and totally faithful. They’re laying down the foundation of their marriage. She should get a sitter, leave the baby, and go out with him more often, and have some fun. But she’s ready to give birth again. Maybe he’s tired of that.” Alex believed in fidelity, but they both knew that sometimes people got bored and played around, especially after long years of marriage. Twenty months into their marriage, an affair would be disastrous, but she’d been pregnant for eighteen of those twenty months and he was a twenty-five-year-old boy with a mountain of money and racy women were bound to chase him.