The Wedding Dress

by Danielle Steel

  “Why do you always assume the worst about her? I think she probably stayed for us at first, and then she just got stuck there. I think she’s too depressed to leave by now.”

  “Well, she can’t use us as an excuse anymore,” Kendall said coldly.

  “Maybe after a while you just don’t care. I don’t know why they bother to stay married. They hardly see each other and they never talk to each other. I wish she’d leave him,” he said sadly. “She deserves a better life. She doesn’t care about the money.”

  “Maybe she’d be happier if she did leave. How are you, by the way?” Kendall asked her brother.

  “I’m fine.” He was expecting the usual diatribe about how he was wasting time making furniture, but he loved what he was doing and was a true artist. One of the royals had recently commissioned one of his pieces, but he didn’t bother to tell his sister. She never understood. She was just like his father. It didn’t matter to either of them if he loved what he was doing. All that mattered was making billions of dollars and becoming a legend.

  “How’s Sophie?”

  “Also fine.” They called her flight then, and she had to leave.

  “Call me sometime,” she said, sounding friendlier than she had in years.

  “Yeah, sure,” he said as though hell would freeze over first. She had been too unkind to him too often. She thought about it all the way back to California, and about their mother. Kendall knew she had been hard on both of them. She always defended her father.

  She slept part of the way back, had lunch, and watched a movie. They arrived on time, and when she got to her apartment to change, she decided not to go into the office. It was Friday. She got her car out and drove to Tahoe instead. She arrived at eight o’clock. It was already dark, but her mother was coming back from her garden. Her hands were dirty and she looked relaxed. She was startled and jumped when she saw her daughter. Kendall didn’t know where to start, so she got right to the point.

  “I just saw Dad on the boat, and I wanted to come and see you.”

  “Why?” Her mother looked instantly suspicious and guarded. Kendall was usually tough on her, and never kind.

  Kendall took a deep breath and decided to be honest. They were standing outside the house and it was chilly. “He had someone with him, and it made me realize that I haven’t been fair to you. I talked to Nick and he said Dad’s been doing that for a long time, maybe forever.” Her mother didn’t comment. She never complained to her children about their father.

  “Do you want to come in for dinner?” her mother asked her.

  “I’ll have a cup of tea or something. Anyway, I just figured that I’ve been wrong blaming you for the way things are with Dad. I guess he has a part in this too.” After all, they were still married, and she had never seen her mother with a man and was sure there had never been one. Her mother was an honorable woman.

  “Your father and I haven’t gotten along for a long time. There are a lot of reasons for it. It doesn’t matter anymore. He has his life, I have mine.” They walked into the house and Kendall sat down in the kitchen while her mother made tea.

  “Did you stay together for us?” Kendall wanted to know now. She wanted to understand her better.

  “I thought so. Now I’m not so sure. Maybe in the end it was just laziness and cowardice. I didn’t want to get a divorce. I wanted to be like your great-grandparents, married forever. But you have to pick the right person to do that with. Your dad wasn’t, for me. He’s a genius. You can’t expect someone like him to behave like other people, or want the same things.” She smiled and set down Kendall’s cup of tea, and then sat down across from her. “You don’t need to explain it or apologize, or tell me about his other women. I know about them, or most of them. Who was he with? The really young British one from Paris?” Kendall nodded. Ruby always found out, from different people. She couldn’t keep count anymore, and hadn’t for years. “She’s been around for a while.”

  “I’m sorry, Mom. And I’ve been harsh with you about it.”

  “I guess that’s what daughters do. They blame their mothers.” Nick was much kinder about it and had always tried to protect her. It made Kendall feel even guiltier for how nasty she had been at times, blaming her for everything. “Do you want to spend the night?” Kendall nodded. She wanted a different kind of relationship with her mother than the one she’d had, but she didn’t know how to start it.

  Ruby made her an omelette and then they both went to bed, and in the morning, Kendall found her in the garden again. It reminded her of her great-grandmother. Her mother was trimming back some bushes, and she looked peaceful as she did.

  “You like it up here, don’t you, Mom?” Ruby smiled as she nodded.

  “Maybe I’ll move up here one day.”

  “Wouldn’t you miss the house in the city?”

  “Maybe. I don’t really need all that. It meant more to Grandma than it did to me. She grew up there, I never did. I grew up over the antique store, and up here in the cottage. It was a nice gesture of your father, to buy it back for us. It really meant the most to her. They went through so much. It must have been a terrible time. By the time I came along, the worst was over.” Ruby had always been comfortable when she was young, and the only great wealth she’d ever known was while she was married to Zack, and they didn’t live on the grand scale her family had before 1929. It was hard to conceive of that kind of wealth. Or even Zack’s. It wasn’t very important to her. It meant more to Kendall, who wanted to compete with her father. “Sometimes the simple solutions are better. Maybe I’ll be a gardener when I grow up.” She smiled at her daughter.

  “I think you already are.” Ruby leaned over and gave her a hug.

  “Come up and visit whenever you want.” Kendall nodded and waved when she got in her car and drove away later that morning. It was the first peaceful visit they’d had in a long time, and she realized again how hard she’d been on her mother, and it was painful now to realize she might have been wrong, and in fact probably was.

  Kendall found Ross’s message when she went back to the city. She listened to it, and realized she had been hard on him too. She had dumped him flat for a man she considered a bigger fish at the time, who turned out to be a bad guy who was just using her. She had a lot of fence mending to do. She called Ross back after she listened to his message.

  “Hi, thanks for your message.”

  “I’m not sure if this is a crazy idea, but do you want to have another shot at dinner with me? No strings attached. No crazy delusions. Maybe we can talk about flipping houses.” He wasn’t even sure if he would want to partner with her on that. But there was something about her that always drew him to her. In the past, he had thought it meant she was the one for him. Now he just thought she was a very attractive woman, but probably the wrong one. She had proved that once.

  “Sure, I’d like to do that,” she said easily and he smiled when he heard it.

  “Good. Thursday?” He named a restaurant where they’d had dinner before, and when she hung up, she was excited. She had forgotten how much she liked him. Seeing him had brought it all back. And who knew, stranger things had happened. Maybe they could work together. Suddenly she liked the idea. She had nothing to lose.

  Chapter 20

  It was embarrassing for both of them when Zack came back to the office. Kendall was hoping he wouldn’t mention her ill-timed visit to the boat. But he found a time to slip into her office and close the door.

  “I’m sorry about what happened on the boat. It came together at the last minute, I thought I was going to be alone, and Brigitte just dropped out of the sky and turned up in Antibes.” She knew he was lying again. And even if Brigitte had fallen out of the sky, as he put it, he didn’t have to have sex with her, as a married man. That didn’t even occur to him. It was the weak part of the story along with all the rest. She could see it was why her
brother hated him, because he lied a lot. Maybe all the time.

  “You don’t owe me any explanations, Dad. What you do is your business. We’re all adults. The only one you owe an explanation to is Mom, since you’re still married to her. It must be hard for her to go back to the boat, knowing someone else was there. I guess that’s why she hasn’t been to the boat in years.”

  “Why? Did she say something?” He looked panicked. “Your mother has a lot of misconceptions about my life. And if she hadn’t shut me out the way she does, none of this would have happened.” Kendall could see now how easy he made it to blame her mother, and she always had out of loyalty to him.

  “Not really. But I’m sure there’s more to the story. That’s between you two.”

  “I just don’t want you to think it’s ever happened before.”

  “What, having a woman on board for sex? I’m a big girl, Dad. I assume it has. That can’t have been the first time.” She looked right at him, and she could see desperation in his eyes. Her reaction was one of disgust.

  “Actually, it was.” He was digging himself deeper and Kendall didn’t want to hear it. “I’m sorry you came all that way for nothing.”

  “Yeah, me too. You said you were going to be alone on the boat, and I believed you. I’ll know to check with you next time,” she said coolly, wishing he’d leave. Suddenly talking to him was upsetting, and she wondered for how long he’d been lying to her. She felt as though she had sold her soul to the devil and she wanted it back. Her father was a liar, and a cheat. Her role model in life was turning out not to be a good guy. It was unnerving to discover that at twenty-seven, or any age. He was brilliant, and a creative genius, but immoral, and dishonest. She could see now why her brother wanted no part of their father’s life, and hadn’t for a long time. He had found a life that worked for him, and was sticking with it.

  “Well, just so you know that was a one-time thing. It won’t happen again.”

  “Tell that to Mom,” she said softly, but he probably had, a million times. Maybe it was why her mother’s eyes went dead anytime someone said his name. He had killed her soul. Maybe she had walked in on him too. It made Kendall wonder now.

  * * *

  —

  She met Ross for dinner at the restaurant on Thursday night. It was a funky old Italian restaurant in North Beach. Nothing trendy or chic, just good solid food. He got a quiet booth in the back, and sitting across the table from him was like a déjà vu for both of them.

  “So, here we are back here three and a half years later. It’s kind of weird, isn’t it? You met Mr. Right and disposed of him. Now you’re back eating spaghetti with Mr. Wrong, for old times’ sake?” He laughed wryly.

  “I never said you were Mr. Wrong,” she said softly. “I thought you were Mr. Wrong for Me. I wanted different things then.”

  “I know you did. You wanted to work for your dad and be like him. I can’t blame you for that. Who wouldn’t want that kind of success?”

  “Some people don’t. My brother, for instance, and you. My mom. She owns the biggest house in the city, and she’d rather be in a cottage barely bigger than this booth. She said to me the other day ‘Sometimes the simple solutions work better.’ It’s taken me a long time to figure that out. Like three and a half years, with a good swift kick in the ass from Mr. Right. It turns out he considered me a career move, not a human being.”

  “I’m sorry, Kendall, that’s ugly, and it must hurt.”

  “It did, after three years, but better then than later, or married.” She thought of her parents. “A life like my father’s pulls a lot of fish into the net. Some of them are rotten. It’s kind of the luck of the draw.”

  “You’re a smart woman. You can figure out which ones are the bad ones.”

  “Not always.” She thought about being duped by her father, and going all the way to France to hold his hand, when in fact he was getting laid.

  “So, are we going to flip a house together?” he asked her to change the subject to something less personal. He didn’t want to go off the deep end over her again.

  “It sounds interesting. Tell me what you have in mind.”

  “There are two I’m considering right now,” he said. “They’re both in good locations, both currently a mess, one slightly bigger than the other, both with good bones. One needs a little more architectural work, which is fun for me. I was going to do one of them alone, but it might be nice to have a partner. We can look at them if you like.”

  “I’d like that.” She didn’t know why, but the project sounded like fun to her, and he’d be good to work with. He was a solid, reliable, responsible guy, and a talented architect. “How long do you think it would take?”

  “Probably a year, maybe less. Some of it depends on permits and how fast we can get them. Do you want to take a look on Saturday? We should move pretty quickly if we want to buy either of them. They’re both good fixer-uppers at a decent price. Someone else is going to see that and make an offer soon. I’d like to get there first, so we can keep the profit margins appealing for us.” He was businesslike and professional, talented and had good taste. If she wanted to learn how to flip houses, he would be a good partner. At the end of dinner, they made a date for Saturday to meet at the first address. He said he’d set it up with the realtors for both houses starting at noon.

  She was busy with work for her father the next day. And on Saturday, she met Ross again. She liked both houses and was excited about the project, and the idea of working with him.

  “Do you have a preference?” he asked her, she had a tough time deciding, and so did he. They went out for a glass of wine afterward and discussed it. “I’ve got some plans I roughed out on both of them, of what I would do without spending a fortune on it. I can show you if you want. I’ve moved since I last saw you. My house is just around the corner.” She was startled by the invitation, but it made sense to see the plans. They walked a block and a half, and he lived in a very good-looking, well-designed house, which was much nicer than his last one. He had come up in the world in three years.

  She followed him up the stairs, while he turned off the alarm, and let her in. He walked her to a large studio on the second floor of his house, with a drafting table, and he laid out the plans for both houses. Once she saw them, she had a marked preference for the first one.

  “I think you can really make a difference with this design,” she said and smiled at him. She was trying to concentrate on the drawings, but he was so damn handsome, and the glass of wine had hit her. She was having trouble keeping her mind on the designs he was showing her, and then she noticed him staring at her. “I’m sorry, I think I’m a little drunk,” she said, looking embarrassed.

  “Actually, I think I am too,” and he put an arm around her and kissed her and she no longer cared about the houses or the blueprints for the remodel. She didn’t care about anything but him. He had been determined not to fall for her again. Afterward, she had no idea how it happened, but she wound up in bed with him, and drunk or not, it was the best sex she could remember and to make things even more complicated, she remembered how much she liked him. He had been back in her life for five minutes and she was falling for him.

  After they made love, she lay in his bed for a minute, trying to catch her breath, and she turned to look at him and he looked woebegone.

  “This is really bad,” he said. “We’re trying to talk business, and I can’t keep my hands off you. There is something about you that drives me insane.” As he said it, he nuzzled her neck, cupped her breast with his hand, and kissed her, and the next thing they knew, they were making love again.

  When they came up for air afterward, he lay in bed smiling, and staring up at the ceiling. “What are we going to do about this, Kendall?”

  “I have absolutely no idea,” she said happily.

  “We may have to make it part of the
agreement that we have sex two or three times a day,” he said.

  “Make it four, or I won’t do the deal.”

  “All right, if you insist. And then what? Would there be an increase if we do a second house together? Should we include an option, you know like a rent increase, but a sex increase.”

  “Great idea. I swear, Ross,” she said, rolling over to look at him, “I only had business in mind when we agreed to meet today.”

  “Yeah, me too. And look what a mess we made of it.” She remembered now how great he was in bed and how much she liked him, and then she fell for that fast-talking idiot who worked for her father, who was a liar and a user, and she had walked out on Ross. “The only thing that worries me about this is that I get hooked on you so easily, and if you break my heart again, it could really screw up the deal.” He was half serious, he had been upset about her for months after they broke up.

  She looked at him solemnly. “I promise not to break your heart again. Will you give me another chance?”

  “Mmm…maybe,” he said, thinking about it. “Maybe we should just check things out again to be sure.” They made love again and forgot about the blueprints and the plans. She spent the night with him, and they ate dinner naked in his kitchen, and then went back to bed. In the morning, they decided to buy the first house together, and made love again. And afterward they called the realtor and said they would make a written offer by that afternoon.

  “Do you think we can stay out of bed long enough to do it?” she whispered to him as he hung up. They raced through the forms they had to fill out, and then leapt into bed again, and afterward, they dressed, dropped off the offer, and went to lunch at the Zuni Café on Market Street to celebrate. They had oysters so he could keep up his strength, pasta and salad, and went for a long walk afterward. He didn’t tell her he was crazy about her because he didn’t want to scare her off, but he was, and she felt the same way about him. It was as though she hadn’t been ready before, and now it was all different. She couldn’t remember why she had thought being with him was a bad idea, except that he didn’t want to be her father when he grew up, and Cullen Roberts did.