All That Glitters

by Danielle Steel

  All That Glitters is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2020 by Danielle Steel

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  DELACORTE PRESS and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Hardback ISBN 9780399179686

  Ebook ISBN 9780399179693

  randomhousebooks.com

  Book design by Virginia Norey, adapted for ebook

  Cover design: Laura Klynstra

  Cover art: Oleg Batrak/Shutterstock

  ep_prh_5.6.0_c0_r0

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Dedication

  By Danielle Steel

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Coco Martin, officially Nicole, was a striking young woman with dark hair and green eyes. She had a stunning figure, and the poise of someone older than her years. What made her remarkable and even more appealing was that she was totally unaware of her great beauty. She was modest as well as spectacularly beautiful. Men had stared at her for years and she was oblivious to them. Women would have been jealous of her, but she was so kind to everyone that they forgot what she looked like, and genuinely liked her. She had turned twenty-one at the end of last year, and had just finished her junior year as a journalism major at Columbia University. It had been a major coup when she landed a summer internship at Time magazine. She’d found the notice on the bulletin board in the school of journalism. The position was intended for graduate students, but after her interview, they had been so impressed that they had hired her. She was thrilled. She had started two weeks before and she was excited to have the opportunity to work at such a prestigious magazine.

  It was a hot Friday in July when she boarded the jitney in New York for the three-hour trip to Southampton to spend the weekend with her parents. She was an only child, and had always enjoyed an unusually close relationship with them, even when she was very young. They treated her more as an adult than a child, and took her everywhere with them. They had had some wonderful trips together, and welcomed her among their friends when they entertained. The three of them enjoyed one another’s company. Tom and Bethanie were proud of their only daughter.

  Their marriage had gotten off to an unusual start when they were young themselves. They had met when they were both in college and fell madly in love, although they came from vastly different backgrounds. Tom Martin had grown up dirt poor, as he readily admitted, in the Midwest. He had gotten a full scholarship to Princeton, and it changed his life. His parents would have been more than satisfied if he had wanted to be a plumber or electrician, or at the most maybe an accountant. But Tom had never accepted his parents’ limited vision for him. His friends in college convinced him that it was more profitable to manage other people’s fortunes than try to make his own from scratch. After Princeton, he got an entry-level job at a New York bank and eventually, after working diligently, with Bethanie’s help, he attended business school at Wharton, and in time became one of the most respected investment advisors in New York. He was a quiet, discreet man, not given to showing off, although he had a business partner, Edward Easton, who was far more visible and one of the well-known stars in the business.

  Like Coco, Bethanie had been dazzling when Tom met her, a stunning beauty and a lively, creative young woman. She was studying photography in the department of visual arts at Brown University, and had genuine talent.

  Bethanie was from a venerable old New York family. Both she and Tom were only children and she had made her debut the year before she met Tom. They had fallen in love when they were both nineteen, had met at a party in New York and had been together ever since. When Bethanie told her parents they wanted to get married after they graduated from college, they’d objected strenuously, and thought that Tom would never amount to anything. They wanted her to marry someone from their own social circle, not a poor boy from a simple background with ambitious dreams. They didn’t see how he could go very far. Bethanie saw all his strengths and merits, and had total faith in him. Even if he would never become a material success, and remained poor forever, she loved him. When her parents flatly refused to agree to the marriage, two weeks after they graduated, Bethanie and Tom pooled what they had in their checking accounts, went to Las Vegas for the weekend, and got married in the Elvis Chapel. The Monday after, she faced her parents with the news, and they were outraged.

  Tom took the bank job he’d been offered, and found work waiting on tables at night to save for business school. Bethanie refused to accept her usual allowance from her parents and took freelance photography jobs, and worked as a waitress with him at night. They lived on what they made and saved all they could. And eventually Tom went to Wharton and got his MBA. Coco had come along by then. And in the end, they proved Bethanie’s parents wrong, and won their respect and admiration. When Tom became successful, he bought his own parents a house.

  The two things Bethanie lived by, and had said to her daughter frequently, were “Don’t play by other people’s rules” and “Think outside the box.” She said that one of the worst things in life was to have no dreams. Coco’s parents had convinced her that she could do anything she wanted to, if she was willing to work hard and face whatever challenges came up.

  Coco’s parents were shining examples of perseverance, courage, and hard work to achieve their goals. Her father had certainly done that. They had never given up their dreams, or lost faith in each other. Twenty-four years after they married, they were still in love, and Tom was still in awe of his beautiful wife. She had been staunchly at his side for richer or poorer, just as she had promised in the Elvis Chapel. Their wedding pictures still made them smile.

  Their parents had been older, which was something they had in common too. All of them had died when Coco was very young, and she had grown up without the advantages or complications of grandparents. Her parents had been her whole world, and she was the focus of all their love and attention. As he made his fortune, Tom had acquired a patina of sophistication, with Bethanie at his side, showing him the way.

  They had a beautiful apartment in Manhattan, on Fifth Avenue, with a Central Park view, and a sprawling, comfortable, luxurious house in Southampton, right on the beach. Coco loved spending time with them. She was going out for the weekend to tell them all about her internship at Time and what she’d done that week. Bethanie and Tom had sent Coco to one of the best private coed schools in New York, which she had attended through high school. It was where she met her best friend, Samuel Stein. She had girlfriends too. She was an independent thinker, but never hung out in cliques, and her closest friend since she was in fourth grade had been Sam. They
had hung out in school together and went everywhere together, even though he was a year older and a grade above her. And despite differences of gender, background, and religion, they were kindred spirits and soul mates from the moment they met. She told him everything, as he did with her. He satisfied her need for male companionship and was like a brother, and loyal friend, who gave her excellent advice once she started dating.

  Sam’s religious Orthodox Jewish parents were uncomfortable about their friendship from the beginning, and found it strange that a boy and girl would be best friends. Their greatest concern was that eventually, when they got older, their closeness would turn into romantic feelings, and they would fall in love and want to marry. Sam’s mother, Zippora, particularly didn’t want that to happen, although his father didn’t want it either. When the time came, they wanted Sam to marry within their faith. Zippora kept a kosher home. They celebrated Shabbat every Friday night, and obliged Sam to go to synagogue with them on Saturdays. He was the oldest of four children, and had two sisters and a brother. The others had gone to a religious school in Brooklyn, but they sent Sam to a more liberal, nonsectarian school in the city, and were never sure it had been the right decision. But he had flourished there and was an excellent student, which was their main goal for him.

  Eventually his next youngest sister, Sabra, gave them real cause for concern. She fell in love with Liam, an Irish Catholic boy she’d met at an interschool high-school conference on diversity, and she was determined to marry him after they graduated from college. She was even willing to convert for him. That took the heat off Sam and his friendship with Coco, and caused the Steins even more anxiety than Coco did.

  Sam was a year older than Coco, and had just graduated as an econ major from NYU. Coco had gone to his graduation and his parents had been polite to her, as they always were, but having known him for twelve years, she knew how they felt about their being best friends. They made no secret of it, and lectured Sam constantly about the danger of their being friends.

  Sam had insisted that she be invited to his bar mitzvah when he was thirteen. She had sat through all four hours of the religious ceremony at the temple, and had then gone to the lavish party his parents had thrown for him at the Plaza hotel that night. Her parents had dropped her off. There had been two hundred guests and Coco had enjoyed it. It was the first bar mitzvah she’d ever been to, and she felt very grown up being there alone. She told her parents afterward that she wished she could have a bat mitzvah herself. She loved the celebration, and especially when they carried Sam’s mother around the room aloft in a chair to riotous applause and lively music.

  Coco’s family was Catholic and had never been overly religious. Neither were Coco and Sam. Sam said he didn’t think he would hold Shabbat when he grew up, and he hated living in a kosher home. He ate bacon every chance he got when he went out, but of course never told his parents. He felt that his mother’s religious passion was stifling. Both his sisters had rebelled against it, but his brother, Jacob, always desperate to please them, said he wanted to be a rabbi when he grew up. He was a studious boy and Sam thought he’d do it.

  Sam was expected to go to work at his father’s successful accounting firm after college, and they encouraged him to become a CPA now that he had graduated. He wanted to go to business school in a few years, but the ink was barely dry on his bachelor’s degree. Sam and Coco loved the fact that they had both gone to college in New York City, she at Columbia and he at NYU, and could continue to spend time together, when they weren’t studying or with friends at their respective schools. Sometimes they managed to study together. Sam always helped her with her math, economics, and statistics, and she had written more than one paper for him in psychology and literature. They pooled their strengths and had both gotten good grades and maintained a strong GPA all through college. Their parents could never complain that their friendship distracted them from their schoolwork, since their grades had never suffered from the time they spent together. And it was a mystery to Sam’s parents how they were so often with each other, remained friends, and didn’t fall in love.

  One of the big differences between them was that Sam’s parents expected him to conform to their rules, their expectations for him, and their way of life, and hers didn’t. There was no room in his parents’ thinking for Sam to make his own choices, and they made it clear what their plans were for him, both for marriage and career.

  Coco’s parents wanted her to find a career that was fulfilling, be creative about it, and march to her own tune, as they had done, Bethanie by marrying someone who came from a different world and Tom by achieving so much more than his parents had ever envisioned for him. They urged Coco not to accept other people’s limited views, and to fly with her own wings. It left a broad range of options and choices for her future, and her friendship with Sam had never worried them, neither due to his sex nor to his religion. They respected her ability to make good decisions and choose her own friends. Sam always said he envied her because her parents were so open-minded. He dreaded confrontation with his parents, and couldn’t imagine himself marrying the kind of girl they would eventually want to choose for him, a girl from an Orthodox Jewish home. Any other possibility was out of the question. His mother always urged him to marry early and have many children, as they had done. Both his parents came from big families.

  Sam had no intention of doing any of that when he eventually left home. He had only graduated a month before, and in two more weeks they expected him to start work at his father’s accounting firm. He dreaded it, and for that Coco felt sorry for him. But he knew it was expected of him and he didn’t want to let them down.

  Coco was excited about her summer internship, and her senior year at Columbia before she graduated. She knew her parents were disappointed that, because of her job at Time, she wouldn’t be able to join them for their annual summer trip to Europe. She went with them every year. This would be the first time she couldn’t. They were leaving on Sunday, so she had agreed to spend the weekend with them before they left.

  Sam’s parents lived in an apartment on upper Central Park West, not in one of the fancier buildings further south, like the Dakota or the San Remo, where famous actors, producers, and writers lived, but in a very respectable building nonetheless. His sisters shared a room, as did he with his younger brother. He didn’t have enough money saved yet to move into his own apartment after graduation, and he suspected he would have to live at home for the next few years. The starting salary his father was giving him would be enough for spending money, and some dinners out with friends and occasional dates, but not enough to live on yet, not by any means. He’d have to work hard for that, and he intended to. He longed for his own apartment, which still seemed like a distant dream.

  Coco was planning to move out when she graduated, once she got a job, and assumed she would have roommates, which she did in the dorm at Columbia too. She didn’t mind. Her parents had promised to help her get an apartment after graduation. Sam always envied how generous her parents were, but he didn’t hold it against her. He just thought Coco was a very lucky girl, and most of the time, she agreed. At other times she found her parents’ single-minded focus on her too possessive and intense. She hoped they would relax their vigilance in the next year or two, but there was no sign of it yet. She was sorry she couldn’t go to Europe with them this year, but it felt grown up and exciting to have a summer job and stay home. She was enjoying it, and it was already clear to her that she wanted to work at a magazine when she finished school. She was even considering graduate classes in journalism.

  Her father was waiting for her when she stepped off the jitney. He was a tall, youthful looking man with gray hair at his temples, and his face lit up as soon as he saw Coco. She was happy to see him, gave him a big hug, and they chatted in the car all the way back to the house, where her mother was waiting with a light dinner at a beautifully set table on the patio next to the pool. Li
ke everything else Bethanie did so perfectly, she was a creative cook, kept an elegant home, and the house was tastefully decorated. Tom was always very generous with her. She had dabbled in decorating when she was younger, and enjoyed it. But once Tom started making big money, she had never worked again, and was available at all times to her husband and daughter. She had amazing flair with everything she did, an easy style and eye for beauty. Coco had inherited some of that from her. Her mother’s grace and open-mindedness hadn’t gone unobserved by her daughter. The freedom she had to be herself and choose her own path was the exact opposite of how Sam had been brought up, with his parents constantly dictating to him and attempting to restrict him.

  Sam and Coco complemented each other as best friends. In some ways, he grounded her, and in others Coco encouraged him to spread his wings, in spite of what his parents said, and the limits they put on him. She tried to give him the courage to fly free of them, but he always felt earthbound compared to her. He wanted to soar as she did, but he didn’t know how to do that yet. It was one of his many goals. To be free and try new things. He admired how fearless Coco was and how brave.

  Bethanie and Tom enjoyed dinner with their daughter. They walked on the beach after dinner, and went to bed early. On Saturday they swam in the ocean, lay by the pool, and went out to dinner that night at a restaurant Tom and Bethanie wanted to try, and hadn’t yet. During dinner, Coco told them more about her work at Time. Her parents were always proud of her. She had always had all the emotional support she needed from them. It was freely given, and they had always encouraged her to have confidence in herself. Her mother reminded her that there was nothing she couldn’t achieve if she tried. It had been an atmosphere in which Coco had thrived.