“Let them have it, dear, they’re all younger than you are. They’ll all get married one day. You don’t even know if you ever will.” In a single sentence, she had dismissed Collin as a real possibility, and told her that not only was she likely to be a spinster but she really didn’t deserve the bouquet. She was undeserving again, and unlikely to be loved since they never had. Victoria could feel herself shrink back to the edge of the crowd, as Gracie tried to wave her forward, but her mother’s message had been a powerful one. Collin had seen her mother say something to her, and the look on her face afterward, but he was too far from her now to have heard what was said. Whatever it was, he could tell that it had devastated her, and he could see her collapse inwardly, as she stood with her arms down, as Gracie got ready to toss the bouquet. She was watching her older sister as she did, and she took careful aim with an arm like a pitcher, and the bouquet flew through the crowd like a missile heading straight for Victoria, but her mother’s words had hit her too hard. Victoria felt frozen and couldn’t lift her arm, and Collin stood there, watching her, as did Gracie, willing her to reach out and grab it. All she had to do was hold out her hand and catch it, if she only believed she deserved it. Collin felt a searing pain at the agony he sensed that she felt, and he said the words aloud that he was thinking. “You’re lovable!” he said to Victoria, even though she couldn’t hear him. And as though she had, her face broke into a smile, and in a split second she reached out and grabbed it. She held it aloft and everyone cheered, and Collin loudest of all. Victoria looked over at him at that moment, and he gave her a thumbs-up with both thumbs, just as Harry lifted his wife from the chair and they went upstairs to change. They were leaving for Paris on his father’s plane that night.
Collin made his way through the crowd to Victoria, and she was beaming at him when he got there. He still didn’t know what her mother had said to her, but he knew it was hurtful, and this time he didn’t want to know. All he wanted to do was shield her from those wounds forever. She was still holding the bouquet.
“We’ll put that to good use one of these days,” he said, gently taking it from her, and setting it down at their table, and then he swept her onto the dance floor and held her in his arms as they danced away. She was a beautiful woman. She always had been. She just didn’t know it, and now she did. And as she looked up at him, she knew just how much she was loved.
About the Author
DANIELLE STEEL has been hailed as one of the world’s most popular authors, with over 590 million copies of her novels sold. Her many international best sellers include Southern Lights, Matters of the Heart, One Day at a Time, A Good Woman, Rogue, Honor Thyself, Amazing Grace, and other highly acclaimed novels. She is also the author of His Bright Light, the story of her son Nick Traina’s life and death.
Visit the Danielle Steel Web Site at www.daniellesteel.com
a cognizant original v5 release october 17 2010
Big Girl is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2010 by Danielle Steel
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
DELACORTE PRESS is a registered trademark of Random House, Inc., and the colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Steel, Danielle.
Big girl : a novel / Danielle Steel.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-440-33952-6
1. Young women—Fiction. 2. Overweight women—Fiction. 3. Self-realization in women—Fiction. 4. Parent and child—Fiction. 5. Domestic fiction. I. Title
PS3569.T33828B54 2010
813′.54—dc22 2009042885
www.bantamdell.com
Book design by Virginia Norey
v3.0
Big Girl: A Novel Page 30
