Dating Game

by Danielle Steel

  “Are we on for a date when I get back? Officially, I mean?”

  She smiled at him. “Officially, I'd say yes.”

  He didn't want to sneak up on her, or take advantage of her, or surprise her, or frighten her. He wanted to be her friend, but he also wanted to be more than that. He had enormous admiration for her, all she had survived, and all she'd done. “I'll call you from Europe,” he promised. “Take care of Hope!” he shouted to her as he hurried down the stairs, having just kissed her on the cheek. And she waved as he drove away, wondering what she had just done, and if she'd regret it. She hoped not. She had sworn to herself she would never date again, and now she was sticking her nose out again. But it had been eight months. Maybe that was long enough to clear the air. And there was something very different about Andrew Warren. More than anyone she had met since Peter, he was a man she could not only love, as a friend, but respect. The others had been fun, or good company, or sexy, or pathetic, but none had been worthy of respect. Andrew was.

  He called her from the airport, from L.A., and from London when he got to Europe the next day. And by then her family had arrived.

  Meg was excited to hold the baby. And Wim was grinning, as Paris hovered over them telling them to be careful of the baby, while Richard took pictures. And they all said she was the most beautiful baby they'd ever seen, which Paris knew anyway. Hope was almost smiling by then, and nearly four weeks old.

  And as she set her gently down in the bassinet, Meg turned to her mother with a womanly smile that Paris had never seen before. “She'll be good practice for me,” Meg said, smiling at her mother, then at Richard, and then back at Paris again.

  “How's that?” Paris asked, feeling a little dim, but she was very tired.

  “We're having a baby, Mom,” Meg said as her mother threw her arms around her with tears in her eyes.

  “How exciting! Congratulations, both of you! When?”

  “It's due on the Fourth of July.”

  “How patriotic!” Paris laughed and kissed her son-in-law and congratulated him again, as Wim groaned and threw himself on the couch, while Meg held Hope again.

  “What is this? An epidemic?” Wim asked the room in general. “Everyone's having babies.”

  “Well, you'd better not have one too,” Paris warned, and they all laughed. And that night, when Paris came back in the living room after dinner, Wim was holding the baby, and Meg was next to him sound asleep on the couch. All her children were together. It was the perfect Christmas. Particularly now that they had Hope.

  Chapter 35

  The month that Paris took off in January turned out to be the best thing she'd ever done. She had time to spend with the baby, read books, go for walks with the baby in the stroller, visit Bix at the office and sympathize over his workload, and even see friends. She loved being a lady of leisure, but she was looking forward to going back to work again too. But not yet.

  And Andrew Warren took two weeks off, and came to visit her in San Francisco. They drove to the Napa Valley, had lunch in Sonoma, strolled along Crissy Field with the baby. It was almost like being married again. And he took her out for several very fancy dinners that he claimed were their “official” dates.

  “In that case, what's the rest of it?” she inquired. They had an easy relationship that seemed to be equal parts friendship and romance, and they both liked it that way.

  “The rest of the time we're just friends,” he explained. “It's only a date if I take you to a restaurant. How's that?”

  “Excellent. Just the way I want it.” And she really missed him when he left. He was wonderful with the baby, and they had a good time together. When he went back to work, he came up on weekends from L.A., and stayed in the mother-in-law apartment, once with Wim, since there were two bedrooms. Paris hadn't slept with him, and wasn't ready to yet. They had only been “dating” for about a month, although they'd seen a lot of each other when he came up for two weeks. They were together every day.

  But on Valentine's Day their chastity came to an end. He took her out for a lovely dinner. She was back at work by then, and didn't even get home that day till eight-thirty. And at ten o'clock he spirited her away for a lovely meal. They came home at midnight, and he gave her a beautiful diamond bangle. She gave him a silly watch with a red alligator band, and he put it on. They sat and talked for hours, and finally they drifted into her bedroom and that which she had avoided and feared for so long became the easiest thing in the world. They made love like two people who had known each other forever and not strangers, she never had to ask him if it was “exclusive,” it wasn't acrobatic or disappointing, exotic or terrifying. It was as though it had always been, which was the best way. And after they fell alseep in each other's arms, the baby woke them. Paris went to get her bottle ready, and Andrew gave it to her, and they went back to sleep with the baby between them and slept until the next day. Paris felt as though she'd come home. After nearly three years of loneliness and sorrow, she had found the man she had thought she would never find. She had stopped looking for him, and had long since ceased to believe that he existed. She had found the needle in the haystack after all. And so had Andrew. He had never been happier in his life.

  It was a golden spring for them. They alternated weekends between San Francisco and L.A., and whenever he could get away from his office, he brought a stack of scripts up and stayed with her and Hope. Her children loved him, and when his daughters came to visit in June, they liked Paris as well. All the pieces of the puzzle fit, better even than they had with Peter. That was the odd part. It was almost as though she couldn't remember being married to him now. She felt as though she had always been with Andrew.

  And when Meg's baby was due, she took two weeks off. Bix said he could manage without her, and much to everyone's relief, Steven was feeling much better. He was doing well.

  Paris and Hope were staying with Andrew when Meg went into labor, right on her due date, and Andrew baby-sat for Hope while Paris went to the hospital with Richard and Meg. It was a long arduous labor, but Meg was very good about it. And Richard was wonderful with her. Paris sat in the labor room with them, and wasn't intending to be at the birth, but at the last minute Meg wanted her there, and Richard didn't mind. Paris didn't want to intrude, and as their son pushed his way into the world, Paris was watching her daughter and her husband and cried at how happy they were, and how beautiful their baby was. They named him Brandon. Brandon Bolen. He was a beautiful healthy boy, and as Paris held him in the delivery room, after they did, Meg looked up at her mother with a tired smile.

  “I love you, Mom… thank you for being my mom.” It was the best gift in the world. And she cried when she told Andrew about it. And when she lay in bed next to him that night, she sighed. There was something about having babies around. She was forty-nine years old, but she loved her babies, of all sizes and ages, as much as she had twenty-five years before.

  “You know, I was thinking,” she said to Andrew with a yawn, as she cuddled up next to him in the dark. “Maybe it's not such a great thing for Hope to be an only child. Maybe I should adopt another one.” There was a long silent pause, as Andrew looked down at her with a smile.

  “Is that what you've been thinking? She's not going to be an only child. She'll have her nephew to play with, they're only eight months apart.”

  “That's true,” she said, nodding. She hadn't thought of that. Although they didn't live in the same town, so they wouldn't see each other every day. It wasn't the same as growing up in the same house with a sibling.

  “Maybe we should really shake everyone up and have one of our own.” He had thought of it several times, but there were other things he wanted to do with her as well. And she didn't seem to object to his suggestion. It would take effort, but was not impossible these days, thanks to modern science and a little help from their friends at UCLA. But he didn't want to discuss that with her yet. “I have another idea. What do you say we get married, and go to Europe for a year?” He had
wanted to do that for a long time, and now he wanted to do it with her.

  “And leave Bix?” She sounded shocked, as she looked at him in the dark.

  “Well, yes, for a year. You can always go back to work when we get back if you really want to. We could take him to Europe with us of course,” he teased.

  “He'd like that.” And then she sat up and looked at him. “Did you just ask me to marry you?” She looked surprised but not shocked. She hadn't really expected him to ask, things were so comfortable as they were.

  “Yes, I did,” he said quietly. “How does that sound to you?” She answered him with a long heartfelt kiss. “Is that a yes?” She nodded. “Could you say it, please? I want to make sure I don't make any incorrect assumptions.”

  “Yes,” she said with a big grin. “I will marry you. Will that mean we're exclusive?” She had told him that story too. She had told him all of them over the past seven months. She had no secrets from him.

  “Yes, I think that would mean that we're exclusive. That would be a yes. So what do you think? Europe for a year?” She nodded. She liked that idea too. She'd help Bix train someone to take her place while she was gone, assuming they moved back to San Francisco, which she didn't know for sure. Once they got to Europe, who knew? Andrew was fifty-nine years old, and he kept threatening to retire early so they could roam around the world, and the idea appealed to her a great deal, and they didn't have to worry about Hope going to school yet.

  “Shall we tell the children?” She beamed at him.

  “I should think so. I don't think we should keep it a secret from them.” He laughed and put his arms around her, and pulled her down next to him again in bed. “I love you, Paris … you'll never know how I love you.…” He had never loved anyone as much before, and it had grown on them slowly, in all the right ways, for both of them. They lay in bed talking about it. They were going to have a small wedding. She thought Bix should do it for them. And they agreed that they only wanted their children and a few friends there. And then they were going to leave for Europe, rent a place in Paris or London … a country house somewhere … maybe charter a yacht and spend a summer on it … it was all so perfect. But it would have been just as perfect if they never went anywhere. All she wanted was to be with him.

  They told Richard and Meg the next day, and called Wim on his cell phone in the East, he was visiting Peter. And everyone was thrilled. And then she called Bix, and he was gracious enough to be thrilled for her too. “I told you you'd find the needle in the haystack. Now weren't all those blind dates worth it?”

  “No,” she laughed at him. “I didn't meet Andrew on a blind date. I met him at my daughter's wedding.”

  “Well, I knew it was something like that. Besides, the blind dates were good practice.”

  “For what?”

  “Being charming to horrible clients, and running our business when you come back.”

  “Are you retiring?” She sounded shocked. She wondered just how sick Steven was.

  “Not yet. But after you take a year off, so will I. Steven and I want to travel around the world. Maybe we'll close for a year. We'll figure it out. One thing I do know,” he said, sounding happy for her, “the best is yet to come.”

  “Yes, it is,” she said softly, and when she hung up, she told Andrew what he'd said.

  “He's right.” They had agreed to get married in August, and wanted to leave by September. She and Andrew went back to San Francisco the following week, to start making plans for their trip. He already had three apartments lined up in Paris, and a house in London. There was no limit to what they could do. And when she walked into the house in San Francisco, there was a box waiting for them, with a sprig of lily of the valley on top. And when she opened it, there was a beautiful oval antique silver box nestled in it, with engraving on the surface of the lid. She had to look at it carefully to read it because it was in a lacy old script.

  “What does it say?” Andrew asked her, admiring it. Bix had such incredible taste.

  “It says”—she held it carefully to the light and smiled at Andrew— ” ‘The best is yet to come.’ ”

  “So it is,” he said, and kissed her. The past had brought infinite blessings and lessons, and had been what was meant to be at the time. It had given birth to the present, in all its beauty. And what would come next was unseen and unknown. But she was more than willing to believe that the best was in fact yet to come.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  DANIELLE STEEL has been hailed as one of the world's most popular authors with over 520 million copies of her novels sold. Her many international bestsellers include Safe Harbour, Johnny Angel, Dating Game, Answered Prayers, Sunset in St. Tropez, The Cottage, The Kiss, Leap of Faith, Lone Eagle, Journey, The House on Hope Street, 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 14 2010

  DATING GAME

  A Dell Book

  Published by Bantam Dell

  A Division of Random House, Inc.

  New York, New York

  This 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.

  All rights reserved

  Copyright © 2003 by Danielle Steel

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2002073619

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law. For information address: Delacorte Press, New York, New York.

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  eISBN: 978-0-307-56641-6

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