In His Father's Footsteps

by Danielle Steel

  “We’ll give you the wedding of your dreams, baby, just say the word.” And Julie knew they would. Her father gave them everything they wanted. He had made a fortune in commodities years before and had been making money hand over fist ever since, and he lavished it on his wife and daughters. He was a very generous man. And he respected Max’s ability to turn water into wine too.

  * * *

  —

  She reported to Max that afternoon that her parents were thrilled. “How were yours?” she asked him.

  “The way they always are. Serious, and a little scared. It’s understandable in their case, but they love you,” he lied to her. “They’re very happy for me.” It was all she needed to know. He wasn’t going to share their concerns with her, and they were going to prove them wrong anyway. As he saw it, his parents were always worried about something that never happened, and never would. He had lived with it all his life. “Tonight at my place?” he asked and she giggled.

  “Why, Mr. Stein, I don’t know what you mean. I’m a good girl.”

  “Tell that to someone else,” he teased her, “I happen to know you’re the best. And very soon you are going to be Mrs. Max Stein.” He had every intention of making an honest woman of her, and a very happy one. He had already chosen the ring and was picking it up that week, at Harry Winston. He didn’t want to get it through his father. The Morgans would think it was tacky to get a diamond wholesale. It had to be from a jeweler like Cartier, Tiffany, or Harry Winston. He had picked out a six-carat round stone for her, and was paying a fortune for it. But he knew that was what she expected, and he wanted her to have what she wanted for the rest of her life. He wanted to make all her dreams come true.

  The doorman announced her from downstairs that night, and Max asked him to send her up. He was naked when she rang the bell of his bachelor pad on Fifth Avenue, with the penthouse view of Central Park. His parents thought he was crazy to buy such an expensive apartment, but he could afford it and women loved it. She was naked and in bed with him two minutes later, and the best part of it to both of them, was that she was almost his wife, but didn’t act like one in the meantime. She was the sexiest girl he’d ever been with and knew just how to drive him insane. How could he go wrong with a wife like her?

  Chapter 11

  Max proposed to Julie the day he picked up the ring at Harry Winston, five days after he spoke to his parents about her. He took her to dinner at La Grenouille, and then back to his apartment, where he had champagne and strawberries waiting for her. He kissed her and then slipped the ring on her finger as they were admiring the view on his terrace, and she managed to look astonished, although she had suspected it would happen that night, when he took her to dinner at La Grenouille. She’d hardly been able to eat, she was so excited about seeing what the ring would look like. It was just what she had hoped for, and it looked beautiful on her finger and was exactly the right size. He didn’t tell his parents that he’d bought it or where, because he knew his father would have insisted he could get it for him wholesale at twice the size and half the cost with fewer inclusions and a better color, all of which was probably true, but he knew Julie would expect the fancy jeweler’s name to go with it, and he didn’t want to disappoint her, or have her father think that he was cheap.

  She spent the night with him at his apartment, as she did every night now. She had her own one-bedroom apartment in the city on Seventy-Ninth Street that her father had given her, and her younger sister was staying there to cover for her, in case their parents called. And in the morning, Julie and Max both called their parents and told them the news. The Morgans were delighted and the Steins said all the right things, but they were sad as they listened on both phones in their apartment.

  “Mazel tov!” his mother said, and then he put Julie on the phone and she burbled about how beautiful the ring was, and told them how much she loved their son and how happy she was. She sounded like a sixteen-year-old on the phone, and Emmanuelle looked at Jakob when they met in the kitchen.

  “Well, he did it,” she said grimly, looking disappointed. “All we can do is hope for the best. How is she going to bring up children? She sounds like one herself.”

  “She’ll grow up,” Jakob said hopefully. “You were a year younger than she is when you married me,” he reminded her and Emmanuelle was stunned to realize it. She had nothing in common with this spoiled girl.

  “But look what we’d been through. And I was her age when I had Max.” They both fell silent remembering it. It seemed like only yesterday.

  Their engagement was announced in The New York Times the following week in the Sunday edition, and they set the date that week. They were going to get married the day after his birthday in December, right before Christmas. She wanted the wedding to be at her parents’ estate in Greenwich, and they were estimating about six hundred guests. She planned to have sixteen bridesmaids, and both her sisters as maids of honor. Max would have to come up with as many groomsmen. He asked Steve MacMillan, his Harvard roommate, to be his best man, and Andy and Jared would be in the wedding too. The groom and both fathers were going to wear white tie, and everyone else black tie. It was going to be a formal affair, and then they were going to Tahiti for their honeymoon. Julie had told him she had always wanted to go there, so he promised they would.

  Julie kept saying that they hardly had enough time to plan it all. She went straight to Bergdorf with her mother and sisters to pick a dress days after he’d proposed. They were expecting there would be ten or twenty engagement parties in the coming months. Planning the wedding was going to be Julie’s full-time job until December, and Max was already stressed trying to figure out how to plan his business trips around their engagement parties. But he’d make it work somehow. Julie expected all her women friends to give her bridal showers.

  The only thing the Steins had to do was host the rehearsal dinner, which they were told would be about a hundred people, mostly family and those coming from distant places, and Emmanuelle had no idea where to have it. Jakob promised to help her, and they eventually settled on a room at The Plaza. The hotel would provide the food and flowers as well, and music if they wanted, although there wouldn’t be dancing the night before the wedding.

  “Can we afford it?” Emmanuelle asked Jakob when they got the estimate. She was horrified by what it was going to cost them, but she didn’t want to embarrass Max either by having it at a less luxurious place.

  “Yes, we can.” Jakob smiled at her. “And you’re not allowed to make the hors d’oeuvres yourself or arrange the flowers, to save money,” he teased her. “This has to be first-class all the way. He’s our only son, and hopefully it will be his only wedding,” but neither of them believed that as Jakob signed the contract with The Plaza.

  Emmanuelle refused to go shopping for a dress, and insisted on making one herself. She found some navy blue lace at a shop near their apartment and made a dress with long sleeves and a matching jacket. She always wore long sleeves so no one could see her number. And Jakob ordered a set of tails from his tailor and tried them on for her when they arrived in September. He looked incredibly elegant and she could easily imagine him dancing in a ballroom in Vienna. He was going to have the first dance with Julie’s mother, and Mike Morgan would dance with Emmanuelle.

  The two couples had met in August to discuss the details of the wedding. It was going to be a grand affair with heated tents with chandeliers, and paths lined with snow and candles. They had hired a well-known wedding planner, and it sounded like a coronation ball at Buckingham Palace to Jakob and Emmanuelle, but their son and the bride were happy, which was all that mattered. They were going to celebrate Max’s birthday at the rehearsal dinner. The Morgans were flying in a famous band from Las Vegas to play dance music for the young people in a separate tent after midnight at the wedding and they booked a twelve-piece orchestra to play during the reception. The Morgans had thought of everything
and spared no expense, including luxurious buses to ferry all the guests to Connecticut from the city. They didn’t want anyone driving if they’d been drinking, before or after the wedding, particularly since the bride’s friends were young and wild, and all in their early twenties. Max’s friends in their thirties were more sedate.

  Mike Morgan had lived up to his promise. He was giving his daughter the wedding of her dreams. And Max went along with all of it. The only thing he wanted was for Julie to be happy.

  * * *

  —

  The Big Day came after four months of engagement parties. Max commented to Steve that he felt as though he’d been out in black tie almost every night for months, and he could hardly keep up with his work. He was constantly on and off planes to get to meetings between parties, and arriving late, half dressed, ill-prepared, and hungover. He could hardly wait for the parties to end and the wedding to be over, so he could get back to his normal work routine without interruptions. But he didn’t say that to Julie. Emmanuelle thought he looked exhausted whenever she saw him. They’d been invited to many of the parties, and she was invited to all of the showers but only went to two, a kitchen shower and a lingerie shower, and she’d never been to anything like it before. She was astonished by the elaborate, expensive gifts the bride was given, and how all her friends were competing to give her the best bridal shower.

  She and Jakob had decided to give the couple their everyday china as a wedding gift. Max and Julie had chosen it at Tiffany with the rest of the items on their registry, and the Steins were stunned by the expense of the china too. She didn’t even want to think of what the Morgans were spending, and was sure it was close to a million dollars for the wedding.

  Much to Emmanuelle’s relief, the rehearsal dinner went off smoothly. She wrote all the place cards herself in her careful European handwriting, since she didn’t want to pay someone to do it. She made a long-sleeved black taffeta gown which molded her slim figure for the rehearsal dinner. She wore her long blond hair in a loose bun and looked elegant, with a pair of diamond earrings Jakob had given her for their twenty-fifth anniversary, and the big diamond ring he’d given her for their twentieth. They had no family jewelry to give Julie as a wedding present, since the Nazis had taken all of it in Vienna, but Jakob bought his daughter-in-law a very pretty, simple diamond bracelet from their former diamond cutters. The Morgans had given Max a diamond dress set from Tiffany as a wedding gift, and a platinum watch from Cartier for his birthday.

  Emmanuelle was relieved when the rehearsal dinner was over. And the next day, the Morgans sent a limousine to bring them out to Greenwich early so they could dress for the wedding, and put them in a beautiful guest suite. There were a fleet of hairdressers, makeup artists, and manicurists there for the bridesmaids and the wedding party, and they sent a hairdresser to the Steins’ room, but Emmanuelle said she preferred to do her own. She swept it up in a smooth French twist and did her own makeup. The wedding looked more like a circus to her, with the three enormous tents on the Morgans’ back lawn, for the ceremony and the reception. Later, when Emmanuelle saw the bride, Julie looked exquisite. She was wearing a white satin gown with a white mink collar and cuffs with a long lace veil that trailed fifteen feet behind her, and she knew that her son would be bowled over when he saw her.

  She and Jakob took their places on the groom’s side in the front row of chairs that had been set up, and when the music started, Mike walked his daughter down the aisle, and Max stood waiting for her at an altar entirely made of lily of the valley, which she also carried in her bouquet. The bridesmaids wore deep purple velvet gowns, trimmed in dark mink, and carried violets. All the flowers had been flown in from South America. The mother of the bride was wearing an emerald green gown by Oscar de la Renta, and Emmanuelle’s navy lace gown looked lovely and appropriate. Jakob was very proud of her. He looked like a prince in a fairytale in his tails, and Max like a young knight in shining armor waiting for his fairy princess.

  There was an unreal quality to all of it, and Vogue magazine was there to photograph the entire event. Many of the guests were well-known socialites and prominent people. Emmanuelle recognized none of them except the governor of New York and his wife, and two senators who had arrived from Washington on the front lawn by helicopter.

  Emmanuelle and Jakob watched their son say his vows to Julie with tears in his eyes, then Julie said hers, the minister declared them man and wife, and they walked jubilantly down the aisle after they kissed and everyone applauded. The band struck up, and the celebration began. It was expected to last through breakfast the next morning.

  There were speeches and toasts at the wedding dinner, and both fathers made touching tributes to the couple, and Emmanuelle cried as she listened to Jakob’s. He was so dignified and elegant, and Max remembered as he listened how embarrassed he had been as a child that both of his parents had foreign accents. He had wanted them to be like everyone else, but they were always different. He knew they loved him, but he felt suffocated by them at times and by how much they cared about him. He felt guilty just remembering it. His father’s speech was eloquent in his remaining Austrian accent tinged with slightly British English, and he wished the bridal couple a lifetime of happiness, and many children. Then the best man gave a very funny toast, and both of Julie’s sisters followed. The evening seemed to go on and on and on, and the bride’s mother was bowled over when Jakob did an elegant Viennese waltz with her. It reminded him of the ballrooms of his youth. Then he danced with Emmanuelle, and they became the most elegant couple on the floor. Max acquitted himself well too, having been taught to dance as a boy by his father, as something he might like to know one day, and it came in handy at his wedding. He and Julie were on the dance floor all night.

  It was a beautiful wedding and a perfect evening. After thanking the Morgans profusely, the Steins went back to New York in the limo that had brought them. Only the young people were staying to dance until breakfast. They had kissed and hugged Max and Julie goodbye before they left. They weren’t flying to Tahiti until the following afternoon.

  “Oh my God,” Emmanuelle said as she took off her shoes and leaned back in the limo, “that had to be the wedding of the century. Thank God we never had daughters.” But they would never have dreamed of putting on a wedding like that, nor spending that kind of money. Jakob agreed it must have cost well over a million dollars once they saw the food and the flowers. There were several caviar stations set up on ice sculptures, and a profusion of white orchids on every table. They hadn’t missed a single detail. And there were party favors at each place for every guest, a Tiffany silver frame with the date engraved and a photograph of Max and Julie. “I just hope they’ll be happy after all that.” Jakob nodded and yawned and smiled at her.

  “I loved dancing with you. We should do that more often,” he said happily.

  “We could become professional wedding guests,” she suggested and he laughed. “Can you imagine the Morgans are going to have to do that two more times for their other daughters?” The thought of it and the effort and money it took was horrifying. They were very indulged young women, with no sense of the value of money. The party favors alone had cost a fortune, not to mention everything else.

  They reached their apartment at three-thirty in the morning, and Emmanuelle was thrilled to take off her dress, take down her hair, and put on her nightgown. Jakob appeared a moment later in his pajamas, as his wife was brushing her hair and she stopped to look at him with a serious expression. “I hope they’ll be as happy as we are,” but it didn’t seem likely. There was no substance to Julie and no depth, and after knowing her for nearly a year, they had never had a serious conversation with her, and Emmanuelle suspected that Max hadn’t either. She wondered how he could be so oblivious to it. All he seemed to care about was her youth and beauty, which was all she had to offer.

  “Come over here and prove to me how happy we are,” Jakob s
aid to her as she put down her brush and went to sit on the bed beside him, and he leaned over and kissed her. And then she slid into bed beside him, and he turned off the light and put his arm around her. This was where she felt safe, with the man she loved and nothing else mattered. “I’m the luckiest man alive,” he whispered to her and she smiled in the dark.

  “I love you, Jakob,” she said peacefully.

  “I wish our son had married someone like you,” he said sadly.

  “Maybe he will one day,” she said, thinking about watching him exchange vows with Julie, “but not this time,” she said with a sigh, and she snuggled closer to her husband and drifted off to sleep in his arms.

  Chapter 12

  Max called his mother as soon as they got back from their honeymoon in Tahiti three weeks later. He wanted her and Jakob to come and see the house he had bought near Julie’s parents in Greenwich, Connecticut. They’d looked at other communities as well, but Greenwich was the one she liked best, and he wanted her to be happy. And he could live with the commute. They were estimating that the house would be ready to move into in June. They had work to do, and Julie had hired a well-known decorator to pick the furniture and fabrics. She was going to be busy with the decorator for at least the next six months, working on the house. In the meantime, they were living in what they considered cramped quarters in his bachelor apartment in the city. He was planning to keep it after they moved, so they’d have a place to stay after late nights in town. Julie’s younger sister had taken over her apartment.

  Max’s parents hadn’t seen the new house yet. He had wanted it to be a surprise initially, and to show it to them when the decorating was complete, but it was obvious now that it was going to take months to do. Julie was fully prepared to make a massive project of it. Max said they’d had a fabulous time in Tahiti, and Emmanuelle was touched to be asked to see the new home, even if it wasn’t finished yet. Max and Julie were spending Friday afternoon there with the contractor and decorator, and he suggested that his parents come out then, at the end of the day. She thought it was exceptionally nice of him to have bought a house exactly where Julie wanted to live, close to her family. It was typical of Max, who always went the extra mile to make the people he loved happy. Even though he was busy and traveled constantly, he did it with her too, and he was attentive to his father. He called them as often as he could, even if it was sometimes only for a few minutes between meetings. She thought Julie was a lucky girl to be married to him, but nothing had prepared them for the house they drove up to on Friday afternoon.