Verwandte Artikel zu Weddings: A Novel

Weddings: A Novel - Softcover

Steel, Danielle

 
9798217347612: Weddings: A Novel
Softcover
ISBN 13: 9798217347612
Verlag: Diversified Publishing, 2026

Inhaltsangabe

A heartwarming new novel from Danielle Steel, whose countless #1 New York Times bestselling novels have made her one of America’s favorite storytellers.

Die Inhaltsangabe kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Danielle Steel has been hailed as one of the world’s bestselling authors, with a billion copies of her novels sold. Her many international bestsellers include A Mind of Her Own, Far From Home, Never Say Never, Trial by Fire, Triangle, Joy, Resurrection, Only the Brave, 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; A Gift of Hope, a memoir of her work with the homeless; Expect a Miracle, a book of her favorite quotations for inspiration and comfort; Pure Joy, about the dogs she and her family have loved; and the children’s books Pretty Minnie in Paris and Pretty Minnie in Hollywood.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter 1

On a gray November day, Dominique Dupont sat looking out the window of her office on Fifty-Seventh Street, just west of Fifth Avenue, on the forty-fifth floor, with a splendid view of Manhattan. She was the founder and designer of Dupont Designs, now in its thirty-fourth year. She designed the most beautiful, most expensive wedding gowns in the bridal business. They were sold all over the world, in the finest stores, at breathtaking prices. Her bridal gowns were considered almost as fine as haute couture gowns in Paris, where she had trained. She had been scribbling sketches of bridal gowns since she was five years old. She had been obsessed with brides as a child. There was an even more rarefied echelon of her designs, called Platinum Label. Presidents’ daughters and royals had been ordering her gowns for years, with special designs created just for them by Dominique herself.

Tall, blond, and unfailingly chic, she had a good head for business as well as real talent as a designer. Her financial advisors had helped her set up licensing agreements for high-end china, crystal, and linens, luxury items relating to brides and weddings, which were extremely lucrative. And she had written several coffee table books about her most beautiful brides, her most lavish weddings, and her most exquisite table settings and flower arrangements. Dominique Dupont was synonymous with luxury and flawless taste, and the most elegant weddings.

She had just turned sixty, and didn’t like it, but she didn’t look her age. She took ballet and yoga classes, and had the same figure she’d had at thirty. She was divorced, with three adult children, Tommy, Felicity, and Violet. Originally French, she had the faintest trace of an accent, although she spoke English fluently. Her mother, Marie-Aurélie de Palme, was the only daughter of impoverished French aristocrats, and was exceptionally beautiful. At twenty-four, after a brief modeling career in Paris, Marie-Aurélie had become the acknowledged mistress of a famous French financier, Armand Dupont, and as was still a common occurrence in France, Dominique’s father had remained in an unhappy marriage and had had mistresses for years. There were those among the most staunchly elite people of French high society who did not receive Dominique’s mother, but for the most part, Marie-Aurélie and Armand were accepted as a couple, and welcomed by almost all of Paris society. Official mistresses were no longer considered scandalous. Marie-Aurélie had been a well-brought-up young woman from a respectable aristocratic family with no money. Her father was a banker and her mother didn’t work. Her parents were outraged by their daughter’s choice of lifestyle when she became Armand’s mistress. She was with him because she loved him, not for the money, or what he gave her. Her parents shunned her for the rest of their lives, although she was their only child. They refused to see her or speak to her and were ashamed of her, which was painful for her, and brought her even closer to Armand.

Marie-Aurélie was an enchanting young woman, deeply happy with the man she loved, who adored her and was a loving, kind, generous partner. He lavished affection on her and showered her with gifts. She had a lifestyle she wouldn’t have had otherwise, in a beautiful hôtel particulier he bought for her on the rue de Grenelle in the 7th arrondissement. They lived there quite openly, while Armand’s wife turned a blind eye, as she always had.

Dominique was born a year after they met, when Marie-Aurélie was twenty-five and Armand was sixty-five. They weren’t married, and he didn’t divorce for her. He had three older sons from his marriage, and Dominique was the joy of his life. He was a wonderful father, and acknowledged her legally at birth. She bore his name, and her three much older half brothers didn’t approve of her, particularly when she inherited her fair share, a quarter of their father’s fortune. They were still alive, two in their late seventies now. Dominique’s oldest brother, Tristan, was eighty-two. She hadn’t seen them since their father’s funeral forty-seven years before, when Dominique was thirteen. Two of them, Alexandre and Tristan, still lived in Paris, and the youngest, Grégoire, in Bordeaux, where he ran a famous winery he had inherited from his mother. Armand had a vast fortune and had provided for Dominique handsomely when she was born, as well as for her mother. Marie-Aurélie was set for life and treated with respect for all of her years with him, although they never married. Armand had told her right from the beginning that he would never divorce. As staunch Catholics, no one in his family had ever divorced. Marie-Aurélie was eighty-five now, and still lived in the house Armand had bought her years before, filled with beautiful paintings he had given her for special occasions, Degas, Monet, Corot. She was an important donor to the arts, and had acquired great knowledge on the subject.

Marie-Aurélie had been “unofficially” widowed at thirty-eight. She had honored Armand’s memory since then, still in love with him so many years later. Her mother was still a young woman in her forties when Dominique had become aware of a discreet man in her mother’s life, an artist, but Marie-Aurélie had never married him, and he had eventually given up and married someone else.

Dominique visited her mother in Paris when she could, and spoke to her often. She was in good health and had all her faculties at eighty-five. She led a quiet life and appeared socially once in a while, going to the opera and ballet and important museum events. Armand’s wife had died not long after he did, but Marie-Aurélie was remembered as his widow, having been seen with Armand most often in their years together. There had never been any secrecy about their relationship, or their daughter, in Paris. Most people had long since forgotten that they had never married and that she had been his mistress and not his wife. And Marie-Aurélie didn’t seem to mind.

All of Armand’s sons were respectable and important. Dominique’s middle half brother Alexandre had been prime minister. He could probably have been president if he had run, but he’d chosen not to. He had skeletons in his own closet by then, and opted for discretion rather than scandal. Dominique heard from Tristan, her oldest brother, every year at Christmas, although not from the others, who resented her equal portion of their father’s inheritance even forty-seven years later. They were still angry at her, in defense of their mother and humiliated by their father’s unabashed pride in his mistress and love child. Dominique had been aware of their unmarried state and embarrassed by it growing up.

The fortune she had inherited from her father had allowed her to set up her own business at a young age. She had gone to the best schools as a young girl, and had wanted to be a designer of bridal gowns even as a child. She went to New York from Paris to attend Parsons School of Design, and after she graduated, she went back to Paris and apprenticed for three years in the haute couture ateliers of Chanel, then returned to New York at twenty-five to put her business together. After careful research and planning, she had started the business in New York at twenty-six, without investors, financing it herself, from her inheritance. By the time she was thirty, Dupont Designs was a solid success, based on her talent, not her money. Her bridal gowns were magnificent, and the business had built steadily from there. Dominique had a quiet grace about her, wasn’t arrogant, and worked very diligently. Her...

„Über diesen Titel“ kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Verlag
Diversified Publishing
Erscheinungsdatum
2026
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 13 
9798217347612
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
321
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Harder
https://www.edel.com

Neum�hlen 17
Hamburg
Hamburg
22763
Deutschland