Danielle Steel - Zoya

“Wouldn't you mind taking them on our honeymoon?” She was amazed at how kind he was, how willing to accept her children as his own, and it touched her deeply.

“Of course not. Would you like that?”

“I'd love it.”

“Done,” he said, and kissed her, before going to look at a calendar. “How about July twelfth for our wedding?” He beamed at her as she put an arm around his waist. She hadn't been this happy in a long, long time. And it had actually become difficult, waiting to marry him. All she wanted now was to be his, for a lifetime.

“What will your mother say?”

He thought about it and then smiled. “We'll have her talk to Sasha. They were made for each other.” Zoya laughed then as he kissed her.

CHAPTER

41

On the twelfth of July, 1936, Simon Ishmael Hirsch and Zoya Alexandra Evgenia Ossupov Andrews were married by a judge in the garden of Axelle's pretty little brownstone on East Forty-ninth Street.

The bride wore a cream-colored Norell suit, and a tiny hat with a whisper of ivory veil, as she looked up into her husband's eyes and smiled, as he kissed her. His mother had opted not to come, just to let them know that she did not approve of Zoya's not being Jewish. But his father was there, and two of the girls from the shop. There were a handful of their friends, and of course both of Zoya's children. Nicholas was their best man, and Sasha stood beside them looking sullen. Zoya could have had a more elaborate wedding if she'd wanted to, and her more important clients, like Barbara Hutton and Doris Duke, would have loved to come, but although Zoya knew them well, she wasn't close to them. They were part of another life, and she wanted her wedding to be very small and private.

Axelle's butler poured the champagne, and at four o'clock, Simon drove them home in the Cadillac to Zoya's apartment. They had decided to stay there, until after their honeymoon, when they were going to look for a larger place. But they were going to spend three weeks in Sun Valley first. It had just opened that year, and they took the train to Idaho from Pennsylvania Station. Simon brought games for the children, and even Sasha was excited by the time they reached Chicago. They stayed at the Blackstone overnight, and continued on the next day, and all of them were in high spirits when they reached Ketchum, Simon and Zoya even more so after a night of unbridled passion. The physical relationship they shared was something neither of them had ever known before, and it brought them even closer together.

It was only three months since they'd met, but she felt as though she'd known Simon for a lifetime. He taught Nicholas how to fish, and they went swimming every day. And they returned brown and healthy and happy at the end of the month, to Zoya's apartment. And it was then that the reality of it really struck Zoya. She sat watching Simon shave on their first day back, and she felt a wave of happiness wash over her as she watched him lather his face, and she suddenly laughed, as she touched the smooth flesh she loved so much and kissed him.

“Something funny?” He turned to her with a smile and she shook her head.

“No, it just seems so real suddenly, doesn't it?”

“It sure does.” He leaned over and kissed her and got soap all over her as she laughed, and he kissed her again, and a moment later, she locked the bedroom door, and they made love again before they both left for work. She had promised Axelle she would stay at the shop until the end of September. And the days seemed to fly by. Three weeks after their return, they found an apartment they loved on Park Avenue and Sixty-eighth Street. It had large, airy rooms, and their bedroom was at the opposite end from the two children's. Nicholas had a big, pleasant room, and Sasha insisted that her room be painted purple.

“I had a purple room when I was a little girl too … when I was about your age.” She told her then about Alix's lovely mauve boudoir. It brought back tender memories as she described it and Sasha listened in rapt fascination.

There was a photograph of Clayton in Nicholas's room, and beside it he placed a handsome picture of Simon. The two men of the family went for long walks in the late afternoon when Simon came home from work, and the week after they moved in , he brought them a little cocker spaniel.

“Look, Mama!” Nicholas said excitedly, “He looks just like Sava!” She was surprised that he still remembered her, and Sasha sulked for a day because it wasn't a Russian wolfhound. They were still all the rage, though not quite as much as they had been in the late twenties. But the dog was very sweet and they named him Jamie. Their life seemed idyllic as they settled into the new apartment. There was even a guest room next to the library, and Simon teased her that it was for their first baby. But Zoya shook her head and laughed.

“I had my babies a long time ago, Simon. I'm too old for that now.” At thirty-seven, she was long past wanting to have more children. “I'll be a grandmother one of these days,” she laughed, and he shook his head.

“Will you be wanting a cane too, Granny?” He put an arm around her shoulders as they sat in their bedroom and talked late into the night, the way she had with Clayton years before. But life was very different with Simon. They shared common interests, common friends, they were grown people who had come together in strength and not weakness. She had been barely more than a child when Clayton had saved her from the horrors of her life in Paris in 1919 and brought her to New York. This was all so very different, Zoya thought to herself as she went to work, enjoying her last days at Axelle's, and she looked at her friend mournfully on the last day.

“What am I going to do now?” She sat sadly at her Louis XV desk and looked over a last cup of tea at Axelle. “What will I do with myself every day?”

The older woman laughed. “Why don't you go home and have a baby?”

Zoya shook her head, wishing she could stay, but Simon wanted her to have the freedom she hadn't had in years. She had been working for seven years and there was no need for her to now. She could enjoy her children, her husband, their home, and indulge herself, but Zoya thought it all sounded very dull without the shop to come to every day. “You sound like my husband.”

“He's right.”

“I'll be so bored without work.”

“I doubt that very much, my dear.” But there were tears in Axelle's eyes when Simon picked Zoya up that afternoon, and the two women embraced. Zoya promised to drop by the next day and take her to lunch.

Simon laughed and warned the woman who had championed their romance from the first. “You're going to have to lock the doors to keep her out of here. I keep telling her there's a whole world out there for her to discover.” But by October she found that she had more free time on her hands than she knew what to do with. She visited Axelle almost every day, went to museums, picked Sasha up at school. She even dropped in on Simon at his office frequently, and listened avidly to his plans for his business. He had decided to add a line of children's coats, and he was anxious for her advice, which she gave him. Her unfailing sense of style helped him make interesting choices that otherwise he wouldn't have thought of.

“Simon, I miss it all so much,” she confessed in December, as they took a taxi home from the theater. He had taken her to the opening of You Can't Take It With You with Frank Conlan and Josephine Hull at the Booth Theater. It had been an enjoyable evening, but she was restless and bored. She had discovered that she had worked for too many years to give it up and sit home and do nothing. “What if I go back to Axelle's for a little while?”