Zusatztext Praise for Danielle Steel Steel is one of the best! Los Angeles Times Few modern writers convey the pathos of family and material life with such heartfelt empathy. The Philadelphia Inquirer Steel pulls out all the emotional stops. . . . She delivers! Publishers Weekly What counts for the reader is the ring of authenticity. San Francisco Chronicle Informationen zum Autor Danielle Steel has been hailed as one of the world's most popular authors, with over 650 million copies of her novels sold. Her many international bestsellers include Fall from Grace, Past Perfect, Fairytale, The Right Time, The Duchess, Against All Odds, Dangerous Games, 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; 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 . Klappentext #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Smart, likable Bernie Fine was the wonder boy of Wolff's, New York's most glamorous department store. A senior VP on the way up, he arrives in San Francisco to open a West Coast store. His career is skyrocketing, but his life lacks a center. When he looks into the wide, innocent eyes of five-year-old Jane O'Reilly, and then into the equally enchanting eyes of her mother, Liz, Bernie knows he has found what he has been looking for. Bernie thought he had found love to last a lifetime, but when Liz is stricken with cancer, time becomes painfully short. Alone with two children, Bernie must face the loss and learn that life has other fine things to offer. Leseprobe Chapter One It was almost impossible to get to Lexington and Sixty-third Street. The wind was howling, and the snow drifts had devoured all but the largest cars. The buses had given up somewhere around Twenty-third Street, where they sat huddled like frozen dinosaurs, as one left the flock only very rarely to venture uptown, lumbering down the paths the snowplows left, to pick up a few brave travelers who would rush from doorways frantically waving their arms, sliding wildly to the curb, hurling themselves over the packed snowbanks, to mount the buses with damp eyes and red faces, and in Bernie's case, icicles on his beard. It had been absolutely impossible to get a taxi. He had given up after fifteen minutes of waiting and started walking south from Seventy-ninth Street. He often walked to work. It was only eighteen blocks from door to door. But today as he walked from Madison to Park and then turned right on Lexington Avenue, he realized that the biting wind was brutal, and he had only gone four more blocks when he gave up. A friendly doorman allowed him to wait in the lobby, as only a few determined souls waited for a bus that had taken hours to come north on Madison Avenue, turned around, and was now heading south on Lexington to carry them to work. The other, more sensible souls had given up when they caught their first glimpse of the blizzard that morning, and had decided not to go to work at all. Bernie was sure the store would be half empty. But he wasn't the type to sit at home twiddling his thumbs or watching the soaps. And it wasn't that he went to work because he was so compulsive. The truth was that Bernie went to work six days a week, and often when he didn't have to, like today, because he loved the store. He ate, slept, dreamed, and breathed everything that happened from the first to eighth floor of Wolff's. And this year was particularly important. They were introducing seven new lines, four of them by major European designers, and the who...

Praise for Danielle Steel

“Steel is one of the best!”—Los Angeles Times

“Few modern writers convey the pathos of family and material life with such heartfelt empathy.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer

“Steel pulls out all the emotional stops. . . . She delivers!”—Publishers Weekly

“What counts for the reader is the ring of authenticity.”—San Francisco Chronicle

Autorentext

Danielle Steel has been hailed as one of the world’s most popular authors, with over 650 million copies of her novels sold. Her many international bestsellers include Fall from Grace, Past Perfect, Fairytale, The Right Time, The Duchess, Against All Odds, Dangerous Games, 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; 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.

Klappentext

**#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
**
Smart, likable Bernie Fine was the wonder boy of Wolff’s, New York’s most glamorous department store. A senior VP on the way up, he arrives in San Francisco to open a West Coast store. His career is skyrocketing, but his life lacks a center. When he looks into the wide, innocent eyes of five-year-old Jane O’Reilly, and then into the equally enchanting eyes of her mother, Liz, Bernie knows he has found what he has been looking for.

Bernie thought he had found love to last a lifetime, but when Liz is stricken with cancer, time becomes painfully short. Alone with two children, Bernie must face the loss and learn that life has other fine things to offer.

Leseprobe
*Chapter One
*

It was almost impossible to get to Lexington and Sixty-third Street. The wind was howling, and the snow drifts had devoured all but the largest cars. The buses had given up somewhere around Twenty-third Street, where they sat huddled like frozen dinosaurs, as one left the flock only very rarely to venture uptown, lumbering down the paths the snowplows left, to pick up a few brave travelers who would rush from doorways frantically waving their arms, sliding wildly to the curb, hurling themselves over the packed snowbanks, to mount the buses with damp eyes and red faces, and in Bernie's case, icicles on his beard.

It had been absolutely impossible to get a taxi. He had given up after fifteen minutes of waiting and started walking south from Seventy-ninth Street. He often walked to work. It was only eighteen blocks from door to door. But today as he walked from Madison to Park and then turned right on Lexington Avenue, he realized that the biting wind was brutal, and he had only gone four more blocks when he gave up. A friendly doorman allowed him to wait in the lobby, as only a few determined souls waited for a bus that had taken hours to come north on Madison Avenue, turned around, and was now heading south on Lexington to carry them to work. The other, more sensible souls had given up when they caught their first glimpse of the blizzard that morning, and had decided not to go to work at all. Bernie was sure the store would be half empty. But he wasn't the type to sit at home twiddling his thumbs or watching the soaps.

And it wasn't that he went to work because he was so compulsive. The truth was that Bernie went to work six days a week, and often when he didn't have to, like today, because he loved the store. He ate, slept, dreamed, and breathed everything that happened from the first to eighth floor of Wolff's. And this year was particularly important. They were introducing seven new lines, four of them by major European designers, and the whole look of American fashion was going to change in men's and women's ready-to-wear markets. He thought about it as he stared into the snowdrifts they passed as they lumbered downtown, but he was no longer seeing the snow, or the stumbling people lurching toward the bus, or even what they wore. In his mind's eye he was seeing the new spring collections just as he had seen them in Novemb…