Impossible Read online

  Life is an art form.

  Two hopelessly mismatched people—

  Is it possible that this is love?

  Impossible … or not?

  IMPOSSIBLE

  PRAISE FOR

  DANIELLE STEEL

  “Steel pulls out all the emotional stops … She delivers.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Steel is one of the best!”

  —Los Angeles Times

  “The world's most popular author tells a good, well-paced story and explores some important issues … Steel affirm[s] life while admitting its turbulence, melodramas, and misfiring passions.”

  —Booklist

  “Danielle Steel writes boldly and with practiced vividness about tragedy—both national and personal … with insight and power.”

  —Nashville Banner

  “There is a smooth reading style to her writings which makes it easy to forget the time and to keep flipping the pages.”

  —Pittsburgh Press

  “One of the things that keeps Danielle Steel fresh is her bent for timely storylines … the combination of Steel's comprehensive research and her skill at creating credible characters makes for a gripping read.”

  —Newark Star-Ledger

  “What counts for the reader is the ring of authenticity.”

  —San Francisco Chronicle

  “Steel knows how to wring the emotion out of the briefest scene.”

  —People

  “Ms. Steel excels at pacing her narrative, which races forward, mirroring the frenetic lives chronicled; men and women swept up in bewildering change, seeking solutions to problems never before faced.”

  —Nashville Banner

  “Danielle Steel has again uplifted her readers while skillfully communicating some of life's bittersweet verities. Who could ask for a finer gift than that?”

  —Philadelphia Inquirer

  PRAISE FOR THE RECENT NOVELS OF

  DANIELLE STEEL

  IMPOSSIBLE

  “Dramatic, suspenseful … Steel knows what her fans want and this solid, meaty tale will not disappoint them.”

  —Booklist

  MIRACLE

  “Steel is almost as much a part of the beach as sunscreen and jellyfish.”

  —New York Post

  “Another Steel page-turner. Three strangers' lives become linked after a terrible storm ravages northern California.”

  —Lowell Sun

  ECHOES

  “Courage of conviction, strength of character and love of family that transcends loss are the traits that echo through three generations of women …a moving story that is Steel at her finest.”

  —Chattanooga Times Free Press

  “Get out your hankies … Steel put her all into this one.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “A compelling tale of love and loss.”

  —Booklist

  SECOND CHANCE

  “Vintage Steel”

  —St. Paul Pioneer Press

  “Gazillions of readers around the globe worship Steel's books.”

  —New York Post

  RANSOM

  “This suspense novel has automatic appeal for Steel fans.”

  —Booklist

  “A surefire best seller.”

  —New York Daily News

  A MAIN SELECTION OF

  THE LITERARY GUILD

  AND THE DOUBLEDAY BOOK CLUB

  Also by Danielle Steel

  TOXIC BACHELORS ACCIDENT

  MIRACLE VANISHED

  ECHOES MIXED BLESSINGS

  SECOND CHANCE JEWELS

  RANSOM NO GREATER LOVE

  SAFE HARBOUR HEARTBEAT

  JOHNNY ANGEL MESSAGE FROM NAM

  DATING GAME DADDY

  ANSWERED PRAYERS STAR

  SUNSET IN ST. TROPEZ ZOYA

  THE COTTAGE KALEIDOSCOPE

  THE KISS FINE THINGS

  LEAP OF FAITH WANDERLUST

  LONE EAGLE SECRETS

  JOURNEY FAMILY ALBUM

  THE HOUSE ON HOPE STREET FULL CIRCLE

  THE WEDDING CHANGES

  IRRESISTIBLE FORCES THURSTON HOUSE

  GRANNY DAN CROSSINGS

  BITTERSWEET ONCE IN A LIFETIME

  MIRROR IMAGE A PERFECT STRANGER

  HIS BRIGHT LIGHT: REMEMBRANCE

  THE STORY OF NICK TRAINA PALOMINO

  THE KLONE AND I LOVE: POEMS

  THE LONG ROAD HOME THE RING

  THE GHOST LOVING

  SPECIAL DELIVERY TO LOVE AGAIN

  THE RANCH SUMMER'S END

  SILENT HONOR SEASON OF PASSION

  MALICE THE PROMISE

  FIVE DAYS IN PARIS NOW AND FOREVER

  LIGHTNING PASSION'S PROMISE

  WINGS GOING HOME

  THE GIFT a cognizant original v5 release october 14 2010

  To my exceptionally wonderful, loving

  children, Beatrix, Trevor, Todd, Nick,

  Samantha, Victoria, Vanessa, Maxx & Zara,

  who not only make my life possible, but

  joyful, happy, and loving in every way.

  How blessed and fortunate I am to have

  you, with all your laughter, love and

  tender moments that we share so

  abundantly. I celebrate you, I thank you, I

  appreciate you more than I can ever say.

  May you be as blessed as I am, with

  children like you one day.

  with all my love,

  Mom

  What does that mean—“tame”?

  It is an act too often neglected …

  It means to establish ties.

  To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you on your part have no need of me …

  But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world …

  If you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow … Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! …

  Please—tame me!

  One only understands the things that one tames … there is no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship … If you want a friend, tame me …

  What must I do to tame you?

  You must be very patient … first you will sit down at a little distance from me—like that—in the grass. I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings. But you will sit a little closer to me every day …

  As yet you are nothing. No one has tamed you, and you have tamed no one … But I have made him my friend, and now he is unique in all the world.

  —Antoine de Saint-Exupéry,

  The Little Prince

  Chapter 1

  The Suvery Gallery in Paris was housed in an impressive building, an elegant eighteenth-century hôtel particulier on the Faubourg St. Honoré. Collectors came there by appointment, through the enormous bronze doors into the courtyard. Straight ahead was the main gallery, to the left the offices of Simon de Suvery, the owner. And to the right was his daughter's addition to the gallery, the contemporary wing. Behind the house was a large elegant garden filled with sculptures, mainly Rodins. Simon de Suvery had been there for more than forty years. His father, Antoine, had been one of the most important collectors in Europe, and Simon had been a scholar of Renaissance paintings and Dutch masters before opening the gallery. Now he was consulted by museums all over Europe, held in awe by private collectors, and admired although often feared by all who knew him.

 
; Simon de Suvery was a daunting figure, tall, powerfully built, with stern features and dark eyes that pierced through you right to your soul. Simon had been in no hurry to get married. In his youth, he was too busy establishing his business to waste time on romance. At forty he had married the daughter of an important American collector. It had been a successful and happy union. Marjorie de Suvery had never involved herself directly in the gallery, which was well established before Simon married her. She was fascinated by it, and admired the work he showed. She loved him profoundly and had taken a passionate interest in everything he did. Marjorie had been an artist but never felt comfortable showing her work. She did genteel landscapes and portraits, and often gave them as gifts to friends. In truth, Simon had been affected but never impressed by her work. He was ruthless in his choices, merciless in his decisions for the gallery. He had a will of iron, a mind as sharp as a diamond, a keen business sense, and buried far, far beneath the surface, well concealed at all times, was a kind heart. Or so Marjorie said. Though not everyone believed her. He was fair to his employees, honest with his clients, and relentless in his pursuit of whatever he felt the gallery should have. Sometimes it took him years to acquire a particular painting or sculpture, but he never rested until it was his. He had pursued his wife, before their marriage, in much the same way. And once he had her, he kept her as a treasure—mostly to himself. He only socialized when he felt he had to, entertaining clients in one wing of the house.

  They decided to have children late in their marriage. In fact it was Simon's decision, and they waited ten years to have a child. Knowing how Marjorie longed for children, Simon had finally acceded to her wishes, and was only mildly disappointed when Marjorie gave birth to a daughter and not a son. Simon was fifty when Sasha was born, and Marjorie thirty-nine. Sasha instantly became the love of her mother's life. They were constantly together. Marjorie spent hours with her, chortling and cooing, playing with her in the garden. She nearly went into mourning when Sasha began school, and they had to be apart. She was a beautiful and loving child. Sasha was an interesting blend of her parents. She had her father's dark looks and her mother's ethereal softness. Marjorie was an angelic-looking blonde with blue eyes, and looked like a madonna in an Italian painting. Sasha had delicate features like her mother, dark hair and eyes like her father, but unlike both her parents, Sasha was fragile and small. Her father used to tease her benevolently and say that she looked like a miniature of a child. But there was nothing small about Sasha's soul. She had the strength and iron will of her father, the warmth and gentle kindness of her mother, and the directness she learned early on from her father. She was four or five before he took serious notice of her, and once he did, all he spoke to her about was art. In his spare time, he would wander through the gallery with her, identifying paintings and masters, showing her their work in art books, and he expected her to repeat their names and even spell them, once she was old enough to write. Rather than rebelling, she drank it all in, and retained every shred of information her father imparted. He was very proud of her. And ever more in love with his wife, who became ill three years after Sasha was born.

  Marjorie's illness was a mystery at first, and had all their doctors stumped. Simon secretly believed it was psychosomatic. He had no patience with illness or weakness, and thought that anything physical could be mastered and overcome. But rather than overcome it, Marjorie became weaker with time. It was a full year before they got a diagnosis in London, and a confirmation in New York. She had a rare degenerative disease that was attacking her nerves and muscles, and ultimately would cripple her lungs and heart. Simon chose not to accept the prognosis, and Marjorie was valiant about it, complaining little, doing whatever she could for as long as she was able, spending as much time as she had the strength for with her husband and daughter, and resting as much as possible in between. The disease never snuffed out her spirit, but eventually, as predicted, her body succumbed. She was bedridden by the time Sasha was seven, and died shortly after she turned nine. Despite all the doctors had told him, Simon was stunned. And so was Sasha. Neither of her parents had prepared Sasha for her mother's death. Sasha and Simon had both grown accustomed to Marjorie being interested in all they did, and participating in their lives, even while in bed. The sudden realization that she had disappeared from their world hit them both like a bomb, and fused Sasha and her father closer together than they had ever been. Other than the gallery, Sasha then became the focus of Simon's life.

  Sasha grew up eating, drinking, sleeping, loving art. It was all she knew, all she did, and all she loved, other than her father. She was as devoted to him as he was to her. Even as a child, she knew as much about the gallery, and its complicated and intriguing workings, as any of his employees. And sometimes he thought, even as a young girl, she was smarter about it, and far more creative than anyone he employed. The only thing that annoyed him, and he made no bones about it, was her ever increasing passion for modern and contemporary art. Contemporary work irritated him particularly, and he never hesitated to call it junk, privately or otherwise. He loved and respected the Great Masters, and nothing else.

  As her father had before her, Sasha attended the Sorbonne, and got a “license,” a master's degree, in the history of art. And as she had promised her mother she would, she earned her PhD at Columbia in New York. Then she spent two years working as an intern at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which rounded out her education. During that time, she returned frequently to Paris, sometimes just for a weekend, and Simon visited her as often as possible in New York. It gave him an excuse to visit his clients, as well as museums and collectors in the States. All he really wanted to do was see Sasha, and he used any excuse to do so. What he wanted more than anything else was for Sasha to come home. He was irritable and impatient during her years in New York.

  The one thing Simon had never expected was the appearance of Arthur Boardman in Sasha's life. She met him the first week of her doctoral studies at Columbia. She was twenty-two at the time, and married him, despite her father's grumbling protests, within six months. At first, Simon was horrified at her marrying so young, and the only thing that mollified him, and made him consent to the marriage, was that Arthur assured his father-in-law that when Sasha was finished with her studies and apprenticeship in New York, he would move to Paris with her and live there. Simon nearly made him sign it in blood. But even he couldn't resist seeing Sasha as happy as she was. Simon finally conceded that Arthur Boardman was a good man, and the right one for her.

  Arthur was thirty-two, ten years older than Sasha. He had gone to Princeton, and had an MBA from Harvard. He had a respectable position in a Wall Street investment bank, which conveniently had a Paris office. Early on in their marriage, he began lobbying to run it. Within a year, their son Xavier was born. Two years later, Tatianna arrived. In spite of that, Sasha never missed a beat with her studies. Miraculously, both her babies managed to arrive in the summer, right after she finished her classes. She hired a nanny to help her with them while she was in school and working at the museum. She had learned how to keep many balls in the air, while watching her father run the gallery when she was a child. She loved her busy life, and adored Arthur and her two children. And although Simon was a somewhat hesitant grandfather at first, he warmed to it quickly. They were enchanting children.

  Sasha spent every spare moment with them she could, singing the same songs and playing the same nursery games her mother had played with her. In fact, Tatianna looked so much like her maternal grandmother that it unnerved Simon at first, but as Tatianna grew older, he loved just sitting and watching her, and thinking of his late wife. It was like seeing her reborn as a little girl.

  True to his word, Arthur moved the entire family to Paris when Sasha finished her two-year internship at the Met in New York. The investment bank was literally giving him the Paris office to run, at thirty-six, and had full confidence in him, as did Sasha. She was going to be even busier there than she had been in New York, where s
he'd been working only part time at the museum, and spent the rest of her time caring for her children. In Paris, she was going to work at the gallery with her father. She was ready for it now. He had agreed to let her leave by three o'clock every day, so she could be with her children. And she knew she would have a lot of entertaining to do for her husband. She returned to Paris, victorious, educated, excited, and undaunted, and thrilled to be home again. And so was Simon to have her home, and working with him at last. He had waited twenty-six years for that moment, and it had finally come, much to their mutual delight.

  He still appeared as stern as he had when she was a child, but even Arthur noticed, once they moved to Paris, that Simon was softening almost imperceptibly with age. He even chatted with his grandchildren from time to time, although most of the time, when he visited, he preferred to just sit and observe them. He had never felt at ease with young children, not even Sasha when she was small. By the time they moved back to Paris, he was seventy-six years old. And Sasha's life began in earnest from that moment.

  Their first decision was where to live, and Simon stunned them by solving their dilemma for them. Sasha had been planning to look for an apartment on the Left Bank. Their small family was already too large for the apartment the bank owned in the sixteenth arrondissement. Simon volunteered to move out of his wing of the house, the elegant three-floor domain he had occupied for his entire marriage, and the years before and after. He insisted it was far too big for him, and claimed the stairs were hard on his knees, although Sasha didn't quite believe him. Her father still walked for miles. He volunteered to move to the other side of the courtyard, on the top floor of the wing they used for additional offices and storage. He quickly set to work remodeling it with charming oeil de boeuf windows under a mansard roof, and put in a funny little motorized seat, which sped up and down the stairs, and delighted his grandchildren, when he let them ride it. He walked up the stairs beside them while they squealed with excitement. Sasha helped him with the decorating and remodeling, which instantly gave her an idea. Not one he liked at first. It was a plan she'd had for years, and had dreamed of all her life. She wanted to expand the gallery to include contemporary artists. The wing that had previously been used for storage was perfect for her plan. It was across the courtyard from their offices and her father's new home. Admittedly, opening the ground floor would cramp their storage space, but she had already consulted an architect to build highly efficient storage racks upstairs. At her first mention of selling contemporary work, Simon went through the roof. He was not going to corrupt the gallery, and its venerable name, selling the garbage that Sasha liked, by unknown artists he insisted had no talent. It took her almost a year of bitter arguments to convince him.