“Obviously.”
Lola turned her page and said, “Isn’t that all love is, anyway?”
8
Tyler
Katie showed up at my door at six a.m. on Monday, absolutely frazzled and wearing the shortest, most periwinkle skirt I’d ever seen. There was also, for some reason, glitter in her hair.
“Katie?” I rubbed my eyes and closed the door behind me. It was four hours before we were supposed to meet at the café, and my roommates were still sleeping. Which was a miracle, considering the amount of banging and buzzing Katie had just completed. “What’s wrong? Why are—”
“I called you ten thousand times! Why didn’t you pick up!?”
“Uh, I’ve been trying to sleep? My ringer’s off, I—”
“Whatever! I don’t care. We have to go! Let’s go!”
“What? Go where?”
She spun around—the skirt, I decided, could stay—and flung an arm toward Fifty-Second Street. Beyond my rusting garden gate, a shiny black SUV idled at the curb, hazards on.
“To Meredith’s! Selma called me, frantic, and said everything was fine, but that she was sending her driver for us, and I’ve never even spoken to her—to Meredith, that is, and...”
Katie had stopped stammering and, instead, was looking me up and down. Perhaps for a blink longer than was necessary. I realized, in that moment, I was wearing a pair of boxer briefs and nothing else.
“Go, um... go put some clothes on, please. Preferably something not black.”
I glared at her, then proceeded to brush my teeth, throw on a pair of jeans, and—two minutes later—stumble out the door, laptop tucked under my arm. Katie rolled her eyes at my charcoal T-shirt and pointed me into the back seat of the car. There were two steaming coffees in the cupholder. One, already stained by the strawberry shimmer of whatever Katie had smeared across her lips.
“Maurice got them for us,” she said, tipping her head toward the silent, straight-faced driver. “It’s going to be a few hours.”
“We’re going all the way to...?”
“Southampton.” She shoved a note into my hands. Thick ivory cardstock, rich navy ink.
I’d like to talk. Maurice will bring the both of you. Come hungry.
Yours,
M.B.
I read it twice and then, through a gulp, said, “Is that why you’re dressed like a piece of saltwater taffy?”
Katie buckled her seat belt, then reached for her coffee. Her knees were bouncing, and her face was flushed, but she managed to look right at me and say, “No, Tyler. This, I wore for you.”
It is a truth universally acknowledged—yes, I’ve readPride and Prejudice; it was fine—that Meredith Bradford didn’t write her own books and likely hadn’t in nearly two decades. And while I’d spent the first twenty-seven years of my life blissfully unaware ofany details about the so-called Stephen King of romance, I, in the past ten days, had done quite a bit of research about my new boss.
Here was what I knew so far: Meredith Bradford was born into a very rich family in a very rich place called the Hamptons. She was fifty-two, had written (or “written”) almost eighty books, and was—for lack of a better term—a full-blown recluse. Her husband, an art dealer, divorced her nearly twenty years ago when their only child, a daughter, was four. He received full custody of the little girl and raised her in Paris and Montecito, as one does. Meredith, for over two decades, had done no press, no interviews, no signings. All correspondence was handled through her Los Angeles–based public relations team, and according to the state of New York, she’d never so much as registered to vote. Everything she published turned to absolute gold.
And here, tucked away on the tip of Southampton, where the trees arched together like magic and the sun stretched on forever, was Meredith Bradford’s fortress. According to property records and several now-defunct celebrity real estate blogs, the Bradford family’s Fowler Street estate was a classic Hamptons-style manse on the most secluded beachfront lot on the sleepiest, southernmost edge of the village. Accessible only by private drive, the home was a reported twelve-thousand square feet and surrounded by sycamores so thick and privet so tall no beachcomber could ever sneak a peek at its grounds. The property, which featured direct access to both the Atlantic Ocean and Jule Pond, was all Meredith had asked to retain in her divorce.
“Oh my god,” Katie said, her nose pushed against the window’s glass as we traveled deeper and deeper down the unmarked lane—all sprawling ponds and haylike grass and hedges and fences andsun-dappled shimmer—until the crackling gravel road came to a gentle end. A crisp white gate swung open. “This is unbelievable.”
Katie, for once, was right. Meredith’s home was two massive stories of nearly symmetrical brown shingles, glossy white shutters, periwinkle hydrangeas, and sky-high pitch pines. To the right, a hedge-lined tennis court. To the left, a glass-and-iron greenhouse. And at the French front doors—easily twice my height and that same shade of blindingly bright white—was a blond woman in linen trousers and a matching top, a fat white cat in one hand and a glass of wine in the other.
Maurice unlocked the car. We climbed out of the back seat, jaws open. Meredith walked toward us, smiling.
“Hi, you two. Thank you so much for coming out.” She waved Maurice off and then studied us, head to toe. “You must be Tyler. And you, Katie. My Katie—you’re such a natural. I cannot thank you enough. Selma told me she knew you had it in you the minute she met you. Come on, brunch is waiting. Let’s eat.”
