Page 55 of Beachfront Pages

Worth a fortune. Right. She thought about poor Hank.

"When did it break, exactly?"

"Monday. Why?"

"No reason." She kept scrolling. "I just hadn't seen any of it."

"Because you live in a little cottage by the sea now." Rachel's smile came through in her voice. "I don't need anything from you today. I only didn't want you hearing it from a stranger. Read the nice articles. Let yourself enjoy it for a whole five minutes."

"I'll try."

"You won't, but I appreciate the lie." A pause, a careful one again. "You sound okay, though. Better than the last few times. You sound like you, a little."

Fiona almost laughed. If only she knew who she really was these days.

"Okay, I'll check in again soon. And maybe you'll even pick up."

The line went quiet.

Fiona set the phone down and stared at the laptop screen full of her own success. She should have felt something. Pride. Relief. Those would be proper emotions.

One thought kept rolling around in her mind though.

Monday. "It broke Monday," she said aloud, to nobody, turning the word over like a stone she'd picked up off the beach.

She told herself it didn't matter what day a press release went out. She told herself to read the nice articles and let it be good. She got a paragraph in.

Then the phone buzzed against the desk.

A text. A number she hadn't seen in ages, attached to a name she'd half forgotten she still had saved. Jennifer Bowers. Jennifer—never Jenny or Jenn—who'd hosted the most elaborate dinner parties. Jennifer, whose husband golfed with Drake. Jennifer, who'd gone quiet the way all of them had gone quiet when the marriage came apart. Who'd picked a side without ever admitting she was picking one. A couples-friend. One of the ones who'd stayed with him.

Fiona!! Just saw the news. Congratulations doesn't even cover it. So so happy.

A second bubble landed a moment later, the way the real message always did.

Also, had NO idea about the whole F. L. Maxwell thing?? How did that stay a secret all these years?? Always figured it was articles. Corporate stuff. Maybe a little romance or whatever. I am floored.

Fiona read it twice. "Articles," she said to the empty room. "They thought I wrote articles. Or a little romance."

That was what they'd been, all those years. All those dinners, all those rooms where she'd smiled and topped up wineglasses while Drake held the table. They'd thought she did something small and beige in an office. The wife who wrote a little something that didn't matter.

And now here was Jennifer, who hadn't sent a single word in half a year, surfacing inside a day of the headlines to say congratulations didn't even cover it.

Fiona went very still.

A knock came at the door.

She crossed and opened it, half braced for the pressed blue shirt. But it was Winnie on the step, silver-white hair catching the morning light, a small basket in her hands.

"I made too much," Winnie said, which was what she always said. "Banana bread. You'd be doing me a favor."

"You don't have to keep feeding me."

"I know I don't." Winnie held the basket out until Fiona took it. She didn't ask to come in. She only looked at Fiona's face. "You've had a morning."

"I've had a morning."

"That fellow in the pressed shirt. Still in town?"