True, Dixon was more swaggering Texan than mannered British, but Shackelford Oil was just as much American royalty as Saybrook’s Diamonds. They’d become a couple effortlessly, and shortly thereafter a plan was put into place. Well, it was Corinne who’d instated the plan, but Dixon good-naturedly went along with it. Once they graduated from Yale, Dixon would work on the trading side of Shackelford Oil on Wall Street. Corinne would work at Saybrook’s. They would move into separate apartments in the same condo building, and then, once they were engaged at twenty-five, they would move into the three-bedroom penthouse. They would marry by twenty-six, have their first child at twenty-nine, and their second at thirty-one. And then they’d spend the next thirty years building their careers and raising the family.
Besides the blip when Dixon took off to England—and, well, the other incident Corinne tried never to think about—life had proceeded exactly to plan. Only, somehow, whenever Dixon proposed a wedding date last year, Corinne had found reasons to wait—the estate in Meriweather, where she insisted they have the wedding, was undergoing renovations last summer. Fall was her least favorite season, and spring was just too muddy and unpredictable. But no matter. In a month, they’d finally do it. Evan had made all the arrangements, with Corinne’s blessing. Every detail was in place.
Corinne stepped out of the gown. As she carefully hung it on the satin hanger, laughter sounded from outside. “Corinne, darling?” Evan called. “Come out! We’re going to have a toast!”
Corinne pulled the first reception dress from the hanger. Her reflection in the mirror caught her eye once more, and her gaze drifted to the scar below her navel. It was something she rarely looked at, the sight of it still surprising after all these years.
Slowly, carefully, her fingers traced the puckered skin. She’d told Dixon—she’d told everyone—that it was from emergency gallbladder surgery when she’d worked in Hong Kong five years ago. It was amazing what people believed. No one even suggested that the scar might be too low for that procedure. Not even Corinne’s mother guessed it was from something else. Only Poppy knew the truth.
Stop thinking about it, a voice in her head demanded. Stop it right now.
Corinne pulled on the reception dress, slipped on her satin kitten heels, and opened the dressing room door. Smile, she told herself sternly as she strode back to her family, remembering all she had to be thankful for. She would twirl in her reception dresses and let everyone ooh and ahh. Thank everyone for coming. Get married. Don’t look back.
She picked up a clean champagne flute. “To happily ever after!” Corinne toasted. She was marrying Prince Charming; her entire future was ahead of her.
So long as her past didn’t catch up.
2
Later that night, Aster Saybrook settled on a pouf inside a large Bedouin-style tent as a waiter peeked through the flap. He wore a batik-print sarong and had a fez cocked to one side on his head. “Can I get you anything, miss?” he asked, looking to Aster as the clear leader of the group.
“Another bottle of Veuve for each of us.” Aster waved to indicate the rest of the table, her Hermès bangles gleaming in the dim light. “And by the way,” she added as the waiter started to retreat, “we have a bet going. Are you wearing anything under that sarong?”
The waiter looked taken aback, then straightened and mischievously shook his head. Aster’s side of the table erupted in cheers. “Looks like this round’s on you,” Aster said, nudging Clarissa Darrow, the tall brunette who sat to her left. Clarissa grinned and shrugged good-naturedly.
As the table erupted in conversation, Aster sat back and twirled the stem of her champagne glass, glancing around at her best friends. Well, “best friends” might be a slight embellishment; some of them, Aster had only met tonight. But Aster collected people the way other girls collected shoes or handbags or cocktail rings—though Aster collected all those things as well. Across from her sat Javier, an artist whose most recent show involved coat hangers, fluorescent lightbulbs, and pictures of Hollywood starlets cut out of Us Weekly. There was Orlean, a tall, sinewy writer for Rolling Stone whom Aster had met in Europe. He was Aster’s shopping buddy these days, though Aster suspected he liked her company primarily because stores gave her special treatment. There was Faun, a friend from Tangiers who’d dragged Aster through building after building on her Manhattan real estate quest, always complaining that the closets weren’t big enough. There was Nigel, Aster’s latest fling, the drummer and head songwriter of the British band Lotus Blackbeard. She’d picked him up last week at Gray Lady, and he’d spent every night at her apartment since. His long, thin fingers drummed on the table, probably composing a brilliant new song.
And then there was Clarissa, Aster’s rail-thin best friend and maybe frenemy, daughter of a hedge fund billionaire. Aster had met Clarissa at Spence in second grade, yet Clarissa still spoke with an affected British accent. She was always up for getting in trouble—or making trouble. Aster suspected that some of the blind items on Page Six about her were tips from Clarissa.