I shrugged. “Olivia’s actually really great. I’m going to give her all the perfumes I made for her wedding party as an apology gift, rather than charge her. I figured it’s the least I could do.”

“See if she has any more parties we can crash.” He held up the bottle of champagne before refilling his glass. “We can’t go back to the cheap stuff after this.” He sucked half a glass down and let out an exaggerated aaah. “By the way, I take it you haven’t heard from Prince Charming or you would have said something?”

I frowned. “Nope. When I had lunch with Olivia, she didn’t mention that she knew he’d asked me out. So I didn’t either. Though she did tell me he tended to hold a grudge.”

“His loss.”

I didn’t say so, but it felt like a loss to me, too. Something about Hudson had gotten under my skin, and I’d been excited to go out with him. In fact, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d anticipated a call from a man the way I had his. Which was why when he hadn’t followed through, it had weighed on me a bit more than it should have. But, oh well. Ben was…nice.

Over the next two hours, Fisher and I polished off that bottle and a bottle of wine I’d had open in my fridge. At least one thing had gone right this week—I’d managed to get sufficiently loaded as intended. When I yawned, Fisher took the hint.

“Alright, I’ll leave. You don’t have to fake yawn to get rid of me.”

“It wasn’t fake.”

“Sure, it wasn’t.”

He stood and took our glasses and the two empty bottles into the kitchen. When he came back, I was debating sleeping in the comfy chair where I was currently slouched.

Fisher leaned down and kissed my forehead. “I love you. Everything will be better tomorrow.”

Considering I’d probably be waking with a headache, I doubted that. But I hated to be a Debbie Downer. “Thanks again for everything, Fisher. Love you, too.”

He picked up the diary still sitting on the coffee table. “I’m taking this and having it translated for your birthday next month.”

“Uh, I won’t be twenty-eight for a long time. Your birthday is next month. Are you doing what you did last year?”

“Yes, all the treats are for you, because you’re my best gift ever. Plus, making you happy makes me happy, Stella Bella. Just don’t let this diary take over your life.”

CHAPTER 6

Stella

Fifteen years ago

I picked up a brown leather book and brought it to my nose for a sniff. God, I love that smell. It reminded me of Spencer Knox. He carried a football everywhere he went and always tossed it into the air and caught it while talking. Every time the calfskin smacked against his palms, the faint smell of leather wafted and made me smile.

The lady running the garage sale was older and had an orange fanny pack around her midriff. Her frizzy gray hair stuck out in all different directions, making me think she might’ve recently stuck her finger into a socket, instead of the plug of the lamp she was positioning on a folding table.

I walked over to her. “Excuse me. How much is this?”

She glanced down at my hands. “It’s fifty cents. But I paid ten dollars for it fifteen years ago at someone else’s garage sale. That’s what happens when you buy crap you don’t really need. You end up getting rid of it like the person before you did. You write in a diary?”

I hadn’t actually noticed the word Diary embossed on the front cover until she pointed it out. I shook my head. “I’ve never had one before.”

A thin woman wearing a sweater set with her hair slicked back into a neat ponytail walked up the driveway carrying a boxed coffee maker. “I’ll give you five dollars for this.”

The old lady pursed her lips. “Can you not read? The sticker says it’s twenty.”

“I’m only willing to pay five.”

“Well, then you can walk your skinny little ass right back over to the table you got it from and put it back.”

The sweater set woman gasped. “How rude.”

The old lady grumbled something about the woman going back to her country club and returned her attention to me. “So, do you want that diary or not? I need to pay attention to the browsers. Some people don’t think the prices at a garage sale are low enough, so they help themselves to a five-finger discount.”

I’d been thinking I should offer twenty-five cents since she’d started out at fifty. My mom always said we should haggle at these sales. But this woman didn’t seem like the negotiating type. Besides, I had the fifty cents, she’d paid ten dollars, and I was a little afraid of her. So I dug into my pocket and pulled out two quarters. “I’ll take it.”

A few days later, I went to my room after dinner and locked the door before digging out the diary. I didn’t want my sister bursting in and finding out I was writing down the things on my mind. She’d most definitely try to read it when I wasn’t home—especially if she knew the type of stuff on my mind lately.

Two days ago, Spencer had asked me to be his girlfriend. I’d had the biggest crush on him since fifth grade. Of course I’d said yes, even though my parents had told my sister she couldn’t date until high school when she’d asked, and I was only in seventh grade. Before Spencer became my boyfriend, I’d never been nervous around boys. But now I was freaking out whenever he and I so much as talked. I knew the reason—he’d gone out with Kelly Reed before me, and they’d made out. I’d never kissed a boy before, and now I worried I might do it wrong when the time came. So I thought it might be a good first entry in my new diary. Maybe it would help me work out how I was going to handle things by putting my fears down on paper.

Lying on my stomach on my bed, I swung my feet in the air behind me as I chewed on the top of my pencil and decided how to start. Do I just write Dear Diary or is that geek city?

“Stella?” My father’s voice and the sound of him attempting to turn my door handle startled me.

I jumped up, and the diary bounced off the bed, landing pages down on the floor. “Uh, who is it?”

“It’s your father. What other man knocks on your bedroom door, and why is it locked?”

“Ummm…because I’m getting changed for bed.”

“Oh. Alright. I was just popping in to say goodnight.”

“’Night, Dad!”

“Goodnight, pipsqueak.”

I listened for his footsteps to fade into the distance before I scooped the diary off the floor. Some of the pages in the middle had wrinkled, so I went to smooth them out. But when I turned the book over, I found words written on the pages. Lots of them. Confused, I read a few lines and then flipped a few pages back. My eyes widened as I read the top of one of the pages.

Dear Diary,

Oh my God!

I flipped back more pages. Two or three were filled with words, but then there was the same start.

Dear Diary,

Pages and pages were filled. How could I have not noticed? I could’ve sworn I’d opened it at the garage sale. But as I flipped to the beginning, I realized why I hadn’t spotted all the blue ink. The first five or six pages of the diary were completely blank.

But whose diary was it? The woman said she’d bought it at a garage sale years ago. So had she not noticed either?

Maybe I should go back and return it.

Or give it to my mom and see what she thought I should do?

Though…

Maybe I could read a little first and see if it gave me any idea who the book belonged to.

I didn’t have to read the entire thing.

Just one little entry.

That would be it.

I flipped through from the first page to make sure I was at the very beginning, and then scanned the two simple words on the first line.

Dear Diary…

Just one little entry.

It couldn’t do any harm.

I had no idea then just how much those words would come back to haunt me.

CHAPTER 7

Stella

“Hello?”

“Hi, Stella. It’s Olivia.”

I switched the phone to my other ear so I could finish putting on my earrings. “How are you, Olivia?”

“I’m good. But my day is a little busier than I’d thought. Do you think you might be able to come by my office today with the perfumes? I’m not sure where you live, but if downtown is a giant pain in the ass for you, I can send a car.”

My apartment was on the Upper East Side, so getting downtown was actually pretty inconvenient. But I owed Olivia, so I wasn’t about to complain. “That’s fine. I have some errands to run downtown anyway.”

“Oh, that’s great. Thank you. Is around two o’clock okay?”

“Sure, that’s perfect.”

“Okay. I’ll see you then.”

It sounded like she was about to hang up. “Wait—I need the address.”

“Oh, sorry. I thought you had it.”

Why would I have her office address? Did she think I’d stalked her thoroughly before showing up at her wedding? Jesus, just when I’d started to get over being embarrassed. “No, I don’t.”

“It’s Fifteen Broad Street. Fourteenth floor.”

I shut my jewelry box. Broad Street? That’s where Hudson’s office was. “You work in the same building as your brother?”

“Oh, I assumed you knew. Hudson and I actually work together. Rothschild Investments was our father’s business.”