Madeline was confused. “You love what?”

“Your new book!” Angie said.

“Wait a minute,” Madeline said. “How did you get it?”

“Redd sent it to me,” Angie said. “I read the sample scene. There is something in the writing that is so immediate, so electrifying, it nearly burned my fingers as I turned the page. Your characters have such hot chemistry. We’re going to market it as ‘the Playboy Channel meets HGTV.’ After all, what woman doesn’t want to sleep with her contractor?”

Madeline was stunned silent. She had sent the outline and sample scene to Redd because she’d wanted him to know that he hadn’t cashed in his diamond-quality favor for her in vain. She had made a good-faith effort to come up with something else. She hadn’t expected Redd to forward it to Angie, and she certainly hadn’t anticipated this kind of enthusiasm.

The Playboy Channel meets HGTV?

“I want you to start writing as fast as you can,” Angie said. “I want to bump this up to the winter list, and I think we can sell first serial to Redbook. The morning shows are going to love it! Gayle King is going to go nuts! She and Norah will fight over it.”

Madeline swallowed. She tried to imagine herself going on CBS This Morning with Gayle King, Norah O’Donnell, and Charlie Rose to discuss a novel she had written… about Grace and Benton Coe.

“The thing is?” Madeline said. “There would be a lot I’d have to change, because the stuff I have in there now hits a little close to home.”

“Do you know someone who has gone through this?” Angie asked. She gasped. “You?”

“No, not me!” Madeline said. Although if it had been her going through it, she surely wouldn’t want her best friend writing a novel about it.

“It’s okay if it is you,” Angie said. “Did I ever tell you about the guy who tiled my master bathroom? He was edible. I wanted to eat him.”

Madeline closed her eyes. She could not believe she had started this ball rolling. All across America, women would be admitting to having impure thoughts about their electricians and their plaster guys.

“I definitely have to change the mint tea,” Madeline said. “And the pistachio macarons. And the ploughman’s lunch and them dancing to the song ‘Loving Cup.’”

“Normally, I would say go right ahead, replace those details with equally vivid details—but in this case, Madeline, you really nailed it. Those details belong in there. You can’t take out the mint tea! You can’t take out the ploughman’s lunch, the way you describe the radishes and him feeding her—it’s all too good to cut. It would be like Hemingway without the bullfights or Cheever without the six twenty-four to New Canaan.”

“Yes, but…,” Madeline said.

“Just keep it as it is,” Angie said. “If we absolutely, positively have to change stuff later, we will.”

“Okay,” Madeline said uneasily.

“And have you thought of an ending?” Angie asked.

“An ending?”

“I know you have issues with resolution,” Angie said. “But what I’d really like to see happen here is for… B and G to end up together.” Madeline heard Angie slam a pen down on her desk. “I’m sick of women at the end of these novels doing the right thing, sticking with their husbands, pandering to ‘family values.’ Even Fifty Shades of Grey played it safe.” She huffed. “I want an ending where the woman is happy instead of good.”

“Okay,” Madeline said. “I can do that.” She was marginally more comfortable now that they were talking about the ending. Grace and Benton were still carrying on, so anything Madeline wrote would be wholly fictional.

“Great,” Angie said. “This book is going to be a huge hit. I can feel it in my tooth fillings.”

“Thanks?” Madeline said.

“We need to come up with a title,” Angie said. “You don’t have any ideas, do you?”

“I… I really haven’t gotten that far,” Madeline said. “I kind of wrote it as a lark? Or maybe more like a practice exercise?”

“A practice exercise? That’s classic, it really is. This practice exercise is going right to the top of the New York Times bestseller list!” Angie said. “Don’t worry about the title. I have people in house for that. We’ll brainstorm.”

“Okay?” Madeline said.

“I’ll keep you in the loop,” Angie said. “We won’t give your book a title without running it past you.”

“Right,” Madeline said.

“What are you doing on the phone with me?” Angie said. “Get writing!”

Madeline hung up.

What had she done?

It was fiction, she reminded herself. Deep breath in, deep breath out.

It.

Was.

Fiction.

Brick wanted a car, there were bills to pay; she had rented this stupid apartment for twelve grand. College was on the horizon. Trevor was two thousand feet in the air. He was, technically, not even on the planet with her. She couldn’t discuss any of this with Trevor anyway—unless she told him Grace’s secret.

Two of the women at this table will betray the person on their left.

Eddie had been to Grace’s left. Grace had been to Madeline’s left. So here it was, then… her betrayal of Grace.

No, Madeline wouldn’t do it.