“Of course not. You know that. But they’re at camp now and in the fall, they have school and all their activities. I barely see them because they have such busy schedules. Then they’ll be off to prep school. My work will give them every opportunity in the future.”

“Oh, there it is. Your standard line that your devotion to work is for everyone else’s benefit.”

“You’ve certainly benefited from my work,” he snapped back, the equilibrium regained. “They can come to Durham in August and stay with me.”

Her brain started to spin out of control, thinking about all the wrong things, like the club tennis championships in August the twins always played in and the annual slog to finish the summer reading before the start of school. Was Whit going to supervise that while he was in Durham, running a business and living out of a corporate apartment? Then, the flash went off. “You have someone else. This isn’t a career move. You’re seeing somebody.”

“It’s not what you think. It’s nothing yet.”

“Yet? Are you casually dating while we’re married?” Her raised voice made the dogs slink out of the room. “That must be fun, while I’m here at home raising our children.”

“Please, snippy isn’t your style, Liza.” Whit valued maturity.

“I can’t believe it.” Which was true. Liza had never suspected Whit of cheating on his marriage vows. It was the vow part Liza thought he’d

uphold, not the marriage part. Whit believed in his good word more than he believed in the myth of melding two into one. He wasn’t sentimental, but he was honorable. “Are we separating, then? Is this what’s happening? You’re using the excuse of my father’s death to pause our marriage?”

“The timing is coincidental. I have an opportunity in Durham and, unfortunately, I needed to commit right away, so I did. This is for me and my career.”

“And I’m supposed to hold down the fort here with the kids, my business, this house and the estate, and, oh yeah, grief?”

“Liza, I’ve provided a nice life for you, a very nice life. You have the resources to hire all the help you need to manage everything you think you have to manage on your own. Maybe you’ll finally delegate some of the responsibilities and do the work you need to do on yourself.”

“Look at you, Mr. Life Coach. Thanks for the input. Super helpful.

Who’d you steal that from? The honey?”

“Don’t call her that.”

“What is she, then? A girlfriend? A friend with benefits? A colleague?”

Whit looked up. “I see. She’s a colleague. Because I never understood the importance of what you do, isn’t that right?”

“I would call her someone who cares about me and listens to me.”

That stung Liza more deeply than if Whit had said she was great in bed or had the perfect ass, both areas in which Liza suspected she fell short.

Had Liza’s emotional well-being not been so depleted from the last ten days, maybe she would have put up more of a fight, but she couldn’t muster her anger. She was too tired. Now she felt old. “I see that you’ve clearly made a few other decisions on your own besides whether to take the job.

Now, I need time. I feel like you owe me that, at least. I want to keep this arrangement between us, until I can sort a few things out and until the kids get through eighth grade and the prep school admissions process. I don’t want this to tank their grades. At least not this year.”

“That seems fair.”

“No telling the kids or my sisters or our friends. And please, don’t tell your parents. If, when we come to a permanent decision, you have to be the one to tell your mother. I can’t bear to disappoint her.”

Whit was contrite. “Agreed.”

Liza picked up her drink and headed toward the back staircase. There was nothing in the fridge except the remains of Lolly’s boeuf bourguignon.

She couldn’t eat that for one more night. “I made dinner reservations at the club. I thought . . .” What? She thought they might reconnect after everything, enjoy a civilized adult dinner where she could let her hair down a bit with her husband, after keeping up appearances for everyone else. Oh, well. “Never mind what I thought. We might as well change and head over there. I’ll bring my calendar and we can work out the logistics of all this.”

Fifteen years of marriage reduced to marks on the school calendar that Liza used to organize her life.

Whit poured another Scotch and followed her upstairs. They both understood what had happened: Whit had won.

Serena pulled the Range Rover onto the Winthrop property. The drive from DC had taken over six hours and she was beat. The driveway split: the guesthouse, a renovated stone carriage house, was off to the left, and the main house, an enormous waterfront gem from the early 1900s, was off to the right. She was glad you couldn’t see the main house from her place.

She’d be able to come and go with relative freedom. Though Lucy Winthrop was generous and charming, she was a talker. A conversation with her every day was a steep price to pay for a free summer rental. Serena had preferred to plunk down the going rate for the place, but Mrs.

Winthrop, a dear friend of her mother’s and someone that she saw with regularity in DC, had insisted that there was no need. However, she was required to appear at the Winthrop’s Fourth of July gathering. “You’ll know everybody! We always invite loads of young people. Maybe you’ll meet someone. Deke’s chief of staff recently got divorced. He’s a catch!”

It was Mrs. Winthrop, née Davenport, who had the money, not the congressman, a fact she had announced very loudly and very publicly at one of Deke Winthrop’s first rallies when a constituent asked about how he could be committed to the working man, when he himself came from money. Lucy Davenport Winthrop stood up in the front row, waved her arms, and then said, “It’s my money, not his!” The line got a huge laugh, and it became her catchphrase as she spread her wealth around the Nutmeg State. An early supporter of environmental causes before it was chic, Lucy Winthrop and her money almost single-handedly saved the local wetlands, planted a million tulip bulbs at state and federal buildings, and underwrote the cleanups at local beaches. She used her wealth to fund her daughters’

show-riding careers, securing a national team berth for Delaney and her

horse, Topper, and a marriage to a Virginia horse family for her younger daughter, Reagan. There were Caribbean Christmases and board seats on charities in Connecticut, New York, and DC. And, of course, Lucy was one of the regulars at the Red Door, allowing her to claim she’d never gone under the knife, but the word on the street was that the regular visits to Elizabeth Arden smoke-screened her excellent plastic surgery. Lucy Winthrop was wealthy in money and influence, but not in close female friends. Birdie Tucker was the exception.

Had Birdie told Lucy the truth about Serena’s father? Serena guessed no.

While the two were dear friends, she suspected that they both hid secrets from each other.

Serena hadn’t spoken to her mother, either, despite the voicemail from seventy-two hours ago. She had had to extricate herself from her DC life and it had taken her full attention. She was surprised how smoothly it all went. Her boss actually appreciated her resignation in advance of the mass firing. The intern was thrilled to be set up in Georgetown for the summer.

And she packed up the Range Rover with the items that mattered most, her desktop computer, and her boxes of Sweeney family research. She’d been too busy to check in with her mother, but she’d make the call eventually.

This week, for sure.

As she stopped the car, she noticed a gift bag on the porch. She hoped it was a bottle of white wine from the Winthrops because she could use a glass and she hadn’t made it to the store as she’d planned. She picked up the bag and entered the guesthouse, flipping on the lights to reveal a well-decorated open kitchen and living room, done in blues and taupe with mainly contemporary furniture and a few choice antiques. Not her style, but warm and comfortable. The bedroom and bath were upstairs, and there was a large slate patio off the kitchen, which would be beautiful all summer.

No foosball table, Serena thought, recalling her conversation at Cap’s office with her sisters. She’d have to let them know.

She opened the lime-green gift bag and was surprised to pull out a mug with the Wellesley College insignia on it and a note in beautiful penmanship. It read: Serena, I thought you might want this mug. Our father had a large collection of them from various lectures and such that he did over the years. I guess he never spoke at Vassar, because there wasn’t one of those. But Wellesley was the next closest thing, being all-women, too. You should stop by this week for a tour of the house and the boathouse, anytime.