Love Conquers All (The Salt Sisters #7)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

T he invitation to attend the environmentalist gala in Washington, DC, came in the mail in an embossed envelope addressed to Sylvie Bruckson.

Sylvie stood on the front porch in her socks and pajamas and traced the elegant letters with the tip of her finger, her heart thudding as she read: It is our pleasure to honor the ground-breaking and brilliant journalist Sylvie Bruckson.

Brilliant! What a word. Did she deserve it?

But it was the first invitation of its kind that Sylvie had ever received and hopefully served as proof that her career was finally headed in the right direction.

Life as an environmental journalist was never easy, especially in a world eager to destroy its resources to secure better bottom lines.

It was almost hard to believe after the endless travel, the hundreds of interviews, the long nights of editing, and how she’d fought to get herself published and get the word out.

Now, at the age of forty, Sylvie had a collection of top-level bylines that made her feel she’d made it.

The president of the Journalistic Integrity Agency was going to give her the award himself.

Sylvie made a mental note to buy a better dress, something dark green and glowing.

She’d need it when she met the people behind the award—essential environmental activists like Ralph Finster and Wanda Shean.

In front of her house, taxis screamed past, dogs barked, and the city bustled in that magical way it always did in early spring. She dipped back into her brownstone and closed the door behind her. She put the invitation on the fridge.

She wanted to call her father because she’d told him she would do something with her life. But they hadn’t spoken in twenty-three years, so Sylvie wasn’t sure she had the correct phone number for him anymore. Instead, she called her boyfriend, Mike.

Mike answered on the third ring. She pictured him at the office with his tie tugged away from his neck and his eyes glazed.

Maybe after he got off work, they could go out for a drink to celebrate.

They lived in the same neighborhood and were discussing moving in together.

They’d both lived in Manhattan since they were seventeen and eighteen years old, transplants from other lives they couldn’t return to, but they were both on the Lower East Side these days, both in brownstones about a fifteen-minute walk away from one another.

It was the sort of life she’d dreamed up for herself back home on Nantucket Island.

It was the sort of life her father had suggested Sylvie would never be strong enough to build.

Accept it, Sylvie. You aren’t cut out for it.

Sylvie shook her father’s voice from her head and fixated on Mike’s.

“That’s fantastic, Sylvie,” Mike said in that Southern drawl she’d fallen in love with. “I’ll make reservations at that cocktail bar in Greenwich. Seven thirty? Dinner after?”

“It’s a date.”

“You know, you really deserve this,” Mike added before he hung up. “Nobody works harder than you.”

Sylvie did a little jig around her living room.

Then she forced herself to sit back down in front of her computer to finish the edits for a piece about a resort in Thailand and how it was single-handedly destroying the surrounding island ecosystem.

For the piece, she’d had to travel to Thailand and live on the island for three months, a time of oppressive sunlight and some of the best food she’d ever had.

She’d learned far more about herself and the capacity of evil humankind had during that time than she’d ever reckoned for.

And, surprisingly, island life had returned to her easily.

It was as though she hadn’t left Nantucket at seventeen and said she’d never return.

She’d written that island life is the same pace wherever you go in her journal.

Toward the end of her trip, Mike had flown out to Thailand, and they’d vacationed for an entire week, sunning and eating and kissing, making promises to one another that made Sylvie’s heart swell.

Throughout, Sylvie had allowed herself to briefly, briefly imagine Mike was going to propose.

She’d imagined him dropping to one knee, taking her hands in his, and saying what all those other romantic men said when it occurred to them they wanted to spend the rest of their lives with the women before them.

But Mike hadn’t proposed. They’d talked a little bit more about moving in together.

Mike had said he’d try to get used to buying her brand of peanut butter rather than the one he liked. They’d laughed about it.

And then, they’d flown home. Back to their Manhattan lives. Back to their busy schedules.

Away from island life.

Sylvie was pleased with the Thailand article and sent it to her editor along with a photograph of the invitation to the gala in a few weeks. Her editor called her back immediately to congratulate her.

“I was pretty sure it would be you this year,” she said, “but I didn’t want to say anything. I didn’t want to jinx it.”

“You think I have to make a speech?” Sylvie asked, grinning from ear to ear.

“They’ll demand it!”

They laughed and discussed Sylvie’s next article, which would require a brief trip to Alabama to interview a guy who ran an alligator farm.

Sylvie dreaded the humidity but was looking forward to the change of scenery and the bizarre conversations she’d surely have with locals.

Maybe she could convince Mike to come down toward the end of her trip.

Perhaps they could spend a few days eating tasty barbecue.

Sylvie got dressed and treated herself to a taxi to the cocktail bar.

It was cool outside, sixty-three degrees and absolutely magical, with blue-silver light glowing off the buildings and passersby.

When Sylvie had first come to the city at seventeen, she’d thought it was filled with the most beautiful people the planet had on offer, and now, twenty-three years later, she was sure of that fact.

But when she’d been seventeen, nineteen, twenty-five, twenty-eight—and even into her thirties—she might have counted herself among the pretty people.

At forty, she was on her way off that list, an outsider in a city she’d called home for longer than anywhere else.

Life was about acceptance. It was about learning to love what you’d earned. And she’d earned every fine line, every toe of that crow’s feet. She’d earned the strands of gray in her hair. She’d earned the ache in her knees when she ran in the morning.

Mike wasn’t at the cocktail bar when she got there, so she told the bleached-blond woman at the counter that her boyfriend had made a reservation for two.

The woman scanned a list as Sylvie panged with a moment of insecurity.

It was weird to say boyfriend at forty, but she couldn’t get used to the word partner, either.

“What was the name?” the woman asked.

“Mike Rotterdamm,” she said, waiting for a jolt of recognition on the woman’s face.

But it didn’t come.

“I’m not seeing this name,” she said, her face blank and vaguely annoyed.

“There must be some kind of mistake,” Sylvie said, her voice deepening because she wanted to be taken seriously. “Mike Rotterdamm? Maybe he said Michael?”

The woman shifted her gum from one side of her mouth to the other and pointed at a little table by the window. “You can squeeze in there until something opens up,” she said, handing Sylvie a menu.

Miffed but not wanting it to ruin her night, Sylvie went to the chair by the window and texted Mike to find out what happened.

They must have messed it up. I have a little table by the window, but we can just call it for the night if you want.

Grab another drink somewhere else? She sent it and studied the menu for a little while, expecting the glass door to burst open and reveal blond-haired and broad-shouldered Mike, maybe in a black shirt and pair of jeans, because he liked to change after spending all day at the office.

He always said he didn’t want his silly office life to bleed over into his real one.

She liked this about him. He knew what mattered in this world existed outside of a conference room. It existed outside of an Excel sheet.

But two minutes, five minutes, and then twelve minutes went by, and Mike still wasn’t there.

He hadn’t texted, either. Sylvie checked her phone and decided to order herself a cocktail anyway, thinking that maybe if the servers asked her where her date was, she could lie and say something had happened.

Everyone will think I’ve been stood up, she thought, momentarily saddened, before realizing this was a funny joke she could tell Mike later on.

He’d say, I hope you gave them quite a show!

I hope you cried a little. The sad girl stood at the bar. Boo-hoo.

Sylvie ordered a bright blue cocktail, one that she never would have ordered otherwise, but she’d wanted something silly and sweet, something that made her think of the big blue earth from outer space.

She’d wanted to joke about that to Mike, too.

But she drank through nearly all of the bright blue cocktail before her phone rang.

She yanked it out of her pocket, expecting to see Mike’s name on the screen. But it read “unknown.”

It was a Nantucket area code. Her heart surged.

Not now, she thought. Don’t do this to me now.

But even as she thought it, she didn’t know what she meant.

When she didn’t answer, whoever was calling hung up and tried again.

Sylvie’s hands began to shake. A server came by to ask if she wanted another cocktail, and she was so surprised that she nodded and ordered a second.

That was when the voice message came in on her phone. She listened to it right away.

“Sylvie Bruckson? I’m terribly sorry to bother you like this.

I wanted to reach out to you as soon as I could, but I understand that eight thirty is really too late for a phone call like this.

My name is Timothy Everett, and I’m a friend of your father’s.

I’m also his lawyer. Give me a call back when you get the chance. ”

Sylvie’s pulse was going a thousand miles an hour.

My father’s lawyer? She shot to her feet and considered what to do.

Her options seemed to be: stand there like an idiot as everyone at the bar stared at her, wait around like a chump for Mike to show, or drop a wad of cash on the table and run.

When she opened her wallet, however, she realized that she didn’t have enough cash for such an expensive cocktail.

And when the server returned with her second drink, she realized she’d have to pay for two.

It took forever for the server to come by with the card reader, and by the time she did, Sylvie had worked herself into a panic. Everything about the world felt wrong.

“Honey, you shouldn’t let a guy do this to you,” the server said, sensing Sylvie was upset. “He’s showing you who he really is, you know?”

The server was maybe fifteen years younger than Sylvie. Her face said: pathetic.

Sylvie wanted to protest. She wanted to tell the server that she wasn’t freaking out about Mike’s sudden disappearance and that her “freaking out” was about a far more difficult and heavier subject, one that the server couldn’t possibly understand.

But wasn’t she sort of also freaking out about Mike?

Mike had never done something like this to her before.

He’d never not shown up when they’d agreed on a time.

What if he didn’t make a reservation after all?

What if he got the date wrong? What if, what if, what if?

Sylvie shot out of the bar, feeling like a maniac.

She alternated between thinking she’d call the lawyer back immediately and get to the bottom of what was really going on and thinking she’d take a cab to Mike’s place and yell at him about standing her up.

Better yet, I’ll fall into his arms and cry, she thought, waving her arms to hail a taxi.

But just as a taxi screamed to the curb, she heard her name and turned to find Mike running up to her. Just as she’d thought, he’d changed into a pair of jeans and a cool button-down. But his eyes were filled with dread. Something was wrong.

“Hey! Hey.” Mike gasped and staggered to a halt.

The cab stopped, and the driver glared at Sylvie for wasting his time.

“Let’s get in,” Mike said, but his tone was stiff and all wrong.

“What?” Sylvie sputtered. Tears filled her eyes.

“Let’s get in the car, Sylvie,” Mike said again. He ripped open the door and gestured for her to slide in. He went in after her and snapped his hand on the leather passenger seat, telling the driver Sylvie’s address.

Sylvie felt as though she were deep underwater. Her heartbeat was murky, and her hands were moving in front of her in slow motion. “What’s going on, Mike?” she asked.

Mike kept his face straight ahead and his hands cupped on his knees. “I’ll explain when we get to your place.”

Sylvie thought she was going to throw up.

She felt as though she’d been thrown into a blender with the power turned all the way up.

When the driver dropped them off, Mike paid with a swipe of his phone and led her up the walkway, watching her intently as she removed her keys with shaking hands.

Beautiful people streamed past them, walking dogs, their laughter twinkling.

Sylvie heard the cab drive away. When she dropped the keys for the fourth time, her heart lurched, and she turned to look into Mike’s eyes.

She remembered that she'd been watching him only a month ago in Thailand, waiting for him to propose to her.

Now, she had the sense that she was looking at a stranger.

“Mike, tell me what’s going on right now,” she stammered.

Mike’s forehead was slick with sweat, which was strange because it had dipped below sixty degrees by now. He was clearly panicking, too. She fought to swing over and kiss his face, to pretend everything was all right.

“Let’s just go in, Sylvie,” Mike begged. “Please.”