Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
S pringtime at the Alderton-Du Ponte Country Club was not for the weak.
Correction: Springtime at the Alderton-Du Ponte Country Club was not for the weak staff members .
All the socialite clubgoers were coming off of the cold Connecticut winter. Gossip was best served hot, not shivering with frostbitten toes. No, instead, the members bided their time, scheming their next glorious outdoor party. And once they found out that Saturday was going to be a high of fifty-five, they pounced.
My phone lit up at five this morning, Verdi’s “Dies Irae” filling my room. The ringtone. The Alderton-Du Ponte ringtone. An ominous voice began speaking the second I pressed the accept button, matching the dread-inducing accompaniment. “We need you to come in.”
Turned out they needed help transforming the back patio into a spring oasis. They’d set up the ballroom the night before, but when Mrs. Holland woke and saw her weather app, she demanded the change. That meant taking the linens and fairy lights and florals from the ballroom outside. The spring air had still held a chill from the overnight low, turning the outdoor work a pins-and-needles hell.
And after hours of setup, I ended up here, mid-Saturday party, refilling mimosa flutes while fighting to keep my eyes open.
I was stupid tired, and not the sort that I could take a shot of espresso and keep chugging along. No, if I chugged , it was because I was a car completely out of gas, only running on fumes.
“ Lovey .”
I hadn’t realized my eyes had fallen shut until they snapped open, finding the mimosa seconds away from flooding over the rim of the plastic flute. I jerked the champagne bottle up just in time, turning at the sound of my nickname.
Caroline Holland, daughter of one of the elites at Alderton-Du Ponte, smiled at me where she lingered over the threshold of the kitchen. Her floral maxi dress had ties at her shoulders, the material a billowing cotton that looked as comfortable as it did cold. “Sleeping on the job?” she teased.
“I wish.” I craned my neck to one side, and then the other. “What are you doing here? Today’s a private party.”
Her kitten heels clicked on the floor as she entered the kitchen. “A private party my mom is hosting.”
“A private party your mom is hosting for the board of directors ,” I replied as she came closer. “Last I checked, you’re not one.”
“I should be, though. My first order of business would be giving the Princess of Alderton-Du Ponte a raise.”
We shared a grin.
Caroline was only three years older than me, but she didn’t quite look it. Her features were still youthful, but the elegant styling of her clothes paired with the pristine way she always pinned her light hair back into a bun made her appear older, more mature. She’d looked younger with her dark hair, but she dyed it blonde a few months back. She teased it was because my blonde inspired her. You might’ve thought she blended in with the older ladies of the club until you realized she hadn’t had her wrinkles smoothed away by Botox.
Despite being on drastically different social levels, she was my best friend.
“I’m actually here on reconnaissance.” Caroline lowered her voice and came closer. “Mom said today’s party is really an emergency meeting.”
I figured as much. The board of directors weren’t allowed to meet without an official posting on the Alderton-Du Ponte website, and they definitely weren’t allowed to meet without the owner present. Instead, they’d found a loophole—to throw an “exclusive garden party” and the owner wouldn’t be the wiser.
Especially not the new owners, whom they hated with a passion. Rhythms of Hope .
Caroline reached for a mimosa flute. “Buying out a charity is harder than they thought, I guess.”
Yeah, the board of directors hated a charity . All because it would be relinquishing the control they’d been eagerly panting after leading up to the death of the former owner, Nancy Du Ponte. The charity was coming in and demanding so many changes already, and the board of directors despised them.
A bad look, if you asked me. Except no one did.
I glanced around, paranoid about anyone overhearing. “They’re still trying?”
Last June, when Nancy Du Ponte passed away, she left the building in its entirety to Margot Massey, the daughter of Massey Hotel they were a music charity, after all. They were eager to take their first peek inside, foiling the Alderton-Du Ponte board’s renovation plans. The charity owners seemed too laid-back to purposefully step on anyone’s toes, which I assumed was why they hadn’t forced their way in yet, but it wouldn’t be long until their patience ran out.
Many people hated their bosses, but I didn’t mind Mr. Roberts. He was quite nice compared to the other higher ups at the club. Quirky. Made a bad call here and there—like calling me in to be on set up duty with a serving rotation immediately after—but still a decent guy.
But, good God, he needed to get a grip. “Where are the charity people now?”
“Touring the workout facility.”
The workout facility was on the opposite end of the country club, closer to the golf course. It wasn’t Rhythms of Hope’s first time touring Alderton-Du Ponte, of course, but I suspected it was less about seeing the facility and more about reminding the board of directors of their presence.
“Tell them there’s a private party in the garden, so they can’t tour this area,” I said to Mr. Roberts, topping off the final pour of champagne before beginning to arrange my tray. The excuse of a private party would save them from Mrs. Conan and the potential carnage that’d come from twenty mimosa-drunk elites. “As for the music hall, tell them you’ll hire a locksmith to come out next week.”
Mr. Roberts gave his arms a helpless flap. “Mrs. Conan said that the music hall is off-limits?—”
“It’s a Saturday. When they ask again next week, tell them there wasn’t a locksmith open, and you’d forgotten to call on Monday. Wait until they ask again.” I peered at him. “And take a breath. You’re getting shiny.”
He rubbed a hand over where the fluorescent lights reflected off his bald head. “That sort of thinking is what makes you the Staff Princess, you know.”
Staff Princess . Princess of Alderton-Du Ponte. Or, more commonly, just straight up Princess . The nickname had originated from Caroline, of all people, years ago. Before, the nickname had made me feel important—like even though I was a staff member, I was a special one.
Now, hearing it merely made me tired. It meant more work. It didn’t help that it’d made its way into my coworkers’ vocabulary, though it always dripped with sarcasm.
“Speaking of,” I began slowly, staring at my tray. It held about twenty flutes—plastic, of course, since these ladies in their heels truly struggled with gravity once they were two glasses deep—and I eased it up into the flat of my hand carefully. “Have you had a chance to bring up the Christmas bonuses to the board?”
Every year, Alderton-Du Ponte gave its top employees a Christmas bonus. Every year, I’d always been in the top. I busted my butt to make sure of it.
But since the chaos of Rhythms of Hope taking over the country club, the bonuses had been low on the list of the board’s priorities. Hence why it was March and they still hadn’t gone out.
“With everything going on, it slipped my mind.” Mr. Roberts rubbed a palm against his forehead, smearing the sweat. “Monday, I’ll bring it up to the board.”
I wondered if he realized he just used the lie I’d told him to use with the charity. Mr. Roberts couldn’t tell a fib to a superior to save his life, but to his staff, he could lie through his teeth.
Tray in hand, I made my way outside, heading out to face the mimosa-hungry music.
Alderton-Du Ponte oozed money. Three pools, three tennis courts, two pickleball courts, an eighteen-hole golf course, a hotel attached to the property. It was a section of Connecticut that left no question whether or not the clubgoers had full pockets. Those who worked here got a snippet of prestige, enough to taste but never to fully indulge.
I could remember my first day, staring at the resort-like property like a country girl seeing the city for the first time. The way the staff moved around like clockwork inside had stunned me further, and I remember thinking, in the midst of my grief and despair, this place is a dream .
The serving tray weighed heavily in my right hand with my fingers splayed along the bottom. My strides were confident and sure, the liquid in the flutes barely even shifting. Though being on serving rotation wasn’t my only duty, the frequency with which I was put on the floor made me a good waitress. But I was also a good set-up worker, a good receptionist, and a good lifeguard.
I was the jack of all trades at Alderton-Du Ponte.
Alderton-Du Ponte’s Princess.
The garden party was divided into the usual cliques, and I stopped at The Chatterboxes first. If I ever wanted to overhear the gossip, I lingered by their gaggle.
“Did you all hear what the pitch is for the new name?” Ms. Jennings asked the group.
Mrs. Wits pulled a mimosa from my tray. “Sand Trap Socialites, wasn’t it?”
“That was the old one.” Ms. Jennings waved her hand. “The new one.”
“Gilded and Green Paradise?”
“It’s Fairway Haven, right?” Mrs. Gilmartin asked, setting her empty flute on my tray and grabbing another. I immediately picked up the empty, placing it as close to me as I could. “I absolutely adored that one!”
I moved on then, unsatisfied with the topic of conversation. Besides, if I lingered too long, they’d notice.
The next group I paused at was the older men, The Wallets . They were the husbands that funded the endeavors of their wives, really uninterested in anything that wasn’t related to the putting green. Mr. Holland owned a luxury real estate business, Mr. Massey owned the hotel chain, and Dr. Conan was a renowned surgeon. While they were passionate about the country club, it was their wives who truly ran it. On the Alderton-Du Ponte board of directors, the real power was in their hands, not their husbands’.
“I think the whole thing is ridiculous,” Mr. Holland grumbled as I approached. “How much more money can we offer? Money hungry for a charity, aren’t they?”
Mr. Massey released a withering sigh. “They’re so fixated on that old music hall—surely they can find a different one to repurpose for their silly events. Leave it to us and move on.”
“Leave it to us to demolish , you mean.” Dr. Conan shook his head. “As ancient and unused as it is. It’s much better suited as a sauna—I thought it was genius when my wife pitched the idea.”
The men all grumbled in agreement. None of them took a champagne flute, so I continued on. The final group, The Monarchs , stood furthest from everyone else. This group only consisted of three women—Mrs. Conan, Mrs. Holland, and Mrs. Massey, except the latter wasn’t present. Their mimosas were full, but I kept an eye on them. They would be the group to approach for the best information.
Even though Mr. Roberts called me in early, I still was here until my scheduled out-time. I just had three more hours left. Two hours for this party, one for the event tear-down, and then I’d be on my merry way back to my apartment. I might even have time for a nap today.
I wondered if Mr. Roberts had told any of the members that the Rhythms of Hope charity figureheads were on the estate’s grounds—most likely not, since they still languished in seemingly meaningless conversation, despite the emergency meeting .
I stood, posted, near The Chatterboxes, and the wind carried a bit of their conversation my way. “… Fiona’s been talking about some guy she’s latched onto,” Mrs. Flannagan was saying, an edge of impatience in her voice. “It’s because her father and I told her—it’s time to get married or to work in the winery. If she doesn’t want to start taking the family business seriously, we won’t let her freeload off us forever.”
A take I hadn’t seen any of these ladies having, honestly. Most of the mothers—like Caroline’s mother—were content with their children staying with them until the end of time. Maybe it was because Fiona was just too annoying.
“Grant Holland is single, isn’t he? Could it be him?”
My stomach twisted. Even still, I didn’t glance over. I didn’t even twitch.
“I think he has a new girl now,” Ms. Jennings murmured, almost too low for me to pick up. “Maria was talking about it. That she’s more his speed.”
It wasn’t news to me, Grant’s new girlfriend. I’d had six months to adjust to the news. Six months since things had blown up between us. I don’t know why you’re having these thoughts , Grant had crooned when he had come back the final time in July, smoothing down my blonde hair. The touch had been delicate, lulling, as if he had been trying to coax my mind clear. It’s always you, Lovisa. Just you .
It, unsurprisingly, had not been just me.
“Did you see there’s a house going up for auction soon with a nice acreage?” someone said—Mrs. Wits? I couldn’t tell without looking. “On Everview. That house that’s been sitting for years. It’s a pile, but the view of the bay is lovely.”
All at once, my thoughts emptied at her words. They were discordant—a cellist applying too much pressure to their bow as they slid it across the strings. A pianist slamming their palm down on the keys. It caused everything inside me to jump—my stomach, my pulse, my decorum.
“At least that means it’ll be cheaper,” Ms. Jennings grumbled. “Nearly a million dollars for a house you’d have to tear down.”
“When?” The question came out before I could catch it, barely above a whisper. I took a jerking step forward, toward them. “When is it going to auction?”
The Chatterboxes all turned toward me, expressions twisting as if I’d grown three heads. What are you doing? their eyes seemed to demand. Have you been listening this whole time?
Despite the drastic faux pas, I couldn’t move my feet.
Mrs. Wits glanced around her group, obviously waiting for who would answer. “I—I think the beginning of April?”
The beginning of April. Four weeks.
The house on Everview would be up for auction in four weeks.
The house. My mother’s dream house.
Four weeks .
My feet moved again of their own accord, pulling me away from the bubble of conversation as the last act of self-preservation. I staggered, gasping, in my non-slip shoes, and I could’ve blamed it on the uneven cobblestones inlaid into the garden grass—could’ve blamed it on anything except the house I had been working the past five and a half years to afford was finally going to auction at the end of the month.
And I knew I didn’t have nearly enough money.
But even though I stumbled, instinct kicked in. My body and my entire world tipped to the side, but my hand mechanically moved to hold my tray of flutes steady.
The cobblestoned path led back toward the kitchen, and I carried the shaking platter with me, pressing my free hand to my stomach. My apron suddenly felt a thousand times too tight where it wrapped around my waist, slicing me in two.
“Oh, goodness !” The high-pitched yelp all at once snapped my attention back into focus, just in time for me to react. The black shape in the corner of my vision that I’d assumed to be a rosebush was, in fact, Mrs. Massey. I tugged my tray away a second before it careened into her, my world—and career—flashing before my eyes.
“I’m so sorry,” I gushed, and if I thought I’d been shaking before, the tremble came in full force now. “I—I’m so?—”
“Please watch where you’re going.” Her hard stare was as unforgiving as her voice. “I expect you to be paying attention, Lovisa.”
The sinking feeling didn’t go away as she stalked past me, and neither did the trembling.
Get a grip, Lovisa Hahn .
Instead of heading back into the kitchen, I took a hard right down the path, disappearing between the rosebushes and setting my tray down on a wooden-slatted bench. The champagne flutes jostled with the movement, but by some miracle, none of them spilled.
1442 Everview Road. It was a two-story Victorian-style house with gabled roofs and a delicate trim, a broad wraparound porch with intricate spindle work, arched glass windows, and a turret-like structure that stuck out half a story on the third level. The property sat on a hill above the bay, overlooking the calm waters.
It sounded picturesque, but it’d been abandoned decades ago. The elements had its way with it, leaving it a once-beautiful shell that no one deemed worthy to buy at the jaw-dropping price tag.
Except me. I wanted to buy it. I needed to.
It’d been a long time since I’d checked my bank account. I had no idea if I was even close. But it didn’t matter. Growing up, my mother would tell me she didn’t want many things. “ 1442 Everview Road ,” she’d said. “ That’s my dream .”
And now, after five years of chasing it in her place, I was out of time.
I crouched down and braced my hands on my knees, my face close to the greenery as if the floral scent could ground me. Except it was the earliest stages of spring, and all the shrubs smelled like was dirt.
Dirt and… cologne?
As I stared into its depths, something in the rosebush began to take shape.
I blinked. The strangeness of the shadow pulled me back from the brink, and I leaned closer, my imploding world momentarily forgotten.
In the midst of the darkness, a pair of wide eyes swiveled up to meet mine.
An instinctive shriek wrenched its way out of me, a sharp and sudden note that caused whoever crouched in the bushes to give their own surprised shout. Theirs was lower, distinctly male.
I jerked away from the bushes, every ounce of Alderton-Du Ponte training vanishing. “ What the hell ?”
My hand shot to my waist where my walkie-talkie hung on a belt loop, but before I wrenched it free, the figure called out, “I—I just dropped something!” They pried themselves free of the rosebush, the thorns tugging on their clothes. “I wasn’t—I wasn’t being a creep.”
I stiffened as they, because out of anyone I expected to be crouched in a bush like an absolute weirdo, it was not a tall man wearing a Rolex and Hefman he’d made a decision. “Empathy always works.”
I saw it all happen in slow motion. Aaron brought his hand up, and almost with a blinding force, he slammed his palm into the edge of my tray. Training went out the window when the disruption was so severe, and my mimosas couldn’t survive the impact.
The entire tray flipped forward, out of my palm, and the filled flutes crashed into Aaron’s midsection. Orange juice stained into the fabric of his white shirt instantly, some even flinging up to splatter on his chin. Plastic cups clattered to the ground in an almost melodic concerto, and my tray bounced against the cobblestones before it pirouetted on its rim.
I stood, slack-jawed, in the aftermath of it all, unable to do anything but watch the tray settle flat on the ground.
Aaron reached up and coasted the back of his hand along his chin, wiping away the juice. “Shall I help you clean up?” he asked, perfectly ordinary.
I blinked, gaping at the scattered champagne flutes. “Shall you help me ?”
“That’s what I said, yes.”
I sputtered. I actually sputtered. “You—this— ha !” Anger swallowed my shock whole, leaving no room for anything else. “This is your fault, you arrogant little— ha ! You can clean it up all by your?—”
“Aaron?”
A group of four stood at the mouth of the walkway, nestled between the rosebushes. The first person I noticed was Caroline with her brows up on her forehead. The woman beside her looked equally shocked. Her blonde hair hung in perfectly curled ringlets down her chest, her light pink sundress accentuating the color perfectly. The man at her side wasn’t as familiar, but I had seen him before, though he’d been wearing a tuxedo the last time.
And the last time I’d seen her had been June, and she’d been wearing white. “Annalise?”
Her face lit up. “Lovey!”
The man—her husband, Michael Huntsly—rushed to his friend’s side, as if I’d doused Aaron in acid rather than orange juice. “Not the Hefmans !” he exclaimed, and I realized he wasn’t looking at Aaron at all, but at his shoes .
Annalise only gave him a momentary glance before turning to me, delight dancing in her eyes. “Well, I figured someone would throw a drink in Aaron’s face, but I had my bets on Mrs. Massey.”