Name Your Price

Chapter 16

After calling in help from Mansi because she simply could not determine what was appropriate to wear for a midmorning Monday meeting with her late father’s ex-wife, Olivia ended up in a classy dress and a pair of heeled sandals. Power red , Mansi had called it. Something modest and tasteful but also unmistakably present. Olivia nervously tugged at its sleeve after she reached out her car window to buzz at Astrid’s front gate.

It had been two weeks since that fated day at the Name Your Price house, and Olivia now found herself back in Pacific Palisades. But unlike the house where she and Chuck had been imprisoned, Astrid’s house did indeed have towering privacy hedges, and given its location, very likely an ocean view. When the gate swept open and she followed the rosebush-studded driveway to what was essentially a small parking lot with a fountain, she found that the house also had three stories, marble columns, and more sparkling glass windows than she could count. It screamed wealth but with the tasteful elegance of a soprano hitting the highest notes unreachable by most humans. Which, considering one of the most revered and accomplished actors in history lived inside it, felt fitting.

All that was to say, it was wildly intimidating.

Olivia took a very deep and nervous breath as she climbed out of Mansi’s car. Not only did her friend dress her, but she also let her borrow her Mercedes so that she didn’t have to pull up to a movie star’s house in a car that was in desperate need of a tune-up and still mysteriously whistled like a tea kettle.

Feeling insignificant in many ways, she made her way to the front steps. The shallow stone scallops rippled out toward her like a wave that was at once welcoming and imposing. When she planted her foot on the first step, she felt like she might slip inside it and disappear. She also felt the urge to turn around and run and momentarily wished she’d taken Chuck up on his offer to come so that he could at least hold out his arm like a guardrail and prevent her from bailing at the last second, but he was busy dealing with the aftermath of the profile having been published that morning anyway.

Olivia had basically dropped a bomb and run away. The profile went live at nine a.m., and she silenced her notifications at 9:05 a.m. in order to prepare for her meeting with Astrid. The only people who could get through to her were Chuck, Mansi, and Willow Grove in case of emergency. And so far, silence on all those important fronts.

Given that she’d already buzzed at the gate and her presence was known, the front door swung open before she could ring the doorbell. One half of the towering gateway peeled back to view of an airy entryway and a smiling face. Not Astrid Larsson, but someone of similar Nordic heritage, surely.

“Good morning, Ms. Martin,” the woman said with a cheerful smile and Swedish accent. She wore her blond hair twisted into a braid and had sparkly blue eyes. Olivia guessed she was a housekeeper or caretaker of some sort, what with her plain and utilitarian outfit of blue blouse and black pants. She looked to be in her midforties. “I’m Hanna. Ms. Larsson welcomes you to her home. Please, come in.”

As welcoming as the housekeeper was, Olivia found the two wagging hounds at her hips more inviting. Tall and lean with black coats and cream tips, they were either the world’s worst guard dogs or simply friendly to strangers.

“Hi,” Olivia said, and stuck out her hand to one of the dogs, who promptly licked it with a warm tongue.

“I do hope you like dogs. Ms. Larsson has many. This way, please,” Hanna said, and waved her in.

Olivia followed her through a cavernous entryway with a chandelier the size of a Volkswagen Beetle and a split staircase curving each wall and joining at the top. The dogs excitedly sniffed her as she walked, poking their noses from her ankles to her hips.

“What are their names?” she asked.

Hanna glanced over her shoulder as if to check which dogs she was asking about. “This is Nico and Sebastian. Yes, like the crab.”

Olivia grinned and scrubbed Sebastian’s ears, finding it somehow endearing to know that Astrid Larsson had a dog named after a Disney character.

“Ms. Larsson is waiting for you on the patio. The morning is so nice, she thought outside would be a lovely place to meet,” Hanna said as she led Olivia through a stately sitting room full of daylight thanks to the entire back wall being glass.

A sweeping view of the Pacific Ocean stole Olivia’s breath for a beat. She’d grown up next to it and seen it countless times, but seeing it from above, a sheet of blue silk stretching to the horizon, never failed to impress. Only so many people could afford to frame that view inside their home like their own personal painting, and that was part of the allure. Astrid Larsson’s home displayed it like a crown jewel.

The rest of the room held large furniture pieces with long, clean lines that looked intentional to keep it from disappearing against the view’s grand scale. A glint of gold caught Olivia’s eye from the marble mantel, and she counted all three of Astrid’s Oscars on display.

Her red dress suddenly felt like an embarrassingly inferior power move. Hanna had probably been instructed to walk Olivia through the room with the Oscars to remind her who exactly she was coming over to meet. The reminder served its purpose because Olivia felt foolish for thinking any good could come out of this conversation. Surely Astrid only planned to remind her of her status and shove her back out the door.

When Hanna led her through a pocket of the glass wall that had been slid open, Olivia entered a picturesque backyard that looked fit to be a diving platform into the ocean. Of course, a rocky hillside separated it and them, but the appearance of needing only a single step to slip into the sea left the house feeling like it was floating in the sky. A prim lawn and row of palms filled one side of the yard, and a crystalline blue swimming pool lined with lounge chairs and a covered bar filled the other. Between the pool and the house, and in the direction in which Hanna was leading her, sat a pergola climbing with morning glories and bougainvillea in shades of indigo and fuchsia almost too brilliant to look at. Beneath the volcano of color sat a scene equally stunning.

Astrid Larsson.

Olivia’s heart stopped at the sight of her. A screen goddess come to life, but also a woman at home in her backyard. The clash of the untouchable ethereal beauty she’d seen from a distance her whole life and Astrid’s Birkenstocks, linen pants, and simple blouse threw her for a loop.

She was stunning, and yet…normal.

She sat at a table spread with coffee, pastries, fresh fruit, and a glass jug of orange juice beside a bottle of champagne in a bucket. A fluffy white Samoyed sat next to her panting on the patio deck.

Olivia’s first instinct was that she’d interrupted something, someone else’s fancy brunch, because this couldn’t possibly have been for her. But then Astrid popped out of her chair and removed the sunglasses she’d been wearing to gape at her. Her famous ice blue eyes pierced her like hooks.

“My god. You’re the spitting image of your mother.”

Hearing her voice in person was even more of a mind trip than seeing her. She stood tall and slender, still possessing the supermodel figure that had made her famous. Her grayed hair was pulled halfway back and otherwise tumbling over her shoulders. Her skin creamy pale with rosed cheeks. She was impeccably preserved for someone in her seventies. It took Olivia several seconds to register that Astrid Larsson, the Astrid Larsson, was speaking to her.

“Hello,” she said nervously. Somewhere in the depths of her brain, she was trying to remember that she was supposed to feel anger toward this woman, but she should have known that feeling starstruck would snatch at least some of that away. “Um, thank you for meeting with me.”

Astrid kept staring at her, looking almost as if she’d seen a ghost. She eventually cleared her throat and motioned for her to sit down. “Of course. Thank you for coming.” On the way back into her own seat, she bumped her coffee mug and sent it sloshing. “Oh dear,” she muttered, flustered, and looked for a napkin among the decadent spread.

Olivia realized then that she was just as nervous, if not more so. The fact that she could make Astrid Larsson nervous filled her with a surprised sense of powerful confidence.

“Here,” Olivia said when she found a cloth napkin folded beside a strawberry tart. She extended it to Astrid, who took it with a surprised look.

“Thank you,” she said, and dabbed up the spill.

The Samoyed stood to lick the dribbles on the concrete.

“What’s that one’s name?” Olivia asked, and pointed at the dog.

Astrid sat in her chair and buried her fingers in the dog’s thick and shockingly white coat. He looked like a sterile cotton ball roaming the colorful backyard. “This is Jax,” she said, and reached over to the chair beside her to lift a little stuffed sausage of a French bulldog that Olivia hadn’t even known was sitting there. “And this ,” Astrid said like lifting her was no small feat, “is Minnie. Who you can see is in a delicate condition.” Her voice squeaked as she cradled the dog like a baby and gently rubbed her rotund belly. Astrid looked up at Olivia with a smile. “Let me know if you’re in the market for a puppy.”

Olivia noted then that the pudgy dog wasn’t simply pudgy, but pregnant. Astrid set her on the ground, where she waddled off to lie in the sun. At the sight of it—the cute dog, the breakfast spread, the stunning view—a befuddled laugh popped out of Olivia. The sound of it startled even her and made Astrid look over.

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

Olivia couldn’t exactly put a finger on it. “I’m sorry. This is all just very strange. I didn’t really know what to expect, but it certainly wasn’t a champagne brunch and a puppy. Kind of feels like a trick.” An embarrassed flush immediately curled into Olivia’s face for insulting her host, but it was true. She felt like a kid being lured off the street.

Astrid kept quiet long enough to make Olivia look up. A small smile played at her mouth. “You sound just like your father.”

Olivia reeled as if she’d reached out and slapped her. She had never, not once, been compared to her father. She didn’t even know the first thing about him to know if they had anything in common.

Astrid softly, and sadly, smiled again. “I can tell that’s surprising to you, but it’s true. I was married to him for ten years, so I would know. You may look like your mother, but your mannerisms, the way you talk, your natural skepticism, that flush in your cheeks right now, that’s all your father. It’s so plain to see.”

The revelation left Olivia breathless. It struck her that Astrid was likely the only person alive with any intimate knowledge of her father, and she’d just dipped a ladle into the well that she possessed. Both of these facts had Olivia wanting to swan-dive into that well and swim to the bottom to gather up everything she knew.

She found herself unable to speak.

“Look,” Astrid said to fill the silence. She traced her manicured fingertip around her coffee mug’s rim. “I know you must know the truth by now, otherwise you wouldn’t be here, and I know you have no reason to trust me, but I hope that you will believe me when I say, I’m sorry.”

The apology pierced through Olivia and did not feel the way she thought it would. Where she wanted to feel restored, vindicated, made whole again, the simple sorry felt cheap. Easy. Inadequate.

“For what?” she said coldly, unable to keep the edge out of her voice.

Astrid’s eyes shot up to her. She was well versed in faking emotion—she’d literally won awards for it—but Olivia could not mistake the expression spreading under the mask she tried to hold.

Shame.

Olivia sat up straighter, empowered by the sight of the imposing woman wilting before her. She didn’t care if this was difficult for Astrid. She wanted to hear her say it. “Sorry for the way they were treated? Sorry for how I grew up thinking my parents were terrible people? Sorry for the way I was treated? Sorry for staying silent for thirty years?” Her voice rose with each question, and Astrid further wilted. All her life, Olivia had never had anyone to direct her anger at, and now with the person she hadn’t even known was the source of it sitting in front of her, a fire hose had been turned on.

“Do you know what it’s like to only know your parents from tabloids? To see them called every terrible thing possible for something they didn’t even do? And to find out thirty years later that the person who could have cleared their names kept quiet the whole time?”

“Olivia, I—”

“I thought they didn’t want me,” Olivia said. Tears had found their way into her voice, and she did not hold them back. She was not ashamed to cry in front of Astrid Larsson. She wanted to cry. She wanted her to see the damage her choices had inflicted. “I thought I was a mistake. An unwanted accident from a toxic affair that turned you into a victim and left me alone. You could have fixed all that, and you didn’t. So don’t tell me you’re sorry , because it’s not good enough.” She used one of the heavy cloth napkins to wipe her eyes and didn’t care that she was staining Astrid Larsson’s linens with makeup.

A thick silence expanded between them. In it, the only sounds were birds chirping and Jax lapping at the pool water. Olivia’s outburst had lifted a weight off her. One that she hadn’t realized she’d been carrying until it was gone. Astrid, on the other hand, looked as if it had settled firmly on top of her and might have been limiting her ability to breathe. When she finally spoke, her voice came out soft and sounding nothing like the woman Olivia had seen command the screen for decades.

“No, I can’t imagine what that was like at all. I admit, when your grandmother decided to keep you out of the spotlight, I felt like I dodged a bullet. And I’d be lying if I didn’t say I’ve been holding my breath for thirty years, waiting for this to come, for you to show up wanting answers. I’ve thought of reaching out to you over the years. I thought that seeing Brad and Becky’s daughter would be like seeing an old friend—two old friends. But then I’d remember how everything happened, the choices we made, and it was simply easier to let it all go. To keep it all quiet.”

As Olivia digested her words, three of them rang like chimes she couldn’t unhear: Brad and Becky. She’d never heard anyone refer to her parents like that. She didn’t even know there was anyone who would refer to her parents like that. The casual nicknames implied a level of intimacy reserved for friendship.

Her own voice came out thick and strained with pain. “If you considered them friends, why would you do this to them? Why wouldn’t you tell the truth?”

Astrid sighed. “That is complex, and I don’t think my answer will satisfy you.”

“I think I deserve to hear it, regardless.”

She gave her a stiff nod like she agreed but was still reluctant. “Your father and I married as a business arrangement. I was on the cusp of stardom, and being an American citizen would have helped my career in multiple ways. Your father was a businessman who knew what levers to pull to make things happen. Neither of us was interested in a family life. I wanted the biggest career I could have, and he wanted to get me there. It was settled with a trip to the courthouse and a few months of immigration paperwork. No one questioned that it wasn’t sincere, and it worked for years. We lived together, married on paper but married to our careers in reality. It worked until he met your mother.”

Where Olivia might have expected to hear bitterness, a sour resentment toward the woman who threw a wrench into her golden plan, she instead heard fondness. Perhaps even a hint of envy.

Astrid continued with a small smile on her lips. “You know those stories where someone is set in their ways until one person comes along and turns their world upside down? Well, that was your mother for your father. I’d never seen him like that before. He was like a teenager in love, and his whole worldview from before ceased to matter. When he told me he wanted a life with her, there was no way I could stand in their way. You see, Olivia, I was never in love with your father, but I loved him dearly as a friend. And I could not deny him the true love of his life when he found her.” She let out another long breath and tapped her fingers on the table. “But we’d also been building my career for most of a decade and didn’t want to undo all that work. So, we made an arrangement. Among the three of us.”

She paused as if to remind Olivia that her parents had been complicit in the plan too.

“That also worked for a few years,” she continued, sounding like she was fondly remembering again. “I was off traveling for films most of the time, either shooting them or promoting them, and Rebecca all but moved into our house. She was…” She paused again and looked down with a smile. “She was really lovely, your mother.” Again, another skim of a deep well that Olivia wanted to dive into, but Astrid looked up with a grim expression. “When she got pregnant, we knew things were going to get difficult. And then after their accident…It was just easier not to correct the assumptions everyone made.”

The faint joy that had been brimming Olivia’s heart faded into an ache. She stared down at a lemon Danish pastry that had begun to melt and looked too fancy to eat anyway. “How could you do that to them?”

“Honestly, at the time, I wasn’t thinking of them. Or you,” Astrid said, and Olivia’s eyes bounced up. “I was only thinking of myself. I was thinking of what I would lose if word got out that I’d knowingly let my husband have an affair for two years. That I’d let the other woman live in my house, and to top it all off, that it wasn’t even truly an affair because my marriage wasn’t real to begin with. Everything I’d worked for—that your father had worked for too—would have been lost. So I didn’t say anything at all.”

A new breed of anger burned inside Olivia. It wasn’t the explosive kind she felt when she argued with Chuck. The kind that burst and then faded into an afterglow that eventually healed like a sunburn. This anger was core-deep and powerful. Dangerous.

“Was it worth it?” she said hardly above a whisper.

Astrid considered her with a steady gaze. “I don’t think you want me to answer that question.”

The answer was clear enough, what with their presence in the backyard of a fifty-million-dollar home with purebred dogs at their feet and champagne at their fingertips.

Olivia reached for the champagne and pulled out the cork without permission. She crudely poured a glassful and sipped it before the bubbles even stopped fizzing. “So I guess this is the part where you beg me not to say anything in order to preserve your legacy.” She took another gulp.

“No.”

Olivia paused with the glass halfway from her mouth and almost choked. “It’s not?”

“No,” Astrid said. She gazed out at her yard. “I’ve lived the life I wanted.” She turned her piercing blue eyes back to Olivia. “You haven’t had that chance, at least not to the extent that you deserve, because I took it from you. I owe it to your parents, my friends, to give it back.”

Olivia blinked at her in confusion and wondered if the champagne had been spiked with a hallucinogen. “You’re not like dying, are you?” she blurted, suddenly realizing there could be an alternate explanation for her strange response.

Astrid gently laughed. “No, dear. Not yet, at least.” She sighed, sounding resigned and relieved at the same time. “What I’m saying is, I won’t stop you if you want to share their story, because it’s your story too, and you deserve to be able to tell the truth.”

The anger Olivia had felt dialed back a few notches. The tension in her jaw dissolved. She couldn’t fully believe what she’d heard.

“Really?”

“Yes. I don’t deserve your forgiveness, so I won’t ask for it, but instead, I’ll give you the truth. It’s yours to do with whatever you please.”

As little as Olivia had expected to show up to brunch and be offered a puppy, she expected even less for Astrid to give her permission to talk. If anything, she’d expected to have her silence bought.

“Um, wow,” she said, overwhelmed. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. I only ask that you please give me a heads-up before you share anything so that my team can prepare for the backlash.” She folded her hands in her lap as if bracing herself for a battle.

Olivia had thought about it, honestly. She was in her right to slaughter Astrid Larsson in the press the same way her parents had been thirty years ago. But what would that achieve? An eye for an eye might feel good in the short term, but what about after the initial stab? When the dust settled, and millions of fans learned that their beloved favorite actress was a liar? What good would tarnishing Astrid’s name do for anyone but Olivia? None. And hadn’t she gotten into journalism to prevent the types of headlines that marred her childhood? Unlike her takedown of Richard Sykes, there was nuance to Astrid’s story; it wasn’t a black-and-white crime. Yes, she’d thrown her husband and friend under the bus for her own advancement, but it hadn’t started as malicious intent. Staring at the elegant, elderly woman sitting across from her, Olivia decided that people deserved to hear her side of the story too.

“What if we tell it together?” she said.

Astrid perked up in surprise. “What do you mean?”

She took another sip of champagne for courage. “I mean that people have wanted to know what happened for thirty years—from you . Yes, I’m part of it too, but I don’t remember any of it, not the way you can, at least. I don’t think it has to be a one-sided takedown of anyone. It can simply be…the truth.”

The look on Astrid’s face turned to one of wonder. Her eyes glossed over, and she blinked a few times. Then she softly smiled. “That right there, that kindness, is your mother.”

Olivia instantly choked up. She felt a tear pinch out of her eye. She dashed it away and tried to cover with another sip of champagne. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, dear. But please, help me eat all this.” She leaned forward and lifted a knife to cut into the strawberry tart. “And don’t hog the champagne. I love a good mimosa in the morning.”

Olivia snorted a laugh that sent bubbles tingling her nose. Never in a million years did she think she’d be sharing a champagne brunch with Astrid Larsson, and yet here she was.

Astrid slid a slice of tart onto a plate and handed it to her.

“Thank you. Did you make all this?”

“Of course not,” Astrid said with a smile. “Hanna is an excellent chef.”

The bite Olivia took was a perfect combination of flaky crust, custard, and berry. “Yes, she is.”

Astrid gave her a knowing smile and settled into her own slice. The tension that had been present between them eased into something still there but softer. It had Olivia feeling brave. That might have also partly been due to the champagne.

“Astrid, will you tell me more about my parents?”

Astrid poured her own glass of bubbles and topped it with a splash of orange juice. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know, dear.”

···

Olivia spent three hours at Astrid’s. Two of them listening to stories about her mom and dad and one of them sobering up from the mimosas so that she could drive home. In that last hour, they’d also discussed what telling the story together might look like, and the prospect had Olivia positively buzzing with anxious excitement.

Before she left, she turned her phone notifications back on and was met with a crash of alerts. Texts, missed calls, dozens of emails. She didn’t even dare open her social media accounts. The profile on Chuck was alive and well.

She smiled at an email from Stephanie that held the entire message in the subject line: AMAZING JOB.

She had two texts from Chuck: the kissy face emoji blowing a heart with THANK YOU that she took to mean he was pleased with the reception of the piece, and another that said How’d it go?

He’d told her that no one could have written the piece like her, and she had to agree. Because she knew him better than anyone, she’d thoughtfully cracked him open for the public in a way that only she could and finally exposed Chuck Walsh as he deserved to be seen. Based on the public response, the world had been waiting for a deep dive into his story, and now they would only want more.

She quickly texted him back. It went well. Heading home.

I can’t wait to hear about it. I love you.

She smiled that he’d responded so quickly given he too was surely drowning in messages and had sifted hers to the top.

I love you too , she wrote back, and climbed into her borrowed car.

Halfway back to her apartment, her phone rang. She didn’t have it synced to Mansi’s car, so she had to look down to see who was calling. Parker Stone flashed on the screen, and pure curiosity made her answer it and put him on speakerphone.

“Hello?”

“Olivia!” he sang. “Good to hear your voice. How are you doing?”

“You know, Parker, all things considered, I’m doing pretty well. Please don’t ruin it with whatever reason you are calling.”

He chortled a laugh. “You know me well. But that’s not why I called.”

“No?”

“No. I’m calling for two reasons. First, I wanted to apologize for how things ended in the house. TJ wasn’t supposed to bring up Chuck’s job like that. The photos, yes; his job, no. We’d discussed it beforehand, and given the legal situation, he knew it was off-limits.”

Olivia’s grip on her steering wheel tightened. She hadn’t been expecting a sudden callback to one of her worst moments. She’d thought back to that whole scene a lot in the past weeks, and she agreed with Chuck that they’d been trying to manipulate them into fighting. And now Parker had confirmed their suspicion. The fact that it worked so easily left the memory even more shameful. Her voice came out thick. “Okay.”

“Okay,” Parker repeated. “And the second reason I’m calling is to thank you.”

“Thank me?”

“Yes. See, because of what TJ did and with the way the show ended, we were in a bit of a bind over what we’d be able to air. We’ve been going back and forth with Legal over if we’d have to edit out anything related to Chuck’s NDA, but thanks to your piece that dropped this morning—which is a great piece, by the way—the situation is public knowledge now, and we can air everything. You solved the problem for us!”

She did not exactly match his cheer that the whole messy ending of their time at the house would end up on TV—she’d honestly hoped the whole episode would get canned—but she did her best to sound positive.

“That’s great, Parker.”

“It is! And what’s better is Chuck told me you two are back together now, which, honestly, that’s all I was hoping for.”

She flinched in surprise. “You were?”

“Well, that and the massive ratings this is going to haul in. But like I said, I’m a hopeless romantic.” She could hear the smile in his voice. “Speaking of Chuck, how do you feel about a follow-up episode after this one airs? Kind of a Where Are They Now thing.”

“Oh my god, Parker. No. I didn’t want to be on TV in the first place. I’m certainly not signing up for it again.”

“Come on, Olivia. People would love to see your happy ending!”

“No, they wouldn’t. People want to see drama. And that’s what we gave you: six days of drama.”

“It wasn’t all drama. There are some really tender moments in here too. I’ve watched all the footage.”

“ Ugh. Don’t remind me.”

Parker laughed. “But listen, if you ever change your mind, you know where to find me. Also, the offer still stands on doing an interview about your parents.”

“Ever the opportunist,” she said with a roll of her eyes, but she stopped halfway. Her heart suddenly trilled in her throat. Her hands grew tacky with nerves, but a thrilling anticipation thrummed through her like an electric current. “Actually, I might have an opportunity for you . Can I swing by the studio office?”