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“What?” Aria exclaimed out loud. Everyone turned to look at her, and she shrugged sheepishly to cover her reaction. Hallbjorn had certainly glossed over those details. Suddenly, all of her regret and nostalgia disappeared. Hallbjorn truly was a lunatic.
Mike placed a hand to his chin. “Actually, didn’t you date someone in Iceland named Hallbjorn, Aria?”
“Uh, yeah.” Aria wound a piece of hair around her finger. “But it’s a pretty common name.”
“It is?” Mike looked skeptical.
“Of course it is.” Aria tossed her hair over her shoulder and sauntered out of the room. There was no way she could watch another minute of the newscast without giving her secret away. And that, she had decided, was absolutely out of the question. It was like the question of the tree falling in the forest: If no one knew Aria got married, if no one saw, then it had never happened. She’d gotten the marriage annulled before it was logged into any permanent records. No one would be able to trace Hallbjorn to her.
The only real proof Aria had left that a marriage had taken place was the snake ring. She felt for it in her pocket as she climbed the stairs. Some pawnshop would buy it. She’d steal into Philly next week, go to a neighborhood where she definitely wouldn’t be recognized, and get rid of it once and for all. And as for the money she’d get, maybe she’d give it to the poor kid who’d gotten trapped by one of the panthers under the boardwalk. Or to the strippers who’d had to run out of the club half-naked because a panther had gotten loose inside. Or maybe she’d use it to take a real vacation over spring break.
But no matter what, this was something she never had to think about again. No one knew, after all—and she was planning to keep it that way forever.
A Very Married Christmas
Lions and tigers and silver panthers, oh my! Biedermeister and Bitschi’s pet cats weren’t the only dangerous things running around Atlantic City. Aria thinks the sole witnesses to her marriage and annulment were some celebrity look-alikes and a grumpy court official, but I had front row seats for the whole affair. And unlike the state of New Jersey, I’m not going to pretend it never happened—especially when I learned sooooo much from the unhappy couple.
Like . . . while Hallbjorn may know how to detonate an explosive, Aria’s the one with the self-destruct button. She ruins everything she touches: Ezra’s career. Her parents’ marriage. Her own relationships. Yet for someone so easily burned, Aria keeps playing with fire—she falls in and out of love faster than you can say “I do.” I can only imagine who her next relationship will be with—another artist, another Typical Rosewood Boy?—and how it will end. Unless, of course, I end it for her.
This is the problem with artsy girls. They treat life like a blank canvas, painting over their missteps and never learning from their mistakes. Every new guy, every new town is simply an opportunity to try on a new persona. But moving to Iceland doesn’t fix a broken family, dyeing a vintage wedding dress lime-green doesn’t make it fabulous new prom-wear, and nothing, absolutely nothing, gets Aria and her friends off the hook for what they did.
The honeymoon’s over, Aria. And reality is going to bite.
That’s something Spencer has to find out, too. She still hopes that she can start fresh with her damaged family. But don’t worry, my pretties. Spencer is about to learn that not everyone deserves—or gets—a happy New Year . . .
Spencer’s Pretty Little Secret
Chapter 1
Deep Freeze in the Warm Florida Sun
The day after Christmas, Spencer Hastings sat squished in a narrow leather seat of a private plane as it touched down at the airport in Longboat Key, Florida. Through the window, she watched the heat rise up from the tarmac, making the palm trees look like they were swaying and shimmering. The sun beat down ruthlessly on the traffic controllers, who strutted about in T-shirts, shorts, and sunglasses. It was a huge change from the seventeen-degree weather and two-foot snowdrifts in Rosewood. Spencer couldn’t think of a better time to take a vacation to Nana Hastings’s Florida beach house—although given that her family was, as usual, barely speaking to her, she could think of many better groups to travel with.
Spencer’s mother, who sat farther up the aisle and was dressed in her requisite flying uniform of a cashmere hoodie and yoga pants, lifted the satin sleep mask from her eyes. “Peter, did you remember to rent a car?”
Spencer’s father paused from typing on his Android phone and let out an exasperated puff of air. “Of course I did. I rented a Mercedes SUV.”
“The G-class?”
“No.” He stood and grabbed everyone’s bags from the overhead compartment. “The ML350.”
Spencer’s mother made a face. “But the G550 has more legroom.”
“Veronica, everything is walkable in Longboat Key—we don’t even really need a car.” He dropped Spencer’s mother’s travel-sized Louis Vuitton bag on the empty seat next to her.
The captain interrupted, telling the family that they’d landed—duh—and that Gina, the flight attendant, would open the door so they could disembark. Spencer eased out of the aisle behind her parents. Her sister, Melissa, fell in line behind her, keeping her head down and her iPod earbuds securely in each ear. She hadn’t said a word the whole flight, which was odd—normally, she didn’t shut up about the town house she was renovating, how well she was doing at the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School of business, or how generally fabulous she was.
