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“He wears a Speedo and Birkenstocks. Together.”
“Ewww!”
“Have you seen that mother of his? NOCD.”*
“I suppose it’s fine that she’s fallen for someone like him, since Lucie’s never cared about joining Piping Rock.”
“Have you fallen for him?” Suddenly Lucie realized Charlotte had been speaking to her all along. “Answer me, Lucie, so I can best help you clean up this mess.”
Lucie shook her head vehemently. “I haven’t fallen for him, Charlotte. I’m not even attracted to him! It was all a mistake! I just had a wild moment.”
Charlotte let out a deep sigh that Lucie interpreted as relief. “You’ve been such an angel all these years, something was bound to crack. Your mother always had a bit of a wild streak, which I actually found rather refreshing in our family, and I guess you’ve inherited a bit of that after all.”
There it is, Lucie thought. That backhanded compliment toward her mother all the Churchills were so good at delivering. Even after all these years, there was always this politely veiled implication that Marian Tang, the hippieish Asian girl from the Pacific Northwest, was never supposed to marry their darling Reggie. She wanted to defend her mother, but she knew she wasn’t even in a position to defend herself.
“This has nothing to do with Mom. It’s this wedding…I got caught up in everything that’s been happening on this island, that’s all.” It was the best Lucie could muster up.
“Yes, Capri is rather intoxicating, isn’t it? It lulls your inhibitions, seduces you, and makes you do crazy, impulsive things. Look at me—I never in my life thought I’d eat this many carbs in one week! Just think, what would have happened if I hadn’t come looking for you? What if I hadn’t arrived at the moment I did and saw what those boys were up to?”
“What’s there to say? You did come looking for me.” Lucie sighed.
“I don’t even dare imagine what might have happened if I had not. The footage would be streaming twenty-four-seven on TMZ already!”
“I’m not famous, Charlotte. No one would care.”
“You are a Churchill! Our ancestors were some of the earliest settlers of America and count two signers of the Declaration of Independence! Our great-great-great-grandfather practically invented Wall Street! The press loves this kind of stuff, whenever our kind are caught doing naughty things. They would label you something nasty like ‘Park Avenue Princess’ or ‘Churchill Heiress,’ and it would be all over Page Six!”
“Well, I’ve always wanted to be in Page Six,” Lucie said facetiously.
“Don’t even joke about such a thing, Lucie! Our family has survived unsullied by scandal for generations, and I’m not going to let you be the one who ruins it all! A scandal like this would give Granny a stroke! And mind you, even if we do succeed in destroying the footage forever, what are we going to do about George?”
“What do you mean?”
“How do we contain him?”
“I don’t understand. George doesn’t need any ‘containing.’?”
“Oh, you don’t think he’s going to go bragging about tonight?”
“God, no.”
Charlotte glared at Lucie pitifully. “I don’t think you really know what men are like. You are a big notch in his belt, and he’s going to want to broadcast it to all the other guys.”
“He’s not that kind of guy, trust me. And things have changed since your time, Charlotte. Everyone’s past is out there online, it’s really not that big a deal,” Lucie tried to say dismissively, even though, in her heart of hearts, it was a big deal.
Charlotte shook her head in dismay. She knew Lucie might not care as much as she did about such proprieties, but she still had their family to answer to. She pondered for a moment and then let out a deep sigh. “I suppose you see me as a has-been. Yes, I’m a Luddite, I’m too old-fashioned for your generation. God help me, I’ve never been on a dating app, and maybe I’m placing too much importance on protecting your virtue, your reputation, but this was what I was here to do, Lucie. It was the only reason I was invited to Capri and you know it. On that score I have totally failed our family. And your mother—your poor mother—will be blamed by Granny.”
Lucie wanted to scream—her cousin was so good at playing this particular guilt card. “Why should Mom ever find out?”
“Well, if the footage leaks, she’s bound to find out. And even if it doesn’t…don’t you always tell her everything anyway?”
“You think I’m going to tell her about this?”
“Well, the two of you are like sisters. You three have this special free-spirited intimacy that I’ve always found a little disconcerting—I remember how Freddie confessed to your mother that some girl had given him a hand job under the table at Serafina when he was in the ninth grade.”
“Charlotte, that’s Freddie! I don’t tell my mom everything like he does. If anything, I tell as little as possible these days—she worries about every single thing I do.”
“That’s not how it seems to me,” Charlotte said, turning toward the window. The moonlight on the water was astonishing. It was such a lovely view, a view that had gotten them into all this trouble in the first place. She wished she could turn back the clock and that they had never accepted the Zaos’ rooms.
