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  My iPad chimed, and I tensed up. I had a hunch the message was from Jamison, but with the sloshy ice on the roads and the gray weather conditions, there was no way I was going to fiddle with my briefcase so that I could check and see if I was right. My device beeped two more times while I was driving up West Forrest Road. Finally, the voice on the navigator app instructed me to make a right turn. I stopped in front of a wooden gate and rolled down the window. A pillow of cold air ambushed my face, and I retreated a bit more into the heated cab of the SUV after hitting the call button at the gate.

  There was loud dialing, and then Eden said, “Hi, Bryn, is it you?”

  “It’s me.”

  “You’ll see an open garage. Park inside it just in case it snows. Then you’ll see the entrance to the house on the right. A staircase will take you to the first floor. I’ll meet you there.”

  “See you there,” I said, making sure I sounded professional and friendly and not distracted by wanting desperately to see what Jamison had to say.

  After a buzz, the gate slowly began to roll open. In the brief seconds before driving onto the property, I quickly retrieved my iPad from my briefcase and saw that I had received several messages that were indeed from Jamison: Your brother Asher called. Also, your sister Kat. She’s on her way to Houston for a conference. Wants to know if you’re able to join her for a day or two. Told her you’re working in Colorado.

  A laugh escaped me while I read the message again. Is he for real? There was no mention of him putting my cell phone in the mail. Instead, he was taking the role of a glorified message taker, even to the extent of indirectly informing Kat that I wouldn’t be able to join her in Houston because I was starting a new job.

  The gate was wide open and ready for my entrance. I huffed, knowing that at some point when I had a moment, I would have to respond to Jamison and insist that he mail my cell phone to me.

  As I pressed my foot gently on the gas pedal, my iPad chimed again. Another message from Jamison appeared on the screen: Your mother called. I told her you made it to Colorado safely. I assumed you had.

  I couldn’t stop shaking my head as I drove up the driveway. What sort of game is Jamison playing? I wanted to blow my top, but I couldn’t. My work had already started. The outside of the house and the grounds reflected how the inside should look. Built into a hill and bordered by tall fir trees, the structure reminded me of stacked blocks made mostly of glass and stone. Even though its shape was ultracontemporary, it appeared to be at one with nature. With one look, I knew that I would have to leave at least half of my design ideas by the wayside.

  Overwhelmed by thoughts of Jamison and all the calls I had to return to the people I loved, I clenched the steering wheel and took a series of deep breaths. “You will get through this day,” I whispered.

  My iPad chimed again, and I glanced back and forth between the driveway and the screen to read Jamison’s message: Jasper called. I didn’t answer. Letting you know.

  I rolled my eyes as I groaned. At the end of the day, when I was back in my room, Jamison would be the first person I contacted. It was just weird that he had my phone and was taking messages for me. However, I had to admit, it felt exciting to know that he was in possession of something I owned and we were in contact with each other again.

  He’s uninvited, remember? I reminded myself.

  I drove into the garage. As soon as I turned off the engine, the garage door lowered. I collected all the things I needed for the job. As I slammed the vehicle door shut, I whispered, “I remember.” I didn’t sound at all convincing, though.

  Eden Newell met me in a spacious foyer that had a glass-top roof showcasing a view of the gray sky. Like most Hollywood actresses, Eden was classically beautiful, with light-blue eyes, which were striking in combination with her tousled chestnut hair. Beneath her round and high cheekbones was a wide mouth that made it impossible to miss her smile, even the pensive one she held as I walked into her house. I felt as if I’d interrupted her in the middle of trying to complete one last task before my arrival.

  “Did you have any trouble finding the house?” she asked, scratching the back of her head.

  I smiled. “Not at all. I used the navigational system just in case, but you don’t live that far from my family’s property.”

  “Oh, the Christmases are my neighbors?”

  I chuckled. “I guess so.” There was no use explaining that we owned hundreds of multimillion-dollar properties all over the world, all purchased by Randolph, who’d used them as his sex lairs.

  She squeezed her palms together as if nervous about something. “Wow, so it’s finally happening. We’re going to do this.”

  I frowned, concerned. “Did I catch you at a bad time or something?”

  “Hey, hon,” a guy said.

  I jerked myself into a straight position. There was no way in the world I was hearing who I thought I heard. The guy was behind me, and Eden was watching him.

  “I see that the interior designer’s late but here,” he said. “I guess that counts for something.”

  The voice. I knew it, and I knew it well. Holy crap.

  “Hey, babe,” Eden said in her lackluster tone.

  I turned my head slowly, feeling as if it was time for the big reveal on a game show. Then I saw him. My stomach tightened in disbelief as I inhaled sharply. I was looking into the eyes of my ex-boyfriend from hell, Dale Rumor.

  Chapter Four

  Bryn Christmas

  My eyes felt as if they were spewing enough fire to scorch Dale Rumor alive. I wanted to ask why he was there, but the words would not come out. Dale wrapped an arm around Eden’s tiny waist and looked at me as if he’d never seen me before in his life.

  “Can I get you anything—coffee, tea, water…?” he asked.

  I could have choked with embarrassment, not for me but for Eden. I knew what came after “water.” It had been a habit of his to say, “Coffee, tea, water, or me?” He only proved he was the same scoundrel of a boyfriend for Eden that he’d been for me.

  “I’m fine,” I said, glaring at him. I didn’t like the emotions I was having.

  I could have bet a million bucks he’d orchestrated the present situation without her knowledge. He was sneaky in that way. He’d put me in a severely awkward position. I didn’t hate Dale, but no one could push my buttons like he could. The last time we’d seen each other, we fought because he’d decided to fire me from the film project we were both producing. I screamed—admittedly crazily—that he couldn’t do that because we had a contract.

  He told me I should have read the fine print. “Plus, working together isn’t working, Bryn. It’s ruining us, and you know that.”

  “You’re ruining us,” I shouted and then called him every derogatory name in the book.

  He called me a nutjob who had extreme rapist-father daddy issues. Then I jumped and clung to him like a spider monkey and clawed at his face. He pulled me off him and held me down.

  One of our neighbors had called the police, and when they arrived, I was still yelling and screaming that I was going to kill him. While I was trying to spit on Dale, my spittle landed on one of the officers, and they arrested me for disturbing the peace. When they put me in the back of the squad car, I was lethargic and unable to stop crying. One of the officers thought I was high on drugs, but I wasn’t. I was merely having another mental and emotional breakdown.

  My memory of that night remained foggy, to a certain extent, but I recalled one of the officers saying that they weren’t taking me to the rich people’s station—I was going to Twin Towers in downtown LA. One of them mentioned my pretty little face that liked to spit.

  One of them said something about saving my spit for a blow job. “Is that what you like to do?”

  His tone was salacious, aggressive. He said that he would teach me a lesson. He had no idea how much I wanted to learn that lesson. I didn’t want to be Bronwyn Henrietta Christmas. I hated that girl. I felt I deserved hell on earth, and Dal
e was just a start. Out of all the children my father had produced by inflicting violence on innocent girls, he’d chosen to use me and the brothers I’d grown up with to make him appear normal. My name was evidence of that. Blue-blooded. Rich. Lofty.

  Screw my father and Dale, I’d thought back then. Screw her too. Screw Bronwyn Henrietta Christmas.

  I never made it to Twin Towers. The officers received a call while en route. A man with a gruff voice ordered them to take me to the Lighthouse Recovery Center. One of the officers shouted that it was too late—I was as good as booked.

  “What the fuck? Take her!” the guy over the radio said. “And I know you two fucking fucks. Nothing better happen to her, or your asses are grass. And you don’t want to fuck with her brother.”

  “Who’s her brother?”

  “Jasper fucking Christmas,” the voice blared.

  It got deathly quiet in the car. My brother’s name repeated in my mind. Then, as further evidence of my mental breakdown, I started crying for him.

  There was no more taunting or talking after that. I was taken straight to the recovery center. That wasn’t my final stint in rehab, but it was the last day I saw Dale Rumor. I later learned that Dale had called Jasper to let him know I’d been arrested. It wasn’t that he was looking out for me, though. He was afraid that if Jasper found out he’d been the reason I was taken to jail, he would incur the wrath of my brother. I doubted that would have happened. Jasper would never have let me spend more than a day in jail, but he was all about me taking responsibility for my inappropriate behavior. Even though his motives were selfish, calling my brother was the last good deed Dale had ever done for me.

  I didn’t want to lie to Eden, but it didn’t feel like the appropriate time to tell her the truth about my past relationship with Dale. A pinch of anger raced through me. I didn’t let it catch fire and burn down all the progress I’d made by getting happy. But I had to think it was strange to run into Jamison on Sunday and Dale on Monday. Is that a good or bad sign?

  “That’s right,” Eden said jubilantly. “The two of you know each other.”

  I forced a smile. I was right on the money—he hadn’t told her everything about us. If he had, her tone would have been the direct opposite of happy.

  “Hi, Dale.” I kept my voice deadpan.

  “Good seeing you, Bryn.” He sounded cordial and casual, as if there was no reason to let his girlfriend know that we used to be an item.

  I pressed my lips together.

  Eden patted him on the shoulder. “Now, go. Bryn and I have work to do.”

  I found it interesting that Eden hadn’t picked up on the cold formality between Dale and me. I wondered if she was ignoring it on purpose. What did he tell her, anyway? At least I strongly believed the ambush had been Dale’s doing—which, again, wasn’t at all surprising. I would have to tell her about us at some point. Hopefully, she was more intuitive than I was giving her credit for, and at some point during our long day together, she would ask, “So, what’s the deal with you and Dale?” If that happened, I felt like I would tell her everything—the bad, the worse, and the ugly.

  Eden and I had had our first in-person meeting on October 27 the previous year. We ate lunch at a vegan restaurant in the Venice Beach area near Abbot Kinney—her choice. She pointed out six well-known actors, who were seated around us, all dressed as if they’d just finished a spin or yoga class at a nearby gym. I took note of how she brought her fellow thespians to my attention. I could tell that she liked being in the mix but didn't want anyone to perceive how much she enjoyed it. She herself looked pretty casual in a pair of tight navy blue stretch pants and a blousy T-shirt with the word Lollygag across the chest, with her hair pulled into a high ponytail. She capped off her outfit with the usual celebrity’s touch—mirrored aviator shades. The purpose of our meeting was to find out if we had enough chemistry to design together. My philosophy was that I was merely the part of my clients that could step outside them and see their truth.

  Eden told me her story. She’d been born and raised in Toledo, Ohio, the middle child of six siblings. After graduating from high school, she’d left home for Colorado State University.

  She gazed off, unfocused. “One day, I packed my car, got behind the wheel, and just drove. I didn’t let myself think about what I was doing. I just kept going. I ended up in LA. I had three thousand dollars in my savings account. It took me three days to find a job waitressing. I went back and forth between living in my car and staying in a hotel near LAX. They’re cheaper there.” She said that with a nostalgic yet proud smile. She was on a roll, retelling the story of her humble beginnings.

  When Eden finally had enough money to pay the security deposit and first month’s rent, she moved into an apartment in Sherman Oaks. “Thank God I wasn’t fresh in town by then. Live in Hollywood for more than a month, and you’ll know better than to live there while broke.”

  One of her coworkers, another waitress, invited her to improv one evening. She found making up her own words—shuffling through her thoughts to bring a random scenario to an onstage performance—exciting. She kept going and then took a class on how to be better at improvisational acting. Less than two weeks in, her instructor had challenged her to go on an audition for a national commercial.

  “He said it was good practice,” Eden recalled. She’d gotten the job. “I was good at acting. I never knew it until I left Colorado for LA.”

  “Oh, maybe you did,” I suggested. She frowned at me questioningly. “Of all the places in the world, why did you choose Los Angeles, and more specifically, Hollywood?”

  Eden became pensive. The waitress showed up and served us our bean-and-sprouted-greens burritos and refills of chicory coffee. Eden then changed the subject by asking me a barrage of questions about growing up a Christmas and the bestselling book about my family. I was very much aware that she was done talking about herself, and I respected her boundaries.

  “So, what’s the verdict?” she asked as I took care of the bill.

  I looked up from signing the receipt and smiled at her. “I will definitely take you on as a client.”

  I could see by the look on her face that she wanted to ask why, but she only said, “Thank you,” and then asked if I’d ever taken a local spin class.

  I learned that her house was in the neighborhood, and when I asked if I could see it to get an idea of what she liked, Eden had said perhaps another time. “It’s a pigsty. Plus, I want my vacation home to be something I could never have imagined.”

  So there we were, finally designing her multimillion-dollar vacation home, which was the first over-the-top purchase she’d made since landing a leading role in a hit sitcom and thereby making it big. When Eden and I were left alone, we moved to our first space, the living room, which already had a large gray U-shaped sectional, a mahogany mid-century modern coffee table, and a pendant-style floor lamp with an aluminum hood. I guessed that she was into modern sophistication with a touch of hidden humility. I asked her to stand in the middle of the room and tell me what was the first thing that came to mind, no matter how gory.

  Arms folded and looking up at the ceiling, she said, “Cockroaches.”

  I interpreted that one word to mean that to her, the room felt cold, murky, desolate, and uncomfortable. She’d tried to get rid of that feeling with the furniture that was already there. However, the heavy, clunky sofa and blocky coffee table only made it worse. So I showed her renderings of how the room could be if we added furniture and design pieces that complemented the trees and the view of the snow-covered mountains not far in the distance.

  We moved from room to room, performing the same exercise. Time flew by. We only saw Dale twice. The first time, he found us in the kitchen and asked Eden if she would like him to go into town to get her something to eat. She told him she wasn’t hungry. Then he came back an hour later and asked her the same question. Eden and I were too involved in what we were doing to want to stop to eat, so she said no again.
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br />   “Well, I’m going into town.” He sounded irritable, as if Eden had forbidden him to do what he wanted. I was very familiar with Dale’s disposition. It used to give me anxiety.

  “That’s fine. See you later,” Eden said, keeping her attention on the lighting catalog.

  He glared at me before turning his back on us and plodding off. Once again, I waited for Eden to ask me about my past relationship with Dale, but she didn’t look away from her shopping. Since we were alone, I considered bringing it up, but I chickened out. Instead, we continued with our activity.

  A few hours later, when Dale returned, we were in one of the bathrooms on the third floor. He informed us that he had hero sandwiches with Dijon mustard, extra tomatoes, and sweet pickles, with the bread lightly toasted.

  “That’s awfully specific,” Eden said.

  I could feel my skin flush as I tried to hide my shock. Years before, we’d driven to Providence for lunch and had come across a sandwich shop. I rarely ate outside the mansion in those days because we had the best chefs in the world cooking in our kitchen. But I ordered a hero sandwich because I was blinded by love and called Dale my hero. I ordered it with Dijon mustard, extra tomatoes, and sweet pickles on a lightly toasted kaiser roll. I found the sandwich so tasty that after that, I often had our driver take me to the same shop at least once a week. I stopped when Amelia came into my room to tell me that I was getting fat and Randolph had noticed and didn’t like it.

  “You know what he does when he doesn’t like something,” she said.

  I knew. I’d never gone back to that shop again. Regardless, by ordering that sandwich, Dale was being sneaky and disrespectful to Eden, once again showing me that he hadn’t changed a bit.