Bittersweet
One perfect family.Too many perfect lies.Small-town girl Mabel Dagmar is out of her depth. At her elite East Coast college, unversed in the nuances of casual privilege, she is ignored, especially by her dormmate, Ev Winslow, whose pedigree disguises a chequered past. Then out of nowhere Ev softens and Mabel finds herself entering the world of the elite, with an invitation to the Winslows’ private estate, Winloch, that very summer.Days spent swimming in watery coves evaporate into nights at glamorous cocktail parties. And as the formality melts away with one Winslow brother in particular, Mabel is left to think that her summer has all but become a golden dream.But when Mabel looks a little closer at the Winslows, probing beneath their glossy exterior, what she uncovers in their past is almost as shocking as what she finds out about their present. Beneath the beauty is a rotten core.And not everyone is quite as they seem…
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The Borough Press
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London, SE1 9GF
First published by The Borough Press 2014
Copyright © Miranda Beverly-Whittemore 2014
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015
Cover photographs © Morgan Norman / Gallery Stock (front cover); Shutterstock.com (back cover)
Miranda Beverly-Whittemore asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780007536672
Ebook Edition © 2014 ISBN: 9780007536665
Version: 2015-04-23
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
February
Chapter One: The Roommate
Chapter Two: The Party
Chapter Three: The Invitation
June
Chapter Four: The Call
Chapter Five: The Journey
Chapter Six: The Window
Chapter Seven: The Cleanup
Chapter Eight: The Stroll
Chapter Nine: The Aunt
Chapter Ten: The Inspection
Chapter Eleven: The Brothers
Chapter Twelve: The Painting
Chapter Thirteen: The Inevitable
Chapter Fourteen: The Collage
Chapter Fifteen: The Girl
Chapter Sixteen: The Rocks
Chapter Seventeen: The Voyage
Chapter Eighteen: The Rescue
Chapter Nineteen: The Discovery
Chapter Twenty: The Wedding
Chapter Twenty-One: The Kiss
July
Chapter Twenty-Two: The Secret
Chapter Twenty-Three: The Book
Chapter Twenty-Four: The Turtles
Chapter Twenty-Five: The Evening
Chapter Twenty-Six: The Mother
Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Festivities
Chapter Twenty-Eight: The Fireworks
Chapter Twenty-Nine: The Enigma
Chapter Thirty: The Apology
Chapter Thirty-One: The Date
Chapter Thirty-Two: The Scene
Chapter Thirty-Three: The Swim
Chapter Thirty-Four: The Morning
Chapter Thirty-Five: The Pile
Chapter Thirty-Six: The Threat
Chapter Thirty-Seven: The Woods
Chapter Thirty-Eight: The Sister
Chapter Thirty-Nine: The Revelation
Chapter Forty: The Return
Chapter Forty-One: The Proof
Chapter Forty-Two: The Good-bye
Chapter Forty-Three: The Waiting
Chapter Forty-Four: The Widow
August
Chapter Forty-Five: The Aftermath
Chapter Forty-Six: The Row
Chapter Forty-Seven: The Picnic
Chapter Forty-Eight: The Key
Chapter Forty-Nine: The Theft
Chapter Fifty: The Director
Chapter Fifty-One: The Camp
Chapter Fifty-Two: The Witness
Chapter Fifty-Three: The Jailbreak
Chapter Fifty-Four: The Memory
Chapter Fifty-Five: The Handoff
Chapter Fifty-Six: The Service
Chapter Fifty-Seven: The Truth
Chapter Fifty-Eight: The Curse
Chapter Fifty-Nine: The Chaperone
June
Chapter Sixty: The End
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Miranda Beverly-Whittemore
About the Publisher
BEFORE SHE LOATHED ME, before she loved me, Genevra Katherine Winslow didn’t know that I existed. That’s hyperbolic, of course; by February, student housing had required us to share a hot shoe box of a room for nearly six months, so she must have gathered I was a physical reality (if only because I coughed every time she smoked her Kools atop the bunk bed), but until the day Ev asked me to accompany her to Winloch, I was accustomed to her regarding me as she would a hideously upholstered armchair – something in her way, to be utilized when absolutely necessary, but certainly not what she’d have chosen herself.
It was colder that winter than I knew cold could be, even though the girl from Minnesota down the hall declared it ‘nothing.’ Out in Oregon, snow had been a gift, a two-day dusting earned by enduring months of gray, dripping sky. But the wind whipping up the Hudson from the city was so vehement that even my bone marrow froze. Every morning, I hunkered under my duvet, unsure of how I’d make it to my 9:00 a.m. Latin class. The clouds spilled endless white and Ev slept in.
