Cedar Hill House itself had barely changed since Kate’s day. The same Vlaminck floral canvas hung over the fireplace in the living room. Even the rose-and-green-chintz sofas remained, providing a lingering touch of femininity to what was now a man’s home. Peter Templeton had inherited the estate upon Alexandra’s death, but for years he had found the house too full of painful memories and rarely visited it. After Lexi’s ordeal, however, he’d brought her to Maine to recuperate. Slowly, summer by summer, Cedar Hill House had been allowed to live again.

“Ah, there he is. The birthday boy. I suppose we should go and tug our forelocks, get it over and done with?”

Logan Marshall followed Tristram Harwood’s gaze. Max was on the veranda, surrounded by a gaggle of admiring teenage girls. In a Ralph Lauren suit and Choate tie, on the surface he looked the epitome of a preppy young gentleman. But neither the clothes nor the old-money, East Coast setting could completely conceal Max’s feral nature. He reminded Tristram Harwood of a jungle savage whom some misguided anthropologist had “rescued” and dragged, kicking and screaming, into the civilized world. As if he might at any moment start tearing off his Brooks Brothers shirt with his teeth.

“Happy birthday, young man. I trust you’re enjoying the party?”

Max turned around. He wiped the bored expression off his face and greeted the two Kruger-Brent board members warmly. He knew that his mother would be watching.

“Of course. My uncle’s gone to a tremendous effort. And you, are you both well?”

Tristram Harwood nodded. “Very well. Business is booming.”

For a sixteen-year-old, the boy sure had an adult way of expressing himself. Such maturity. Such poise. Everyone at the firm knew that Kate Blackwell’s will favored Alexandra’s offspring over Eve’s. But when the time came to vote for a new chairman, all board members would be consulted. If they unanimously voted for Max, it would be difficult for the family to ignore their position. And really, how would a deaf woman ever manage to run one of the biggest multinationals in the world? The very idea was laughable.

Eve watched her son schmoozing with Harwood and Marshall and smiled contentedly. She was seated alone in a corner of the living room, next to the French doors that opened onto the veranda. In a full-length black shift, with an exquisitely hand-painted Venetian mask covering her ravaged face, she sat as still and unnoticed as a black widow spider while the party ebbed and flowed around her.

Good boy. Reel them in.

Tristram Harwood had always been a shameless opportunist. Years ago, he’d tried to seduce Eve on almost the exact same spot where he now stood sucking up to her son. Eve had toyed with him a little, until her grandmother stepped in.

“He’s a married man, Eve, and a vital asset to the company. Leave him bloody well alone!”

Stupid old bitch. As if she, Eve Blackwell, would be interested in a lowly, chinless drone like Tristram Harwood!

Just then, Lexi appeared on the veranda. She had run up from the bottom of the lawn, followed by a ravishing boy. Her flawless cheeks were flushed from laughter and exertion. Eve felt her heart tighten and a ball of hatred swell in her chest. It was like looking in a twenty-five-year-old mirror.

She looks exactly like me. She’s stolen my beauty. My youth. My power. Everything that was taken from me has been given to that cripple. Alex’s spawn.

“Holy moly,” Logan Marshall whispered to Tristram Harwood. “Somebody’s grown up fast.”

Max looked on as both men turned to admire his cousin. Lexi was indeed looking stunning. The dress his uncle Peter had bought her clung to her teenage body like shrink-wrap. Her hair, worn up for once and held loosely in place with a vintage diamond-encrusted comb that had once belonged to Kate Blackwell, was escaping in sexy tendrils around her beautiful face. Max felt the beginnings of an erection.

I hate her.

Just then, a loud crash from the boathouse caught everyone’s attention.

“What the hell was that?”

A skinny, blond man with incredibly long legs and a long-lens camera slung around his neck was limping toward the harbor. Judging from the hole in the boathouse roof and the debris scattered across the grass, he must have been hiding behind one of the gables and somehow lost his footing.

“Get security!” A grim-faced Peter Templeton emerged from inside. “Someone go after that guy.”

“Don’t worry, Daddy,” said Lexi as Danny Corretti hurled himself into a waiting motorboat and roared off into the night. “It’s only paparazzi. I’m used to them.”

“Yes, well. You shouldn’t have to be used to them,” said Peter. To Tristram Harwood he added: “These lowlifes follow my daughter around like a pack of hyenas. It’s a disgrace.”

Max’s eyes were glued to Lexi.

A disgrace? Bullshit. She’s loving every second of it.

A liveried butler emerged from the living room.

“Ladies and gentlemen. Dinner is served.”

Robbie sat next to his godfather, Barney Hunt.

Barney asked: “So, are you going to play for us tonight? A live performance from the great Robert Templeton?”

Robbie spooned another meltingly good piece of Black Forest chocolate cake into his mouth and shook his head firmly.

“Uh-uh. No way. I’m off duty. Anyway, Dad hasn’t asked me. He’s got the entire evening choreographed down to a tee. I wouldn’t want to upset him any more than I do already. You know, by existing.”

It was said in jest, but Barney Hunt picked up the undertone of sadness.

“Come on. Your father loves you. He just…”

“…wishes I weren’t gay. I know.”

Lisa Babbington, one of Lexi’s most beautiful girlfriends, caught Robbie’s eye and winked at him lasciviously from two tables away. Clearly, the boy sitting beside her, Grady Jones, was failing to float her boat.

“Looks like your dad isn’t the only one.” Barney laughed. “Have you had much time alone with your sister yet?”

Robbie looked frustrated. “No. Every time I get near her, she’s being whisked off to dance or for photographs. I have to fly back to Paris in the morning, but I can’t seem to pin her down.”

Barney glanced over at the top table. Lexi’s place was empty.

“Hmm. I see what you mean.”

On the floor of the boathouse, Lexi lay beneath Christian Harle trying not to feel disappointed.

Is this it? Is this really what I waited two whole years for?

She’d expected…what had she expected, exactly? Pain. That’s what all the books said. A sharp pain, followed by something momentous, some life-changing, mind-altering feeling of bliss that she would remember for the rest of her life. This was Christian Harle, after all. Christian Harle! The biggest catch in Exeter, the boy who had filled Lexi’s days and consumed her nights since she was fourteen years old.

After Lexi’s kidnapping, the psychiatrists had told Peter that the trauma of sexual abuse would stay with her forever. “She may marry. She may have children. But it’s unrealistic to expect her sexual relationships to develop normally.” Once again, however, they had underestimated Lexi’s willpower.

She would enjoy sex.

She must.

She would not give the pig another victory.

So why was sleeping with Christian such a terrible letdown?

Still inside her, Christian propped himself up on his forearms so Lexi could read his lips. Sweat was dripping from his forehead. His cheeks were flushed beet red. He did not look his best.

“Is that good, baby?”

Dear God. Is he talking to me? What is this, twenty questions? Why isn’t the earth moving?

Lexi nodded, pulling him back down on top of her. She wriggled around, the way she’d seem Pamela Anderson do it with Tommy Lee on the Internet, and tried to breathe more heavily. Christian had clearly learned his technique from a different sex tape. He started doing some sort of strange, circular motion inside her, like someone vacuuming the interior of a car and wanting to make sure he got his nozzle into every nook and cranny.