Moorewood Family Rules

Contents Cover Title Page Dedication Contents Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty-One Chapter Twenty-Two Chapter Twenty-Three Chapter Twenty-Four Chapter Twenty-Five Chapter Twenty-Six Chapter Twenty-Seven Chapter Twenty-Eight Chapter Twenty-Nine Chapter Thirty Chapter Thirty-One Chapter Thirty-Two Chapter Thirty-Three Chapter Thirty-Four Chapter Thirty-Five Chapter Thirty-Six Chapter Thirty-Seven Chapter Thirty-Eight Chapter Thirty-Nine Chapter Forty Acknowledgments About the Author Also by HelenKay Dimon Copyright About the Publisher iii v 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360 361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368 369 370 371 ii iv Guide Cover Contents Chapter One Dedication For Suzanne, my roommate during our London semester in college, the maid of honor at my wedding, and a lifelong friend who loved the color pink, New York City, her incredible family, Broadway shows (we saw Les Misérables together three times), meals with friends (so long as she picked the restaurant), vacationing in Nantucket during the off-season, finding the perfect lipstick (and demanding I go buy one before I did another Zoom interview), her days at Mount Holyoke College, picking up an amazing black purse, and all (non-work-related) travel. You adored every book Elin Hildebrand wrote. While I’m not her (but envy her book sales), I promise this one isn’t a thriller. Consider this my final gift to you, my amazing friend. I still can’t believe I live in a world without you in it. Chapter One Moorewood Family Rule #4: Maintain the public facade. Keep family arguments private. Jillian Moorewood waited thirty-nine months and seven days to make a spectacular and unexpected entrance. A simple car and driver wouldn’t do. That left a yacht, splashy yet sure to draw attention, or dropping down from above into a sea of stunned faces via helicopter. Clearly, the latter won. She scanned the target area from the window next to her seat. From this angle she could see the expanse below. A gated entrance. Towering trees hiding a wall that outlined every pristine inch of the property. Not one pool but two . . . because, of course. Didn’t every house need two? This house had a name because that’s what people around here did. They baptized their sprawling estates as if they were precious children. This one—Hideaway. A completely nonsensical description of a forty-five-acre oceanfront estate that could accommodate five hundred guests for a sit-down dinner in the second-floor ballroom. Every building awash in weathered-looking-but-not-really gray shingles, and the whole thing plunked down on prestigious Ocean Avenue, just a short, chauffeur-driven ride from Rhode Island’s historic Newport Country Club. The whapping and rattling grew louder the closer they got to the ground. Mere feet from landing, Jillian could make out the faces of the dozen or so people standing at the bistro tables set in a careful pattern around the larger, cascading pool. A party. How convenient . . . for her, not them. The landing skids hit the ground and almost in unison the people milling around stopped sipping whatever fancy drinks they carried and stared in horror. No one came running to greet her. They’d have to close their mouths and stop blinking first. Exactly the type of what is she doing here welcome she’d expected. Tense silence descended on what looked like a once-lovely garden party, complete with a string quartet playing in the corner of the upper flagstone deck. Women decked out in expensive dresses, wearing the obligatory uncomfortable shoes. Men dressed as store mannequins. The pilot helped her down from her seat. The second her heels hit the grass a wave of unexpected anger crashed over her. The history. The broken promises. The lies. Ah, family. She shoved a creeping sensation of doom aside and plastered a