Bittersweet

Bittersweet
Miranda Beverly-Whittemore

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…

Copyright (#ue039d61b-4f81-558e-9d0a-3049c9a25ac5)

The Borough Press

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London, SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)

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 (http://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

Dedication (#ue039d61b-4f81-558e-9d0a-3049c9a25ac5)

For Ba and Fa, who shared the land,

and Q, who gave me the world

Contents

Cover (#u19b30a80-22a6-5aa0-ac9f-cbcfa9872efd)

Title Page (#u8d3ce059-87d0-5350-8e18-40ca8a3f4961)

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