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