Nick began to have the sinking feeling that none of this had anything to do with a bachelor party. Just as he was beginning to consider his options for a hasty exit, they arrived at a pair of sliding doors guarded by two tall, strapping deckhands.^*1 The men slid the doors apart, revealing a skylit dining deck. At the end of the deck, lounging on a dining settee in a white pique blazer, white jodhpurs, and camel-colored F.lli Fabbri riding boots, was none other than Jacqueline Ling.

“Ah, Nicky, just in time for the soufflé!” she said.

Nick approached his old family friend, feeling equally amused and exasperated. He should have clued in earlier that all this Scandinavian silliness had something to do with Jacqueline, whose longtime partner was the Norwegian billionaire Victor Normann.

“What kind of soufflé is it?” Nick asked nonchalantly, taking a seat across from the legendary beauty dubbed “the Chinese Catherine Deneuve” by the society pages.

“I believe it’s kale and Emmentaler. Don’t you think all the sudden hype about kale is getting a bit much? I want to know who’s been doing all the PR for the kale industry—they should really get an award. Now, aren’t you the least bit surprised to see me?”

“Actually, I’m rather disappointed. For a while I thought I’d been kidnapped and forced to be an extra in a James Bond movie.”

“Didn’t you enjoy meeting Alannah and Mette Marit? I knew you wouldn’t come if I had just called up and invited you to lunch.”

“Of course I would have, but at a more normal time—I hope you’re going to find me a new job when NYU fires me for abandoning my class in the middle of a lecture.”

“Hiyah, don’t be such a spoilsport! You have no idea how hard it was to find a place to dock this beast. Now, I thought New York was supposed to be such a world-class city, but do you know your biggest marina can only hold up to a hundred and eighty feet? Where is anyone supposed to park their yacht?”

“Well, this is quite a beast. Lürssen, I presume?”

“Fincantieri, actually. Victor did not want his baby built anywhere near Norway, with those pesky journalists always scrutinizing his every move, so he chose an Italian shipyard instead. Of course, Espen^*2 designed this one, like he has all our boats.”

“Auntie Jacqueline, I don’t think you summoned me here to talk about shipbuilding. Why don’t you say what you really came to say?” Nick said, breaking off a corner of a still-warm baguette and dipping it into his soufflé.

“Nicky, I told you never to call me ‘Auntie.’ You make me feel like I’m past my sell date!” Jacqueline said in mock horror as she flicked a lustrous lock of black hair behind her shoulders.

“Jacqueline—you don’t need me to tell you that you don’t look a day over forty,” Nick said.

“Thirty-nine, Nicky.”

“Okay, thirty-nine.” Nick laughed. He had to admit that even as she sat across from him in the bright sunlight with only a touch of makeup on, she was still one of the most stunningly attractive women he had ever known.