“Just bored, I guess.” Ashley smiled. “Maybe I should take up a new hobby. Ballooning or jumping off cliffs or skydiving—something with a little risk in it.”

Caroline grunted. “I think you’re just disappointed nobody took you by the throat Saturday night and said, ‘Those’re my jewels, honey.’”

“I don’t know. No—maybe.”

“You thought something would happen and nothing did.”

Ashley shrugged. “I suppose I should be grateful.”

“But gratitude won’t get you answers, will it?”

Answers. For the past four years, Ashley had talked herself into believing there never would be any answers—just questions, dozens of them, locked up inside her, not even asked. Caroline Kent was one of the handful of people who knew the truth about how the Wakefield twins had suddenly and mysteriously become millionaires at age twenty-five. The others were Barky and Nick Duval, the executive director of the institute, and Evan Parrington, the Park Avenue lawyer who, just over four years ago, had driven out to the farm and informed them they were the beneficiaries of a Liechtenstein trust.

“I don’t need answers,” Ashley said, upper lip stiff.

Caroline snorted. “Horseshit.”

“I’m going to return the jewels to Switzerland.”

“Why not have them appraised by some expert? Maybe they’re famous or something. Then—”

“I can’t do that”

“Why the hell not?”

“What if Barky’s a jewel thief?”

“Oh, come on, the old guy hasn’t taken a cent from you. He won’t even let you buy new linoleum for his kitchen!”

“But that doesn’t mean—”

“If he were a jewel thief, Ash, he’d act like a jewel thief. He wouldn’t be out in the country slopping pigs and chopping wood.”

Ashley sighed. It was a point she’d considered a thousand times over the years. “Maybe my parents were.”

“They’re dead, Ash. You never even knew them.”

“But maybe Barky’s protecting them.”

“You going to keep asking yourself questions, or are you going to get off your ass and get some answers?”

Patti Morgan, Ashley’s indispensable twenty-year-old secretary, poked her head into the sleek bone-and-mauve office. “A Sybil Morgenstern on the line for you, Ashley. Says she’s editor in chief of You magazine and wants to talk to you. Won’t take no for an answer.”

“Thanks, Patti. I’ll take the call.”

Caroline looked at Ashley in consternation. “You know what you’re getting yourself into?”

Ashley shrugged. “Not really. But I have a feeling I’ll find out.” She pressed the flashing button on her phone and said, “Ashley Wakefield.”

“Ahh...the elusive mystery lady of Boston.” The voice was throaty, the tone casual. “Sybil Morgenstern here. We’d like to do your story, Ashley.”

“I’m flattered, but I’m afraid I don’t give personal interviews.”

“Don’t you? Well, we can always run what we have and let the chips fall where they may.”

Ashley glanced at Caroline, who shook her head in commiseration. She had always supported Ashley’s decision to keep the tantalizing story of her sudden wealth to herself—although not to the point of letting it interfere with her romantic life, which it did. For Ashley, men tended to fall into two categories: those she might consider telling the truth about herself, and those she would never consider telling the truth about herself. She saw both kinds, but “might” had never translated itself into action. There had been no middle-of-the-night confessions about Liechtenstein trusts, mysterious jewels, farmer uncles, weekends spent making maple syrup and planting peas and chasing chickens. It was impossible to get close to a man and still remain an enigma, a woman who had seemingly sprung full-grown at age twenty-five from the head of Zeus.