“This isn’t for me,” he said. “This is for your sister.”

“Paulina?”

“No. Elodie. I can’t have Liam working at the company. It would drive her mad. And I need her focused. Elodie has become a vital part of our organization.”

“So whatever you’re about to ask me is for you. For the company.”

“Your mother is determined to lure Paulina back here. I have a feeling this time Paulina will say yes. And I can’t have that.”

“So tell all this to Mom.”

“There’s no reasoning with your mother. She wants her baby back in the fold. So I need you to convince Paulina to say no.”

“How am I supposed to do that?”

“By example. You’ve decided that living at the farthest reaches of the earth is preferable to being part of our lives here. If it’s best for you, isn’t it best for Paulina?”

She told her father she’d think about it, even though she had no intention of getting involved.

The next morning, Paulina knocked on her bedroom door while she was packing up.

She carried a mug of coffee and was dressed in a T-shirt and faded red sweatpants with holes in them. With her long hair up in a ponytail, she looked like a teenager.

“I wish you could stay a few more days,” she said, sitting on the bed and crossing her legs.

“Bring Gemma to P’town,” Celeste said. “She’d love it.”

Paulina nodded. “I will. But also I need to figure out everything else.”

“What’s everything else?”

“Well, Mom and Dad want us here full-time.”

Celeste stopped folding her clothes. She’d already decided she wasn’t going to do her father’s bidding, but last night, seeing her little niece at the ostentatious party clearly planned more to impress her parents’ friends than to please a child, Celeste started thinking that maybe it was best for Paulina and Liam to have their own family life away from the Pavlin & Co circus.

“Don’t be pressured into moving back to the city just because Mom says so,” Celeste said. “What do you want?”

Paulina sighed. There was a certain light missing from her eyes. It wasn’t unhappiness. It was the absence of the complete carefree self-centeredness. It was motherhood.

“I almost feel ready to be here more of the time. But Liam wants to spend some time sailing. He’s really into the idea of going back to the South of France. I just don’t know how practical that trip would be with Gemma.”

“You always take Gemma with you. Why would this be any different?”

Paulina shrugged. “I guess you’re right,” she said. Just like that: I guess you’re right.

One month later, she and Liam were dead. A boating accident near an out-of-the-way village called Villesèquelande.