And it had worked. Oleg had confirmed that he’d driven the sniveling Natalie home after she’d been unceremoniously dumped over a pasta lunch in the financial district. Gabe had come home then, had tried to connect with his daughter, but Violet was skeptical after his years of emotional abandonment. She wasn’t about to jump into her daddy’s welcoming arms.

And then, Natalie Murphy had turned up at Violet’s graduation party.

Celeste had recognized her instantly, but it had taken her longer to work out the reason for the girl’s presence in their home. But Violet’s flirtatious giggles and smitten expression soon made it clear. Natalie had fostered a relationship with Violet to get to Gabe. The girl was sick, obsessed, a stalker. She was a problem, and Celeste did not know how to handle her.

Fern had done what Celeste could not. She’d thrown a drink in Natalie’s face and called her a whore. It was as if Fern knew the truth when she couldn’t have. Gabe had whisked his dripping lover away, and Celeste had shuttled Fern home, her mind spinning, reeling, racing. It was a miracle they hadn’t crashed. When she returned, the party guests had been dispatched. Gabe was still delivering his girlfriend to the bus. Violet was alone.

“You can’t date that girl,” Celeste said, her voice wavering. “Promise me you won’t.”

“Why not?”

“You just can’t.”

“You sound like a dictator. You sound like dad.”

Celeste had been close to tears when she spat: “I am nothing like your father.”

Somehow, it had come out. In her desperation to keep Violet away from the toxic, troubled Natalie, Celeste had told her daughter about her father’s affair. Violet’s face, when she learned the truth, still haunted Celeste; the pain, the hate and betrayal twisting her innocent features. If Celeste could do it all over again, she would not have told Violet. She would not have let her daughter run to her car and race into the city. But Celeste couldn’t have known what would happen.

She couldn’t have known that Violet would drive directly to Natalie’s apartment, prepared to confront her. When Natalie didn’t answer the buzzer, didn’t respond to Violet’s text, the athletic girl had shimmied up the fire escape and climbed through the studio’s window. She had been looking for validation that her mother’s accusations were true, and she found it. There, on Natalie’s pillow, Violet saw her father’s tie. It was a William Morris design, purchased from the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s gift shop by Violet, when she was sixteen. It had been a Father’s Day gift, lovingly selected. And he had left it at his lover’s apartment like it meant nothing.

Celeste could not have known that this evidence would send her daughter into a spiral of booze, drugs, and rage. She could never have guessed that Violet would reconnect with her old friends that night, the spoiled entitled kids who had round-the-clock parties with alcohol and cocaine and handguns tossed casually into drawers. Violet had gone on a bender, drinking and doing drugs, not sleeping for more than twenty-four hours. And then, the next night, still high, messed-up, and angry, she had texted her father.