For the next two days, I show Quinn firsthand what life is like at the Pierce Cottage in the Hamptons.

I start with the wardrobe I’ve had selected for her. Rosemary has arranged it in the closet of the guest suite right next to my room. Not that she’ll be sleeping anywhere but right by my side. This way, she’ll have a private place to dress and shower in the morning—if she wants it. Quinn spends a full fifteen minutes in the walk-in closet filled with clothes in her size, something for every occasion, from yoga pants to evening dresses. It doesn’t matter that we’re only staying for a couple of days. We can do anything we want while we’re here.

“You almost got it,” she says, running her hands down over a dark blue sheath dress that would stun at the Swan.

“Got what?”

“My style. Where are all the cut-off shorts?” She smiles at me, her sparkling eyes dancing, and I go in for a kiss.

After dinner last night, we soaped each other up in the shower in the master bathroom. If nothing else, watching Quinn thoroughly enjoy the simple pleasure of taking a hot shower, the water cascading down over her breasts, revealing her skin from underneath the soap suds, is a memory I’ll treasure for the rest of my life.

All day Saturday, I make sure she’s pampered to within an inch of her life. I hire the most exclusive masseuse in the area, who brings along a team of two other people to give us a couples massage in the downstairs living area. When Rosemary knocks on my suite’s door as we’re finishing a five-star breakfast prepared by Robert to tell us they’re here, Quinn’s eyes light up. “I never get massages anymore,” she says, beaming at me. “This place is heaven.”

When she’s here, it is.

Robert sends us meal after meal of meticulously prepared foods. Even the appetizers are a masterpiece. I wouldn’t expect anything less—he’s been with our family for a long time, since well before the divorce. I remember my mother sitting poolside, lifting each bite to her lips and then leaning her head back against the plush padding of her lounge chair, closing her eyes while she savored every mouthful.

That’s the image that comes to mind when Quinn does the very same thing in her lounge chair by the pool, reflections from the surface of the water dancing across her face, illuminating her exquisite beauty despite the shadows from the oversized sun hat she’s wearing. She laughed when she found it in the closet, but she refuses to sit by the pool without it.

Quinn stretches out on a lounge chair again midmorning on Sunday. The furniture has been replaced at least twice since my parents divorced, but the memory is still so powerful that I can see it right in front of my eyes. A stab of regret spears my heart realizing that Quinn will never get to meet my mother.

Or my brother.

My brother loved this place when we were growing up. The sun always made my head swim after an hour or so, sending me back to my room to read in the relative darkness, but he didn’t give a shit—he’d stay out by the pool until the sun set, doing cannonball after cannonball, sending waves of water over the sides of the pool. My father liked to stand at the grill, turning over burger patties and hot dogs—always cooking more than any of us could eat—and transferring them to a ceramic tray with a silver cover.

I was never out there long enough for him, but my brother—he was wild enough to earn my father’s affection. A memory surfaces from the depths. A headache blooming behind my eyes, the summer sun too intense, and my father calling after me, “You’re like your mother. Too quiet to make any real mark on the world.”

Though his tone was mocking and he said the words with a smile, he laughed along with my brother at my retreating back.

I shake it off and fill my eyes, and my mind, with the sight of Quinn, radiant in a slick black bikini, her head tilted back against the cushions of the chair, her perfect body stretched out in total relaxation. I can see the edges of her face underneath the sun hat. Her eyes are closed to shield them against the pool’s reflection.

“It’s a relief,” she says, as if we’ve been talking this entire time instead of silently enjoying the last morning of the weekend.

“What’s a relief?”

“Being free from Derek.”

We’ve been trading life details the entire weekend, but this is the first time she’s mentioned him since that night at the apartment. My heart breaks a little that that piece of shit is on her mind, but I can see how the wound would still be fresh.

Secretly, I’m thrilled that she’s choosing to open up to me like this. If we can be totally real with each other, then…

I nod, though she still hasn’t opened her eyes. “He seems like he was an asshole.”

“Somewhere, he still is an asshole. I wish I hadn’t wasted five years of my life on him.”

“Five years?”

“The first couple were pretty good. If they hadn’t been, I wouldn’t have let him move into my house.”

“You didn’t mention that before.”

“That he was living in my house?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s a little embarrassing to find out that your fiancé has had a woman on the side for an entire year while he’s living in your own house. Oh, and that the woman in question is your best friend on top of it.”

“Don’t be embarrassed,” I say, reaching out to rest a hand on her smooth thigh. She gives a soft sigh of satisfaction. “He was a prick who didn’t know what he had.”

Quinn opens her eyes then and smiles into mine. “Do you know what you have?”

“I have a decent idea.” I grin back, my voice husky.

“You know what the worst part was?” she says, lifting her head to kiss the side of my neck, her tongue darting out in a suggestion that we should consider heading back to the bedroom.

“What?”

“The fact that he lied about it for so long.” Quinn’s gaze turns steely for a moment. “I’m over liars.” My stomach flops over in a sickening thud.

Then her expression clears, and she’s looking at me with a wicked glint in her eyes. “There’s something I want to do. We have a little more time before we need to leave, right?”

I’m out of the chair in an instant, offering my hand to her.

“More than enough.”