Page 1 of My Star-Crossed Summer

Chapter One

VICTORIA

This is it, I think.This is how I die—utterly humiliated because of my mother.

I’ve been saying for years that she was going to put me into an early grave, but mostly I was kidding.

But now, because of her, I’m ten feet up in the air and grasping a massive oak limb for dear life. My fingers are slipping as my legs dangle below me, the skirt of my traitorous knit dress rucked up around my waist as the moon shines above me like a spotlight.

Okay, fine. This is not entirely because of my mother. It’s also because I’m a big fat chicken and refused to draw any more fire from her by walking out the front door like a woman with her dignity intact. But the walls of this house were closing in, and I was sick to death of her rubbing my nose in my mistakes, and those last words she said to me made me snap my champagne glass in half.

What you fail to graspis that your bad decisions reflect badly on this whole family. I won’t always be around to fix your mistakes.

Honestly, that woman was born on a high horse. But in the Griffin house, you have to pick your battles. Sometimes, that means biting your tongue and climbing out the second-story window of your childhood bedroom.

Hanging by my fingertips, I grit my teeth and try once more to locate another limb with my foot, but it’s no use. My legs swing in the air as the bark bites into my palms.

Awesome.

Laughter erupts inside the house and I freeze, certain that Mom’s friends have spied me and are simultaneously clutching their pearls and whipping out their cell phones. This house, one of the oldest in Jasmine Falls, is a two-story Georgian with windows that stretch almost floor to ceiling—it’s a regal home. A historic gem that has survived a dozen hurricanes, two fires, and plenty of parties as awful as this one. As a teenager, I slipped out this way a million times—stepped out onto this limb, walked it as easy as if it were a balance beam, and then shinnied down the trunk like a squirrel.

Tonight, though, I’m not so limber.

The din inside the house rises again, but it’s only music and the usual gossip that always bubbles over once the champagne starts flowing. Tonight, my mother’s fancy spring soiree just happens to coincide with the implosion of my career—and that means Mom’s in damage-control mode. More than fifty people are crowded inside, and in the last hour, they’ve all heard my mother’s version of how I cancelled my wedding, broke off my engagement, and left my lucrative job at a top-ranked real estate firm.

For the record, I stand by those decisions. Mom, however, thinks they represent a string of unforgivable failures—and a personal attack on her reputation. Elaine Griffin holds herself to an impossible standard of perfection: perfect job, perfect house, perfect marriage. So, of course she’s always held my big sisterGwen and me to that same standard. I know perfection is an illusion, but our mother might actually die—burst into flames like a vampire in sunlight—if her flawless facade ever fell and everyone in town saw she’s just as imperfect as the rest of us.

That’s why she cornered Sheila Jenkins to insist that I’d make an excellent addition to Sheila’s real estate firm and would certainly bring some of my biggest clients with me. Mom’s trying her best to spin the news about me leaving my job and ex-fiancé so that it resonates like fiery independence and not a Titanic-sized disaster.

Some days, it feels like both.

I wriggle like a worm on a hook, trying to get my skirt to fall down enough to cover my backside—because the Jasmine Falls rumor mill does not need to know what my lacy undies look like—but the dress is caught on a branch and won’t budge.

Cursing, I struggle to walk my hands down the limb toward the trunk, but I’m losing my grip.

“Vic!” someone whisper-yells. “What the heck?”

In a blink, my hand slips and I yelp as I crash to the ground.

I land so hard in the grass that it rattles my teeth. My free fall was less than ten feet—but my backside will have an ugly bruise tomorrow.

My sister Gwen steps out of the shadows, her big blue eyes wide. “You okay there, champ?” she says.

I wince as she pulls me to my feet.

“How’d you know I was out here?” I ask.

She arches a brow. “I was hiding out in the study and saw your lily-white legs dangling out here in the moonlight. Thought you might need an extraction.”

I grunt, brushing the grass from my dress. “Mom’s dialed up to eleven. I’m done.”

Gwen grabs my hand, pulling me into the back yard. “Come on, before everyone comes out to see what crash-landed out here. Pretty sure they heard you clear across the county.”

“You’re hilarious.” I grab my shoes and follow her toward the treehouse, our hiding spot since we were old enough to climb.

It’s more like a deck than a house, with solid floors and waist-high rails. There’s no roof or walls, but the dense trees hide us from view. Once we’re up the ladder and sitting side-by-side on the floor, Gwen pulls a flask from somewhere in the folds of her dress and offers it to me.

“You’re like a cartoon character with impossible pockets,” I say. “What else do you have hiding in there?”

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