Page 28 of Nantucket Gala

“What’s really on your mind, Sophia?” Greta asked. It was almost as though she could read Sophia’s mind.

Sophia tugged at her own hair. “Have you seen the pretty actress Francis hired forThe Brutal Horizon?”

Greta shook her head.

“She and I were in acting classes together in Los Angeles,” Sophia said timidly. “When she told me she wanted to try out for Francis’s next film, I told her to go for it. I never imagined she’d actually get the part.”

“It’s great that she got the part!” Greta said.

Sophia thought she was going to burst into tears.

She remembered when she’d first got the bit part in a Francis Bianchi film. She’d thought her life was finally going to begin!

But what if her story was over? What if, now that she was pregnant, Natalie was waiting on stage right to steal her glory?

Natalie can’t write like me, Sophia thought.

But nobody would ever know that Sophia had writtenA Cataclysm,A Sacred Fig, andThe Brutal Horizon.

She’d let Francis take the credit.

She’d let him do whatever he liked.

But just now, Greta’s face was so sunshine-y and warm that Sophia could do nothing but smile.

“You have a fairy-tale life, Miss Sophia,” Greta assured her, pouring her a glass of sparkling water. “Don’t overthink it. Soak up the beauty of it.”

Sophia tried. She really did. In fact, all afternoon, as she roamed through the beaches and along the harbor, she thought,This is my fairy tale life! This is all I’ve ever wanted!

But she couldn’t help but feel that something was very wrong.

Maybe the first clue was her final thought before she returned to the hotel to prepare for the gala.

If he divorced her, or if he left her, or if he even cheated on her—he wouldn’t get another creative word out of her. His career would be doomed.

And then she thought,Goodness, where did that come from?

Chapter Nine

February 2025

Nantucket Island

It was no surprise to Henry that he finished his Untitled Bianchi Script by the end of his first week in Nantucket. The Copperfield House bred that sort of creativity. It demanded long walks down the snowy beach and intellectual conversations with his grandparents, strenuous attention spans, and very little sleep. It demanded more of himself than he knew how to give in Los Angeles.

Of course, Greta’s multicourse meals didn’t hurt, either.

Sometimes it boggled Henry’s mind just how much she helped artists at the residency. She kept all of them fed and rejuvenated. She helped all of them to sleep at night.

But Henry found himself writing for twelve or thirteen or sometimes fourteen-hour days. He found himself fleshing out new characteristics of fake-Sophia and fake-Francis. He found himself discovering more about his creative process than ever before.

Going to The Hutton Hotel invigorated something in his script as well. It helped him visualize the murder scene. It helped him understand fake-Francis’s motivations.

It helped him feel Sophia Bianchi’s very real broken heart.

Henry still hadn’t let anyone read the script. His initial plan was to head back to Los Angeles, call up the producers he had good or okay relationships with, and start the process of getting funding and a director and so on all over again. But to his surprise, his grandpa Bernard hunted him down right before he finished his final edits and said, “A producer friend of mine is on the island. Let me know if you want to meet with him.”

Henry was taken aback. He hadn’t envisioned himself moving forward professionally while in Nantucket. He’d envisioned a creative windstorm.

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