Page 42 of The Villa

My fingers were already itching to return to my laptop, brain whirring in that way that tells me I have an excellent few hours of writing ahead of me.

I get up from the table, but as I do, Chess stands, too. “God, do you remember when I took that fiction writing class with you junior year? What was that dickhead professor’s name?”

“Dr. Burke,” I say immediately, not adding that A, she wasn’t a dickhead, and B, I remember her name because she’s in the acknowledgments of the first Petal Bloom mystery. She was the first person who ever told me I might be able to make a living at writing, and it was her voice I heard in my head when I sat down and started that first book,An Evil Evening.

“Dr. Burke,” she repeats, nodding. “Who hated me.”

“She didn’t hate you,” I say, “she was just tough on your stories.”

Chess rolls her eyes. “She told me, and I quote, ‘If you’rethis interested in yourself, Miss Chandler, maybe you should move to memoir rather than fiction.’”

I don’t remember that, but it does sound like something Dr. Burke would’ve said. Especially to Chess, who seemed to push her buttons for some reason. That was around the time we were working onGreen, and Chess had decided she wanted to take a creative writing class with me, that if we were writing for the same teacher at the same time, it would help our collaboration or something.

Except that Chess had ended up with a C while I made an A, and it wasn’t long after thatGreenwas abandoned.

I wonder why she’s bringing it up now.

“Well, you took that advice,” I remind her. “And sold a gazillion copies and made a gazillion dollars, so maybe you should send Dr. Burke a thank-you note.”

She snorts at that. “Maybe. Anyway, if you need any help, let me know,” she says, and her voice is breezy, but there’s something in her eyes that doesn’t match that tone. “This is my deal, after all. The nonfiction thing. I’m happy to read what you’ve got, give some tips, whatever you need.”

“Thanks,” I tell her, “but it’s really nothing I’d want anyone to read yet. It might not be anything at all.”

A lie. It’s something, I know it is.

And it’s not that I don’t want anyone to read it.

It’s that I don’t wantChessto read it, specifically—and I can’t really explain why.

“SO, WHAT ISthe book even about?”

It’s two days later, and Chess and I are back in our favorite room in the house, the small sitting room with its soft sofas and crystal candelabras. Tonight’s wine of choice is ared, a Sangiovese that Giulia brought for us, and it’s sliding over my tongue like velvet as I study Chess on the other sofa.

“Lilith Rising,” she clarifies.“I know, I know—you don’t even have a book yet, right?”

What I have is 21,863 words that I now know in my heart are absolutely a book, but I make myself shake my head. “No, I’m still just in the exploratory stage. But you really want to know aboutLilith Rising?”

Chess is slouched on the sofa, her feet on the coffee table, the toenails a bright coral, and she lifts her glass like a toast. “If my best friend is obsessed with something, I wanna know about it. Like when you got super into those dragon books in ninth grade, and made me read the little stories you were writing about them.”

I laugh at the memory. “You never even read the dragon books.”

“And I’m probably not going to readLilith Rising,but I still want you to tell me about it. I know it’s all demons and possession and stuff, but—”

“It’s more than that,” I tell her, and she immediately holds up a hand.

“Okay, sorry to insult your new favorite book. Please continue.”

I throw one of the tiny decorative pillows at her, and she dodges nimbly, her wine sloshing, but not spilling. She’s laughing, and she once again looks like the Chess I knew years ago. Less polished, less perfect, her hair in a messy bun, dressed in an old T-shirt and pajama pants with watermelons on them instead of one of her Guru in Italy looks.

Maybe that’s why I let down my guard a little.

“All right, soLilith Risingis about this teenage girl, Victoria Stuart, who moves with her family to a big old manorin the English countryside called Somerton House. And everything is perfect and bucolic and summery, and the house isn’t even super creepy, and you’re, like, ‘Oh, okay, so maybe this isn’t gonna be so bad!’ But then she meets this priest, and they fall in love.”

“Hot,” Chess acknowledges, and I nod.

“Also, timely. This book came out right afterThe Thorn Birds, so everyone was very into that. But this priest is evil.”

“Not exactly a shocking plot twist.”

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