the ring in the safe and then swung the door shut with some small satisfaction.
I had her ring. And now I was going to get her fiancé.
* * *
—
Another night, another meal with the enemy.
But this one would be different. I was so done with this whole charade: It was time to blow it all open. (Or: Pull it together.) To put the imposter in her place, I decided to pull out all the stops and host a feast that would make the Lieblings proud. I summoned a caterer from South Lake Tahoe to produce a six-course meal; I hired a staff to serve and to clean, because I certainly would not be serving Nina Ross myself or scrubbing her lip prints off my crystal.
I was mistress of Stonehaven; it was time for me to act it. (No more talk of fatal flaws! No more thoughts of unworthiness!) Let Nina see everything that she was not; let her burn with envy that she would never be a Liebling, no matter how she might connive to be. And when dessert rolled around, I would finally expose her for who she was, and claim Michael for myself.
Before they arrived for dinner, I dragged the packing boxes from the corner of my bedroom and tore them open. I rifled through the dresses that had been hidden away in the dark for the better part of a year now: party dresses and prairie dresses, resort wear and club wear, clothes intended for day and for night and for every single moment in between. I dragged them out one by one and spread them around the room. Heaps of silk and chiffon and linen, in pink and gold and lime, a sartorial rainbow that piled up on the bed and the settee and, eventually, the carpet. The clothes breathed life into this musty old room, as if I’d thrown open the windows and let in fresh air. Why hadn’t I unpacked these sooner? Each dress was an old friend; each one came attached to a specific visual memory, stamped with a date and time and memorialized on my Instagram feed: the crocheted dress I wore in that shoot on the beach in Bora Bora; the gown I wore eating breakfast on the balcony of my suite at Plaza Athénée; the sparkly shift from that shoot on the Hudson Pier.
I unearthed a floor-length green chiffon dress that I once wore to a Gucci dinner party in Positano—we took pictures on the boat on the way in. (22,000 likes! A near record!) Could that have been only eighteen months earlier? It felt like a lifetime had passed.
I tugged the Gucci dress on over my head and studied myself in the mirror. I was thinner than I used to be and my spray tan was long gone; but still, there she was again, and I was happy to see her looking back at me. V-Life Vanessa, fashionista and bon vivant, liver of the good life, #blessed, was back. No, I wasn’t going to ask anyone else to tell me I was worthy: I knew I was.
* * *
—
Dinner was awkward and strained. I drank too much and talked too loudly. Ashley was too quiet, nudging the food around on her plate with the tines of a fork. Only Michael seemed relaxed, sprawled comfortably in his chair, regaling us with stories from his childhood in Ireland as he tore through every course placed in front of him.
I noticed that Ashley and Michael were avoiding looking at each other. Every once in a while, their eyes would snag and they’d give each other a long, indecipherable look. I wondered if they’d fought. (I was thrilled by this possibility.)
The caterer uncorked a bottle of French champagne, unearthed from Stonehaven’s cellar. Michael and I each took a flute, though Ashley put a hand over her own to prevent the waiter from pouring. (“Still recovering from food poisoning,” she said.) The food kept coming: amuse-bouche, then a plateau de fruits de mer, followed by a salad course and a tomato bisque. Our meal was an hour in and we had yet to even get to our entrées; I still had to figure out how to get Michael alone. Ashley kept glancing at the