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He opened the door and stepped back. I entered a very large foyer. The house had vaulted ceilings with wood beams.

“These are Brazilian cherry-wood floors,” he said. “We’re ordered to tell anyone we bring here that immediately.”

“It’s beautiful, Ryder. How big is this house?”

The house had a wide-open look, so I could see into the kitchen as well.

“Ten thousand, with seven bedrooms and ten bathrooms. Everything is in the rear—the tennis court, the pool, an outdoor grill. There’s even a small putting green. Neither of my parents swims very much. My mother doesn’t play tennis at all. We never grilled at any of our other homes, and my father plays golf maybe twice a year, but usually only at celebrity events when he is invited and all expenses are paid. But we have to have it all!” Ryder said, his eyes exaggeratedly wide.

“Have all of what?” we heard. “What tall tales are you telling now, Ryder?”

A woman who was obviously Ryder’s mother, Beverly R

ansome, stepped out of the very large living room. She looked as if she had just this moment finished a modeling shoot. I wondered if she spent her whole day this put together. Like most models, she was tall, probably between five foot ten and five foot eleven. Her facial features were exquisite. The features of her face were so perfect, in fact, that I wondered if she could possibly have been born that way. Again, like most very successful models, her eyes captured attention first. They were cobalt blue and just almond-shaped enough to give her something of an unusual, alluring look. It wasn’t hard to imagine why she was photogenic. She could probably make an amateur head-shot photographer look like some of the most famous professionals.

When she stepped more into the light that streamed through a skylight above us, her light brown hair meticulously styled into a basic French twist seemed to take on a slightly copper shade. She wore an A-line, V-neck chiffon lace dress that reminded me of something Jordan would wear to one of her elegant charity events, but it wasn’t even three-thirty in the afternoon. My gaze went from her face to the heart-shaped diamond pendant on a necklace of white gold.

“Well, this is a surprise, Ryder,” she said. “Why didn’t you warn us that you were bringing someone home today?”

“Warn you?” he replied.

She glanced at him, but her eyes were all over me. “You know what I mean,” she said. “We might have prepared something special.”

“There’s something special here every day,” he said, both to her and to me.

“Aren’t you going to introduce us?”

“If you give me a chance,” he said. “Mother, this is Sasha Fawne Porter. She lives in that shack the Marches own, the one that made Architectural Digest a while back, the one you ooh’ed and ah’ed over.”

“Oh. I’m happy to meet you, Sasha. Your home looks truly magnificent.” I was about to tell her it wasn’t really my home, when she added, “What I meant by something special is we would have planned to be here. My husband and I agreed to attend a publicity event for a new Warner Brothers film.”

“That explains the uniform,” Ryder said.

“Uniform?” both his mother and I said simultaneously. She laughed.

“I take it you attend Pacifica, Sasha.”

“We didn’t meet on the street,” Ryder said. When he looked at me, I could see he was sorrier for me that he had blurted that than he was for his response to his mother.

The moment we had entered and she had appeared, I could feel the tension in the air.

“I’m not being critical, Ryder. All I’m saying is it would have been nicer if you had told us you were having a guest so I wouldn’t have had to hear it from your sister as she ran by.” She smiled at me. “My son has a ways to go when it comes to social etiquette. You’re more than welcome,” she continued. “I just hate meeting someone for the first time and then having to run out.”

“Be fashionably late,” Ryder suggested.

“We already will be that,” she said, and laughed. She looked at her watch. “Your father takes longer than I do to get ready, which would shock most people.”

“No one who knows him,” Ryder said.

Her lips tightened.

“What a beautiful watch,” I said, hoping to break the tension.

“Yes, it was a gift from a European count. It’s a Harry Winston.”

“I thought it was a watch,” Ryder said.

“Ha, ha. My son is determined to give me some stress wrinkles.”