Page 100 of The Five-Star Weekend

“Hell yes,” Tatum says. “I’m exhausted.”

Hollis kisses Tatum on the forehead. “Sweet dreams, sis.”

The person who has a hard time sleeping is Hollis. At midnight, Henny comes strolling into the kitchen—she can be a night owl—and plops at Hollis’s feet as Hollis opens her laptop and goes to the Hungry with Hollis website. She has promised her subscribers a full accounting of the Five-Star Weekend, but how does she begin to describe what happened? A part of her, of course, would love to tell everyone the truth: Gigi Ling, the woman Hollis chose from the site’s very ranks, turned out to be her husband’s mistress. What would Molly Beardsley or Bailey Ruckert say tothat?There would be outrage, indignation. Only a very few among Hollis’s followers would evenunderstandforgiveness; no one would expect it. They would expect Hollis to kick Gigi out on her perfect ass.

Hollis recalls Brooke’s words. She types: It all went so smoothly!

As she’s deleting this line—she can’t lie like that; the weekend was so filled with drama someone could write a novel about it—her phone buzzes with a text. Henny raises her head.

“I know, right?” Hollis says. “Who’s texting me at midnight?”

It’s Jack:I just made it back home. I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye. It was good to see you, Holly berry.

Hollis writes:It was good to see you too.

That kiss,she thinks. If Kevin Dixon hadn’t come patrolling, she might have wished she’d read that “Sex and the Widow” article.

But what she had with Jack this weekend was just enough. She can now go back to stalking him online.

Guess what?he texts.

What?she thinks. A part of her wants him to say he’s actually outside on their beach, waiting for her to grab a blanket and meet him.

She types:????

I’ll be back on Nantucket the first week in October. We could go scalloping together.

You just want me to show you my dad’s secret spot,Hollis types.

I’ve waited a long time,Jack says.So is it a date?

Hollis smiles.Wild horses,she types.

Then she tells Henny good night and goes to bed.

51. Happily Ever After

Gigi wakes up with the first birdsong, though it’s barely light out. She gets dressed, packs her final things, strips the sheets off the bed, and piles them with the towels. No one will say she wasn’t a considerate houseguest.

She gets an alert that her Uber is five minutes away, and she decides she’ll wait at the end of the driveway. More than anything, she wants to make a clean exit; she can’t manage any kind of goodbye.

To that end, she very quietly leaves her room and tiptoes past Brooke’s door to the kitchen. Gigi gets lucky; the dog is nowhere to be seen.

She smells coffee and notices that Hollis has left out to-go cups, along with almond milk and raw sugar. The woman thinks of everything. Just as Gigi is securing the top on her coffee she hears the whisper of bare feet on a wooden floor. Hollis appears from down the hall.

Gigi’s heart free-falls. She was so close.

“Hey,” Gigi says. Hollis is wearing a Harvard Medical School T-shirt. Her enormous diamond engagement ring sparkles in the light coming through the window.

“Are you leaving?” Hollis asks.

“Yes,” Gigi says. “My Uber is nearly here.” She pauses, wondering how to make this not-agony for both of them. “Thank you, Hollis. For everything.”

Hollis stares at Gigi, then shakes her head. “I wish I didn’t think you were so cool,” she says. “That would make this a lot easier.”

Gigi nods. “I feel the exact same way.”

The Fifty Shades of White suite is closest to the kitchen, so Tatum hears Hollis, Brooke, and Dru-Ann as they chatter away:The coffee is ready; Take a to-go cup; Does anyone want granola?; This is the fruit salad that refuses to die; Is Gigi gone already?

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