BRIGIT STEPPED INTO THE VILLA’S garden and gazed at the black velvet sky and silver stars. The moon glinted on the dark Aegean and white sailboats drifted in the port.
After the guests returned from the village of Manolas, they boarded the yacht and ate beetroot salad and mozzarella risotto. There were platters of fried calamari and tiramisu. Brigit gazed at the pink and orange sky and turquoise water and thought she’d never seen a more beautiful sunset.
The yacht docked in Santorini and guests dispersed to boutique hotels perched above Fira. The cool air settled on her shoulders and she longed to curl up in the living room with a cup of hot tea. But she had to ask her father why he hadn’t told her Blake had invested in the foundation. She crossed the grass and inhaled the smell of cigarettes.
“I thought you were giving up smoking as my wedding present,” she said lightly, joining her father at the stone fence.
“Greece is the only country where smoking is as natural as brushing your teeth.” Francis stubbed the cigarette with his shoe. “Even the old men with their donkeys keep a packet of Marlboros in their shirt pocket.”
“I won’t be one of those brides who expects everyone to change just for me.” She linked her arm through his. “But you have to promise you’ll cut down before Blake and I have children. You can’t push a stroller through Central Park if you have trouble breathing.”
“That’s a deal.” Francis nodded. “What are you doing out here? I thought you’d be chatting with Daisy or planning the rehearsal dinner menu with your mother.”
“I was looking for you actually,” Brigit explained. “We’ve barely had a chance to talk since we arrived in Santorini.”
“People think weddings are relaxing, but they can be more grueling than a high-powered merger. Your mother spent sixteen months planning our wedding. The altar at St. John the Divine was decorated with thirty dozen South African tea roses and the ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria resembled the main salon at Versailles.”
“It sounds exhausting.” Brigit sighed. “I’m so grateful you and Mom came to Santorini, I know you’re terribly busy.”
“And miss riding a mule or eating pork souvlaki?” Francis smiled. “I hope you’re enjoying yourself. It can’t be easy having your first husband appear at your wedding.”
“I’m used to Nathaniel showing up where he’s not invited.” Brigit shrugged. “Do you remember when he arrived at my ninth birthday party? It was an American Girl party and the other girls were horrified, they’d never had a boy at a party.
“Nathaniel said he didn’t want to miss pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey and chocolate ganache birthday cake. Then he saved Elsie’s doll from being chewed by our golden retriever, and by the end of the party all the girls wanted to be his best friend.”
“Are you sorry your marriage didn’t work out?” Francis asked.
“Nathaniel and I were like two fabrics that rubbed the wrong way.” Brigit shook her head. “Blake is everything I’ve dreamed of. He’s intelligent and hardworking and we care about the same things.
“But there is something I want to talk to about.” She fiddled with her gold earrings. “Nathaniel mentioned he ran into you at Claridge’s last summer. You said you’d met the perfect guy for me and he was an actor named Blake Crawford.
“I asked Blake and he admitted you’d met in Jackson Hole and you invited him to speak at the St. Regis gala.” She stopped and looked at her father. “I thought Blake was seated next to me by accident. You both lied to me.”
Francis tapped a cigarette onto his palm and lit it with a pearl lighter.
“Do you remember when you were eighteen and knocked on the door of my study?” he began. “It was just before finals and I thought you wanted to talk about your interview at Harvard. Instead you said you wanted to come out at the International Cotillion.
“I was so surprised, I spilled coffee on my annual report,” he mused. “You’d always been so focused on school and tennis. I thought the last thing you wanted was to parade around the Waldorf Astoria ballroom in a white satin ball gown.
“You explained you knew you wanted to go to Harvard or Dartmouth and study pre-law or pre-med. You wanted an apartment in Manhattan and a cottage in the Hamptons and two children before you were thirty-five. All that was easy, you just had to set goals and achieve them.
“Meeting the right husband was harder, you couldn’t control falling in love.” His voice wavered. “You wanted to attend the cotillion because you wanted to marry someone like me. What better place to find that man than at the same ball where your mother and I met?”
“Then Nathaniel offered to be my date and no one asked me to dance.” She grinned. “He admitted later he’d told everyone my dog had died and I was overcome with grief.”
“I know the last couple of years have been difficult and you gave up finding the right man,” Francis finished. “When I met Blake I couldn’t let him disappear. He suggested being seated with you at the gala. He said the fastest way to kill a romance is to know you’ve been set up.”
“He told me and I understand…” Brigit hesitated.
“It turned out better than I imagined.” Francis blew a thin smoke ring. “You’ll have homes on two coasts and travel all over the world. And anyone who sees Blake can tell he’s madly in love with you.”
“There’s something else.” Brigit took a deep breath. “I met Blake’s banker on the yacht. He said Blake invested two million dollars in the foundation.”
Francis’s shoulders tensed and he stubbed out his cigarette. “He was very impressed with my vision. He wanted to be involved.”
“I’m about to become chief counsel and you never told me?” Brigit gasped. “Don’t you think I’d like to know my future husband is an investor?”
“That’s what these financial summits are about,” Francis replied. “Everyone sits around eating fresh fish and drinking fine wine and discussing how they can make a difference in the world. I told Blake about the library we were building in Bangladesh and his eyes lit up.”
“So he wrote you a check over grilled trout and corn on the cob?” Brigit asked.
“He sent it to me later.” Francis shrugged. “You know better than anyone how serious Blake is about improving health care in third world countries.”
Brigit inhaled the scent of hibiscus and tried to stop her heart from racing.
“Why didn’t Blake tell me?” she demanded.
“Most men win women with diamonds and furs, not with a desire to erase world hunger.”
“We agreed the Palmer Foundation wouldn’t accept outside donations.” Brigit twisted her hands. “If you accept checks from Pepsi you have to install a soda machine in a village in Kenya. And if Frito-Lay becomes a sponsor, you have to teach malnourished children in Fiji that potato chips are part of a healthy diet.”
“Blake’s a movie star. He was hardly going to hand out DVDs of the sequel to The Hunt for Red October.” Francis smiled. “This is different, he was practically family.”
“It’s the principle,” Brigit insisted. “Someone should have told me.”
“I was about to fly to India and you were working eighty-hour weeks and Blake was promoting his movie.” He put his arm around her shoulder.
“I’m the luckiest guy in the world having my daughter work beside me. From now on I promise I won’t make any decisions without consulting you.” He walked toward the villa. “And I would be a terrible father if I let you catch cold before your wedding. Why don’t we open a bottle of Rémy Martin and toast the future of the Palmer Foundation?”
* * *
Brigit stood on the balcony and gazed at the lights twinkling in Fira. Daisy had gone to the square for a cup of hot chocolate and her parents were in their bedroom. Brigit heard muffled laughter and smiled.
Lately when she stopped by the Park Avenue town house, her mother had seemed strangely distracted. As soon as she saw Brigit she fixed her makeup or smoothed her hair but Brigit noticed new lines around her mouth.
But in Santorini she was like a young girl. Her eyes sparkled and her cheeks were flushed and she gazed at Francis as if they were on a first date.
Brigit pictured Daisy’s auburn curls and thought there was something odd about her since they’d returned from the yacht. It was as if she’d eaten a bad piece of fish and had a mild stomachache.
She walked inside and unzipped her dress. She slipped off her sandals and thought there was something her father said that made her uneasy.
She was too tired from the cruise and cognac to remember what it was. She climbed into the four-poster bed and thought she’d figure it out in the morning.