“I was on a plane to come here,” Harry said. “And you wouldn’t let me finish explaining.”
“Explain what?”
“The deal’s off because we want to do a new deal. We don’t want to just own fifty percent of Wild & West, we want to grow it. But there’s a catch: We need to go down-market, sell to the off-brand stores. We have exclusives to Marshalls and Ross Dress for Less. We could make this a hundred-million-dollar business.”
“What?”
“Yes, I had the new papers drawn up. But I didn’t want to bother you on your birthday.”
“Harry Kim!”
“Actually, it was Sanjay’s idea,” Harry said. “When I told him we were buying your company, he said we’d make a killing if we went this route.”
Sanjay. Of course. Friends don’t let friends go bankrupt. Sanjay was the one who had paid the ransom, after all, when she’d been kidnapped in Dubai.
She calculated the risks and benefits; she would be selling her clothes to bargain shoppers, to people who couldn’t afford the good stuff but the facsimile. Then she realized, yes, she would do it—she would do it for the girl she used to be. So rich ladies in Boca would stop buying her outfits, she would stop being invited to Fashion Week, Vanity Fair wouldn’t care about someone who sold clothes to the masses. To the poor.
But she wouldn’t be broke.
In fact, if Harry was right, she’d be richer than she’d ever been. Todd raised his eyebrows. He’d done the same calculations too.
“Go, everyone’s at the club,” she said. “The party bus is still outside. Tell them to wait for us. I just have to grab my purse.”
Ellie grabbed her purse and walked out of the Palm Springs house they would place on the market next month after Todd was diagnosed with dry-eye syndrome and could no longer be in the desert (Sterling would be so excited to flip it!), hand in hand with her husband to the waiting Uber to take them to the weeds-to-shithole restaurant her Parisian designer had retrofitted with more zhush.
She wasn’t broke. She wouldn’t have to file for bankruptcy. Her business would continue, and her family was intact. Her stepdaughter, hopefully, wouldn’t be expelled from Stanford. But even if she was, who cared? There were other schools. And Ellie had never even gone to college, and look at where she was now.
Giggy at least had one good friend, and the twins—well, the twins were the twins.
Tomorrow she would craft a budget, tomorrow she would figure out a new financial plan, tomorrow she would start living within her means.
But that was tomorrow.
Today wasn’t over yet.
Today was still her birthday.
Acknowledgments
Wow, I’ve wanted to write this book for more than a decade, right before we bought the house in Palm Springs, where I was supposed to have my fortieth birthday party. We never had the party, so I wrote the book instead, even though we’ve already sold the house. My husband, Mike Johnston, has heard about this book in so many permutations, mostly as this fantasy that I would be able to write it one day. “One day I will write my Palm Springs murder novel!” I vowed. Thanks, honey, for listening to every plot point and for cackling at every joke.
Thank you to my awesome editor, Jill Schwartzman, who believed and loved and encouraged this book. JILL!!! THANK YOU!!!
Thank you to Marya Pasciuto, Jamie Knapp, Elina Vaysbeyn, and everyone at Dutton!!!
Thank you to Richard Abate and Rachel Kim at 3 Arts Entertainment, who keep the lights on in all my houses. Thank you to Ellen Goldsmith-Vein and Eddie Gamara, who turn them into movies and TV shows. YOU GUYS ARE THE BEST!!!!
Thank you to my friends. There are so many! I am so incredibly blessed. Thank you to my NYC Gang, Spin Peeps, #beloveds text thread, Soho House lunch bunch, Il Pastaio squad, X-rated Xmas crew, Columbia pals, Tween Hangout parents, West Brooklyn Writers, PettyCashOGs, Kooorooon, and CoreQuadMoms. I love you guys. THANK YOU!!!! Book party!!!
Thank you to my family, who keeps me grounded and sane. DLCs Rule!!!!!!
Thank you to my kid, my favorite child, my one and only, my joy. As she would say (text): ILYSM!!!!!!!
Thanks for reading, and to all my readers, I believe this is my fiftieth book, so I am still younger than my book count. Thank you for reading my books for so long!!!!! Thank you for letting me write stories for a living.
—Melissa de la Cruz,
Los Angeles, March 2019
About the Author
Melissa de la Cruz is the #1 New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, and Publishers Weekly internationally bestselling author of many critically acclaimed novels, including Disney’s Descendants novels, the Blue Bloods series, and the Alex & Eliza trilogy. Witches of East End became an hour-long television drama on the Lifetime network. Her books have sold more than eight million copies worldwide. She lives in Los Angeles with her family and, for many years, owned Lear House in Palm Springs, where she threw many fun events, but never a birthday party.
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The Birthday Girl Page 21
