Too Good to Be True Read online

  Begin Reading

  Table of Contents

  About the Author

  Copyright Page

  Thank you for buying this

  St. Martin’s Press ebook.

  To receive special offers, bonus content,

  and info on new releases and other great reads,

  sign up for our newsletters.

  Or visit us online at

  us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup

  For email updates on the author, click here.

  The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you for your personal use only. You may not make this e-book publicly available in any way. Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy.

  For my father, Joe Lovering—

  the wisest man and writer I know,

  and the one who put the world

  at my fingertips

  Isn’t it funny? The truth just sounds different.

  —Penny Lane, Almost Famous

  Part

  ONE

  Chapter One

  Skye

  MARCH 2019

  Something is going on with Burke this morning. I can tell because he asks me three times how I want my eggs.

  “Over easy!” I call from the bedroom. It’s how I’ve asked for my eggs every time since we began dating six months ago.

  Burke is a morning person and I am not, and I love that he’s gotten in the habit of making me breakfast on weekend mornings while I lounge in bed with a book.

  “Over easy, right?” he shouts again from the kitchen.

  “Right! Thanks.” I sink back into the pillows, confused. Burke and I have been living together for over two months now. He knows how I like my eggs.

  The fear that my forty-six-year-old boyfriend might be developing early-onset Alzheimer’s suddenly seizes every square inch of my brain. I recognize the irrational concern as it formulates, but the compulsion has already taken its unshakable hold, and I can’t lose Burke to Alzheimer’s out of sheer laziness. I climb out of bed and knock on every wooden object in the room eight times: eight knocks for the headboard, bedside tables, both dressers, windowpanes, closet door, baseboard moldings, and the little hand-carved elephant on my dresser. For time-management purposes, I should really avoid buying wooden furniture in the future.

  “Two over-easy eggs with an English muffin and extra-crispy bacon for my beautiful girl,” Burke says, entering the bedroom with a tray. “And, of course, coffee.” He looks adorable in sweats and a T-shirt, his dark hair damp from the shower. Affection floods me, and I almost can’t stand how much I love him.

  “Breakfast in bed?” I sit up straighter as he places the meal in front of me. “I didn’t even know we owned this fine tray. So fancy, Goose. What’s the occasion?”

  Burke shrugs. “I just wanted to do something nice for my Goose. I know how you love your lazy Sundays.”

  I smile. Burke and I have called each other Goose ever since we watched a documentary about geese and how they mate for life. When a goose loses its mate, it circles and calls endlessly for the one that’s never coming back. Burke said that’s what he would do if he ever lost me.

  “You’re the sweetest.” I bite into a piece of bacon, crisped to perfection in the nearly burnt way that I like it.

  Burke stands beside the bed, sort of shifting from one foot to another while he watches me eat, a peculiar grin plastered to his face.

  “Are you okay?” I look up at him, worried again. “Did you already eat?”

  “I … I—not yet.”

  “Well, what’s the matter? I can tell there’s somethi—”

  “Skye. There’s one more thing to go with your breakfast.” All of a sudden Burke drops to his knee beside the bed, staring at me with wide, deer-in-headlights eyes. Several slow, strange seconds pass before it finally hits me. Oh. OH! But it can’t be this. Can it be this?!

  A small box appears on Burke’s palm—it must have come from his pocket—and along with the air in the room, my heart goes still. I hear him saying something about how much he loves me, and how even though it hasn’t been that long, he knows he wants to be with me forever, and then he flips open the box and there’s a ring and then he’s asking the question that every girl dreams of hearing from the love of her life.

  My jaw hangs open. My entire body feels fizzy and light.

  “Skye?” Burke prompts. “Say something.”

  “Yes!” I scream. “YES!”

  Burke whisks the breakfast tray to the floor and dives into bed beside me. Shock runs through me in hot waves as he slides the sapphire-and-diamond ring over my finger. It’s loose over the knuckle, but that’s okay—easy to have it resized, Burke assures me. He smiles up at me and it’s his biggest smile, the one that reaches his ocean-blue eyes, dimples teasing either cheek, and I’m grateful that I never gave up on love.

  “You’re crying, Goose.” He touches my face.

  “Of course I’m crying.” I wrap my arms around his neck and pull him in close. “Oh my God, Burke. Oh my God. I just can’t believe it. I thought you had Alzheimer’s or something.”

  “Huh? Why?”

  “Because you kept asking what kind of eggs I wanted! And you always know to make mine over easy. I got so worried I knocked on all the wood in the room.”

  Burke laughs and presses his lips against my temple. “I was nervous, I guess. Are you surprised?”

  “So surprised. But it’s just perfect.” I gaze down at the ring, a brilliant round diamond framed by two smaller sapphires on a platinum band. “How did you know I wanted sapphires? I never even told you.”

  He swipes a tear dripping down my cheek. “Just a feeling.”

  I nuzzle in toward Burke’s face, inhaling the smell of aftershave in the creases of his neck. I can’t help but imagine Andie’s reaction when she hears we’re engaged, and this is how my mind works—once an anxiety-inducing thought takes hold, I’m powerless against it.

  You can’t actually know someone after six months, Skye, she’ll say, just as she said when we moved in together.

  I listen to Burke explain how he asked my dad’s permission a couple weeks earlier, and how he’s arranged brunch at Buvette to celebrate later this morning with my dad and Nancy and her twin teenage sons, Aidan and Harry—it still feels weird to call them my stepbrothers. My stomach twists—I don’t want to share any of this with Nancy and her kids—but the excitement in Burke’s voice tells me he’s proud of his effort to include my family in this special day.

  I can’t believe I have a fiancé, and there’s Andie’s stupid voice again: Don’t you think it’s weird, Skye, that you’ve never met his family? You’re living with someone and you’ve never met his family.

  But Burke doesn’t have a family—his parents died in a plane crash when he was nineteen. He’s an only child. It’s not his fault.

  “Want to finish your eggs?” Burke asks. “Brunch isn’t for a couple hours.”

  I smile and nod, and he grabs the tray from the floor and places it on my lap. I bite into a buttered half of an English muffin, and God I would do anything to get Andie out of my head in this moment.

  All I’m saying is that if he seems too good to be true, he probably is.

  I lean my head on Burke’s strong, safe shoulder. “Tell me how you picked the ring, Goose.”

  He launches into the story and I cling to his words, willing them to drown out Andie’s voice, which is negative and stemmed from envy and a threat to my happiness. Because Burke is not too good to be true, and unlike Andie and Lexy and Isabel, I never had a Burke, not until six months ago. I never had a reliable plus-one or a valentine, someone to bring to parties and weddings and be debilitatingly hungover with on Saturday afternoons. Until Burke I never had a guy who told me he loved me or brought me soup when I was sick or wanted to make me come until my vision blurred.

  See, I’m not the type of girl men want to marry. I’m the kind of girl men think they want to marry—at first they see a pretty face, nice apartment, good clothes. But then they get to know me—the real me. And even though I never relinquished my optimism, even though I kept up my monthly visits to European Wax Center and my thrice-weekly runs along the West Side Highway in an effort to shed the stubborn baby fat; still, if you had told me a year ago that in 365 days a quality man would ask me to be his wife, I wouldn’t have believed you.

  But six months ago, I met Burke Michaels. Handsome Burke, with his jet-black hair and dimpled smile. From that very first day I knew something was different. A week in, I made the mistake of telling Andie he was the man I was going to marry. She looked almost angry when she responded that it was psychotic to consider the notion of marriage with someone you’ve only known for a week, and I knew I’d hit a nerve. Andie and Spencer have been dating since college and they’re not engaged yet—they don’t even talk about it yet. Andie says it doesn’t bother her, but I don’t believe that. I don’t believe you can spend eight years with someone and be okay with an ambiguous future.

  Burke and I, we knew from the beginning. We didn’t get into specifics, but the shared understanding that we would always be together was there, like the sun in the morning or the moon at night. It’s a peaceful, uncomplicated feeling when you know that what you have with someone is a forever kind of thing.

  I help Burke rinse the dishes, then shower and change for brunch. Even on a day as happy as today,
I’m dreading seeing Nancy. I think of that night on Nantucket two summers ago, the way she whispered to my father on the porch while I eavesdropped.

  I worry about Skye, I really do. She’s a beautiful girl, but with her … problem … it just seems to be setting her back. I worry about her meeting someone.…

  My problem. My fucking problem.

  It’s not Nancy’s fault that I dislike her, not if I’m being honest with myself. I can see that now that I’m in a solid place in my life. I have the perspective and the maturity to admit that she never stood a chance with me, not after what I’d been through. It didn’t matter that people said she was bringing color and oxygen back into my father’s being, not when I could still vividly picture my parents dancing to Van Morrison in the kitchen, laughing and kissing like teenagers. Not when the mother I’d lost was a mother like mine. A force as palpable and vital as my own heartbeat, an entire world in a single being. You can’t replace a person like that.

  I pull my long blond hair back into a low ponytail. I swipe mascara on my lashes, and Burke comes up behind me, circling his arms around my waist. I press my cheek against his chest and listen to the steady beat of his heart, grateful for its kindness, its openness. Finally, I’ve found someone who sees beyond my problem, someone who loves me in spite of it. And not just anyone—I’ve found tall, dark, and movie-handsome Burke Michaels, a man with a clear conscience and a good job and eyes so blue you can spot them a mile away. I’m suddenly almost excited for brunch at Buvette, fueled by the thought of waving my new ring in Nancy’s face. My dad never even gave Nancy an engagement ring (It was the second marriage for both of us; we thought understated was more appropriate, I can hear him reasoning).

  I finger the earrings I’ve chosen for the occasion—my mother’s emerald studs, the ones my father gave her the night before their wedding. A pang of sadness rushes through me, and I miss her more than I can stand.

  “I wish your mom could be here for this,” Burke says from behind me, reading my mind. He props his chin on my shoulder so that our eyes meet in the bathroom mirror.

  “I was just thinking that. I wish your parents could be here, too.”

  “Me, too, Goose.”

  I smile at our reflection, the diamond sparkling on my left ring finger. Despite our missing pieces, it is truly a perfect sight. A dream come true. I’ll never be able to understand how I got so lucky.

  Chapter Two

  Burke Michaels’s Diary

  SEPTEMBER 8, 2018

  Dear Dr. K,

  Her hair is yellow and thick, nothing like my wife’s. Isn’t that awful, that when I first notice an attractive woman, I instantly compare her to my wife? I used to think I was a good person, the kind of man who wouldn’t be struck dumb by the tumble of blond hair down a creamy, anonymous back.

  But shit goes out the window, I’ve learned. It goes out the window fast.

  This journal was my wife’s idea, by the way. Well, technically it was yours, Dr. K (why I’m shelling out an arm and a leg for couples therapy when money is our central issue, don’t ask). I’m supposed to be writing down my thoughts daily, not to show you or Heather, but just for myself. To get to know ourselves better as individuals, independent from our marriage, as you explained it, Dr. K.

  You said that for this journal project thing we could write each entry to you, like a letter of sorts, if that would be helpful. And I do think that will be helpful for me, from a structural standpoint, so that’s what I’m going to do, just so you know. Not that you’re ever going to read this.

  Back to the blonde. Here’s what happened: I was standing behind her in the hotel lobby this morning, feeling jittery and impatient to check in even though I wasn’t in a rush whatsoever. I’m taking a weekend in Montauk. Hotel room for one at Gurney’s Resort. I told Heather I had a networking opportunity in the city with some old Credit Suisse colleagues and she didn’t question it, bless her faithful heart. “Just make time to journal your daily thoughts like Dr. K said” was her only response. After twenty-five years of marriage I’m so used to taking orders from Heather that the urge to follow them is drilled into my subconscious. And so here we are. My daily thoughts.

  Why am I in Montauk? Good question. The truth is I’m having the worst month of my life, and I needed to get away. Three kids, one in college and one soon to be, a mortgage, and a wife I used to be crazy about. I feel sad when I look at Heather now, because mostly all I see is the absence of what I used to love.

  There’s also the astronomical cost of my eldest daughter Hope’s dental implants (she claims she hadn’t been drinking when she fell down a flight of stairs at a frat party and knocked out several of her top teeth last spring). And then, to top it all off, there’s the fact that I was recently fired from my job of over two decades at PK Adamson. I’m sorry, let me rephrase: I was recently let go from my job of over two decades at PK Adamson. According to my ex-boss, Herb, there’s a crucial difference, and one that earned me two weeks’ severance. Two whole weeks’ severance! After twenty fucking years. Can you believe that, Dr. K?

  I hope you know I’m being sarcastic. It’s not easy to convey sarcasm in a journal. Anyway, yes, I was recently “let go,” although I suppose it’s not all that recent since I’ve technically been unemployed since April. And if you think I’ve been sitting on my ass for the last four months, you’re wrong. I’ve applied to jobs at every other wealth management firm under the sun, but no one will hire me, not when they see what’s on my record. In 1999, when my old ex-boss offered me the data-entry-specialist position at PK Adamson, he said, “If I don’t give you a shot, I know no one else will.” And he was right. He’s still right. Because in certain situations, time doesn’t ease the grip of the past.

  But with twenty-plus years of experience under my belt, I refuse to switch industries. I can’t afford that kind of pay cut. With the mortgage and college tuition and Hope’s teeth and our vital therapy sessions with brilliant, out-of-network you, money is tighter than a virgin’s pussy.

  Forgive my crudeness, Dr. K. I’m quite distressed. In case you were wondering, insurance doesn’t cover dental implants, which come in around $3,500 per faux tooth. My daughter is currently making do with dental flippers.

  So, here I am. I lost my job in April and I’ve spent the summer working my ass off to find a new one, and no one will hire me, and my wife thinks I’m a worthless piece of shit, and maybe I am, Dr. K. Maybe I am.

  But I do know that life is short, and I need this weekend. I need it for my own red-blooded sanity. I confided in my buddy Todd, my colleague—ex-colleague, I should say—and he told me Gurney’s in Montauk is the place. Right now, I need to be at the place.

  So, back to this morning. I was making a bet with myself about the blonde in front of me at the Gurney’s check-in desk. A woman can look amazing from behind and then she turns around, and, yikes, the front of her washes your fantasy down the drain. A “butter face,” Todd calls such girls (everything “but her” face).

  Anyway, I was really getting into this internal debate, but before I could settle on a firm hypothesis, I got my answer. The blonde whipped around, and her face reminded me of the pretty girls in high school—big doe eyes, supple skin, small nose. A combination that is simple and astonishing at once. She looked directly at me for a split second that jolted my nerves awake, that hushed every sound in the room and in my head so that all I could feel and hear was Yes. Her.

  All too quickly she resumed her conversation with her friend, a lanky brunette. The girls (they were more like girls than women; mid-twenties, I guessed) brushed by me with their rolling suitcases in tow, and I caught a whiff of something sweet and young and expensive. I heard the brunette mumble something about Aperol spritzes by the pool.

  The man behind the desk at Gurney’s was calling to me. “Sir, please step forward.”

  I heard his voice but somehow didn’t register the words until he’d repeated himself a third or maybe a fourth time, and the woman behind me jabbed my shoulder and said, “Go.”

  Go. People in New York and the Hamptons always want you to go. To live in this part of the world, you have to keep moving. Maybe that’s why Heather and I never survived here.