All Chapters of The Wrong Bernardi: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

At six in the morning, the house was still wearing its innocent face.The sky outside the kitchen windows was not fully light yet. The line of the ocean was still bluish gray, the waves moving slowly under the first lift of morning, and the coastal houses in the distance looked like expensive boxes that had not quite woken up.I came downstairs before Aiden woke up.That was strategy, not a healthy habit.If that boy woke up first, the morning turned into a press conference in pajamas, legal demands, and “Mami, where’s my race car?” repeated until God Himself considered sending an invoice.I set my phone on the countertop after opening the security camera app for the third time since I had opened my eyes.Garage. Empty.Main gate. Empty.Back terrace. Clean.Side balcony. Agave moving slowly in the wind.The lower road was still invisible.I closed the app and turned my phone facedown. There was no point staring at a blind spot as if it might feel guilty and turn into a camera.I tied

In the front courtyard, water moved quietly through a stone fountain. Pink bougainvillea climbed one wall, wild enough to make the old architecture feel alive. The massive wooden front doors stood open, watched by two members of the household staff and a security officer who seemed to consider smiling an information leak.“Maya!”Gracie came out from beneath one of the stone arches before I had the chance to introduce myself to anyone.She looked like a summer campaign that somehow did not make other women want to set the billboard on fire. A butter-yellow linen dress skimmed her calves, thin leather sandals on her feet, her blonde hair pulled into a low knot with a few loose pieces around her face. Sunglasses rested on top of her head. In one hand, she carried a beige folder of venue notes that was still firmly closed and looked as though it had not been touched since it came off the printer.Of course it had not.Her face already told me everything.She had fallen in love with the ho

The cellar was too narrow to serve as a main event space, but it could work for a limited tasting with a handful of VIP guests. I noted the safe capacity, ventilation, and a second staircase that appeared to lead into a service passage.The guest wing had six large suites overlooking the ocean, two smaller rooms for personal staff, and a sitting room with a balcony beautiful enough to make bridesmaids forget they were quietly competing with one another.Gracie immediately chose one of the suites for getting ready.I checked the natural light, the distance to the bathroom, and the width of the doorway.“This works,” I said. “But every dress needs to come up through the service elevator, not the main staircase. If a couture zipper catches on a nineteenth-century railing, I’m walking directly into the ocean.”“We have a service elevator?” Gracie asked.Ellison answered, “Near the kitchen corridor.”“Good. Show me.”We went back down to the main floor and passed through a kitchen larger th

I closed the venue notes before the paper became Casa Valdierra’s first casualty.“Carriage house?” I asked.Gracie nodded immediately, still looking half exhausted from the diplomatic war with her mother. “Please. Before she calls again and asks if we can hang chandeliers from the olive trees.”“If she asks, the answer is no.”“What if she says they’re small chandeliers?”“No.”“What if she says they’re Murano?”“No, but with an Italian accent.”Gracie laughed, and for a few seconds, the air felt light again.Rhysand walked on Gracie’s other side, not too close, not too far, his hair slightly disheveled from the ocean win.The carriage house sat on the north side of the estate, beyond a gently sloping stone path and a small courtyard planted with lavender. The building was low and long, with the same white stucco walls as the main house, but its large wooden doors had probably once opened for actual carriages.Now they stood open onto an empty room with smooth concrete floors, a timbe

Sunset on the Los Angeles coast had a deeply rude way of looking peaceful while my life was busy trying to yank open every secret drawer at once.The sky had turned peach, lavender, and pale gold over the ocean. Waves rolled in over and over, breaking against the sand as if they had no concern whatsoever for vendor access, carriage houses, Gracie being far too kind, or Rhysand Bernadi standing beneath those massive wooden doors earlier with a stare that had never touched my phone and somehow still felt like it had read the entire screen.I had been home for almost an hour. I had thrown my heels into the mudroom with personal resentment. The dark green silk blouse was gone, replaced by a black sports bra, an oversized white shirt I had left open, leggings, and running shoes that had not seen serious exercise in years unless walking to the front door for a package counted.My body felt a little heavy. Not in a dramatic way. More in the way of a twenty-seven-year-old woman who had appare