What’s the matter?”

Luca did not answer his mother, because at that exact moment his phone buzzed against his ear with an incoming email marked high-priority, and he pulled it away to look, and I am told his hand began to shake.

It was from Phoebe Reed’s firm.

A Notice to Vacate.

An Emergency Restraining Order.

And, attached, a certified copy of the recorded county deed transfer, confirming that the Redwood Crest estate had been sold, that afternoon, for five million two hundred thousand dollars, every cent of it deposited into my private, pre-marital trust account, where he could no more reach it than he could reach the moon.

Chapter 11 — She Sold the House