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Chapter 1
Chapter One: The Door Opens
Lena Chen held the pen like it weighed a hundred pounds. Carol, her real estate agent, waited at the far end of the inn’s front desk with a thick folder clipped in red. The lantern-shaped bell on the counter gleamed under October light. Outside, gulls argued over something at the curb.
“Initial here and here,” Carol said softly. “We can still hold if you want to review the offer again.”
Lena looked past her to the lobby she had polished that morning. Photographs of Windward Cove lined the paneled walls—her mother’s favorites, framed in driftwood. A stack of blankets sat beside the stone fireplace. Someone had set a pumpkin on the window ledge, probably Mr. Hatch from the bakery next door, who liked to sneak small kindnesses into her day.
Her mother’s handwriting peeked from the cork board behind the desk: Check lilacs in spring. Mend quilt. Warm scones at nine.
Lena pressed her lips together. “No. If I stall any longer, I’ll pick out a different pen and call it progress.”
She bent, signed her name in a tight hand, and lifted her head when the bell over the front door chimed.
A camera bag swung in first. Then a man in a dark jacket walked in, his hair damp from the sea air. He took in the lobby, the lantern, and the woman with the pen. For a breath, everything in the inn went still.
Theo Park, Lena thought, mind blank. His face had been on a million screens. The episode. The jokes. The cut she’d had to explain to her staff. She had planned to never see him in person.
He broke the silence with a smile that wasn’t quite ready. “Hi. I’m checking in. If you have room.”
Carol glanced between them, realized at once, and slid the folder into her bag so fast a paperclip snapped. “I’ll, um, give you two a minute,” she said, and fled.
Theo stepped forward. “Lena Chen?”
“You know my name,” she said.
“It’s been on my notes for a week.” He set his bag down, palms open. “We’re filming in town. The festival. I was told the crew booked the Harborview.”
“We’re not the Harborview.”
“I see that.”
He looked around, really looked—not like a host glancing past a set but like a person measuring an old apology. The inn smelled like cinnamon and salt. A draft toyed with the light curtains.
Lena rolled her shoulders back. “We have no rooms,” she said. “We have no anything.”
Theo nodded as if he’d expected it. “I can find a place.”
The phone on the desk rang. Lena reached it on instinct. “Lantern House Inn,” she said, and heard chaos—someone shouting over a kitchen line. “We’d like to confirm our two-night reservation for the Fall Harbor Festival official host hotel,” the voice said.
She looked at the phone. “I think you have the wrong—”
Another line lit. Another. Carol reappeared from nowhere, eyes wide. “There’s a misprint in the festival guide,” she whispered. “They listed you as the official host hotel.”
More calls. More pings. Emails popped up on the old monitor like popcorn. Bookings, bookings, bookings.
Lena’s head floated. For a heartbeat, she saw a new future instead of a sale. Then she saw Theo again, standing where her life split into before and after. “Of course,” she said, mouth dry. “Of course this would happen today.”
He winced, a flicker of something honest. “Then we should talk.”
