I read the book in one sitting. I was buzzing all over. I looked at the chemistry homework I had to do and felt something inside me had changed.

  Ninety-Nine Things held all the words I’d been looking for since my mother died. It spelled out how to really, really love. With humor, with heart, and with bravery. It made me want to find that love myself.

  At the back of the book, where the author’s bio usually is, the publisher included three blank pages, lined and numbered from one to ninety-nine.

  Okay, Mom, I’d thought, sitting down to get to work. I wasn’t sure which of Dara’s friends this book had belonged to, but it was now undeniably, cosmically mine.

  The beauty of such a large list was that it allowed me to weave between weird and brave, between superficial and marrow-deep and deal-breaker serious. In between Enthusiastic about staying up all night discussing potential past lives and Answers the phone when his mother calls, I’d written: Doesn’t own clogs, unless he’s a chef or Dutch. At the very end, number ninety-nine, I wrote, Doesn’t die. I felt my mom was with me, between the lines of that list. I felt if I could pursue this kind of love, then she’d be proud of me, wherever she was.

  I don’t know that I ever really thought I’d find a guy who embodied my whole list. It was more the exercise of committing to paper love’s wondrous possibilities.

  But then . . . I met Ryan, and everything—well, all ninety-nine things—just clicked. He’s perfect for me. Scratch that. He’s perfect, period.

  I fold up the wooden panels, tuck my gift back into the box. I can’t wait to give this to him tomorrow on Valentine’s Day.

  My phone buzzes. A barrage of texts illuminates the screen. Two from Ryan, on his way up from D.C. He’s the legislative director for Virginia senator Marshall Ayers, and on alternate Fridays, their office closes early, so he takes the 1:13 train to New York.

  The articles he’s texted—one review of a movie we both want to see, and one press piece for some legislation he’s been drafting about voters’ rights—are quickly shuffled to the bottom of my screen as my launch prep team blows me up.

  The cake balloon crisis is still unfolding, and there are fifteen dramatic messages in the text thread to prove it. Two dozen balloons, at six dollars apiece, are missing from the order my assistant, Aude, picked up this morning. Calls to the bakery have been made. Refunds have been demanded.

  At last, the message I’ve been waiting for appears. It’s Terry.

  Stuck in traffic. Signed books in my possession. Stop freaking out.

  I flip the bird at Terry’s patronizing message, but I also feel relief spread through my bones. I text Meg the good news, slide Ryan’s gift into my tote bag, and google the bakery to see whether I might stop in and solve Balloon-Gate on my way downtown.

  Out my window, as the sun shimmies over the river, and it begins, very lightly, to snow, I feel a sense of calm. I love my fiancé. I love my job. Noa Callaway’s launches are celebrations of all that love put together. Tonight, two hundred and sixty-six women will go home happy with their new books. I think that my mom would be proud.

  Everything’s going to be fine.

  Chapter Two

  Half an hour later, stepping out of the snow and into the warm and buttery bakery, I glimpse our balloons at the back.

  At Dominique Ansel now, I chime in on the text thread. Reclaiming lost balloons!

  On my phone, Meg dashes back:

  Lanie, you really don’t have to do that.

  I know this is less about the errand being below my pay grade and more about the fact that Meg suspects—not without reason—that I shouldn’t be trusted around objects so fragile. I have run through more computers and Kindles and photocopiers (yes, I actually slaughtered two photocopiers in my seven years at Peony) than the rest of the fourth floor combined. If you need someone to spill a big glass of water as soon as you sit down at an important agent lunch, I’m your gal. It’s a good thing I’m confident in my skills as an editor, because the whole publicity department still makes fun of the day I tried to help them mix a batch of sangria for a bookseller award celebration. The punch called for three cups of sugar, and I added salt. The containers looked the same. While people walked around gagging, I made matters worse by adding more salt. No one’s ever let me live it down.

  But I’m here, and I have two hands and a good feeling about today. When my assistant, Aude, chimes in, texting crisp, clear instructions for the balloons, I know the team is strapped at the venue. They need me. It seals the deal.

  Balloons under your name. Keep in protective plastic wrap until arrival on-site!!!! Please, Lanie. Inconvenience cost charged back to your card. Ask for Jerome.

  Jerome is behind the counter, his name tag prominent on his starched white shirt. He’s reading Proust and looks less than enthused when I sidle up in front of him. I notice his tip jar is low.

  “Hi, I’m Lanie Bloom. Here for the balloons.” I gesture behind him at the floating bouquet on the other side of the kitchen’s glass wall.

  “No.” Back to his book Jerome goes. “Those are for someone else.”

  “Aude Azaiz? She’s my assistant.”

  Now Jerome looks up. “Ms. Azaiz works for you?” There’s shock in his voice, and honestly, I can’t blame him. With her boy-short black hair, silver skull nose piercing, and punctuating French Tunisian accent, Aude might be the world’s most intimidating twenty-three-year-old. Meg and I marvel at her outfits, the necklines of dresses that rise asymmetrically above her chin. We covet her rotation of leather jackets in surprising colors like marigold. When we order lunch to the office, Aude sends our food back for the slightest infraction—mayonnaise when she asked for aioli, improperly emulsified dressing, the wrong kind of crab in a California roll. Nobody fucks with her.

  The mere mention of Aude’s name has Jerome behind the glass retrieving the balloons. When he brings them out, they’re lovely, gauzy gold, and sheer enough to suggest the sliver of angel food inside. But before he bequeaths them, he nods at my outstretched hands.

  “One graze of that hangnail will pop them,” he says.

  Hastily I gnaw off a thumbnail.

  “Your breath will pop them,” he says, “and the pastry chef can make no more today. So—” Jerome mimes sucking in his breath, a snide look in his eyes.

  I’m about to ask who hurt him as a little boy when he surprises me.

  “Ms. Azaiz . . .” His face has gone slightly splotchy. His tone has dropped its scathe. “Is she . . . attached to anyone?”

  I grin at Jerome and slip a ten-dollar bill in his tip jar. “Quite single.”

  That’s the thing about romance. Its prospect can make even the most curmudgeonly blush. And though I’m fairly certain Aude would eat Jerome for breakfast in between bites of croissant, I’m always happy to be proven wrong when it comes to things like this.

  Jerome nods, his mood elevated. “The reimbursement— back to the same card?”

  “Actually,” I say, thinking of Meg and Aude and the rest of our launch team, the long hours they’ve put into tonight. “Can I get that in pastries to go?”

  * * *

  “Lanie arrives!” Aude calls over her shoulder as I step out of the elevator onto the sleek white-tiled hallway of the Hotel Shivani’s twelfth floor.

  Even though Aude quit smoking last year, she greets everyone as if she’s just stamped out a cigarette. She glides forward to relieve me of the balloons.

  “Shit, these are so fragile,” she says. We both exhale once they’re in her well-manicured hands.

  “Lanie!” Meg says, rushing toward me, pushing her glasses higher on her nose. “I can’t believe you got those.”

  “Accept the miracle.” I pass her the box of pastries, my hands now free to brush the snowflakes from my hair. Meg’s going to love the Jerome anecdote, but I’ll save it for a calmer moment. “Get in the zone with a scone.”

  “Scone zone,” Meg repeats, taking a bite and chewing morosely.

  “What’s the word on the signed books?” I ask.

  Finally, Meg smiles, and I know Terry delivered.

  “Come on,” Meg says, “I’ll show you.”

  We maze through tables draped in golden cloth, past Aude schooling a group of publicists on how to fill satchels of rice for the table setting, and how not to wedge white candles into the wicker Chianti bottle centerpieces.

  “Look at that chip in the taper! Stand back, I will do it myself.”

  There’s a white aisle for guests to walk down with their books and a photo booth with rotating Amalfi Coast backdrops. Cases of prosecco and Campari chill on ice. Twinkle lights have been strung from the ceiling, drawing the eye toward the red ranunculus altar in the center of the room. Behind it, Styrofoam boulders form an oceanfront Italian bluff. Out the window, snow falls on the Hudson.

  “This is all so perfect,” I tell Meg, who’s tying the last of the cake balloons to the last of the chairs. “Like Cupid exploded.”

  “It’s a mood,” Meg says.

  “Should the confetti be scattered or, like, placed?” Meg’s assistant calls.

  I’m about to say “scattered,” because how does one place confetti, when Meg says: “Placed so that it appears to be scattered.”

  I take out my phone to snap a picture of the space. I can’t get it all in the frame but I find a sparkly angle. I’m about to send it to my boss when I remember her baby’s ear infection. Alix has been in and out of urgent care the past few nights, and I don’t want to wake her if she’s napping.

  Meg leads me to the back of the room, where she gestures grandly at a white stack of Noa’s new books, hot off the press and arranged in the shape of a wedding cake.

  “Ta-da!”

  “You did all this in thirty minutes?” I high-five Meg. “Looks like those hours of Magna-Tiles with the Boss paid off.” The Boss is what I call Meg’s three-year-old, Harrison, though her one-year-old, Stella, is gunning for the title, too.

  She nods. “Master taught me well.”

  Gingerly I lift a book off the top of the tower and run my fingers over the embossed type. I’ve had a hand in every aspect of Two Hundred and Sixty-Six Vows, and it’s a rush to hold a finished copy before it’s officially out in the world. I open to the title page and see Noa Callaway’s florid signature scrawled in fountain pen. It makes me smile to picture Noa signing these from her fancy Fifth Avenue penthouse.

  “Sorry I missed the book drop-off,” I say. “Was the Terrier rabid?”

  “Actually, she was in a good mood,” Meg says. “She even wondered whether there was anything else we needed.”

  “No way.”

  “I asked if she’d give Tommy his monthly hand job.”

  “God bless Terry,” I say, side-glancing Meg. “It’s not really that bad with Tommy?”

  “Talk to me when you’ve been married for eight years.”

  “Sounds like y’all need a date night. Any interesting Valentine’s plans?”

  Meg sighs. “My mom is taking the kids to some Chinese New Year thing.”

  “There you go.”

  “Tommy and I will probably spend the day at home, wearing charcoal masks and scrolling on our phones from different rooms. I’m honestly looking forward to it. Sometimes we’ll forward each other a funny tweet. And that’s what passes for romance in the Wang household.”

  “Meg, you need to get laid. Not Twitter-laid. Same room, actual-sex-laid. Promise me.”

  She rolls her eyes. “What about you? Please say a quickie with Ryan on the subway so I’ll have something to fantasize about.”

  I’m grinning, and I know it’s annoying, but I can’t help it. “We have no plans. Maybe a walk in the park, a wander into some antiques stores, brunch somewhere we’ve never been—”

  Meg waves me off. “If it’s not pornographic, I don’t really need to know. I’m going to remind you of this when you’re married and trying to pretend Valentine’s Day doesn’t exist. Speaking of marriage,” she says, more cheerily, giving me a nudge. “Did ya pick a date yet?”

  She knows we haven’t, and she knows I find it maddening that Every Single Person asks this question.

  “No, but I did choose your bridesmaid dress. Get ready to look smashing in mauve.”

  Meg blinks at me. She’s thirty-four and was born way over weddings. “Good thing I love you.”

  “I’m joking. You fell hard for that.”

  “It’s this room! Heart-shaped confetti is seeping into my brain.” Meg rubs her temples. “I’ll wear whatever you want, whenever you decide you want it.” She leans against me and together we survey the room. “I bet for an extra grand, we could keep these tables another day and throw your wedding right here. Save you a lot of hassle.”

  I laugh, but it comes out forced. Meg doesn’t notice. She’s asking for my phone and trying to flag down Aude to copy my playlist. I hand the phone to her and she disappears, leaving me alone at the altar.

  I try to picture Ryan waiting for me beneath these ranunculus and twinkle lights—or even at a real oceanfront destination, like we’ve discussed a couple times. I can’t see it. And after a moment of trying, tears sting my eyes.

  I move to the window, where no one can see me wipe them away. Every time I think of our wedding—I get stuck.

  For some reason the idea of getting married, of taking the big next step in my life, sends my heart back to the child I was when I lost my mom. When I think of a wedding without her in the pictures, I find that I can’t pick a date—or a venue, or a dress, or a cake, or a first song to dance to with my dad. Because she won’t be there to experience it.

  Aude finds me at the window. She’s holding out my buzzing phone.

  It’s probably Ryan. When he gets to Penn Station, he always checks in about dinner, which is always Italian takeout from Vito’s on nights I’m working late. I’m trying to push away thoughts of my mother, to focus on whether baked ziti or eggplant parm will hit the spot around ten, but when I glance at my phone, it’s not his name on the screen.

  It’s Frank, executive assistant to our president and publisher, Sue Reese.

  Can you meet with Sue at 4:30?

  I blink at the message. It’s four-fifteen right now.

  My chest tightens. In all the years I’ve worked at Peony, Sue’s calendar has been meticulously organized weeks in advance. She doesn’t do impromptu.

  Something’s up. Something big.

  Chapter Three

  Sue’s assistant, Frank, is the kind of man who always offers you hot tea with a great big smile when you arrive for a meeting, then frowns when you take him up on it. Generally, I make a habit of trying not to annoy Frank, but today I’m so nervous that I accidentally blurt out “yes.”

  “Hmph,” Frank says, rising from his desk with the kettle.

  “Do you know what this meeting is about?” I ask, following him to the kitchen.

  Frank has been Sue’s assistant for over twenty years, ever since she founded Peony in the late nineties. I’ve seen him rattle off a thousand facts about Sue into the phone, right off the top of his head—her passport number, her mother-in-law’s favorite flowers, the date of her last gynecological exam.

  “I don’t think you’re getting fired,” he calls over his shoulder, “but I’ve been wrong before.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You don’t take milk or sugar or anything, right?” he asks, his tone directing me toward the right answer.

  I shake my head.

  “The toughest people take it straight.” He hands me the mug, then says more brightly, “Go on in. She’ll be right with you.”

  I open the door to our publisher’s corner office and step tentatively inside. Sue’s spa—as Meg and I call it—is the only office at Peony that doesn’t look like a romance publishing office. Every other employee has some variation of wall-to-wall bookshelves crammed with loudly colored spines, but Sue’s office is entirely white. The white desk is devoid of papers, the white leather chairs are smooth as cream, and the white modernist coat rack harbors three white cardigans, each one with some expensive flourish, like pale pink leather elbow patches.

  The only pops of color come from three large hanging ferns and three framed photographs of sons who look like mini-Sues but with braces. I’ve never met Sue’s kids before, but I have seen her water her plants, and her surprising devotion to them lets me know she’s a really good mom.

  I’m doing this square breathing trick Meg taught me, trying to stay calm as I settle into Sue’s white guest cloud, when a man pops up from behind Sue’s desk. We scream at the same time.

  “Rufus, what the hell?” I hiss. I can hiss at him because he’s my friend. It’s a love hiss. “What are you doing here?”

  “Um, my job?” he says, rolling out his neck, which is always sore because he over-Pilates because he has the long-standing, unrequited hots for Brent, the instructor at Pilates World.

  “Well, get out! Come back later. I have a meeting.”

  “Sue’s printer broke,” he says, fiddling with some cables in a way that makes me suspect he won’t be done anytime soon. “Just because I’ve had to resurrect your hard drive from the underworld—is it three times now?—does not mean I don’t also perform valuable IT for the rest of this company.”

  “In my defense—”

  “Oh, I dare you.” He shakes his head in pity.

  “Mercury was in retrograde!”

  “Permanently?” He laughs. “Why are you hissing so much?”

  “I hiss when I’m nervous,” I hiss, glancing out the open door. “Frank used the word fired.”

  Rufus rolls his big brown eyes, which reassures me. A little. He thinks this is absurd. Then again, he doesn’t know about Noa Callaway’s egregiously missed deadline.