tion id="u63bde202-df2c-59f9-bf04-4b4ebc83e872">
The story begins with a dinner party invitation…
When young journalist Thomas Cleary is sent to dig up quotes for the obituary of a legendary film producer, the man’s eccentric daughter offers him entrée into the exclusive upper echelons of Hollywood society. A small-town boy with working-class roots, Thomas is a stranger in this opulent world of private jets and sprawling mansions.
Then he meets Matilda Duplaine.
Matilda is a beautiful and mysterious young woman who has never left the lush Bel-Air estate where she was raised. Thomas is immediately entranced by the enigmatic girl, and the two begin a secret love affair. But what starts as an enchanted romance soon unravels a web of secrets and lies that could destroy their lives—and the lives of everyone around them—forever.
A modern-day Gatsby tale filled with unforgettable characters and charm, The Gilded Life of Matilda Duplaine is a sparkling love letter to Los Angeles and a captivating journey beyond the golden gates of its most glamorous estates. Timeless, romantic and utterly absorbing, it is a mesmerizing tale of privilege, identity and the difficult choices we make in the pursuit of power.
ALEX BRUNKHORST is a novelist and a real estate agent specialising in multimillion-dollar estates for Los Angeles’s wealthiest professionals. She is also the founder of the popular luxury life-style website Bungalux.com. The Gilded Life of Matilda Duplaine was inspired by Alex’s glimpse into the world of extreme wealth and privilege. She is a graduate of Georgetown University and lives in Los Angeles. Follow her on Twitter @alexbrunkhorst1, or visit her website at www.alexbrunkhorst.com
To John
Contents
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Thirty-Two
Thirty-Three
Acknowledgments
The tinkle of an antique servant bell announced my arrival.
The shop was so cluttered with priceless art and centuries-old furniture that maneuvering among them was impossible. I stood in place, hoping someone would come to my rescue. Sixty seconds later, she did. I did not hear the opening or closing of a door, and there was nothing to indicate how she had entered the room. Had she been watching me from behind the ceiling-height Asian room divider she would have seen me grasping for distractions—my cell phone, my reporter’s notebook, a feigned interest in a chalk drawing that hung on the wall.
Nothing I had read could do Lily Goldman justice. She was in her midfifties, but she could have passed for forty-five. Her eyebrows were tweezed in an arched manner, and her blond hair was expertly coiffed in a tame bouffant that looked as if she had come from a salon. Her face was small and refined save for a prominent nose that belonged on a woman twice her size. It was her most striking feature, one that a less self-confident woman of means would have done away with years ago through plastic surgery.
“May I help you?” Lily asked. Her voice was surprisingly low, and it had a hint of a lady who smoked too much—though I was certain Lily had never picked up a cigarette in her life. Her breeding
