VANESSA WHITTAKER, 27. Despite success, fame, and two infamous, gorgeous, and exquisite lovers, Vanessa still can’t shake the memory of the teenage bad boy who made her little-girl heart flutter. Model for Ford painting Wild, Wild West, cover girl chef of Maxim and Esquire, celebrity TV chef of Vittles: Gourmet Weeds and Roadkill. Despite success, fame, and two infamous, gorgeous, and exquisite lovers, Vanessa still can’t shake the memory of the teenage bad boy who made her little-girl heart flutter, the one she saved from a life of hell just because it was the right thing to do and she was the only one who could. But time marches on, and when you’re twelve being handed a clear path to success by a man who can protect you from fallout you don’t even know is happening, you just let the fish get away.ERIC CIPRIANI, 32. A reformed bad boy headed into politics via an impeccable education from a religious university and a talent for management. He has a made-for-politics fiancée, a healthy side business, and the most powerful people in the Midwest behind him. “I woke up one day and knew exactly what I wanted to do, where I wanted to go, and how I wanted to get there.” A reformed bad boy given the opportunity to escape by one brave little girl and a man whose careless generosity he will not waste. He’s headed into politics via an impeccable education from a religious university and a talent for management. He has a made-for-politics fiancée, a healthy side business, and the most powerful people in the Midwest behind him. “I woke up one day and knew exactly what I wanted to do, where I wanted to go, and how I wanted to get there.” But the vestige of his failure to thank that little girl curdles in his belly, a strange mix of gratitude and shame.Model for Ford painting Wild, Wild West, cover girl chef of Maxim and Esquire, celebrity TV chef of Vittles: Gourmet Weeds and Roadkill. “For years, I’ve been killing myself to make Whittaker House this monument to the woman who saved my life. And then I met that incredible man.” Whittaker House is her life’s work, and being run ragged by it is an immense joy to her. She will never leave it for any reason ever. Not even love.Then Eric runs into all-grown-up Vanessa at, of all things, an elementary school music and arts showcase where he is subtly campaigning and she is supporting a boy who has been a thorn in his side since he was born. She takes his breath away and suddenly he can’t think. His fiancée isn’t angry, but she is tired of the drama and decides being First Lady is not worth it. She nopes right out and he is free to pursue this woman who, in his mind, has no connection to the little girl who pulled his ass out of the fire.“I had, well, the teensiest weensiest tiniest little bitty crush on the big badass of Chouteau High School. I was twelve, so I think I can be forgiven for being foolish that way. I had never spoken to Eric, nor he me, until a year and a half ago. Then I met that incredible man. And we talked and laughed and made love and fell in love. We wanted to make it work, but too much time has passed. We have our own lives that we built. I have never met a more honorable man in my life, and letting him go is—” hell.The more time Eric spends with her, seeing her in her world, making himself almost indispensable to her inn’s operation, itching to be a permanent part of it, the more he resents that she won’t give it up to come with him on his road to the White House. Finally, he decides it can’t be done.But being without him, without the promise of his return, without his presence somewhere on the grounds directing this, that, or some other thing, Vanessa starts to develop a Whittaker House-sized hole in her soul, an empty place that will never love her the way she loves it. Not even Laura Ingalls Wilder can comfort her, because she’s a ghost of an earlier time. Would being a politician’s wife be that bad?Body by American Kenpo and golf, all wrapped up in a delicate spider-web tattoo.
He’s almost unbearably tempted by Whittaker House and the challenge of managing and growing something so magnificent, and being bound to a woman who had already sacrificed herself once to keep him on track, and then he looks at the very empty path ahead of him and wonders if his craving for the highest office in the land will carry him all the way through.VACHEL WHITTAKER, 12. né ERIC CIPRIANI, JR., aka “JUNIOR.” The boy used as a weapon to poke at Eric by Vanessa’s family—a boy Vanessa knows doesn’t exist, until she does, at which point, she sues for his guardianship and gives him the same opportunities Knox gave her and Eric.
