Meant to Be

Told in alternating chapters, the novel traces the intertwined lives of Joe Kingsley and Cate Cooper, two people from vastly different backgrounds who fall in love and confront the question of whether love can survive fame, family expectations, and deeply buried secrets.

Joe grows up in the shadow of his father, Joseph Kingsley Jr., a naval aviator-turned-astronaut killed in a flash fire during an Apollo mission rehearsal in 1967, when Joe was barely three. The Kingsley family is American aristocracy, its lineage stretching back to colonial New Amsterdam. Joe's mother, Dorothy "Dottie" Sedgwick Kingsley, raises him with the constant refrain that to whom much is given, much is expected, measuring him against his father at every turn. Joe's paternal grandmother, whom he calls Gary, offers a different kind of guidance, encouraging Joe to fulfill his own potential rather than replicate his father's path. A string of family tragedies earns the Kingsleys the tabloid label of the "Kingsley curse."

Cate Cooper grows up believing her father died in a car accident in Nevada when she was three. She and her mother, Jan, move from Las Vegas to Hackensack, New Jersey, where Jan searches relentlessly for a new husband. When Cate is 10, Jan marries Chip Toledano, a police officer who initially charms them both but quickly reveals himself as controlling and violent. Chip's abuse of Jan escalates from verbal cruelty to physical violence, while Cate endures relentless put-downs. The knowledge that Chip is a cop leaves Cate feeling powerless to seek help.

In seventh grade, Joe is assigned to look after Berry Wainwright, a new student orphaned in the Tenerife runway disaster. They form a deep friendship rooted in shared parental loss, and Berry becomes Joe's moral compass, critiquing his girlfriends and confronting his reckless streak. During a fierce argument, Berry reveals that Joe's father broke a promise to Dottie to quit flying, calling him selfish. Joe is shaken but promises to be more careful.

Meanwhile, Cate uses fashion as armor, styling herself from thrift shops to mask her painful home life. She develops a secret crush on Joe Kingsley, taping a poster of him to her bedroom wall. At 16, she is scouted by Elite Model Management and signs with the agency. On the eve of a pivotal Calvin Klein casting call, Chip goes on a violent rampage, breaking Jan's collarbone. Cate arrives at the audition exhausted and near tears, but the team loves her vulnerability and selects her as the face of their next campaign.

Joe attends Harvard with Berry, then enrolls at NYU Law School. He dates Margaret Braswell, a quiet, intelligent woman his mother adores, but struggles with commitment. He fails the bar exam twice before passing on his third attempt and takes a job as an assistant district attorney in Manhattan. On her 18th birthday, Cate moves to the city, sharing an apartment with Elna, a South African model who survived abuse by her own stepfather. Elna becomes the first person Cate confides in about Chip, and the two form a fiercely protective bond. Cate eventually leaves modeling to work as director of celebrity sales for Wilbur Swift, an up-and-coming British fashion designer.

Joe and Cate meet in the spring of 1995 on a Hamptons beach, where Cate is shooting a Calvin Klein campaign. Joe flings a Frisbee near her and strikes up a conversation. Cate's friend Curtis, a makeup artist on the shoot, recognizes Joe and writes down Cate's number for him. At Berry's urging, Joe never calls, as he is still dating Margaret. When Margaret discovers the number in his wallet, she breaks up with him.

Over a year later, Joe tracks Cate down at Wilbur's SoHo store. She tells him she has a boyfriend, but Joe persists, sending flowers and poems before following her to Paris for Fashion Week. He books a room at the same hotel and on the same floor. Cate agrees to dinner, and over the next three days Joe slips notes under her door each morning. On his last night, Cate breaks up with her boyfriend by phone, invites Joe to her room, and they share their first kiss. Back in New York, they begin a secret relationship at Cate's insistence; she dreads the scrutiny of paparazzi and the exposure that public life would bring.

Joe eventually persuades Cate to go public. They orchestrate a photograph with a trusted paparazzo and sell exclusive rights to People magazine, donating their half to the Kingsley Foundation. The issue transforms Cate into a sensation, and the tabloids dub her influence on consumer trends the "Cate effect."

Cate bonds warmly with Joe's grandmother Gary but faces a crisis when the National Enquirer publishes quotes from Jan revealing that Cate grew up with a poster of Joe on her wall. Berry calls it a "red flag" and shows the article to Dottie. Joe is furious and storms out of the Hamptons with Cate. Back in New York, Cate realizes Chip orchestrated the tabloid story. Joe delivers a firm ultimatum to his mother and Berry: They must accept Cate or lose him.

Joe agrees to make peace with his family if Cate takes him to meet hers. The Montclair dinner is a disaster. Chip is hostile throughout, and when Joe and Cate try to leave, he charges downstairs and calls Cate a "gold-digging tramp." Joe nearly fights him. Cate makes a final plea for her mother to leave, but Jan whispers that she cannot. Cate vows never to return. The visit forces Cate to open up about her childhood, and the couple grows closer.

Joe proposes on the beach near the spot where they first met. Cate says yes. They plan a secret wedding on Shelter Island, using aliases to keep the press away. Joe resigns from the DA's office to run for Congress, and Cate signs up for the GED exam.

Then, on a March morning in Central Park, a stranger approaches Cate and identifies himself as her father, Dean Cooper. He is not dead. He spent 22 years in prison for killing a man and his pregnant wife while driving drunk. Jan lied to Cate her entire life. Cate is shattered, convinced that her father's criminal past proves she does not belong in Joe's world and would destroy his political career.

Cate withdraws from Joe. When he finds her at the Central Park Reservoir, she removes her engagement ring and drops it on the ground. A photographer captures the confrontation on video, and it goes viral. Cate cuts off her mother, accusing Jan of never protecting her. Elna and Curtis stage an intervention, arguing that the real issue is Cate's deep-seated belief that she is not good enough for the Kingsley world. Meanwhile, Berry confesses to a despairing Joe that she has been in love with him since seventh grade. Joe is stunned but promises that nothing between them will change.

Cate goes to Joe's apartment and ends the relationship without revealing the truth about her father. She offers to attend his cousin Peter's wedding to spare him public embarrassment, and Joe convinces her to let him fly them to Annapolis in his Piper Saratoga, a single-engine plane.

As they approach the Chesapeake Bay at sunset, the engine fails. Joe radios a Mayday and attempts an emergency water landing, but the plane strikes the surface violently and he is knocked unconscious. Cate, who can barely swim, unbuckles both seatbelts, kicks open the jammed door, inflates her life jacket, and drags Joe out of the sinking aircraft. She holds his head above the freezing water until a Coast Guard boat finds them.

In the hospital, Dottie tells Cate that the Coast Guard confirmed Cate saved Joe's life, then reveals she already knows about Cate's father: Jan came to Dottie after the breakup and told her everything. Dottie asks Cate not to leave Joe, saying she wants Cate as her daughter-in-law and her daughter. That night, Cate is wheeled into Joe's room. He apologizes for leaving her alone in the water. Cate tells him she was never alone, that she held on because of him.

An epilogue set 20 years later finds Cate and Joe on Shelter Island with their 13-year-old twins, Sylvie and Finn. Joe is a U.S. senator. Cate publicly discussed the domestic violence she survived in an interview with journalist Barbara Walters, and the conversation empowered Jan to finally leave Chip. Jan now works at a nonprofit Joe and Cate founded to help women in abusive situations. Over dinner on the anniversary of the crash, the family discusses Joe's potential presidential run. The twins give their blessing. Joe asks Cate if they are really doing this. She says yes, reflecting that win or lose, they will have each other, and that is all that matters.