Envy

It worked for him.

It was the worst possible timing.

Harper pulled into the driveway, and there they were, a few yards away, wrapped in each other’s arms. Couldn’t they ever just give it a rest?

“Hey, Harper!” Adam called to her in his lilting Southern accent. It was the one thing he’d held on to from an early childhood in South Carolina. Adam hated it, as he hated any reminder of his distant past. But to Harper, his voice was like a song, sweet and intoxicating. “Come over and say hello!”

“Can’t, busy, gotta-you know,” she babbled, waving back as she raced for her front door.

Awkward postcoital convo with the love of her life and the love of his? No thanks.

Besides, they’d already forgotten her existence and gotten back to the serious business of groping each other. Harper shook her head in disgust and slammed through the doorway. When Adam had confessed to Harper-his oldest and most trustworthy friend-that he’d cheated on Beth, Harper had been sure that their relationship wouldn’t last the week. But the incident had proved nothing more than a hiccup, a tiny bump in the path of disgustingly true love. In fact, if their nonstop PDAs were any indication, he and Beth were going stronger than ever. It killed Harper to know that, with a few carefully chosen words, she could destroy their happiness. She could drive Beth away-but Adam would never forgive her.

Ignorance is bliss, Beth-right?

As for Adam, he’d never mentioned Kaia after that, and now, once again, all he could talk about was his perfect, wonderful Beth.

Screw that. Harper was done waiting around for Adam to wake up and discover he was with the wrong girl. Harper the passive good girl (if she’d ever existed) was gone. Harper the scheming bitch was back in action.

And finally, she had the beginnings of an idea…

Chapter 2

Saturday morning, Haven High, room 232. The disgruntled seniors, all forty-eight of them, filtered into the room, spitting out variations on the same theme.

It was Saturday.

It was early.

And in a just world, they would all be at home in bed.

No one wanted to be there.

Not Kane, bleary-eyed and hungover from last night’s revelry, who thought studying was for saps and that SAT prep courses, even the lame one-time freebie offered by their tiny public school, should be reserved for those too stupid to score well on their own.

Not Adam, who’d decided he didn’t need the SATs or college-not when he was planning to stay in Grace until the day he died.

Not Beth, for whom every minute wasted in the classroom listening to the teacher drone on was a minute she wasn’t able to spend shut up in her room poring over Princeton Review books and searching for the magic strategy that would guarantee her a perfect score. (And the fact that the class was led by Mr. Powell, that she could feel his eyes boring into her even as she stared resolutely down at her desk? It didn’t help.)

And certainly not Jack Powell, who, as the newest hire, had been compelled to “volunteer” for the Saturday class. Sacrifice his morning. Stare down Beth and pray she wouldn’t grow a spine (or a mouth). Avoid the penetrating gaze of Kaia, whose very unwelcome and very public liplock with him in the middle of a school dance had left him the focus of hallway gossip, faculty lounge whispering, strict administrative scrutiny-and temporary probation.

No, Jack Powell would rather be at home and in bed too. Jack Powell would, in fact, rather be strapped into a dentist’s chair getting a root canal.

But no one had asked him.

“Okay kids, quiet down,” he called out in his clipped British accent. He was only too aware of its charm-he’d made girls swoon all up and down the eastern seaboard, and it wasn’t surprising that the upper crust London inflection had an even greater effect out in this desert wasteland. “I know you don’t want to be here.”

Shouts of agreement.

Join the club, he thought, with more than a trace of bitterness. If his former colleagues could see him now, stranded in the middle of nowhere, policing these deadbeats-in-training. None of them knew how good they had it. He hadn’t known himself, until he’d ended up in this godforsaken corner of the world. And the worst part was, he had no one to blame but himself.

“Well, let’s make it quick and painless, then.” He began to distribute a practice test-at least that would keep them busy for an hour or so.

He looked around at the roomful of students with a flicker of pity. They don’t pay me enough to work on Saturdays, he reminded himself, but hell, these suckers have to be here for nothing.

Two hours later Beth staggered out of the school, feeling like she’d just emerged, not entirely unscathed, from an emotional car wreck. Sitting through French class with Powell was bad enough. Especially with the whole school buzzing about Kaia’s kiss at the dance: Debate still raged as to whether Kaia had thrown herself at the clueless young teacher-or whether the dashing Jack Powell was, in fact, carrying on a not-so-secret affair with his hottest student and God knew who else. Beth flushed every time the subject came up and just hoped no one could read the truth that was, she feared, written all over her red cheeks and tortured frown.

She still couldn’t believe that she’d been stupid enough to trust him. Yes, he was the new sponsor of the newspaper and she was its editor in chief-at the time it had made sense that he’d want to spend a series of long, intimate afternoons together, going over logistics-but it had been more than that, right from the start, hadn’t it? “Call me Jack,” he’d suggested-she shuddered at the memory. She had trusted him, believed in him, confided in him, until that final day. When it turned out that all he wanted was-

“Beth, wakeup!”

That was the trouble with zoning out-it made it a lot harder to avoid the people you didn’t want to see. People like Harper Grace. Haven High’s resident alpha girl: best dressed, best coiffed, best bitch. And, oh yeah, Adam’s best friend.

“Hey, Harper,” Beth greeted her, hoping her grin didn’t seem too fake.

She didn’t like Harper, didn’t trust Harper-but since she’d drifted away from her real girlfriends a few months into the relationship with Adam, she also didn’t have too many other options.

Harper pulled her away from the crowd of students milling across the school grounds and gave her a conspiratorial grin.

“So, I’ve been meaning to ask you,” she said softly. “How are things going with you and Adam?”

“Uh… okay,” Beth responded guardedly.

“No,” Harper leaned in even closer. “I mean with, you know, that problem you were having.”

“I’m not sure what you mean.” But Beth had a sinking feeling that she did. She’d made the mistake of confessing her fears about sex, and about her relationship, to Harper. The conversation hadn’t been a total nightmare, but she wasn’t looking for an instant replay anytime soon.

“I’ve been so concerned about you,” Harper said, linking her arm through Beth’s. “I mean, I just feel so terrible for you, with all your issues.”

Beth pulled her arm away but forced herself to do it with a smile. Adam was always urging her to see the good in Harper, and so for his sake she’d tried, and failed, and tried again. She was still working on it-the least she could do in the meantime was be polite.

“So… you two still haven’t…?” Harper prodded.

“That’s really none of your business,” Beth snapped.

Harper looked at her appraisingly. Beth squirmed under the scrutiny of her gaze.

“Mmm-hmm, that’s what I thought,” Harper said finally, nodding her head.