Envy

not to go.”

“No, you’re just saying you can’t be bothered to come along,” he countered.

“Don’t do that.” She was getting so sick of having the same conversation again and again. Was she supposed to plan her entire life around him? “Don’t try to make this about you and me. You know this test means everything to me.”

“And I don’t?”

She was running out of patience-if she wanted to spend the afternoon dealing with a whiny child, she’d be home babysitting her little brothers.

“Adam, it’s not that I don’t want to be there for you-but this is my life we’re talking about here. I can’t throw everything away for some stupid swim meet.”

“Right,” he muttered. “When it’s something you care about, it’s important. When it’s something I care about, it’s just stupid.”

Beth sighed. “That’s not what I meant, and you know it. I wish I could go, Adam, I do,” she said desperately. “I just can’t-I mean, if it were some other weekend. Any other weekend. This just isn’t the time.”

He gripped the wheel tightly. “It’s never the time. You just don’t get it, do you? You and me, we need-I need-can’t you just make the time?”

“You just don’t get it,” Beth cried, as all the anger and frustration she’d been suppressing for the past few weeks bubbled to the surface and burst through. “Why do you have to be like this? Why can’t you understand that this is my future we’re talking about? It’s your future too,” she pointed out, even though she’d promised herself she would never bring this up, wouldn’t try to force him to see what he was missing out on. “It wouldn’t hurt you to do a little studying of your own. I mean, even Kane-”

She cut herself off, realizing as soon as his name came out of her mouth that she’d made a serious mistake. But it was too late.

“So that’s what this is about?” Adam snarled. “I knew it.”

“No, that has nothing to do with what this is about. Why can’t you just let this go?”

“Are you seeing him tonight?” he asked in a low, calm voice.

“Yes, but-”

“And tomorrow?”

“Adam-”

“And I guess he’ll be ditching the swim team, staying here with you for some hot and heavy studying while your boyfriend conveniently goes out of town?”

“You got me!” she cried. “You figured out my secret plan. As soon as you get out of town, Kane and I are just going to hop into bed together. That’s all you care about, isn’t it? Not spending time with me-keeping me away from him!”

Adam stared straight ahead at the road, fingers tightly clenching the wheel. The car suddenly felt very, very small. “I didn’t realize that staying away from him would be such a sacrifice.”

“I’m not your property, Adam. You don’t get to tell me who to spend time with. And acting like this isn’t the best way to keep me from cheating on you-or breaking up with you.”

“What is the best way, then? You tell me. Because I’m beginning to think there isn’t one. You’re just going to do whatever you want to, no matter what I say.”

“You’re right,” Beth spluttered, barely able to believe the words that were coming out of her mouth. She would never cheat on Adam-and she’d never throw away her relationship just to preserve some barely-there friendship with Kane. But that was her decision to make. Not his. “If you want someone who’s just going to take orders from you, follow you around like you’re her almighty ruler, you’re dating the wrong girl.”

“Maybe I am,” he agreed angrily.

“You know what? Stop the car.”

“What?”

“Stop the car. I’m getting out. I can’t be around you when you’re like this.”

He glanced over at her incredulously. “You want me to stop the car and let you out on an empty road in the middle of nowhere?”

“Anything would be better than being stuck in this car with you,” she said, her voice filled with spite.

“Fine.” He swerved to the side of the road, slammed on the brakes, and the car skidded to a stop. “Get out. See if I care what happens to you.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I know you don’t. You’ve made that painfully clear.”

“Don’t try to-”

But she slammed the door in his face, and his voice trailed off as he saw she was serious. She turned away from the car and began walking slowly down the narrow shoulder of the road. At that rate, it would take her an hour to get home from there-and it was getting dark.

Adam knew he should pull up alongside her and try to persuade her to get back into the car. If that failed, he should drive beside her the whole way home, just to make sure nothing happened.

It was the right thing to do. He knew that.

And he really meant to do it, right up until the moment he put the car in gear and pressed a leaden foot down on the gas pedal. The tires screeched as the car peeled onto the road and sped past her solitary figure.

By the time he’d calmed down enough to realize what he’d done, she had long since disappeared into the dark distance. He could have turned around. Gone back for her.

But he didn’t.

Kaia’s favorite French film was part of a trilogy: Bleu, Blanc, and Rouge. She’d seen all three in a row during a foreign film festival at Lincoln Center. One rainy day, she’d barricaded herself in the theater and, shivering in her Anna Sui raincoat, she’d fallen in love. The best of the three, she’d decided, was Bleu. The plot was elegant and obscure: A young, beautiful woman loses everything, everything that matters. She is alone, disconnected, disenchanted, and free. Ultimate freedom, at the ultimate price. Death of the spirit-and, ultimately, a reawakening.

It was intense, it was sexy, and it was the way Kaia wanted her world to be. Elegant, beautiful people, awash in a cool, bluish gray light, speaking in clipped sentences packed with suppressed passion and cryptic meaning.

So it was this DVD that she tucked into a picnic basket, along with some gourmet cheese imported directly from a small farm in the French Alps, and a bottle of Bordeaux snagged from her father’s ample wine cellar, before setting off for Jack Powell’s house. It was time for Little Red Riding Hood to pay a call on the Big Bad Wolf.

She wasn’t completely sure that now was the time to make her final move-though it was quite obvious the move would need to be hers. He wasn’t about to take the step. But was he ready yet? Oh, she saw the glint in his eyes when he looked at her, the hint of desire in his voice every time he told her to go away. And the spark between them when they’d touched the other night, that couldn’t be denied.

Yes, she told herself once again. He’s ready.

And so was she.

She wore a filmy black slip dress and strappy black kitten heels. And beneath it all, a custom-made camisole of red lace, and black panties with a red lace trim. She looked good, all over. And she knew it.

She rang the doorbell, savoring the nervous energy fizzing inside of her-it was rare, these days, that a guy could set her blood boiling with anticipation, that the thrill of the chase came paired with the arousing fear of rejection. It was one of the reasons she wanted this so badly. That, and the way his designer shirts hung on his sculpted body, the sound of his elegant British accent, his easy charm, his icy anger.

He was the complete package. And it was such a turn-on.

He opened the door, unlike her dressed down for the night-adorably rumpled hair, tight jeans, Oxford T-shirt. His eyes widened when he saw what was waiting on his front doorstep.

“You,” he said simply, blocking the entranceway to the house.

“Me.” She smiled.

“You’re out kind of late,” he finally observed. “Won’t Mommy and Daddy be wondering where their precious