Pride

boring.”

“Well then, all the more reason to get my fill of you while I can,” he said, tugging her close.

“I’m leaving now,” she informed him. Time to make him beg.

“Now, now, don’t go away mad. J’ai besoin de toi, mon amoureuse. Reste avec moi-je t’implore.”

I need you, lover. Stay with me-I beg of you.

He knew she couldn’t resist him when he spoke to her in French, his British accent submerged in the soft syllables of longing.

The language of love, they called it. But there was nothing pure and nothing loving in his tone-only naked desire. Need.

And nothing appealed to Kaia more than that.

“Je suis ici,” she whispered, falling into his arms. “Et je suis tout tiens.”

I’m here.

And I’m all yours.

Forty miles was a long way to drive for lunch. She made a mental note to have Kane repay her for the gas.

Harper had a lot of time to make mental to do lists, since it’s not like she was listening to “C” prattle on about his collection of Jay-Z MP3s or the garage band he and his friends were planning to start… any day now. (C had a lot of plans, apparently-and not a whole lot to show for them except a few tattoos and a thriving business in supplying illegal substances to desperate high school kids.)

She remembered him now. Back in Grace, C had been Charles Dallas, aka “Chuckie D,” who’d bounced around from group to group looking for his niche. He’d dropped his junior high Dungeons and Dragons clan, washed out of the rapper wannabes, and finally settled in with a bunch of deadbeat dealers who spent most of high school in the parking lot, swapping stories about what they’d do when they escaped from Grace. Most of them never had.

“You want dessert?” C asked, appearing not to notice the fact that Harper’s plate-piled high with a rancid “buffalo” burger and stale chips-was untouched. She wasn’t about to eat anything in this dive, a dingy roadside diner decorated with old license plates and populated by a few locals who were drinking their lunch before heading home to watch the game and work on their trucks. They’d agreed to meet here, halfway between their two towns, but Harper realized now that she should have sucked it up and driven the full eighty miles-at least C lived in a college town, with other people, other buildings, anything other than the dusty gray emptiness that surrounded them on all sides.

“Thanks, anyway,” she said, in the same monotonous tone she’d been using the whole meal. “I’m full.”

“I had in mind a little something off the menu,” C said, tapping his jacket pocket and giving her a toothy grin. Harper so did not want to know what was in there.

“Raincheck?” she requested wearily. “I’m good. Really.”

“You sure are,” he agreed, looking her up and down with appreciation. “I still can’t believe I’m here with you. I mean, it’s fucking Harper Grace! In a dump like this, with a loser like me. I must be dreaming.”

Harper allowed herself a small smile. A compliment was a compliment, no matter who delivered it.

“The guys are never going to believe this,” he crowed, tossing a wad of cash down on the table.

“The guys?” Harper asked as C pulled out her chair and helped her up-so chivalrous for a deadbeat.

“Oh, yeah. There’s a bunch of us up there from Haven, and we all remember you. I mean, dude, you’re Harper Grace.”

Harper pushed a stray hair out of her eyes, preening under his longing gaze. So she had a little fan club up there, did she? Feeling a sudden burst of goodwill for C, she laced her arm through his as they strolled the gravelly path toward the parking lot. “So, C,” she said sweetly, “what is it, exactly, that makes me so memorable?”

As C began rhapsodizing-in his admittedly limited vocabulary-about her many divine attributes, Harper’s mood lifted. So this is what it felt like to be worshipped. She’d almost forgotten.

“… and, you know, you’re just totally sexy. I mean, hot.”

“My boyfriend doesn’t seem to think so,” Harper muttered-then stopped walking, appalled she had said it aloud.

“Any guy who doesn’t think you’re the hottest thing he’s ever seen is fucking crazy,” C exclaimed.

Harper turned to look at C, really look at him. He wasn’t so bad looking, if you ignored the crooked smile and the way one eye seemed to wander off when he tried to meet your gaze. And the bad skin. And the greasy hair.

Okay, he was a dog. But he was looking at her like a hungry puppy who’d just spotted a Salisbury steak. And Harper decided to put him out of his misery.

“You think ‘the guys’ won’t believe we had lunch together?” Harper asked, putting a hand on each of his shoulders and pulling him toward her. “Wait until they hear about this.”

It was a wet, sloppy kiss, short on romance, overly long on bad breath and C’s thrusting tongue. But as he pressed himself against her and Hoovered his way across her face, sucking and slobbering like an animal, Harper could feel just how much he wanted her. At least someone did.

Adam skimmed through the online photo gallery without paying much attention. He’d almost deleted the e-mail without opening it. Some guy on the team was dating a girl who was obsessed with photographically documenting every moment of their senior year, which meant periodic mass e-mails filled with memories Adam would just as soon forget. And the ski trip was at the top of the list.

But something had made him save the e-mail. And this afternoon, something had made him open it. Most were pictures of people he barely knew, didn’t care about-he and Harper had done their best to stay away from the crowd, and that meant away from the camera. But there were a few shots that made him pause. Harper, bundled in her thick green coat, leaning against Adam’s shoulder. Adam, tossing a snowball at Harper, grabbing her hand as she tried to escape.

There’d been some good moments, he reminded himself.

And so he was smiling when he clicked open the next photo. When the picture of Beth and Kane, tangled in each other’s arms, exploded across the screen.

Adam slammed his fist down on the keyboard and shut off the monitor. But the image stayed with him, burned into his brain, like those other images, two months earlier. Every time he saw them together, it was as if it were the first time, and he was hit with the same blast of shock, disgust, and fury. And every time, there was only one thought that calmed him down, one person who could remind him that not everything in his life was ugly and twisted. No matter how awkward things were between them, she was still the only one he could talk to. The only one he wanted to talk to.

He dialed her number, and waited.

The phone rang and rang.

He didn’t leave a message.

It was a long drive home, and Harper had plenty of time to think. Too much.

She’d kissed another guy, she realized, the gritty, sour taste of C still in her mouth. No wonder Adam didn’t want her-deep inside, he could tell what kind of person she was. A quitter. A cheater. Adam had no idea what she was really like-but some part of him must sense it, Harper realized, must know that she wasn’t good enough for him.

She’d never felt so low-and then she got home. And things got worse.

“I’m skipping dinner,” Harper mumbled to her mother, blowing by her on the way upstairs to her room.

“Hon, wait a second. Your father and I have something we want to say to you.”

Uh-oh.

In the history of Grace family relations, that had never been good.

Already halfway up the stairs, Harper slunk back down and followed her mother into the parlor. Her father was already there, perched stiffly on an overstuffed blue chair he only used to entertain guests. The whole room was, in fact, used only under special circumstances-the Graces’ large house, left over from boom times, had far more space than their small family could use. Often, Harper felt like the house was mocking her, reminding her of the life she was supposed to have.

“Sit down, Harper,” her father requested sternly.