Wrath

her hands.

She’d put this off for as long as she could, but being alone was just too hard. Miranda was useful, but she wasn’t a friend. Adam had been a friend. As had the rest of his crowd, she’d thought, all the guys on the team, their girlfriends. Turns out, it was a package deal. Lose Adam, lose them all.

“Hey, guys. What’s up?” She tried to make her voice sound nonchalant, smiling as if it had been only days since she’d last spoken to them and not-had it been weeks? Months?

“Beth?” Claire spoke first, as she always did. The other girls just stared at her with a mixture of hostility and confusion Beth recognized instantly. It was the look Beth had always flashed when one of the Haven elite had deigned to speak to her, inevitably with some kind of demand disguised as a not-so-polite request: Let me borrow your history notes. Let me copy your physics homework. Let me have the key to the newspaper office so I can hook up with my boyfriend. Those people only talked to you when they needed you, she and her friends had agreed. Those people. She’d never imagined that she would be one of them.

“What do you want?” Claire added, already half turned away.

“I just thought-” Beth hesitated. What did she want? To go back in time? Back before she’d skipped Claire’s Halloween party, to hang with her boyfriend, before she’d partnered up with Adam on the American history project, leaving Abbie to fend for herself? Before she’d abandoned their lunch table, skipped the annual anti-Valentine’s Day moviefest, forgotten Claire s birthday even though they’d celebrated it together since sixth grade? “I thought maybe we could…” But she couldn’t make herself finish the thought.

“Is it true you broke up with Adam because he slept with someone else?” Abbie suddenly asked. Beth took a sharp breath, and her eyes met Claire’s briefly-she looked equally shocked. Then Claire looked away.

“That’s so rude,” Claire snapped at Abbie, who, Beth remembered, always did what Claire told her to. “You can’t just ask incredibly personal questions like that to someone you barely know.”

Beth had known Abbie since they were parked in neighboring strollers at the Sun ’n’ Fun Day Care Center fifteen years ago, and Claire knew it.

“That’s okay,” Beth mumbled. “I don’t mind talking about it.” A lie.

“I heard you dumped him for Kane,” another girl piped up. She had mousy brown hair and a hideous orange sweater. My replacement? Beth wondered.

“No, she dumped him, too,” Abbie corrected her, then looked over at Beth. “Uh, right?”

“I can tell you guys about it at lunch today,” Beth offered tentatively. “If you want.”

“We don’t want to bother you-” Claire began.

“Awesome,” Abbie and the mousy girl chorused over her. “We’ll see you then.”

Beth sighed, hoping Claire’s frosty attitude would thaw by the time they hit the cafeteria. Otherwise, it was going to be a long and painful hour, rehashing her failed love life while squirming under Claire’s hostile glare.

It wouldn’t do much for Beth’s appetite.

But then, neither would eating alone.

“Don’t do that, Kane, it tickles!”

Ignoring her pleas, Kane picked up the wriggling brunette and hoisted her over his shoulder as she kicked her legs with mock distress.

“Put her down, Kane!” her little friend, a dainty redhead, shrieked. Kane knew it was only because she was eager for her turn.

“Calm down, ladies,” he urged them, depositing the brunette back on the ground. He slung an arm around each of them, admiring the way his muscles bulged beneath his tight sleeves. The new weights were working already. “You know you love it.”

“Whatever.” The brunette giggled, shoving him. Once their bodies made contact, she didn’t pull away.

“Say what you want,” he allowed, “but I know you’re thrilled to have me back on the market.”

The redhead-or, more accurately, the airhead-stood on her toes to give him a kiss on the cheek. “I just don’t know why you stayed away for so long,” she whispered, her breath hot against his neck.

Good question.

“So what happened?” the brunette asked, tickling the back of his neck. He jerked away. “We thought you were reformed.”

“Player no more,” her friend chimed in. “Beauty tamed the beast. What gives?”

So what now, the truth?

Right.

Like he’d ever admit that he’d been the one rejected by a nonentity like Beth, or that losing her had cost him something more than his reputation. He knew that with a few easy words he could turn this around and make it into a win, trashing Beth’s rep and redeeming his own.

But he couldn’t do it.

He had no regrets, he insisted to himself. He’d just done what was needed to get what he wanted, same as always. Beth was a big girl who could make her own choices-and, if only briefly, she’d chosen him. “You can’t fool me,” she’d said once, kissing him on the cheek. “I know who you really are.”

He’d almost been sorry to prove her wrong.

“Come on, Kane,” the redhead pushed. “Dish us some dirt!”

But Kane just smiled mysteriously and tugged her toward him, wishing her hair was blond, her eyes blue and knowing. “What’s the difference what happened?” he asked. “I’m here now-and so are you, which means everyone wins. Right?”

The girls exchanged a glance, then shrugged.

“We’re happy if you’re happy,” the brunette concluded, rising on her tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek.

Kane forced a grin. He certainly looked happy-and isn’t that what counts?

Harper didn’t have the nerve to face Adam. But she couldn’t stay away. She was too used to seeing him every day, telling him everything, depending on him. Now that he wasn’t speaking to her, the days were incomplete. Harper felt as if she’d lost a piece of herself that only came alive in his presence.

And she had no one to blame but herself.

She’d positioned herself in a small alcove across from his locker, knowing he’d stop by on his way to basketball practice. She just wanted to see him. And if she watched from afar, she wouldn’t have to face that accusing look in his eyes.

She just hadn’t counted on him spotting her.

“So what, you’re following me now?” he growled, turning his back on her and throwing his stuff into the locker.

And there it was, that look in his eyes, as if she were stranger, someone he wished he’d never met. Harper had tried to bluff her way through her encounter with Miranda, pretend that she didn’t care about what happened between them-but when it came to Adam, she didn’t have the strength for that kind of lie.

“Ad, I know you don’t want to talk to me-”

“So why the hell are you here?” He slammed the locker shut, but kept his back to her. She took a small step in his direction, then another.

Because I can’t stay away.

Because I need you.

Because you need me.

“Because I have to tell you I’m sorry.”

“Trust me,” Adam said gruffly. “You’ve said enough.”

No. She’d begged him to stay. She’d left him unanswered voice mails, written letter after letter, but she’d never stood across from him and apologized for what she’d done. She’d never had the nerve. Harper Grace, who could say anything to anyone, had been too afraid to speak.

Was she sorry for what she’d done?

The elaborate plan had given her Adam, opening his eyes to the possibility of the two of them being more than friends. It had pried him away from his bland, blond girlfriend and made him realize that puppy love was no substitute for the real thing.

And when it all came crashing down, it had guaranteed that he would never trust her again.