The Complete Private Collection: Private; Invitation Only; Untouchable; Confessions; Inner Circle; Legacy; Ambition; Revelation; Last Christmas; Paradise ... The Book of Spells; Ominous; Vengeance (229 page)

I didn’t really want to ask him any of these things. Wasn’t sure if I wanted to know the answers. But they just joined the growing list of unknown facts about Upton’s past. His very, very colorful past.

Upton studied my face. I didn’t know what to say, so I just looked back at him.

“Can I ask you something?” he said finally.

“Okay.”

“Would this be . . . I mean, it’s not your . . . Would this be your first time?” he asked.

“No,” I told him. My face burned and I looked down at my lap. I tugged down on the hems of my shorts. “But it would be my second.”

“Oh.” He sat back against the cushions. My leg was still across his lap. I was glad he didn’t feel the need to move it.

“And it’s not that I don’t want to, because I do,” I said. “It just feels like a big decision, and there’s a lot involved. I mean, you’ve been with
so
many girls and I—”

“Is that what this is about?” Upton said. “You’re still jealous.”

“No! Not jealous,” I said, sitting forward. “I swear it’s not that. I’m just . . . curious. About what you’ve done. And maybe a little worried. I mean, you have a lot of experience and I have
no
idea what I’m doing.”

Upton let out a short laugh. A knowing laugh. “We’ve all been there.”

Not exactly the response I was expecting. Or hoping for. I wanted him to say that it didn’t matter. That he knew it would be great with me. That every other girl he’d ever been with actually sucked at it, and he was sure I would be amazing. Is it wrong for a girl to want to hear a little white lie at a moment like this?

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Let me tell you a little story,” Upton said, turning sideways on the bench to better face me. Intrigued, I curled my legs up story style. “About my first time.”

Interesting. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to hear this. But then, he had offered so little detail of his romantic past, and all I’d done was imply that I wanted to know. If I stopped him, I’d look even more immature and squeamish than I already did. So I bit my tongue and said nothing. Bring on the awkwardness!

“It was with an older woman,” he said, an amused smile playing on his lips.

“Older like
older
?” I asked. Already I didn’t like this.

“Yeah. As in I was a teenager and she was an adult.”

Ew.
“Okay.”

“Talk about being worried about being good,” Upton said, shaking his head. “I was terrified. It took me ages just to get up the guts to come out of the bathroom.”

I got a mental image of Upton, scrawny and half naked, cowering in a bathroom somewhere while this voluptuous older woman in red lingerie smoked a cigarette in bed, waiting for him. It all seemed so predatory and weird.

“But I finally did and there she was, totally naked, except for this big necklace made out of these sharp, gold leaves, which, for some reason, she neglected to take off,” he said with a laugh. “Now I’m both too scared and too polite to say anything, so I just go with it. And the whole time, I’m trying to concentrate and not do anything stupid and make sure I’m respectful, and the whole time, this sodding
heavy necklace keeps whacking me in the face. It was a nightmare.”

He was laughing full out now, so I forced myself to smile.

You wanted to know this stuff, Reed. You wanted to know where he’s been.

“But of course by the time it was all over I didn’t mind it anymore. I thought I was so cool and mature when it was done, you know? I was such a little twit.” Upton said, shaking his head. “So I go striding back into the bathroom like I’m some kind of experienced playboy now, and I take one look in the mirror and I have dozens of these tiny little cuts all over my face. I had to tell my parents I was attacked by a cat.”

“Did they believe you?” I asked, incredulous.

“Who knows? If they didn’t, they never told me.” Upton settled back in his seat and rested his arm on the back of the cushions. He tickled my shoulder with his fingertips. “So what about you?”

“Me?” I asked, trying to eradicate all the disturbing visuals from my mind.

“What was your first time like?” he asked.

I thought of Thomas and my heart flipped over and died, just like it did every time I got a vivid picture of his face. Those teasing blue eyes. The tiny scar on his jaw. His private just-for-me smile.

“It was nothing as interesting as the story you just told,” I said, looking down at my hands.

“Come on. I told you mine, now you tell me yours,” Upton chided.

I took a deep breath. “It was sweet. It was perfect, really.” I smiled
slightly, remembering how cautious Thomas had been with me. How slow and almost reverent. My heart suddenly ached at the thought of him. “It wasn’t something I was expecting to do that night, but for once I let go and just did what I wanted to do in the moment. And then a couple weeks later . . . he died.”

Upton’s eyes clouded over. “Oh, God, Reed, I’m sorry. I’m such an idiot. I’d forgotten.”

He looped his arm around my shoulder and pulled me to him, kissing my forehead. “We don’t have to talk about this.”

“Okay.”

He held me there for a long while. I breathed in and out, in and out, until the images went away. Until the aching subsided. I didn’t want to be this person. This dark and gloomy person who ruined a perfectly gorgeous day out on the Caribbean Sea talking about her doomed first love with the guy she was currently dating. I wanted to move on. I wanted to be free of the whole thing already. I just wanted to be able to let myself go with Upton. Be completely and truly with him and no one else. Why couldn’t I just do that?

“Forget this crap,” Upton said suddenly, leaning back to look into my face. “Who wants to talk about awkward, meaningless, stupid first times? All that really matters is
our
first time. Which, by the way, does not have to happen anytime soon. I’m just letting you know that
that
is the only time I care about.”

I laughed at his rambling as a stiff wind blew my hair back from my face. I rested my palm on his chest and toyed with the button near his collar. He was right. The ishy encounter with this older woman . . . 
whatever I had with Thomas . . . it didn’t matter. Those moments had nothing to do with us. And neither did any of the other girls Upton had been with. They couldn’t touch us.

I took a deep breath and decided to live in the moment. To not think about the past. To concentrate on how I felt about Upton
right now.
And how I felt, lying there in his arms, was perfectly happy. I knew that he cared about me. He had done so much for me—telling off Poppy, putting together that insane Christmas gift, spending all this time with me over the last week when he could have been hanging out with his friends, not to mention saving my life that day Misty had been spooked. He wanted to be with me. His actions showed that. And I wanted to be with him. More than anything I just wanted to go on feeling this safe, this loved, this blissful.

I felt words bubble up inside of me. I thought about holding them back. But I was letting go.

“What about tomorrow night?” I asked, my voice thick. I looked up at him and wondered if he could feel my heart pounding through both our shirts.

“Tomorrow night?” He was, unsurprisingly, shocked.

“After Kiran’s party,” I said, sounding completely certain even to my own doubting ears.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“I figure if you’re going to be my long-distance boyfriend, we should probably seal the deal before we go home,” I said faux-casually.

Upton’s grin lit his entire face. The entire boat. The entire ocean. “I’m going to be your boyfriend, then?”

“If the offer is still on the table,” I replied with a smile.

“Oh, it’s still on. It’s definitely still on,” he said. He leaned in and gave me a brief, joyous kiss. “But if we’re going to do this, we’re going to do it proper-like.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, giggling.

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of everything,” he said, leaning back again.

I cuddled into him, resting my cheek against his chest. He ran his hand over my hair and I sighed, feeling content in my decision. Feeling secure. And more than a little bit excited.

Upton kissed the top of my head and I could hear the smile in his voice as he said, “I’m going to make sure that tomorrow is a night neither one of us ever forgets.”

“What’re you going to wear to the party tomorrow?” Kiran asked, taking a sip of her mango guava smoothie.

The two of us were sitting side by side on the stone patio at the Ryans’ palatial estate along with Noelle and Taylor, our legs dangling in the crystal-clear infinity pool. Dash, Gage, Graham, and West were all messing around in the water, splashing us occasionally, while Sawyer sat under a teal umbrella, his nose buried in Jean-Paul Sartre’s
No Exit
. Amberly and Tiffany were inside, having gone in search of more drinks a few minutes earlier. Paige, Poppy, and Sienna reposed on lounge chairs behind us, pretending to read magazines, even though I could feel them glaring at me over the tops of the pages. They’d invited us over after Upton and I had gotten back from our boat trip, pretending it was a sort of peace offering. But if they were going to launch some kind of attack, I wished they would just get it over with already. Constantly paranoid was not a state I liked to be in.

“I haven’t really thought about it,” I lied, lifting a shoulder.

My New Year’s Eve wardrobe had been one of the many things I’d been obsessing about ever since I’d decided that I was going to have my first time with Upton. I wanted to look sexy, but not trashy. Sophisticated, but not trying too hard. Part of me wanted to go shopping for something brand-new, but unlike my friends, I was completely broke. I’d probably just fall back on the dress Kiran had bought me that I hadn’t worn yet—a red minidress with spaghetti straps and a straight neckline. It seemed like a solid choice.

“Big mistake,” Kiran said, lifting a hand near her shoulder. “Don’t you know that whatever you’re wearing when you ring in the New Year sets the tone for the
entire
year?”

“What is that, some kind of supermodel Zen?” Noelle asked, lifting her thick hair over her shoulder and leaning back on her elbows. She tipped her face toward the sun and let her hair dangle to the ground.

“No! It’s a proven fact,” Kiran replied, dead serious. “When I was twelve I wore Marchesa on New Year’s Eve, and that’s the year I signed my first modeling contract. But remember what I was wearing junior year?”

Taylor narrowed her eyes behind her frameless Michael Kors sunglasses. “Wasn’t that the year you were in the hospital getting your tonsils out?”

“Yes! Exactly! Poly-blend hospital nightgown and paper slippers. And, as we all know, that year sucked like no year has ever sucked before,” Kiran said, taking a long, cheek-hollowing sip from her straw. Then she set her glass down and sat up, her posture model
perfect. “Make sure you dress appropriately, Reed. If anyone needs a good year, it’s you.”

“Thanks,” I replied, looking down at my feet as I circled them in the water. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Who had the banana mango?” Amberly asked as she and Tiffany returned from the house.

“That would be me,” I said, looking up at them. From the corner of my eye, I saw Poppy and Paige whispering again and my heart dropped like a stone. “You guys . . . can I ask you something? It’s about Casino Night.”

An uncomfortable silence descended. Guess they thought that was a night I wouldn’t want to talk about anytime soon.

“What’s up?” Tiffany asked finally, settling in next to Kiran.

“It’s just . . . I heard that Paige and Daniel mysteriously disappeared from the casino right around the time I was . . . you know.” I paused, letting the wave of dread and fear crash over me and pass. “Do you guys remember that at all?”

“Why? I thought they already arrested Marquis,” Amberly said. “I thought he confessed and everything.”

“He did,” Noelle replied. “You’ve gotta let this go, Reed.”

“I know, I know. It’s just, those three have been talking about me behind my back and it’s starting to drive me crazy,” I said, glancing over my shoulder at the evil triad. They saw me and quickly turned away from each other. “I was just wondering . . .”

“Actually, they did leave,” Taylor said, putting her glass down.

“What?” Noelle said.

“They did?” My heart began to race.

“I remember it because Daniel was right in the middle of a winning streak at craps and Paige totally pulled him away. Remember?” Taylor said to Kiran. “You had to finish his roll.”

“I remember crapping out,” Kiran said bitterly.

“They were gone for a while,” Taylor said, looking at the others. “I don’t even remember seeing them again until we were all going out to search for Reed.”

Once again, my friends fell silent. I felt sick to my stomach and set my untouched smoothie aside. Where had Paige and Daniel gone? Had the police arrested the wrong man? But they
had
found the necklace. Then again, how hard would it have been to plant it there?

Suddenly I heard a shout from inside the house and everyone on the patio except the cavorting boys in the pool turned to look. Someone was yelling.
Two
someones. And I realized with a start that one of them was Upton. I couldn’t make out what he was saying, but a sudden crash startled everyone to their feet.

“What the hell?” Paige blurted, jumping up from her chair.

She raced across the patio area to the wall of glass doors that fronted her living room. The rest of us were right on her heels. As we walked inside, the frigid, air-conditioned air hit me like a slap to the face. On the floor was a hammered-metal vase, the big yellow flowers it used to hold strewn in an arcing pattern across the tile. Upton and Daniel were facing off in the middle of the living room, and Daniel was red with rage.

“Just give it to me and I might not kick your ass!” Daniel said, holding out his hand.

“Daniel, calm down,” Upton replied calmly but firmly. In his hands was a bottle of wine, clearly the object of their contention.