Hot And Bothered. Liz Maverick

boots under his slacks and a V-neck under his blazer. I’d never gotten more than a few words out of him in high school, and I always took Jack’s word for it that his brother’s dark glower was more bark than bite. Clotheshorse Christian was easier to put your finger on—and many a girl in my class had tried—looking entirely at home in his rich man’s uniform—full suit and tie—though he wore his tie purposely loose like a naughty prep-school boy.

      Luc immediately drifted to the wall where he planted himself like a bouncer, one hand jammed in his pocket, his shoulders tight. “Is he okay?” I asked Christian, just as a platinum-blonde joined his brother at the wall. “Oh, he’ll be okay,” Christian answered with a suggestive lilt in his voice.

      I suddenly recognized the blonde, and my fingers went cold. Irina Lively from high school. She was the nicest head of a three-headed hydra that included Beatrix Swan and Mary-Ann Peterson, but even a nice monster is still a monster. For a second, I was that girl again, the one who stood out in all the wrong ways. My palms started sweating. Great. Ten years had passed, and thinking about high school still made my palms sweat. Would Anna kill me if I left my own party? What the hell was Irina even doing in Paris? Were Beatrix and Mary-Ann here, too? Well, what the hell was I doing here? Anna’s birthday wasn’t really until next week, but I’d timed it this week for a reason, and it made perfect sense for Irina’s tony set to be in Paris at the same time.

      Twice a year the government allowed the fashion world to officially offer sales under the unassuming moniker, les soldes, or “the sales.” Ever since discovering this secret, I’d made it my business to save my Paris business for July and January, and I can say with great certainty that nothing makes a bitter European winter more tolerable than fifty percent off. Fifty percent off during a Parisian summer is just the icing on the bon bon. I looked around nervously for the other two hydra heads and thankfully didn’t see them.

      I escaped to the kitchen where I asked the servers to put out more food to accommodate Anna’s expanding guest list, got my shit together and went back to the party, which was already getting pretty crowded. There, as I stepped into the living room, was Jack directly in my sightline.

      My heart pounded in my chest. He sported a sleek charcoal-gray suit that draped perfectly off his broad shoulders, a crisp white shirt open at the collar to reveal sun-kissed skin, and those shoes. His trademark Italian leather sneakers, fashionably rebellious enough to say I don’t care what you think. Except I knew he did care what people thought. If he hadn’t cared so much what people thought back in high school, things wouldn’t have gotten all messed up.

      Okay, look away, Cassie. If you don’t look away soon, he’s going to see you...staring. Sigh. Jack saw me, all right, and I’d be damned if I was gonna spook. We locked eyes, me staring defiantly back across the room, watching him process my existence. There was something tougher about him, more of a self-assurance in his air. Maybe, like me, he’d just become more comfortable in his skin. But just as I was telling myself that maybe he’d actually grown meaner, a slight smile softened his jawline, and he headed straight for me.

      I’m sunk.

      “You’re going to have to forgive me,” he said, the first meaningful thing from his mouth since that French kiss ten years ago.

      “You’re going to have to make me,” I replied coolly. That voice. I used to pray he’d ask a question in class just so I could hear that rich voice. If you closed your eyes and just listened to him talk, it was better than standing under the Eiffel Tower with a crepe smothered in chocolate hazelnut sauce.

      His eyebrow arched and then he smiled, laughing softly. He reached out and took my hand, holding it in both of his for a moment. And then he slid my palm under the edge of his suit so I pressed against the warm linen of his shirt, just over his heart. My breath hitched but no way did he hear it against the rest of the party noise.

      With his hand against mine, with my fingers buried in his warmth, he looked down at me and said, “I was a stupid high school boy who didn’t stand up for what he wanted.”

      I pulled my hand away and switched my champagne glass to that hand to dissipate the heat. You’re not going to seduce me this time, Marchand. I mean, he was doing a good job given that it had been about one minute, but I wasn’t falling for it this time. “You were the worst thing that could happen to a teenage girl. The ultimate high school humiliation.”

      “You think of me that way? As your high school humiliation?”

      “You should be flattered I think of you at all.”

      “You make it very difficile for a guy to explain. You never come to the alumni reunions.”

      “Have you heard of a little thing called email?”

      “These things are better in person, non? And I assumed you’d have my name set up in your SPAM filter,” he added with a sheepish grin that produced a couple of killer dimples.

      “Not even,” I said with a disdainful snort, making it clear he wasn’t important enough for that. Actually, I had a filter with his name on it set to go to my “Important” folder, so it wouldn’t accidentally go to SPAM. Nothing he needed to know.

      “Cassandra, I wish I could go back and change it all.”

      “Words, words, words,” I said.

      “What would it take for you to believe me? Shall I make a public declaration?”

      I hastily put my hand out to stop him, but he’d already raised his drink, and my fingers hit a wall of muscle commonly known as the six-pack. “No! This is Anna’s night. Besides, if they’ve forgotten, I don’t need to remind them of what happened.”

      “Was it that bad?” he asked, and I’ll be damned if it didn’t sound genuine.

      “If you have to ask, we must not remember it the same way. Think of it from a high school girl’s point of view.”

      “You give me your version, and then I’ll give you mine.”

      I laughed, hating that I liked him even when the topic was how much he deserved me hating him. “Here’s the condensed version. You flew to New York with your brothers for high school, landed in the seat behind me for history class, seduced me with your accent and started hanging out with me in secret under the auspices of needing tutoring, even though we were studying the Napoleonic Wars, which made me think that you might actually like me, a suspicion that was confirmed after we talked and talked forever about everything until we both said we must be soul mates and then you asked me on a date and took me to that swanky Upper East Side party where you purposely palmed the piece of paper with my name on it for Seven Minutes in Heaven so you’d have an excuse to make out with me and put your hands in places they probably shouldn’t have been at that point, and when our time was up you, in fact, told me how much you liked me and asked me to be your girlfriend, and I said yes and then we left the bathroom, and you took me to your house and I lost my virginity to you, after which you took me home, and it was then it probably dawned on you that Anna and I didn’t live on the Upper East Side like everybody else, and didn’t have gobs of money and a swanky apartment like everybody else, and I don’t know who gave you a big speech that weekend, but you never called me and when Monday rolled around, I’d already told Anna you were my boyfriend and she’d apparently spread it around, and then all that was left was for you to confirm it, except when I got to school the only thing you confirmed was that American girls were suckers for boys with accents, and that having sex didn’t make me your girlfriend, and because every sundae needs a cherry, I also tanked history with the only C grade I ever got in school.”

      “Breathe, Cassie,” Jack said.

      I took his advice and then kept going. “You know, here’s the thing. I realize it might sound like a small infraction. And I realize that it seems...well, a little much to be pissed off about it for ten years, but here’s the thing. I was just a young girl. I was already on the outside when it came to social status and money.