"Look, a.s.shole, say something like that about her again, and I"ll-"
"Like what?" Chip sneered up at him. "Like what a luscious body she has? How good she looks in those jeans? Or how good she looks out of them?"
"That"s it. We"re getting out of here." Adam pulled Harper off the stool with one hand and grabbed his wallet with the other. He tore out a five-dollar bill and threw it down on the bar.
Chip slid it back toward him roughly.
"Oh no, my treat."
"Take it," Adam growled, pushing it back toward him.
"I said, it"s on me."
"You know what? Have it your way." Adam grabbed the bill back and lifted Harper"s half-full gla.s.s of beer in a mock toast. "It"s on you." And he dumped the beer on Chip"s head, grabbing Harper and pulling her out of the bar before the dim-witted loser"s reflexes had time to kick him into motion.
"What the h.e.l.l did you just do in there, Ad?" Harper asked, gasping with laughter, once they were safely out in the parking lot. "I can never show my face in there again!"
"He was asking for it," Adam said, stone-faced. "And you!" He shook his head. "I know you"ve dated some losers in your time, but this guy?"
"Well, Chip"s an idiot," Harper admitted, "but he"s got a few other things going for him."
"Stop." Adam lightly covered her mouth with his hand. "Please, I don"t want to hear it."
She batted her eyelashes up at him. "What? Jealous?"
"Oh, please," he scoffed. "Just get in the car."
She laughed, and did as he said. She didn"t have to press the point-because she knew she was right.
He"d fought for her honor.
He"d been jealous, jealous of the idea of her with another guy.
Which meant that somewhere in that thick and oblivious head of his was buried the knowledge that she really belonged to him. That somewhere beneath all those layers of puppy dog love for Beth and all that "just friends" bulls.h.i.t he reserved for Harper, he wanted something more.
He wanted her.
She knew it.
He just needed a little push in the right direction. And he was about to get it.
CHAPTER.
4.
Kaia skipped lunch on Monday. It was no big loss. After a month in this hick-filled h.e.l.lhole, she"d learned that the less Grace-produced food ingested, the better. Besides, Kaia had other things on her mind. One in particular.
He wasn"t in his cla.s.sroom, but she found him a few minutes later in the so-called "faculty lounge," really a dark, oversize closet with a few threadbare couches and a malfunctioning coffee machine.
Students weren"t allowed in the room-it was to be a sanctuary for the underpaid burnouts whose snoozing students failed to see the applicability of algebra to a future career in tractor-pulling, or the ability of Shakespeare to improve their application to the beauty academy. Two years ago the teachers had gone on strike, demanding shorter hours, fewer students per cla.s.s, more pay; they"d received a faculty lounge.
Kaia didn"t know any of that, of course, but if she had, she wouldn"t have cared.
She did know she wasn"t supposed to go inside. The boldfaced NO STUDENTS sign on the door was a good tip-off. The sharp glare Mrs. Martin shot her as she scuttled out of the lounge was a better one. Teachers-only territory. No trespa.s.sing.
Kaia didn"t care about that, either. She pushed through the door into the dark s.p.a.ce, and there he was, Jack Powell-adorable, and alone.
At first he didn"t see her. He was sprawled on one of the couches, reading by the dim light of a halogen lamp-the overhead lighting was about as much use as a half-dead flashlight when it came to lighting up the room, much less the page. He"d kicked his legs up on the makeshift coffee table and was poring over a thick hardcover, his face scrunched up in thought. He was completely absorbed, and failed to notice when the door swung open. It was left to Kaia to break his concentration.
"Greetings and salutations, Mr. Powell," she said in a low voice.
He looked up with an expression of absentminded bemus.e.m.e.nt; it disappeared as soon as he paired the voice with her face. He snapped the book shut in anger and quickly stood, backing away from her.
"Did I not make myself clear the last time we spoke, Ms. Sellers? Get out of here."
"Don"t trust yourself alone with me?" she taunted him. "Worried about what you might do?"
"I"m not the one who"s worried-thanks to you, I"ve got half the school thinking I want to play Humbert Humbert to your Lolita. But I"m sure you know that already, since it"s exactly what you wanted."
"All I ever wanted was you, Mr. Powell," she said sweetly. "Didn"t I make myself clear?"
"Crystal. Now, did anyone see you come in here?"
"Only Mrs. Martin," she admitted.
"Well, that"s just great." He shook his head and raised his eyes to the ceiling in exasperation. "She"ll have half the town ready to lynch me if she figures out we were in here together. You have to get out of here. Now."
"You"re sounding a little desperate there, Mr. Powell-it"s not very becoming." That was a lie, actually. The sharp edge of desperation in his voice made the whole hard-to-get act even s.e.xier.
He paused and gave her a piercing look. It was the same intent gaze he"d given her in their very first encounter, just before explaining that even if she hadn"t been "trouble dressed up in a miniskirt," he made it a policy not to get involved with students. That had been before she caught him trying to get "involved" with Beth, of course-it turned out the only students he stayed away from were the ones he saw as potential threats. She was too hot to handle, apparently-which was infuriating. And flattering.
"Kaia, you seem like a bright girl," he finally said. "Bright enough to know that you can make life here rather uncomfortable for me."
"I"m glad you noticed."
"So I"ll a.s.sume you"re bright enough to understand that I can make life rather uncomfortable for you," he pointed out. "I could, for one, fail you."
"I could say it was s.e.xual hara.s.sment," she countered. "Retribution."
"I could say it was your word against mine."
"I could say that"s attacking the victim."
"And I could say the same-so it would seem we"re at an impa.s.se."
"Why, Mr. Powell," she asked flirtatiously, "are you suggesting a truce?"
He slumped back down on the couch and began ma.s.saging his temples. "Kaia, I"m not the one who declared a war," he reminded her. "I"m suggesting you drop this whole thing, drop my cla.s.s if you can, do whatever it takes for you to walk out this door and out of my life forever."
"You"d miss me," she chirped.
"I doubt it."
"What would you do for fun without me?"
"I suspect I"d find something else," he said wearily. "Something that didn"t cause blinding headaches and nausea."
Any more of this sweet talk and she was going to get a cavity.
"Okay, I"ll go," she allowed. "For now. But I should point out that when you say we"re at an impa.s.se, you"re forgetting two things."
"Enlighten me."
"One." She ticked it off on one of her fingers. "You"re right that it would be your word against mine, and maybe my word"s not worth too much around here. But Beth"s is. And something tells me she might have some interesting things to say on the subject."
He stood up again-but suddenly seemed slightly unsteady on his feet. "Is this your ham-handed way of threatening to blackmail me, Kaia?" It sounded tough, but she knew she"d shaken him. Good. Now they both understood that she had the upper hand.
"No-lets call it a demonstration of goodwill," she offered. "Because for the moment, I"m planning to keep my mouth shut. You"re the only person who knows what I saw. And for the moment, I"m willing to keep it that way."
"And why, pray tell, is that?"
For one thing, she"d decided that this was the kind of information that could keep. Why use it now when she could get what she needed out of him first? She"d save this for when it counted. But an honest answer wouldn"t do much to help her cause.
"Well, that would be point number two," she told him, ticking off a second finger. "I like you, Jack Powell. I think you"ve got a lot of ... possibilities. So I"m going to keep quiet about Beth. I"m going to walk out of here and show you that I can be as discreet as any of the adoring goody-goody students I"m sure you"ve wooed into bed in the past-but I"m not giving up. I have a lot of patience when it comes to getting what I want."
"And what about what I want?" he asked drily.
"You don"t need patience," she pointed out. "I"m right here. You just need to come and get me."
They"d needed somewhere out of the way, somewhere no one they knew would ever be or would ever think to look for them. The school library was an obvious choice. Huddled over a small table in the back (sandwiched in the stacks between self-help and pet grooming), Harper and Kane quickly got down to business.
"It"s a good start, Grace, but we need to kick it into higher gear. Slow and steady"s not going to win us the race on this one," Kane whispered.
Harper craned her neck around, once again making sure that no one she knew could overhear them. Her crowd wasn"t much for the musty book zone, it was true-but a certain brainy Barbie clone had been known to stop by.
"I don"t know, Kane-that relationship has a definite expiration date. And with Beth fawning all over you for the next two weeks, maybe ..."
"Adam will have enough s.p.a.ce to discover you"re the best thing ever to happen to him?" Kane finished for her.
Harper blushed. That was, in fact, exactly what she"d been thinking. "Well, if you want to put it that way."
"Wake up, Harper," Kane said sharply, snapping his fingers in front of her face. "These two could go on like this indefinitely. They"re both too n.o.ble to cut their losses. I know Adam, and he"s going to stay in this to the bitter end, and Beth-"
"Couldn"t stand on her own two feet if you nailed them to the floor and shoved a pole up her-"
"Hey, watch how you talk about my woman."
"Your woman?" She arched an impeccably plucked eyebrow. "Someone"s getting a little ahead of himself."
"Exactly my point-I don"t like waiting, and I didn"t think you did either. Isn"t that why we"re in this thing?"
"Okay," she conceded. "So we"ve got the setup, Adam"s already jealous-"
"And soon it will start to fester-," Kane added.
"Especially if we help it along a bit," Harper concluded. So not a problem. If there was one thing she could handle, it was feeding the flames of jealousy-hadn"t she proved that well enough over the weekend? "But we need something else, something more dramatic, with a little flair."
"I couldn"t agree more. But what?" Kane asked. They were right back to where they"d started. "That"s the million-dollar question. And it has to be done right, with finesse-we don"t want this to backfire."
"Are you thinking of something specific?"
"I"m just trying to ensure that we both get what we want," Kane explained, winking, "since, never let it be said I think only of myself..."
Harper raised both eyebrows this time.
"Okay, usually I do," he admitted. "But in this case, we"re in it together-one for all, all for one, et cetera."
"Whatever, I"ll believe it when I see it. I"ve known you for too long."
"Oh, you wound me!" he exclaimed. Mrs. Martin, the ancient and evil-eyed librarian, walked by and gave them a nasty look. The shut-up-or-get-out kind of look. Harper lowered her eyes and tried to muster a chaste and innocent smile. But Mrs. Martin, immune to the act, just scuttled on by.
"I"m supposed to trust you?" Harper asked, lowering her voice to a whisper. "When you"re trying to steal your best friend"s girlfriend?"
All traces of a smirk vanished from Kane"s face, and he glared at her with hooded eyes.
"First of all, Grace, I don"t believe in trust-which is why I don"t believe in best friends. It"s easier that way. And second of all, as for stealing his girlfriend ..."
Harper leaned forward eagerly. She"d been wondering how Kane could justify his scheming, especially when he seemed to have no particular motivation for choosing Beth, of all the girls he could have pursued.
"... lets just say-karma"s a b.i.t.c.h."
"Care to elaborate?" Harper asked.
"No."
They stared at each other in silence for a moment, each daring the other to speak. Harper broke first.
"Fine-just get back to what you were saying," Harper urged him. "What kind of backfiring are you afraid of?"
"Well, we could pin something on Adam, like, say, he slept with someone else-believable enough, I guess," Kane said, his smirk returning. "Deep down, all guys are pigs."