Watching Clarissa's tits topped with that vacant face of hers makes me want to retch, so I gesture for her to join the audience. "I'll be there in a minute."

She pouts but finally struts away, and I feel relieved.

Cassie is watching Clarissa with an expression I've never seen on her before. Defeat?

"I'm glad to see you kept warm during those long winter months."

She's jealous.

"And I didn't even have to leave home for it. Where's that rock star of yours anyway?" I crane my neck as though looking for him. "I don't see his bike."

Cassie frowns as if she didn't get my question, then she shrugs. "Probably on the road. We broke up a while ago."

I want to pump my fist in the air in victory. That scumbag isn't sleeping with her anymore. But someone else might be. "How's the music going anyway?" I know the answer and it must sting badly. Good.

Another shrug. "Nowhere. Gran needs me, and we can't afford live-in care. I'm back at Steep Hill for good."

There's no trace of bitterness in her voice.

"I've heard about Mrs. O. I'm really sorry."

She tilts her head to the side, staring deeply at me, as if she'd seen me before but can't really place the face.

"She misses you, you know, Gran... Apparently, you haven't visited her a single time since I left."

Heat fires my cheeks. I'm ashamed of myself, so I lower my face and start focusing on the tips of my shoes.

"Whatever happens between the two of us, she still loves you," Cassie adds. There's no reproach in her words.

Don't I know that?

"I'll come and say goodbye before I leave."

"Thank you." Her hand wraps around my wrist and gives a gentle squeeze. Her skin is warm, and it feels so good against mine. "Congratulations on Georgetown, by the way. You must be pretty excited."

I manage to look her straight in the eyes. "I am."

I'd have given up on that to be with her and our...

What could have been, what she's done, and the mud she left behind splash me in the face. I can't let her seep her way back into my heart. "Now that we've had our little chat, I'm going to get back to my girlfriend. See you."

Turning my back on Cassie should feel good. It doesn't.

"You're better than that, Josh."

I freeze in my tracks. Who the hell does she think- "Better than what?"

Cassie catches up with me. "Better than that skank Clarissa. Better than all the mindless one-night stands you've had since we broke up." Even in the dark, I can see her blushing. "Woodie told me about them."

"I fuck whoever I damn well want, and you have no say on the subject whatsoever."

The fireworks explode in the distance.

Cassie bridges the gap between us. "Sorry." I see her swallow hard. "I shouldn't have said that. It's just... It's just..."

"What is it, Cassie?" I sound more flippant than I am. The truth is that I want to know what she really has on her mind, in her heart. I want to hear she's just as miserable as I am.

"I want you to be happy." She says it in a whisper. "I want you to leave Steep Hill and never look back. I want you to turn the page on us and be ready for your future."

I cover my hurt with a snarl. "What you really want is not to feel guilty about poor old Josh. So don't worry, Cass, I'll forget about you as soon as I'm out of this shitty town."

She shakes her head. "I don't want you to forget about me." With the lights of the fireworks dancing over her face, I see the dampness in her eyes. "But if that's what you have to do, then forget about me. Forget I ever existed."

She doesn't care. She really doesn't give a flying shit.

"I'll forget all about you, even your name." I want to say something more hurtful, something that will floor her. But my tongue is bone dry. Walking away is the only option left for my pride.

She grabs my arm. "I've never wanted for us to end that way. I loved you so much. Everything I did, I did it for you."

I can't stand the sight of the tear trailing down her cheek. "You threw us away."

I totally switch off any good sense I have in me and hunt for Clarissa. Luckily she isn't hard to find. I grab her by the hand and drag her away from the crowd, past the mess of trucks and cars parked on the edge of the wood. The music and the sound of the fireworks decrease. Instead, I hear the anger boiling inside me.

"Where are ya taking me?"

Her voice tips me over the edge.

My arms take hold of her waist and I carry her to the next tree. I prop her against its thick trunk and attack her mouth with mine. I'm going to fuck her mouth. I'm going to fuck her, period.

My hand shoots straight for her panties underneath the napkin she calls a skirt. I find a G-string and my fingers slide beneath it, heading straight inside her. She groans and starts thrusting herself against me. I pump her, just like I've seen done in the porns I've started watching. It doesn't take long for her to shudder around my fingers. She screams, and she really does sound like one of those girls on my laptop, down to the "My God, my God" she keeps groaning.

That makes me even angrier.

I switch position. This time, I'm the one with my back against the truck. "Your turn."

Clarissa giggles. I don't need to ask twice. She's already on her knees, unzipping my jeans, taking my dick out and putting it into her mouth. I try and focus on the wetness of her lips sucking me. I try, but I can't.

I open my eyes and tilt my head back against the tree.

That's when I see her. That's when I see Cassie.

She's twenty yards away from us. It's too dark for me to see her face. But her hands are joined over her chest as if someone has just scared the shit out of her. She takes a couple of steps back then turns around and flees.

I groan. Not because of Clarissa's mouth. I groan with shame.

twenty-four.

Oxford ~ Present.

Josh.

That had been the last time I'd seen Cassie before she crashed back into my life. At another party, in another country.

I tapped the tip of my pen against the side of the book I'd been staring at blindly for the last hour. The new page I'd opened on my laptop was stubbornly blank, the cursor blipping on the top left corner of an empty Word document. I let the pen roll over the surface of the table I'd been sitting at in the library of Rhodes House. When it stopped moving, I kept looking at the pen completely brain-dead.

For the Nth time since last night, I dove deep inside myself. What was the most surprising outcome? The fact that I might officially become father to a five-year-old boy in a matter of weeks? Or the fact that I'd almost had sex in a public place with a girl I spent the last five years hating?

The latter.

As a teen, I'd never been horny like the devil. I played football, which used up a lot of my energy, and all my fantasies had been directed at Cassie and on the perfect day when I'd make her mine. That was the kind of romantic fool I was. After our break-up, it had been different. I've slept with most single-or not-girls in my year in high school. Same thing for my first year in college. But as soon as I saw Cassie again, I'd tried to get straight back into her pants.

I buried my face in my hands and let out a loud rasp. What kind of man did that? Not one I'd call my friend. Not me. But, after all, I was the guy who had Clarissa give him a blow-job pretty much anywhere public.

I wasn't the man I wanted to be.

I sat up straight in my chair and checked to see if anyone had been looking. No one had. I gathered my books and packed my laptop back into its bag, then made my way outside into the bright noonday sun.

"Josh!"

Eleanor.

My eyes opened wide and I turned toward her.

She stood two yards away from me, tall, slim, with her dark hair falling over her shoulders. She was smiling.

A simple "Hey" was all I could muster. I hadn't expected to see her again so soon. "I thought you were back in London. Sorry, I didn't move my stuff out yet. I haven't had a chance."

"-Shush." She bridged the gap between us and fixed her eyes on mine. I was six foot two, but Lenor, and her stilettos, matched my height. "I'm glad."

Lenor moved closer.

"Your revelations took me off-guard last night. I was hurt, I panicked, I didn't think things through properly." The tips of her fingers brushed my face, but the tenderness in her touch didn't soothe me. It shamed me. "I pushed you away, but now I'm back and I want to make it work for us, and for Lucas."

I switched my book from one arm to the other, then stepped toward the small wall that bordered Rhodes House. I sat on the edge of it. Lenor followed and stood between my parted legs. I didn't want her so close, and I felt like a jerk for feeling that way.

"Lenor, I'm so sorry for what I did. I really thought I could just get a divorce and pretend it had never happened. I lied to-"

She hushed me again, her fingers on my lips. She leaned forward and her mouth teased mine, but I broke the contact. She already tasted foreign to me.

"I know you didn't mean to hurt me. If anything, you tried to protect me."

Her words were kind but they weren't the truth. Over the last five years, I'd only tried to protect one person: me.

"We need to look to the future now," she continued. "I'm not going to lie. This isn't how I had imagined we'd start our family. This isn't conventional..." She let the sentence hang for a few seconds. "But we can make it work."

My head flinched back slightly. "How?"

"We get married as soon as the divorce is finalized. My mother can have the big ceremony later on." She swept aside that thought with her hand. "Then we adopt Lucas."

My breath hitched. "What about Cassie?"

Lenor's tight jaw told me she had already thought of what to say. "We'll just have to convince her that it's in the child's best interest."

Her answer stung and I jumped to my feet. She took another step back and her eyes widened. I saw fear in them. I didn't want to scare Lenor, so I relaxed and backed off.

"Why?"

Whatever she said next would tip my life in one of two entirely different directions.

"We have so much to offer. We love each other. We want the same things in life. We share a lot of friends. My family will back us. I would make sure of that." She sounded out of breath, but still she continued. "I can give Lucas so much more than..."

"More than what?"

"You know..." She wrung her hands. It wasn't like Eleanor to leave a thought unfinished.

I cocked an eyebrow to prompt her to go to the end.

"More than Cassandra."

I had no idea why but I wanted to bite. "How so?" Eleanor wasn't supposed to be the one under interrogation here. I was being unfair.

She jutted her chin out and tossed her hair back. "I don't want to be disrespectful but that girl has no education, no family. She waits tables for a living. And she already got rid of the kid once."

Technically, her portrait of Cassie was pretty accurate. It was also very, very wrong...

... And that was when I knew.

"Lenor," I stopped looking at the tips of my shoes because she deserved eye contact. "The fact that you've come here, ready to forgive, to give me another chance, humbles me." My voice cracked because Lenor had filled my world for four years. "But I don't think it would work. You, me, Lucas."

Eleanor hunched over as she choked down a sob. Her mouth opened, but no words formed. I grabbed her elbows gently but I couldn't bring myself to take her in my arms.

She shook herself away and yelled, "I'm offering you a 'Get Out of Jail Free' card and you don't think it would work?"

It didn't make sense. I didn't make sense. I should backtrack and take her up on her offer, but my gut instinct yelled at me that there was something deeply skewed in her logic. I had talked to Cassie so many times about doing the right thing, and this didn't feel like it.

"I'm sorry, Lenor." I truly was. For her, and because I was a selfish bastard. Her face looked gaunt, as though she was already wasting away. "I'm going back to your place to pack up my stuff. I should be out by the end of the afternoon as promised."

No reaction.

I turned my back on her, on the life I thought I'd share with her.

"Why?" she asked.