With a choked cry, she fled. This was too much! What should have been the best night of her life was rapidly becoming the worst.

"I don't think Jessica was too happy about your turning down her invitation," DeeDee said to Bill after they had strolled outside to the patio to escape the crush of the party.

Bill smiled knowingly. "Oh, she'll survive."

DeeDee glanced up at him shyly. "You're sure, really sure you're not still in love with her?"

That was when he kissed her. It was even better than the other times. Because she knew it was for keeps. It left her heart pounding. Bill cupped her face with gentle hands as he drew back. The pads of his thumbs moved in slow circles over her temples, while his fingers tangled in her dark curls.

DeeDee's pulse skidded out of control. Every sense was singing with life.

His hands slid down over her bare arms, which were rippled with gooseflesh. "Cold?" he asked.

"Just happy." She pressed her cheek against the pleasant wooly scratchiness of his shoulder.

"I hope that answered your question," he murmured against her hair.

"Mmm ... I'm not sure. I may need a little more convincing."

He drew her to him again in a long, lingering kiss.

"Any better?" he asked.

"Keep it up. This may take all night."

"What about the party?"

"Oh, I'm sure Lila won't mind if we leave early. It's for a good cause."

"Yeah?"

"Well, if you're going to be America's new teen sex symbol, you're going to need a lot of practice acting sexy, right?"

He laughed. "If you say so. Are you applying for the job of coach?"

"Are you accepting applications?"

"Just one."

He lowered his mouth against hers, stopping any further conversation. DeeDee let herself be carried away on a wave of warm sensations. It was an enchanted night, in spite of the way it had started out.

Gently she pulled away and looked up at Bill. The moonlight bleached his hair to silver-white, and his eyes looked almost black. She touched his cheek. There was something she wanted to tell him, but at the moment she was too full of emotion for words.

Bill said it for her. "I know. I love you, too."

Sixteen.

"You must be losing your magic touch, Jess," Cara teased. "First Bill, and now Tom. That's two strikes in one night."

Jessica glared at Cara. It was humiliating enough without having her friends making a big joke out of it!

"Bill's a creep," she snapped. "I was getting tired of him, anyway. It's a relief to have DeeDee take him off my hands."

"What about Tom? Did you notice that he and Patsy have been dancing practically every dance together?" She giggled. "Maybe the punch was spiked with Elmer's Glue."

Jessica didn't laugh. In fact, there was nothing even remotely funny about this whole evening as far as she was concerned.

Through the sliding glass door that led out onto the patio, she caught a glimpse of Bill and DeeDee. DeeDee was laughing. Bill bent to smooth a wisp of hair from her cheek and whisper something in her ear. Jessica looked away. She couldn't stand to watch anymore. Those two made her sick.

"What about Roger?" Cara asked cattily. "Look at him-he's been sitting over there in the corner by himself practically the whole evening. I'll bet he could use some company."

Jessica pounced upon it as the perfect chance to divert the conversation away from the painful topic of her failures. With a wicked smile, she turned to Lila, who had just walked up.

"I think we should save Roger for Lila. Don't you think they'd make an adorable couple?"

Lila groaned and clutched at her stomach. "Ugh! Don't make me ill!"

Cara played along with the gag. "I don't know. I think he's kind of cute, Lila."

"Why don't you go over there and ask him to dance?" urged Jessica. "After all, it's your party. You're supposed to make all the guests feel welcome."

Lila was on the verge of turning green. "I wouldn't dance with Roger Barrett if he were the last boy on earth!" she declared.

Unfortunately, just as she said it, the record that had been playing ended. In the lull that followed, Lila's voice carried across the room, every word audible.

It was obvious from the flash flood of red that washed across Roger's cheeks that he'd heard. His eyes glistened. Even at a distance, Jessica could see the painful way his Adam's apple was working above his collar. She couldn't help feeling a little sorry for him.

Even Lila looked embarrassed as Roger twisted out of his chair, bolting from the room as if he'd just discovered it was on fire.

Elizabeth, glowing as she walked in on Todd's arm, was just in time to witness the execution.

"Poor Roger," she said to Todd. "Looks like he's been put up before the Fowler firing squad."

What would Lila do if she ever discovered Roger's secret? she wondered. All her sympathy went out to him. Roger's crush on Lila was worse than hopeless. It was positively heartrending.

(Roger and Lila have big surprises in store for them in Sweet Valley High #9, LOVE ON THE RUN.).

Racing Hearts.

Pascal, Francine.

Dear Reader, The minute I came up with the idea of Sweet Valley High, now thirty years ago, I knew it was perfect. But I knew it needed something else. And that something else was girl power. Unlike the Sleeping Beauty version of romance novels, where the heroine has to wait for the wake-up kiss, in my series the girls would drive the action. And there would be two of them; the good and the bad in all of us.

After that all I needed were the stories. With my three daughters and my own teenage years to draw on, I had endless possibilities. I started with a bible where I developed the characters, the school, and the town, and then began writing the stories for first twelve books, and then twelve more and more and more until I had written 144 stories. And then with the help of other writers, they became the 144 books of the Sweet Valley High series, which more than 100 million fans have loved.

And now it's all back as e-books for a whole new generation of teenagers who want to lose themselves in the world of Sweet Valley, the fantasy of the eighties, and the best high school no one ever went to.

And for the grown women who want to look back at the love of their high school lives and revel in the nostalgia of life with the most incredible twins, read away.

Sincerely, Francine Pascal.

To Debra Spector.

One.

"Jessica, I've been looking all over the house for you," Elizabeth Wakefield told her identical twin sister. "Mom wants you downstairs right away. She's making pancakes."

Jessica continued to stand before the full-length mirror in her parents' bedroom, admiring the way she looked in her mother's chocolate-brown suit. "I'll be down in a second. What do you think, Liz? I know brown's not my usual color, but I think it's a good color for business, don't you?"

Elizabeth sat down on her parents' king-size bed, eyeing her twin as if she were an alien who had just crawled out of a spaceship. The color did go well with Jessica's blond hair and tanned, flawless complexion, and the lines of the suit showed off the slender, shapely legs that were a mirror image of Elizabeth's own. But to say that Jessica wasn't the business-suit type would have been the understatement of the decade.

"What's this all about?" Elizabeth asked. "Your role in the next school play?"

Elizabeth regretted her words as soon as they were out of her mouth. The week before, her twin had seen her world come tumbling down like a house of straw in a windstorm. Jessica had not only suffered the humiliation of losing surf champ Bill Chase to another girl, but she'd also discovered that the movie producer she'd been certain had come to watch her in the school play had barely even noticed her. It seemed he'd been scouting Bill instead. It wasn't so much that Jessica had cared about either Bill or a movie career, but the embarrassment of being shot down twice in one night was too much for even the self-assured Jessica to bear. Elizabeth couldn't remember ever seeing her twin so crushed, and now, she realized, her thoughtless remark had probably only made Jessica feel worse.

"Oh, Jess, I'm sorry," Elizabeth lamented instantly.

Jessica turned around as she took off the tailored jacket and flung it carelessly on the bed. "Sorry about what? My not going to Hollywood?" As if to emphasize her complete lack of interest, Jessica casually ran her slender fingers through her shoulder-length hair before unbuttoning her mother's cream-colored blouse. "It's no big deal. I hear they're all a bunch of phonies anyway."

"Come on, Jess, you don't really mean that," Elizabeth said as she placed the jacket on a wooden hanger.

"Yes, I do," Jessica said, continuing to undress as she spoke. "I was thinking about it, Liz, and all the guy ever said was that he was offering Bill a screen test. I'll bet you anything they take him to L.A., stick a camera in front of his face, and send him home the same day. Sounds like a big waste of time to me." Jessica donned a pair of blue running shorts and matching tank top.

Elizabeth picked up the rest of her mother's suit and hung it back in the closet. "And what does that have to do with modeling Mom's clothes? You usually spend Sunday mornings between the sheets."

"Too excited to sleep this morning. I've got at least three hundred and thirty-seven things to do."

"But aren't you going to the beach with Cara?"

Jessica shook her head emphatically.

Elizabeth remained puzzled. Cara Walker was her sister's best friend. "What's the matter? You two have another fight?"

"No, sister dear. What I'm trying to tell you is that I'm no longer interested in spending idle hours in the sun gossiping with my girlfriends. It's sooo juvenile."

Elizabeth reached over and grabbed her sister's arm. "OK, Jess, what's up now?"

"I was going to tell you over breakfast, but I've decided it's time I stopped being so frivolous with my life. I should be thinking about the future."

Elizabeth stared at her sister in amazement. Was this really her twin who was saying these words? "Since when have you cared about life after high school?" Elizabeth questioned.

Jessica plopped down on the bed. "The more I thought about this Hollywood thing, the more I realized how little planning for the future I've actually done. Neither have most of my friends, for that matter. So I decided now is the time to begin," she said. "To get a head start on everyone else," she added in typical Jessica Wakefield fashion.

"Isn't this a bit sudden?" Elizabeth asked. "Last week you were ready to be an actress, now you say it's something else. How do you know you won't change your mind and forget it all as soon as you go outside and see what a nice day it is?"

Jessica brushed aside her sister's doubting words. "Look, Liz, sometimes an idea strikes you, and you just know it's the right thing to do. You're a perfect example. Didn't you just realize one day that you were going to be a writer?"

Elizabeth fell silent. She never talked much about her writing to anyone, with the exception of Mr. Collins, the faculty adviser of The Oracle, Sweet Valley High's school newspaper. "It didn't exactly happen like that," Elizabeth said. "But my goal is beside the point. I just can't help wondering if this new focus on a career is only something to occupy your time while you're between boys."

"That's where you're dead wrong, Elizabeth Wakefield," Jessica said, flashing her sister a look of indignation. "I'm serious about this. I never said I was giving up boys. But I've got to think about other things, too. I've just come to realize there's more to life than drive-ins on Saturday nights and beach parties every Sunday afternoon."

Elizabeth was still dubious. It wasn't the first time she'd heard her sister resolve to change her ways. "All I can say is I'll believe it when I see it."

Jessica got up from the bed. "Thanks a lot, Elizabeth," she spat out angrily. "You know, I expected a little more encouragement from you. I thought you'd be thrilled that I'd finally decided to set some goals for myself. Isn't that what you've been trying to get me to do for ages?"

"Well, yes," Elizabeth admitted.

"So why can't you believe I'm ready to start?"

She didn't know how Jessica did it, but somehow Elizabeth had managed to wind up on the defensive once again. Nevertheless, there was something about the conviction she heard in Jessica's voice that made her willing to give her sister the benefit of the doubt. "I'm sorry, Jess. I guess I'm feeling a little like one of the townspeople in the story of the boy who cried wolf. But if you're serious and if there's anything I can do to help, just give a yell."

"Thanks. I knew I could count on you, Liz." Jessica hugged her sister impulsively. "Now, didn't you say something about a nice hot stack of pancakes?"

Elizabeth gasped. "Mom's going to kill us!" she cried. "The pancakes will be ice cold by now."

But Jessica knew better. Linking her arm through Elizabeth's, she slowly and calmly led her sister down the carpeted stairs. "I'll bet Mom waited." She inhaled deeply. "I don't smell a thing."

Jessica was right, Elizabeth noted as the two walked into the spacious, tiled kitchen. Her parents were sitting quietly at opposite ends of the table reading the newspaper and nursing their coffee. The batter, a special Wakefield family recipe, was on the counter next to the grill, waiting for the girls' arrival.

Not wanting to disturb her mother, who appeared totally caught up in the editorial section, Elizabeth began to make the pancakes herself. That's why she didn't see the expression on her parents' faces when Jessica dropped her bombshell.

"Daddy, I have a big favor to ask," Jessica said firmly. "I want an after-school job in your office. And I want to start tomorrow."