His One Desire by Kate Grey Page B

high school. Saying it out loud makes it seem stupid,
but the emotions back then were so powerful…”
    “I know,” he said softly. “And it’s the emotions that we
remember. That keep us from moving forward.”
    She sighed again. “Well. About a week before the prom, I
overheard Jeff Crane and Mick Raleigh talking.”
    “I have a bad feeling already.”
    “Mick said he couldn’t understand why you’d asked me to the
prom. Jeff said you must be on a cherry-popping kick, but that you’d get bored
with me after a week or so and be back in action.”
    “Assholes.”
    “Then you joined them, and—”
    “Shit.”
    “They didn’t say anything to you about me, specifically.
They just started talking about sex, and how much better it is when you’re with
a girl who knows what she’s doing. And you agreed.”
    “Shit,” he said again. He shook his head. “I don’t even
remember that conversation.”
    She smiled up at him. “That’s probably because you talked
with your friends like that all the time. You were just shooting the breeze,
the way teenage boys do. If they’d mentioned my name or insulted me, that would
have been different, and you would have defended me. But at the time I didn’t
think of that. And I couldn’t forget it no matter how much I tried. I didn’t
think you’d dump me, necessarily, after we had sex…but I thought you’d be
bored. I thought you’d regret asking me out, and wish that we’d just stayed
friends. And then…”
    “It gets worse?”
    “My dad said that if I promised not to see you again, he’d
make sure you got that scholarship to UCLA—the one he was sponsoring. And if I
kept seeing you, he’d make sure that you didn’t…and he’d do everything he could
to keep you from having a career in Hollywood.”
    “Jesus. What a—”
    He stopped. What would he have done in her father’s place,
if he had a daughter like Kali?
    He’d like to think he wouldn’t have resorted to bribery or
blackmail. But he would have done whatever he could to protect Kali from a guy
like him…or the guy he’d seemed to be.
    He ran a hand over his face.
    “What is it?” Kali asked.
    “I always suspected something like that. That’s why I
refused to take the scholarship when they told me I’d won it. Even if I’d
earned it fair and square, I didn’t want to take anything from your father.”
    Kali nodded. “I was so upset when I found out you’d turned
it down. I felt like I’d made this huge sacrifice for nothing, and of course
you didn’t even know. But when I tried to talk to you about it, you—”
    She stopped, and he winced. After Kali had stood him up on
prom night, he’d cut her out of his life completely. He wouldn’t even look at
her in the hallways at school.
    “I was such an asshole to you.”
    “I deserved it. I was a coward. I should have talked to you,
should have told you what happened with my dad. We’d been such good friends up
to that point…I’d always been able to tell you anything. That was the worst
part, you know. Losing your friendship.”
    He caught the glitter of tears in her eyes, and he pulled
her close. “Hey,” he murmured into her hair. “You’re never going to lose me
again, okay? I swear it.”
    “I can’t believe it still hurts so much to think about. I
was so stupid back then, so—”
    “That’s all over, Kali. It’s in the past. We’re not the same
people anymore. We’re capable of things now that we weren’t capable of then. At
least, I hope we are. I’d hate to think we haven’t learned a damn thing in ten
years.”
    “But we messed things up so badly. We—”
    “Yeah, we messed things up. But maybe we were doing the best
we could. Even your dad. He was just trying to protect you, you know.”
    Kali pulled back and stared at him. “You’re saying that you
can forgive him?”
    “Yeah. I can. I think what he did was lousy, but I
understand why he did it.” He paused. “What about you? Can you forgive