We won’t get our happily ever after.
I was so sure there was something real.
Is it his fault? Had he been giving me hope all this time, or was I seeing signs that were not there?
I take my diploma and shake hands with the headmistress. I’m the only student she hugs, and it’s such a tight squeeze, it makes me regret not getting to know her better.
Why did I waste my mental energy this whole school year? These people believed in me and I didn’t treasure them. I never took the time to create a mental picture of my last year of high school.
Yes, I aced every class. Sure, we won the state title.
But I did it for the wrong reasons.
From now on, I resolve to succeed for myself, not to get the attention of a man who doesn’t even care about me.
I brush past the black curtains at stage left to make my way through the backstage area toward the side door of the building. No way I’m going back to my seat.
Before I reach the door, something clamps down around my wrist. I gasp in fright. It’s a hand, and for a split second I think it might be Roland. The hand around my wrist tugs me through the back curtains and toward the shadowy edges of the stage.
My eyes finally adjust to the backstage darkness, and I see what’s happening. That hand on my wrist is attached to the world’s most beautiful and exasperating and wonderful human.
I feel as though I’m being lifted outside of my body.
Weston Ford has me.
Without warning, he releases my wrist and takes my face in his hands. He claims my mouth in a ravishing, angry kiss.
His hand lets go of my face and his arms wrap around me so tight I am exquisitely out of breath.
My feet rise off the floor.
Every resolution I just made flies out the window.
His lips, his sweet breath, his fresh, woodsy scent, is everywhere—0n me, inside my lungs.
I know that half a dozen of my classmates are filing past us just on the other side of the curtain. Surely someone will see us.
But they aren’t my classmates anymore. They are former classmates.
And I’m no longer a student.
“Adelaide,” he murmers into my mouth.
His low, gravelly voice makes my body shudder in response.
I savor this moment. I take a mental picture of it. I memorize what his lips feel like against my lips, what his strong fingers feel like as they dig into my hips. His hard length presses against me so tight I feel it in my bones.
“Weston,” I breathe into his kiss. I have to, since he’s not letting me break away to speak.
We’re moving.
I can’t see where he’s taking me, but I no longer care who I am, let alone where we are going.
33
Weston
After carrying her into the abandoned prop room deep in the bowels of the auditorium basement, I grip the front of her white graduation gown with one fist and unbuckle my jeans with the other. I should slow down, kiss her tenderly to prepare her for me, but it’s too much. I can’t hold back. I’ve got her pinned against the wall in the darkened room.