“I'm so sor­ry,” I said, back­ing away. “I thought I saw some­one come in here and--”

Natasha swung her legs down and straight­ened her skirt. She pushed her hands in­to her knees, took a deep breath, and stood. Her breasts heaved in her straight-?cut strap­less dress and she yanked it up un­der her arms to cov­er a bit more of her cleav­age.

“I'll just go,” I said, feel­ing threat­ened.

“Don't,” Natasha said.

I froze. There were about a hun­dred thou­sand places I would have rather been just then, but I couldn't move.

“You can't tell any­one about this, Reed,” Natasha said, a plea in her voice. “Please. I know you pret­ty much hate me, and with good rea­son, but I'm beg­ging you. Don't tell a soul.”

I swal­lowed hard and looked from her to Leanne, who was avert­ing her eyes, her hands flat­tened on the chaise at her sides.

229

Was Natasha beg­ging me? Had she re­al­ly just ad­mit­ted I had rea­son to hate her? Natasha “Do-?As-?I-?Say-?or-?Die” Cren­shaw?

“I won't,” I said. “I swear.”

Natasha sighed and looked at the floor.

“Are you two ... go­ing out?” I asked.

Natasha and Leanne ex­changed a long glance. Fi­nal­ly Natasha sat back down next to Leanne, her crino­line rustling. They stared in­to each oth­er's eyes. Out­side the mu­sic con­tin­ued to pound.

“Go ahead,” Leanne said fi­nal­ly, de­flat­ing. She leaned back against the wall and crossed her arms over her stom­ach. “Go ahead and tell her. She should know what they're re­al­ly about.”

Why did I have a feel­ing that this was go­ing to make a lit­tle more sense than I need­ed it to?

Natasha lift­ed Leanne's hand and laced their fin­gers to­geth­er. She looked up at me and nod­ded. “Yes. We're a cou­ple,” she said flat­ly. “We've been to­geth­er since sopho­more year.”

“That's why you made me sneak around,” I said, sit­ting on a bench across from them. “That's why you want­ed Leanne back so bad­ly.”

Natasha tipped her head for­ward and sighed. “Reed, the black­mail was all a set­up. I wasn't re­al­ly black­mail­ing you. Noelle was black­mail­ing me.”

I shook my head slight­ly as this piece of in­for­ma­tion at­tempt­ed to pen­etrate. “Ex­cuse me. I think I just got whiplash,” I said. “What?”

“They told me to take those pic­tures, Reed,” Natasha said, lean­ing for­ward. “They told me to black­mail you.”

230

I felt like one of the ac­ro­bats had just swooped in, tossed my feet over my head, and dropped me back down to the floor. I stared at the wall be­tween Natasha and Leanne and tried to suck in a breath. Tiny black dots marred my vi­sion and I closed my eyes against a wave of swirling nau­sea.

“Are you okay?” Natasha asked.

I placed my cool and clam­my hand against my hot-?as-?fire fore­head. “Why? Why? Wh--” It was the on­ly word I could form. I opened my eyes and at­tempt­ed to fo­cus on Natasha. “Why would you do this to me?”

“Be­cause they threat­ened to tell ev­ery­one about us,” Natasha said, glanc­ing at Leanne.

“So . . . what? You were afraid of be­ing dis­owned by your Re­pub­li­can par­ents? Is that it?” I asked.

“No! It wasn't for me,” Natasha said. “My par­ents know I'm a les­bian. I've been out with them since I was thir­teen. They think it's cool. Like it gives them edge or some­thing.”

“So why?” I asked. “I don't un­der­stand.”

“She did it for me, okay?” Leanne shout­ed. “God, how thick can you be? If my par­ents found out about us, I would be out on the street like that,” she said, snap­ping her fin­gers. “They would not on­ly dis­own me, they would de­stroy me. I would be lucky to get a job at the freakin' Gap, okay? She did it for me.”

I felt my mouth hang­ing open. I stared as Natasha leaned back and touched Leanne's face gen­tly with the back of her hand. Leanne drew in a shaky breath and quick­ly wiped back a tear.

Tags: Kate Brian Private
Source: readsnovelonline.net