Paradise Lost (Private 9)

"I will only consider you an annoyance if you refuse to dance with me right now," he replied as the DJ switched over to a slow tune.

"I suppose I could oblige," I said with a grin.

Upton tugged on my fingers, and I followed him back onto the dance floor. I could still feel Paige, Sienna, and the others watching us, but I concentrated on Upton, making sure I didn't give any of them the satisfaction of catching their eyes. Wrapped safely in Upton's arms, I shut out all the angry, curious, jealous stares. As we swayed back and forth to the music, I let it all go, simply listening to his breathing and feeling the rise and fall of his chest.

Despite everything else that had happened, that moment, at least, was perfect.

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CHAPTER 18 FACE-TO-FACE

In the end, Upton did not spend every single second of the night pinned to my side. After all, sometimes a guy has to pee. It was at one such solo moment that the encounter I had been dreading finally happened. I was standing at the bar, waiting for a glass of ice water, when I saw a familiar hand next to mine. Just seeing those fingers brought back flashes of memories I didn't want to recall. Bare skin, zippers undone...

Hands ... everywhere.

"Dash."

"Hey, Reed."

My heart was in my throat as the bartender placed my glass in front of me. I picked it up and tried to turn the other way. Away from him. But he touched my forearm lightly.

"Don't. Please."

Damn. Damn him and his politeness.

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I took a deep breath and held it for strength, then turned and forced myself to look at him. To really look into his warm brown eyes. They were totally miserable.

"Sorry," he said, releasing me and shoving his hands into the pockets of his pressed chinos. Over them, he wore a white T-shirt and a blue-and-yellow Canterbury rugby sweater. The uberpreppy look so worked for Dash. Worked so well that every other girl in our vicinity was eyeing him hungrily as they sipped their drinks. Not that he would ever notice. "Sorry. I just. . . how are you?" he said.

"Fine," I replied.

"I heard about everything. What happened the night of Kiran's party. ..," he said. "I was .. . worried."

"Look, Dash, I really don't think we should be talking to each other," I said, glancing around warily. Noelle may have been pretending to be over Dash, but I knew she was anything but. And I also knew what images would be conjured if she saw the two of us together.

"I don't care about that right now," he said firmly. "There's something I have to say to you. It's been way too long."

I took another breath. Where was this going? Please don't let him be about to profess his undying love, because I really don't think I can deal with that just now. Although it would have been flattering. He was, after all, Dash McCafferty.

"Did you ever get that e-mail?" he asked, running his fingers along the edge of the black lacque

r bar top.

I blinked. For a moment I had no idea what he was talking about. I thought back, back to all the drama, all the conversations and un-answered

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questions, and a light-bulb suddenly went off in my mind. The e-mail. He'd sent it to me after the Legacy incident, and I'd been about to read it when I'd noticed there were hundreds of e-mails from Cheyenne's ghost in my in-box. Well, from Sabine, really. But at the time, I hadn't known that. Freaked, I had shut down my computer.

"No. I never read it," I told him.

Dash blew out a sigh. "I guess it's better face-to-face anyway." He looked at me and put his hand, palm up, on the bar. "I just wanted to apologize," he said. "For that night. For what happened at the Legacy. I was totally out of line. I had already decided to get back together with Noelle, but when I got that note from you--"

"Wait. You got a note from me?" I blurted.

Dash blinked. "Um. .. yeah." He said it like, "Urn .. . dull!"