Pure Sin (Privilege 5)

“Of course.” Mr. Jessup placed the paper on the table in front of her. Ariana released her hands and spread it out flat on the glass. Splashed across the sports page was a huge, full-color photo of a girl, chasing a soccer ball across a bright green field in a gray and blue Georgetown jersey. Ariana gritted her teeth as she read the caption.

Georgetown freshman phenom Reed Brennan takes the ball upfield in the Hoyas’ routing of William and Mary yesterday at North Kehoe Field.

Ariana clenched her teeth. And clenched. And clenched. It was all she could do to keep from screaming and tearing her hair out.

Reed Brennan in the flesh. Reed Brennan happy and healthy and sane. Reed Brennan, a freshman in college, while Ariana was two years behind, stuck pretending to be a high school junior. While Ariana should have been two years ahead.

“Miss Covington?” Mr. Jessup said tentatively.

Ariana blinked. The image of Reed had disappeared inside her fist. She had crumpled the entire front page in her fingers without even realizing it.

Taking a deep breath, Ariana told herself to stop. Stop, stop, stop. Everything was on the line right here, right now. And she was not going to let Reed Brennan screw up her life. Not again. She slowly released the page. Her palm was red with perspiration and black with newsprint. Reed Brennan’s pretty little face was now a smudge.

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Jessup,” Ariana said, standing again. “I was just thinking about my grandmother and . . . I’m sorry about your paper.”

“It’s quite all right, Miss Covington,” he said, patting her on the shoulder. He glanced forlornly at the crumbled page. “I was finished with that section anyway.”

Ariana forced a smile.

“Good luck with everything, my dear,” he said with a sympathetic smile. Then he gave her shoulder one last squeeze and walked out.

Ariana turned slowly toward the table. She smoothed out the page with both hands, folded it, and tucked it into her purse. Then she dumped the keys and bankbooks into her tote bag, and closed that as well, dropping the empty box onto the table. As she turned to walk out of the conference room, she felt a black slick of anger slip down her spine.

Five minutes ago she’d been happier than she’d ever been. Five minutes ago she’d been dreaming about her apartment in Paris, her shopping spree, her new car. But now all she could think about was Reed Brennan. Reed Brennan, who was enrolled at one of th

e best colleges in the country. A university that just happened to be ten miles from where Ariana was living.

This could not be happening. This simply could not be happening.

There were twenty-four texts and voice mails on Ariana’s cell phone as she stepped off the bus just outside the sprawling Georgetown campus. Texts from her friends, asking if she was okay, whether she was coming back for afternoon classes. A voice mail from Palmer suggesting they hang out tonight and lay low, telling her he’d fly back to Texas with her if she needed him to. Another from Jasper, just checking in. She listened to them without really hearing them, then turned her phone off as she stepped through the elaborate iron gates between the two brick gatehouses leading to the oldest part of campus.

Reed Brennan was here somewhere. Ariana could feel her.

She tucked her phone away and strode toward the circle at the center of the great lawn. All around her the stately gray buildings loomed, hidden eyes looking out at her, people watching from every angle. Was Reed one of them? Did she know Ariana was coming for her? Could she feel Ariana’s presence, too?

A bicycler zipped by, chatting on his Bluetooth. A group of girls in T-shirts displaying sorority letters sipped coffees and gossiped on a nearby bench. Students hurried across the sunlit paths, huddled into their winter jackets, rushing off to their next class or to meet their professors or have lunch with friends.

And Reed Brennan was among them, somewhere.

Ariana’s fingertips tingled as she straightened out her hands, then curled them into fists. She paused at the corner of two walkways and scanned the faces around her.

Reed Brennan did not deserve to be here. Did not deserve to be alive. After all the pain and misery and loss she’d caused. After all the awful things Ariana had been forced to do thanks to her. She did not deserve to exist.

What she did deserve was to feel pain. Excruciating, unbearable, merciless pain.

Which, luckily, Ariana Osgood knew how to inflict.

She took a step forward, ready for however long a search she’d need to conduct, when suddenly, just like that, she was there. Right there. Striding her long, confident, Reed Brennan strides toward the library, her thick brown hair swinging behind her in natural waves. Ariana’s eyes narrowed. Her nostrils flared. She gripped her forearm with her hand and zeroed in.

Reed was a fast walker, but Ariana quickly closed the gap between the two of them, taking in Reed’s expensive Chloé boots, her designer jeans, her cashmere jacket. Hating every detail of her, from her unpolished, short nails to her plain black headband. She was five feet away, then two, one. When Ariana’s hand came down on her shoulder, she yelped and whirled around.

“Yes?” the girl snapped, hand to her heart. Her too-close-together eyes came even closer over her pointy nose.

Ariana blinked. It was not Reed at all.

“I . . . I’m sorry,” Ariana stammered, feeling suddenly and supremely stupid. “I thought . . . I thought you were someone else.”

The girl’s face relaxed. “Oh. That’s okay.” She smiled and started to turn, but paused. “Actually . . . you do look kinda familiar. What’s your name?”