Pure Sin (Privilege 5)

s napkin and started to laugh as well. Soon they found they couldn’t stop, and Ariana had to drop her chopsticks and cover her face, tears of mirth filling her eyes.

It had been a long while since she had laughed like that. So what if she was out on a date with a person who wasn’t her boyfriend? It had been a long couple of years for Ariana Osgood.

And she deserved a good laugh.

“Did I really sound like that?” Lexa asked, pressing her hand against her chest. “I’m so sorry, you guys. But you heard my mother the other night. When I don’t get enough sleep, I kind of lose it.”

Lexa giggled as she tilted her head and rested it against Conrad’s shoulder. Ariana smiled, happy to see that her friend was able to joke about her public breakdown. Maybe their little talk in the garden had worked.

“And besides, April should do her job,” Lexa added, lifting a shoulder. “She’s always showing off how organized she is. Well, guess what? She’s not.”

“Huh. Maybe you are a little OCD,” Palmer joked.

Lexa shot him a look of death with her eyes, while smiling with her mouth.

“Just kidding,” he said, raising his hands in surrender. “Honestly. I’m just glad you’re feeling better, Lex.”

“We all are,” Conrad said, lifting his arm to place it around her on the back of her chair.

“How about we talk about something else?” Ariana suggested, dipping her fork into her mashed potatoes. “This restaurant is lovely. Have you ever been here before?”

The restaurant was nice, but bland. It had all the trappings of the basic, Washington, DC, steak house, the kind of place where politicos hung out after a long day of hashing out deals. The cream-colored walls were decorated with framed paintings of important moments in history; several deep, private booths flanked the dining room; and the lighting was low enough that a photographer might not be able to exactly make out who was sitting with whom. Ariana’s steak had been fine, but a tad overcooked, so now she was concentrating on her sides. Her sides and her boyfriend. At least, she was trying.

“We come here every time my parents are in town,” Palmer said, reaching for his wine glass. “Which is why they agreed to serve us this incredible bottle of Chardonnay.”

“It is tasty,” Lexa agreed, lifting her glass as well.

“I’m more of a red wine person, myself,” Conrad said, taking a bite of his steak.

“Well, then, I’ll have to become one too,” Lexa said. She nudged his arm with hers flirtatiously and smiled up at him.

“They have some incredible reds here as well,” Palmer offered, crossing his arms on the table. “The owner took my father and me on a tour of the wine cellar last summer. The whole thing really is fascinating. Wine collecting is definitely something I want to get into one day. Well, that and autographed baseballs. I already have a good collection of those going, thanks to my dad.”

“Really? Who’ve you gotten?” Conrad asked.

Ariana cracked a smile as Palmer ran through the list, which was apparently impressive, if Conrad’s oohs and aahs were any indication, but in the back of her mind she was envisioning a den full of sports paraphernalia—dirty jerseys encased in glass, banged-up baseballs set on custom shelves as if they had the same worth as diamonds. The whole idea made her skin crawl.

And why had she never noticed how much Palmer talked about his father? It was almost like he was name-dropping his own dad, showing off about the perks he could get because of who his father was. Jasper would never do anything so gauche.

Stop it, she told herself, placing her fork down and focusing her attention on the conversation. Stop thinking about Jasper.

“What about you, Lex?” Conrad asked, resting his wrists on the edge of the table as he looked at her. “What would you collect?”

“She just collects trophies and ribbons,” Ariana put in proudly. “Have you seen her shelves full of equestrian awards, Connie? The girl’s a natural.”

“She’s overexaggerating,” Lexa said, blushing nonetheless.

“You know, I have seen those trophies, but I’ve yet to see you ride,” Conrad said, turning his seat slightly toward Lexa. “When can we do that?”

“You should come to my family’s ranch in the spring,” Lexa said, her eyes sparkling. “I could show you a few moves.”

Ariana was feeling more and more secure by the second. Flirting? Planning for the future? All of this was a very good sign.

Of course, she’d thought she’d seen a few good signs during their shopping excursion the week before, but Lexa had still backslid after that. The question was, how was she going to keep Lexa under control for good? Was she ever really going to feel truly safe as long as she shared this potentially life-ending secret with Lexa?

“You know, Ana, you should come visit me at home this summer, too,” Palmer said, reaching for her hand under the table. He clasped it and brought it up to rest on his thigh. “I’d love to show you around Phoenix.”

Phoenix. Blah. Could there be any place on earth more unappealing in the dead of summer than the middle of the desert? Ariana wondered where Jasper spent his summers. Hadn’t he said something about his father owning real estate all over the world? And now she did too. Maybe the two of them could go vacation-home-hopping around the globe together.