Unfaithful (5 page)

“You’d better get ready,” Mom said, leaving the room.

“What on earth were you thinking?” I hissed at Evan, shaking, the moment the door clicked shut.

“Did you say something?” She opened the door a crack and peered in.

I instantly froze and stole a glance at Evan’s eyes. They were still gray, meaning she couldn’t see him. “No, Mom. I’ll hurry and get dressed,” I stammered with embarrassment.

She shut the door again and I sighed, my heartbeat gradually slowing.

“Are you trying to give me a heart attack?” I whispered, being careful not to speak loud enough to be overheard. I raised my hands in frustration. He gently took me by the wrists, breaking down all my defenses. I tried to free myself but it was no use. Evan was too strong.

“Relax, she can’t see me,” he murmured, pulling me against him. I melted into his embrace as he stared at me from under his long eyelashes, his gray eyes flecked with gold. “You’re so beautiful it almost scares me,” he whispered.

“Scares you? Why?” I asked, bewildered.

“Because for the first time I have something to lose.”

I pressed my lips against his, parting them gently.

“Give me a few minutes to go home and get my motorcycle. I didn’t need it last night. Meanwhile, get ready,” he whispered between one light kiss and the next.

“Okay, but come back soon.”

Every time Evan had to leave me, even for a little while, I panicked. A strange anxiety filled me, as though I were underwater and someone had taken away my snorkel. I couldn’t breathe.

Sometimes Evan had to go away on a mission, the nature of which I didn’t want to know. On those occasions—which had been more frequent lately—I avoided thinking about what was going on in who knew what part of the world Evan had been called to to intervene. In general he was never gone for longer than a few hours, but it was long enough to agitate me and reawaken the ghosts that I tried to lock up in the farthest reaches of my subconscious. And yet there they were. They always came back.

When he returned I never asked him for an explanation. I didn’t have the strength—or probably the courage—to handle the answers. I preferred not to know.

“I’ll ride like a madman to get back to you as fast as I can,” he promised. I abandoned myself to the warmth of his lips and he vanished, leaving me with the memory of his kiss.

I sighed, my heart full of butterflies. “You
always
ride like a madman,” I murmured. Smiling, I shook my head. My ears were burning and my breathing was rapid, as if I needed more air. Why did Evan always have this effect on me?

I hurried to the closet, took out an old pair of jeans faded at the knees and put them on along with my gray-and-red Nikes and a hooded sweatshirt in the same colors.

Ten minutes later an aggressive roar from outside told me Evan had arrived, but it didn’t sound like his motorcycle. I glanced out the window, though my mind had conjured the image even before my eyes could.

Evan beamed at me, leaning against the hood of his Ferrari, and waved for me to join him as another car right behind him—Ginevra’s Lamborghini—revved its engine. He shrugged, amused, and I shook my head in resignation.

I took the stairs two at a time and opened the door before Mom could try to make us stay for breakfast, but Evan was right there in front of me, blocking the way.

“Mr. Bloom,” Evan said, nodding at my dad, who nodded back. Then he turned to my mom. “Mrs. Bloom.”

“Good morning, Evan,” she said with her customary enthusiasm. She had no idea we’d just spent the night together. “Care to join us for breakfast? Go on, help yourself to whatever you want.”

Evan cordially held up his hands. “Thanks, but I already ate at home,” he lied.

I’d never been enthused by the thought of Dad and Evan in the same room. Anxious to get out of the kitchen, I grabbed something from the table and slid it into my army-green backpack. Evan watched me steadily as I zipped it up, a strange look on his face.

“What?! I’ll eat it when we get to school!” I said.

“She’ll eat it when we get to school,” he repeated, resigned, turning to my parents.

I walked out the door and closed it behind us. It was going to be a long day, I was sure of it.

The September morning promised to be hot; the sky was clear and the air still. “You changed your mind?” I asked Evan, nodding at the car. “I thought you were going to get your bike.” I tried not to show my embarrassment as I imagined the looks we were bound to attract at school.

Wearing a sly smile that obviously masked something else, he glanced at the tinted windshield of the car behind us. “We have something else planned before going to school.”

Behind us, Ginevra rolled down her window. The gleam in her jade-green eyes said it all. There was going to be a race. A shiver ran through my body.

“Don’t forget to buckle up,” Ginevra said with a hint of sarcasm.

“Good thing I didn’t eat,” I grumbled.

“Shall we go?” Evan said.

“Do we really have to?” I asked, although I already knew the answer. But my reluctance was probably due more to having to start school again than to the attention we’d draw with their sports cars. I would never forget our summer vacation together, not for the rest of my life. It was hard to face the fact it was over.

Evan opened the passenger door for me and strode back to his side. I sank into the low seat as he and Ginevra exchanged challenging looks in the rearview mirror. Things were looking bad.
Very bad
. I wasn’t sure he wasn’t communicating telepathically with his sister. His eyes sparked with impatience, as did Ginevra’s. I could see her face reflected in the sun visor mirror.

“Hold on tight,” Evan told me before zooming off.

Despite my initial reluctance, the first hours flew by in a flash. The thought that I would have Evan sitting next to me during most of my classes was comforting, though his presence did absorb a lot of my attention.

“You busy this afternoon?” he asked as I opened my locker.

What a strange question
, I thought, searching for my Spanish book.

Evan peeked inside my locker. “
Forbidden
.” He picked up a novel half-buried under pages of calculus notes and cast me a sly glance, leaning in toward my ear. “I see you’ve started to enjoy breaking the rules. You don’t need to read manuals, though. If you want, I can show you a couple things that aren’t exactly allowed.” He grinned.

I took the book from his hands and bopped him on the head with it. “Dummy. It’s not a manual! It’s a beautiful love story between a brother and sister.”

“Love story? Where I come from that’s called incest. And I thought I’d heard everything!”

“Well, it’s wonderful,” I said, contradicting him. He laughed.

“Sure it is.” He raised an eyebrow and looked at me slyly again. “You didn’t answer my question.” He banged the locker shut to grab my attention, his biceps taut.

“Hmm . . . Just a sec, let me see . . . Oh, right! There’s this boy, you know. I’ve got to introduce you to him sometime. I think I’m going to hang out with him. If you don’t mind, that is,” I teased, assessing his face.

“Bad idea,” Evan grunted. He leaned in and whispered directly against my skin, “If you did, I would have to kill him.” He rested his forearm on my locker, trapping me against it.

I shook my head. “I don’t think you’d be able to.” His breath on my face was leaving me dazed. “For your own good, you shouldn’t try to fight him,” I whispered, my voice breaking with emotion as Evan stroked my skin with the tip of his nose.

“And why not?” he asked softly, moving his lips closer to my throat.

The warmth of his breath gave me goosebumps. I swallowed, forgetting where we were. “Well, he’s . . . pretty strong.
Incredibly strong
,” I whispered, trapped in the thrill caused by the heat of his body so close to mine. Over the last few weeks it was as if a fuse had been lit between us that could trigger an explosion at any moment.

“Oh, really? What else is he like?” he whispered, stroking my neck with his nose.

My eyes fluttered nervously. “This might shock you, but I’m beginning to suspect he’s an Angel.”

“An Angel?” he replied, shaking his head. “Then I don’t stand a chance.”

“And he’s gorgeous too,” I added.

Evan smiled. “Definitely not as gorgeous as you,” he quickly said, his gaze both sweet and firm. “Still, I’m afraid you’ll have to decline his invitation.”

“Why on earth should I?” I asked, bewitched by him, utterly at the mercy of my emotions.

“Because,” he whispered, resting his lips below my ear, “I have a surprise for you.”

“A surprise? What kind of surprise?”

His face lit up. When he smiled like this, little creases formed under his eyes, driving me wild. “I’m afraid you’ll have to wait to find out. That is, if you’re willing to run the risk.”

“What risk?”

Evan stepped even closer, his breath caressing my skin. “The risk of being alone with me.” I swallowed, waiting to feel his lips on mine, but instead he moved them to my ear. “But then,” he whispered, “your Angel might get jealous and, again, I would have to kill him.”

“No danger of that,” I said, shaking myself out of the dreamy state he’d put me in. “I don’t think he’s the jealous type.”

“You don’t—you don’t think that I—that
he’s
the jealous type?”

“
I’m
the one who should be,” I said confidently.

He drew a long breath against my neck, wound his hand in my hair and pressed his lips against mine. “You don’t know how wrong you are about that.” He moved back just far enough to look me in the eye, his hand still in my hair, his tone suddenly serious. “I’d rip the heart out of anyone who dared to even touch you.” He caressed my earlobe with his lips tenderly as his voice enraptured me. “You’re mine,” he whispered. “All mine.”

“Definitely,” I agreed. I sought his lips but before I could touch them I noticed the silence that ruled in the now-empty hallway. It shook me out of my trance.

“We’d better get to class,” I said, tucking my hair behind my ear. Actually, I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to control myself any more. “So what can you tell me about the surprise?”

Evan laughed at my curiosity without offering me an answer.

In the hours that followed I didn’t manage to get even a scrap of information out of him. But then again, patience wasn’t my virtue and he knew it. It wasn’t fair of him to lead me on like this. Whenever I asked him about it, he looked at me with a strange smile on his face. My curiosity grew with each passing minute.

“Can’t you tell m—”

Evan rested a finger on my lips to cut me off. He looked down at my hand and clasped it in his. Then he slid his thumb through the elastic band around my wrist and slowly slid it back up to my forearm where I always wore it in winter. During the summer, instead, I kept it around my upper arm. I’d had it so long I felt naked without it, but once in a while, when Evan was gone for longer than a few hours, he would take it as a keepsake.