Elite 03 Simply Irresistible

by Jennifer Banash

  “No,” Casey said urgently, unable to stop herself from reaching out and touching his arm gently, the feel of his warm body beneath his jacket practically sending her into a swoon, despite what she’d just witnessed, despite Darin, despite the exceedingly sticky situation that had gone down between Drew and Madison only a week ago. In spite of everything she knew and everything she didn’t, all Casey was sure of was the fact that she couldn’t deny the complicated, rhythmic music her own heart made whenever Drew was in the immediate vicinity. “You’re not.”

  “Right,” Drew said sarcastically, moving away from her touch and running a hand through his hair distractedly. “It’s just, all this stuff has been going on with my parents—and I guess I’m pretty screwed up about it.” Drew swallowed hard and looked out at the happy couples crowding the dance floor.

  “What happened?” Casey asked tentatively, fighting her impulse to wrap her arms around him and tell him that everything would be okay, no matter what it was that had happened. But despite her urge to try to fix the situation with physical contact, Casey knew that it wasn’t what Drew needed right then. And besides, Drew wasn’t hers anymore—if he had ever been in the first place—and that being said, all she could really do for him was to listen to whatever he had to say.

  “My dad’s having an affair with Phoebe’s mom—I caught them practically making out at Sophie’s party.” Drew practically spit out the words, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand immediately afterward, as if they disgusted him completely.

  “That’s why you ran out?” Casey said incredulously, the realization that Drew’s behavior had nothing to do with her rushing through her brain, confusing everything she thought she’d understood about the two of them.

  “Yeah,” Drew said, looking over, a sheepish expression on his face. “I didn’t know how to deal with it. I just had to get out of there.”

  “But why didn’t you call me after?” Casey wondered aloud, her eyes full of confusion.

  “I didn’t know what to say,” Drew answered, his eyes full of regret. “I mean, you’re from Normal, for God’s sake.” Drew looked out over the dance floor again as the music shifted to a dreamy, lush track that made Casey think of romance, roses, and kisses—all the things that she shouldn’t have been thinking of at that very moment. “How could you possibly understand my joke of a family when yours is so perfect?”

  “Perfect?” Casey repeated, completely stunned by Drew’s admission. “Where the hell did you get that idea?” Drew opened his mouth to speak, gesturing with one hand in the air, but before he could find the words, Casey rushed on, cutting off the possibility. “My parents divorced when I was thirteen,” she said angrily, “and my mom basically dumped me here so that she could spend the year in London without any distractions. Does that sound perfect to you?”

  “I guess not,” Drew said with a small smile, turning to face her. “So, are you trying to tell me that you’re not perfect then either?”

  “Far from it,” Casey retorted with a snort. “But, if you’ll remember, I’ve already told you that before—and even if I hadn’t, it should be pretty obvious by now.”

  Drew exhaled heavily, his blue eyes meeting hers. “Not to me,” he said quietly, deliberately.

  Casey felt her pulse quicken again, adrenaline rushing through her body like a derailed freight train lumbering across the tracks. Suddenly she felt shaky, like she’d been mainlining Diet Cokes all night long instead of Veuve Clicquot. Drew reached out, his eyes glassy with feeling, and placed her hand in his own. Casey turned around briefly to look at the group she’d left behind, standing right where she’d left them and staring unabashedly. A look of disgust broke over Darin’s face as he took in the sight of Casey’s hand entwined in Drew’s. At the exact same moment, Madison leaned over to Sophie, cupping her hand around her ear and whispering furiously, her green eyes never straying from Casey’s, her feline face blank and impassive.

  “I should get back,” Casey said unsteadily, turning to look back at Drew, who was looking at her intently now, seemingly unwilling to relinquish her hand.

  “Can I call you?” Drew asked quietly, squeezing her fingers tightly in his own before releasing her hand.

  Casey looked down at her still-tingling fingers, her mind flooded with unanswered questions that danced through her brain in a demented conga line, confusing her endlessly. Why couldn’t she be more like Madison and make Drew grovel, the way he probably deserved to? Why did she want to scream YES at the top of her lungs the minute the question fell from his lips? Maybe because you have no self-respect, her inner dating Nazi said smugly, crossing its arms over its chest.

  Or maybe, Casey answered back defiantly, I just really, really like him. And, besides—everyone deserves a second chance, even Drew Van Allen.

  “Yeah,” she answered finally, unable to stop herself from smiling happily as she spoke, her face beginning to glow as brightly as the circular white walls that surrounded them. “I think I’d really like that.” And when Drew smiled back, something in Casey’s torn heart began suddenly to mend, the disappointment and regret she’d carried with her for the last six weeks disappearing in the electricity that rose up into the air, closing the space in between their two lone bodies.

  de-luxe

  Madison watched as Drew took Casey’s hand in his own, an intense, pleading expression contorting his handsome face, and indignation begin to rise like an electric swarm of fireflies lighting up the hollow cavity of her chest. If anyone deserved to be on the receiving end of both apologies and hand-holding, Madison knew without a doubt that it was her—not some total sap who would probably forgive Drew for all of his endlessly rude, irritating bullshit in less than ten seconds flat. Madison stared at the way Casey’s silky hair now fell well past her shoulders, at the blue dress that hugged her slim frame like a roll of wrapping paper, and as she took it all in, Madison knew that when it came to looks, there was really no contest—she was prettier. By far. So, if it wasn’t looks, then what was it that kept Drew going back to Casey time and time again? The more Mad stood there, trying to figure it out, the more confused she became, a sudden, blinding pain cutting through her skull like a sliver of light slicing through a dark room.

  “Well, that’s an interesting development,” Sophie said aloud, crossing her arms over her chest as Casey began to walk across the room toward them, a dreamy expression plastered over her lightly freckled face. “I mean, what was that all about, anyway?” Sophie added questioningly.

  “What was all that bullshit Drew was spewing about Princeton?” Darin wondered aloud, shaking his head from side to side in disbelief. “And who was that girl, anyway?”

  “Who knows,” Mad said, her voice shaking with anger despite her best efforts to seem cool and collected, as if she couldn’t care less. “And who cares.” Sophie just shrugged, knowing better than to press the subject when Madison was this pissed off. Madison focused in on Casey as she approached, her gaze as determined as a laser beam, her irritation clearly visible. As Casey walked up, shooting all three of them an apologetic smile, Mad tossed her hair back from her shoulders and lifted her head high. Just because Drew was acting like a moron once again didn’t mean she had to stand there and take it. Besides, once the show began to air regularly, Mad knew that it would only be a matter of time before Casey was privy to the glorious footage of her and Drew’s frantic make-out session at Space. And once Casey saw Drew’s lips locked to her own in living color, Madison knew that it wouldn’t be long before Ms. Normal’s rampant insecurity would soon be making a guest appearance. But, until then, Madison definitely wasn’t going to stand there and act like everything was sunshine and flowers when it was decidedly not.

  “I’m leaving,” Mad said forcefully, her lips drawn into an icy smile, her fingers wrapped so tightly around her black patent leather Dior clutch that she was afraid they were about to snap off from the pressure.

  “I’ll go with you,” Sophie said with a sigh as she turned to
ward Casey. “This party’s even more boring than last year.”

  “I’ll go with you guys,” Casey said brightly, looking over at Darin and smiling, obviously looking for the green light from her “date.”

  Some date, Madison thought darkly, narrowing her eyes at Darin, who seemed irritatingly oblivious to the fact that Drew Van Allen had just basically fallen all over himself for the opportunity to hold Casey’s hand. A wave of pain rushed through Madison’s body, sweeping through her torso with such force that she almost bent over from the intensity of it. If she didn’t really care about Drew the way she’d been telling herself for the past two years, then why did it feel like her heart was being ripped from her chest with a pair of barbecue tongs? Why did she want to go home and spoon ice cream into her mouth until she could feel nothing but icy numbness, until her extremities were deadened by first the cold, then the subsequent sugar rush, which would lead her, she knew, into dead, dreamless sleep?

  “That’s really not necessary,” Madison snapped, turning her back on Casey and stepping determinedly through the crowd. Mad knew that if she didn’t get out of that room, if she didn’t keep moving one stiletto in front of the other, she was going to go back there and say something to Drew that she’d undoubtedly be very sorry for later, when she got control of her emotions. It’s just Drew Van Allen, she told herself as she pushed through the crowd. Why do you even care?

  But no matter how many times she repeated the words in her spinning brain, the answer that rose to the surface was always the same—six words that stopped her heart dead in its tracks as they made their way from the confines of her throat, and up to her lips, where they spilled into the air.

  “Because I’m in love with him,” Mad murmured in disbelief, coming to a dead stop in the middle of the dance floor, and clapping her hand over her mouth to stifle the words, the bass pumping up from the floor and through her body, her limbs buzzing with the potent combination of music and truth. Oh my God. Madison raised a hand to her forehead and rested one palm lightly against her skin, as if checking for fever. Am I sick, she wondered wordlessly. Maybe someone spiked my champagne . . . Against her better judgment, Madison couldn’t help but question the feelings coursing through her heart with the intensity of a just-released bottle rocket into the night sky. Could it really be true? Was she in love with Drew Van Allen? When exactly had things shifted from just a game to anything even remotely approaching realness? Madison didn’t know the answer, or what, if anything, she was going to do about this revelation. All she did know was that for the first time in her life, she was absolutely, positively head over heels in love, and that the feeling hurt more than anything she’d ever experienced—worse than a bikini wax at J. Sisters, worse than micro- dermabrasion, worse than watching Edie and Antonio make out like a pair of nauseating, lovesick morons. Because despite sleeping with her, despite chasing her around the entire Upper East Side for the last two years, Madison knew with a finality that tore her chest in two that Drew didn’t love her back—that he loved Casey. Casey, with all of her glaring imperfections, was the one Drew had chosen. Not her.

  And it was fucking killing her.

  “Mad! Wait!” Madison felt a rush of air at her back as Sophie hurled herself at Madison’s body like a human projectile, her hands resting lightly on Madison’s semi-bare back. “I’m totally going with you.”

  “Me, too,” a small voice piped up.

  Mad turned around and was greeted by the face of the one person she wished would simply evaporate from the planet without explanation. Casey McCloy stood behind Sophie, offering up a tentative smile while worriedly gnawing at her bottom lip. She should be worried, Madison mused, wishing they both would just leave her alone for a change. Because when I get through with her, she’s going to wish she were dead—or at least comatose.

  “Oh my God,” Sophie exclaimed, linking her arm through Madison’s and moving toward the front door of the museum, “let’s go to my house and watch the premiere on TiVo!”

  “Whatever,” Madison snapped. “I just want to get out of here. I have a headache so bad it feels like a fucking aneurysm.”

  “Maybe you have Alzheimer’s.” Casey giggled as they reached the exit.

  Madison snorted, pushing her way out the revolving glass door, turning around slightly to shoot Casey a look that would freeze water in the Sahara. “Maybe you should shut up,” Madison said sweetly, her voice as frigid as the icicles hanging from the tops of the buildings on Fifth Avenue.

  As Madison pushed her way out the door, pulling her coat around her body and relishing the cold air that slapped her in the face like a frozen cashmere scarf, her vision was clouded by a barrage of white lights, camera flashes going off in front of her with a sudden violence that approximated a physical assault. Madison put a hand up in front of her face as she squinted her green eyes, trying to focus on the scene, which was suddenly splotched with pink-and-white dots that swam across the surface of her vision, making it impossible to focus her gaze.

  “There they are!” one reporter yelled out, and, with that, the crowd surged forward and enveloped Mad, Sophie, and Casey, who hid behind Sophie’s tiny body, peeking out like a little kid on Christmas morning.

  This is it, Madison told herself, rolling the words around in her mind triumphantly. She squared her shoulders, tilting her chin imperiously, bathing in the flashes of white light, and with one fluid motion, Madison dropped her coat to the floor, exposing her barely-there Gucci dress, and posed, one hand on her cocked hip. I may have struck out with Drew, Mad thought, smiling widely and exposing rows of teeth equal in intensity to the brilliant white lights that surrounded them. But nothing is going to get in the way of this moment . . .

  “Casey!” one reporter yelled out. “Where’s Casey McCloy ?”

  Madison felt her blood run as cold as an anaconda’s, her gaze hardening as Casey’s name rang out into the brisk winter air, her frozen hands dropping from her hips and curling tightly into fists.

  “Here she is!” Sophie said brightly, pushing Casey in front of Madison and into the spotlight. Casey squinted, holding up one hand before her gray eyes to try to shield her face from the barrage of lights.

  Madison glared incredulously at Sophie, who seemed oblivious as she stood there positively beaming like Casey was her own child. No she DIDN’T! Madison fumed silently as she tried to twist her sour face into anything that even remotely resembled a smile.

  “Casey!” a female reporter from the E! channel shouted out, pushing through the crowd and shoving a microphone into Casey’s stunned face, her bright red lipstick shining glossily, the light glinting off her Armani frames. “How does it feel to be the new It Girl of the Upper East Side?”

  Madison froze, her mouth falling open as the first snowfall of the winter began to drift lazily down from the sky, the flakes sticking in her lashes and coating the top of her head. Casey? An It Girl? Had the reporters lost what was left of their freakin’ minds? Couldn’t they see that Casey was just some annoying dork from the Midwest? That she was as much of an It Girl as Paris Hilton was a member of Mensa? This isn’t happening , Madison told herself, as the reporters swarmed around Casey like hundreds of busily buzzing bees, the questions shouted out into the night air fading into nothing more than an insistent drone that filled Madison’s ears and made her suddenly light-headed. I must be dreaming.

  Madison reached down and pinched her bare arm hard, closing her eyes as her nails dug into her flesh. But when she opened them again, the lights and reporters were still there. And, worse yet, it was Casey McCloy who was basking in the halogen glare like it was a tanning bed, tilting her lightly freckled face up to the light and smiling brilliantly, her wide grin reflected endlessly in the transparent surface of the lens, and the crowd surged forward once again, swallowing her up completely.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Epigraph

  plaza suite

  cram session
/>
  beautiful stranger

  rewriting history

  multiple choice

  make up and make out

  three, two, one . . . blast off

  it’s only rawk and roll, but i like it

  let’s get it on

  london calling

  cold as ice

  the breakfast club

  california dreaming

  uncomfortable silences

  the first cut is the deepest . . .

  candy stripping

  i’m dreaming of a green christmas . . .

  secrets and lies

  coffee . . . date?

  guess who’s coming to dinner . . .

  ménage à trois

  slipping and falling

  uptown lounge

  british invasion

  silver bells

  what comes around goes around

  crushed

  revelations

  de-luxe