It’s Always the Husband: the Sunday Times bestselling thriller for fans of THE MARRIAGE PACT

“I swear, you are prejudiced against me, Jenny Vega, but I forgive you. Hey, I have an idea. I’ll take Renaissance Painting, too, Aubrey. Then you can come to New York over break and we’ll go to the Met and look at the paintings in the flesh,” Kate said.

“Do paintings have flesh?” Aubrey said.

“Nudes do.”

They laughed, pleased with their own cleverness. Kate sloshed a generous amount of tequila into each cup, releasing a bracing sting of alcohol into the steamy living room. Jenny made a face, which was a reaction to the smell of the alcohol, but Kate took it as a comment on her invitation.

“Don’t be jealous, you can come to New York, too,” Kate said, thrusting a cup at Jenny. “It’s my personal mission to loosen you up. Once you’re properly blotto, we’ll go out and get you laid.”

Jenny gave a snort of laughter and rolled her eyes, but she took the cup. Heavy drops spattered the skylight, and Jenny got up to lower the window sash. They spent the next hour drinking tequila and doing each other’s makeup. Or rather, Jenny and Kate did Aubrey’s makeup. Aubrey was missing the girly gene. She’d never been interested in the mall, or the cosmetics counter, never learned the tricks that made a girl attractive to boys. She was blessed with a tall, willowy figure and symmetrical features, but she was plain and rabbity-looking to her own eyes. Brows and lashes pale to the point of disappearing, lank hair, a shy manner. Her roomies transformed her. At their direction, she opened her eyes wide, sucked in her cheeks, puckered up. The tickly feel of the brushes on her face, the smell of alcohol on their warm breath, made the whole experience seem surreal, or maybe that was the effect of the tequila. When she looked in the mirror, Aubrey didn’t recognize herself. They’d made her beautiful, with dramatic eyes and lovely cheekbones.

By the time they stumbled out of Whipple onto the Quad, the rain had stopped, and it had cooled off considerably. The sky was indigo, the air smelled sweet, and Aubrey felt like a new person. She also felt a raging headache coming on, but she didn’t care. She’d borrowed a cute pair of cutoffs and a sexy top. Her new look made her brave, and what better thing to do with that feeling than go flirt with some frat boys?

Kate had a list of parties ranked in order of prestige. It was important to be seen at the right ones.

“The frats control social life on campus,” Kate explained as they picked their way between puddles. “When you rush a sorority this spring, what the frats think of you will be made known, and it matters. Not for me, I can get in wherever I want. But for girls like you with no connections, having the guys think you’re a cool girl, fun at parties, that can make all the difference.”

“Oh please, what year is this, 1954?” Jenny said.

“In 1954, there were no women at Carlisle,” Kate said.

“Exactly. You’re a throwback, Kate. If I rush a sorority, which I haven’t decided, it’s because I want to network. Not ’cause I give a crap what some mentally deficient frat boy thinks of me.”

“Don’t listen to her. She’ll spoil your fun,” Kate said.

“Such fun,” Jenny said. “These are the sort of places girls go into and they come out covered in bodily fluids.”

“Sounds like a good time to me,” Kate said.

They’d reached the far end of the Quad, and cut through Eastman Commons, which still smelled of the sauerkraut that had been served with dinner. On the other side of Eastman lay Dunsmore Avenue, a wide street that ran between the Main Quad and the Science Quad, and was open to vehicle traffic. The sidewalks on both sides of Dunsmore were lined with rowdy, drunken students heading to Frat Row. At the corner of Livingston Street – the official name for Frat Row – the crowd spilled over. Students were ignoring the red light and walking between cars to get to the parties faster. Drivers who honked were answered with cheerful fingers and strings of expletives. Kate stepped off the curb, pulling Jenny with her.

“C’mon, don’t be a dweeb.” They ran across the intersection, dodging cars and laughing.

“It’s like you think I never jaywalked before,” Jenny said, on the other side. They were all breathless.

“That’s exactly what I think,” Kate said.

“You prob’ly think I’m a virgin, too.”

“Aren’t you?”

“No,” Jenny said. “Not that it’s any business of yours.”

“I’m your roommate, it is my business,” Kate said. “Anyway, you brought it up. Let me guess, some socially conscious Mormon boy from your leadership camp, tall, skinny, glasses?”

“Mormons don’t do premarital sex,” Aubrey piped in. “I know because there are a lot of Mormons in Nevada.”

“It was a guy from my high school,” Jenny said. “A hockey player,” she added, to get a reaction out of Kate.

“A hockey player, seriously? No way! You never mentioned him.”

“I’ve hardly told you my life story.”

“Where are you hiding him? I want to see a picture. Spill, this instant.”

“We agreed to cool it after graduation. You know, give each other space.”

“That’s big of you. No guy moves on from me, not if I can help it. They die first, of grief.”

Aubrey was relieved when the crowd got so thick that they had to drop the conversation to concentrate on maneuvering. Kate would have interrogated her next, and she didn’t want to admit to being the only virgin in the suite. Everything she did and said was wrong enough already.

Kate steered them toward the Sigma Sigma Kappa house, which supposedly had the hottest parties on Frat Row. A wedding-cake white mansion with a porticoed entrance and graceful balconies, ΣΣΚ was the grandest and most beautiful of all the grand and beautiful frat houses lining Livingston Street. It was known as the elite frat, with the richest boys, who had the best cars and clothes and connections, and were by far the most likely to end up at investment banks after Carlisle, with everything that entailed for their potential husband status. They were also considered the handsomest, although Delta Kappa Gamma, the jock frat, gave them a run for their money. Really, it depended on your taste, Kate said; they were all screwable, just in different ways.

The ΣΣΚ front lawn teemed with girls dressed to the nines waiting behind a red-velvet rope to get into the party. Guys in colorful shorts and shirts walked up and down the line handing out red plastic cups. Occasionally they’d pull girls out of the line, leading to a chorus of “Pick me!” from those not chosen.

“This is disgusting,” Jenny said.

“Would you chill? Hold on, I see a guy I know from Odell. Let me see if I can get us in,” Kate said. She strode off toward a short, athletic-looking guy with a head of perfectly styled blond hair. He wore pink shorts and a navy blazer and looked straight off the yacht.

Odell Academy was the fancy boarding school Kate had graduated from. In the few days they’d been here so far, Aubrey had learned more than she imagined possible about the world of East Coast prep schools, whose alums ruled the tables in Eastman Commons. The prep school kids were all beautiful, with clear skin and the right clothes, good hair and boisterous, confident manners. There was an established pecking order. The boarding schools were on top, places like Exeter and St. Paul’s, Andover, and Odell. The list went on; Aubrey didn’t know all the names yet, but she would. Then came the prestige day schools from New York and D.C., Philly and Boston. All the prepster kids knew each other, or at least, they knew of each other. Or maybe it was just that they all seemed to know one another, because they dressed and behaved according to the same mysterious rules, rules Aubrey was only beginning to realize existed. Oh, there were public school kids, too – but they didn’t matter. The kids from Stuyvesant and Bronx Science formed their own pale New York clique that people seemed to leave alone, even be slightly afraid of, but they didn’t get asked to parties. Then there were strivers like Jenny, who had everything figured out for themselves and pretended not to care. But Aubrey knew better, she saw through that pose, and she didn’t put on such airs herself. Kate and her friends represented the true Carlisle, and Aubrey would rather be a desperate tagalong scavenging their crumbs than be left out in the cold.

Kate hugged and kissed the guy in the pink shorts. After a minute, she turned and beckoned Aubrey and Jenny to come over.

“Smile,” Aubrey said, standing up straighter. She’d never met a boy like that one before – rich and preppy and handsome – and she wanted to make a good impression.

“You’re brainwashed,” Jenny said, but she went along eagerly enough.

Kate introduced them to her friend.

“Griffin Rothenberg. Call me Griff,” he said in a smooth baritone, taking Aubrey’s hand and smiling into her eyes. His warm touch gave her a jolt, but then he turned and did the same thing with Jenny. He had nice manners, that was all. Anyway, you only had to look at him to see how dazzled he was by Kate.

With a glance and nod at another frat boy, Griff led them around the velvet rope. Inside, they got caught in a bottleneck at the top of the stairs that led down to the basement, where from the sound of it, the party was in full swing. Aubrey laughed nervously as the crowd crushed against them from behind. There was no air-conditioning, and the air was a hot funk of perfume and sweat and alcohol, with an undertone of vomit. Aubrey grabbed Jenny, feeling unsteady on her feet.

“Crazy,” Jenny said.

The crowd surged forward and suddenly they were at the front. Aubrey saw what the holdup had been. A skinny guy wearing an orange bow tie – Carlisle’s color – sat behind a desk that blocked the stairs down to the basement, wielding an ink pad and stamper. Griff pushed them forward.

“Yo, Rothenberg. You gonna pledge ΣΣΚ? We’d love to have you, dude,” the bow-tied guy said.

“Planning on it.”

“I’m supposedly checking IDs, but you’re good. I know you.”

Bow Tie marked Griff’s hand with a stamp shaped like a beer bottle; then they bumped fists.

“Thanks, bro, and while you’re at it, stamp my girl Kate Eastman from Odell, no ID necessary,” Griff said.

“Kate Eastman. Remember me?” Bow Tie asked, looking star-struck.