Diamonds Are Forever

“You’ll send it even if I say no, so fine, I’ll do it,” Peyton said. “As long as you promise not to bug me about going if I get in.”

“Deal.” Courtney bounced on the bed. “There’s only one small thing you have to do, and then it’ll be ready to send.”

Peyton braced herself. Of course there had to be a catch. “What’s that?”

“You need to get a teacher to write you a recommendation.”

Peyton paused, waiting for Courtney to say she was kidding. But her sister’s serious expression didn’t change. “What teacher is going to recommend me for college?” she asked. “The other students at school care about college applications. I don’t. My teachers know that.”

“What about Ms. Mandina?” Courtney said. “Your astronomy teacher—the one who helped you study for that test you did well on. She sees your potential. All you have to do is approach her after class and ask her if she would mind writing you a recommendation.”

“And get her excited because she thinks I suddenly want to go to college?” Peyton crossed her arms. “I don’t think so. What if she wants to have some long talk with me about how happy she is that I’m changing my mind? She’ll know I don’t mean it.”

“Just tell her the truth,” Courtney said.

“That my sister filled out my application for me, wrote my essay, and is using this as a practice run for her own applications next year?”

“Definitely don’t tell her that.” Courtney shook her head. “But let her know that you’re giving yourself an option, and you’ll see what happens when you hear back from the school. It’s not a lie. You can even talk to her after class when you know she has another class coming in next, so you won’t be stuck talking to her for too long. Please?”

Courtney widened her eyes, as if begging Peyton to give in. Peyton wanted to say no, but Courtney had gone through such a hard time after learning about Britney. If filling out a college application was keeping her mind off the twin sister she’d never gotten to know, then so be it.

“Fine, I’ll do it,” Peyton said. “But remember—this is just so you can see how you did on my application. Even if I get in, I’m not going.”

“Great!” Courtney beamed and clapped her hands. “Once you get the recommendation, forward it to me and I’ll upload it to your account.”

“Will do,” Peyton said, unable to muster up much enthusiasm.

“Great,” Courtney said. “But anyway, Rebecca’s coming over in five minutes to talk about bridesmaid dresses. You ready?”

“Tell me again why I agreed to do this?”

“Because Rebecca begged us to be bridesmaids on New Year’s Eve during that ridiculously long six-course meal before the fireworks, and she wouldn’t give up until we said yes? And because maybeyou’re realizing that she’s not as awful as you originally thought?”

“I never thought she was awful,” Peyton said. “Just annoying. She tells us how to dress, how to act, and wants to pick out our outfits for events...” She scrunched her nose. “I know she’ll technically be our stepmother, but that doesn’t mean she needs to act all motherly towards us. She knows our mom never did that, so why would we want her to?”

“How would you prefer her to act?” Courtney asked.

“I don’t know.” Peyton shrugged. “Normal?”

“Well, that was descriptive.” Sarcasm leaked through Courtney’s tone. “She’s trying to reach out to us. And she’s excited for the wedding.”

“Excited?” Peyton raised an eyebrow. “More like obsessed. If I had to hear, ‘That’s so cute, we need to have something like it at the wedding!’ one more time when we were in Italy, I might have lost it.”

“She’s about to have a princess fairy-tale wedding come true,” Courtney said. “It’s every woman’s dream. You can’t blame her for talking about it.”

“It’s her dream,” Peyton corrected. “After being forced to hear about all this wedding stuff, I decided that if I get married, I’m going to elope.”

The doorbell rang, and Peyton groaned, not wanting to get up. Then Rebecca’s voice echoed through the hall—she must have used her key to let herself in. “Girls? Are you in here?” she asked. “You remembered the appointment about the dresses, right?”

“Come on,” Courtney said, pulling Peyton off the bed. “Weddings are romantic. It won’t kill you to pretend to be interested.”

Peyton wasn’t sure about that, especially since her romantic life had dwindled to staring at a computer screen, wishing Jackson would accept her Facebook friend request.

It was probably a good thing that Courtney had walked in before she’d sent him that message.

In the living room, Rebecca was already showing Savannah a binder of color swatches, and her wedding planner was holding gold fabric up to Savannah’s face.

“You’re not making us wear gold, are you?” Peyton asked. “I hate gold.”

“It’s one of the colors I’m considering,” Rebecca said. “If there’s another you’d prefer, just let me know.”

“How about black?” Peyton doubted Rebecca would go for it, but it was worth trying. “It goes with everything.”

Savannah laughed and shared a smile with Rebecca, as if there was some inside joke Peyton didn’t know about.

This was going to be a long, torturous afternoon. Scratch that. It would probably get worse every day until the wedding was finally over.

It was going to be a long, torturous next few months.

chapter 4:

(#u01493745-e5ac-55e2-aa17-888f46495271)

Madison Lockhart had been a walking disaster ever since Oliver’s accident.

She’d let Oliver leave Savannah’s party early, knowing he was drunk and about to drive, because she’d been too upset over learning about a bet he’d made to stop him. A better person would have stopped him. But she’d been crying in the bathroom while Oliver was speeding through a red light, getting his Maserati convertible totaled by an SUV.

She’d spent most of her time over break in the hospital waiting to see him. But once he’d woken up from his coma, Oliver had refused to have visitors who weren’t family. Meaning he wouldn’t see Madison. Now, after going through the first day of school without him, she’d had enough. She had to see him. And she refused to take no for an answer.

At least that’s what she told herself as she marched through the hospital doors, her long dark hair snapping behind her, her huge Versace sunglasses covering her eyes. She moved her sunglasses onto her head, knowing that with her makeup done up for the first day back at school, she looked like a girl on a mission.

She spotted Oliver’s fifteen-year-old sister, Brianna, sitting in the corner of the waiting room. Well, Brianna was actually Oliver’s half sister—she was the result of an indiscretion on Oliver’s dad’s part. Normally Brianna would be at boarding school, summer camp, or at her mom’s place in Santa Fe. But she’d been in Vegas a lot more since Oliver had landed in the hospital.

Brianna spotted Madison and lowered her iPad to her lap. “He’s still not seeing anyone who’s not family,” she said.

“Maybe he’ll change his mind once he realizes that I’m not leaving until he sees me,” Madison said, lowering herself into the chair next to Brianna.

“I’ve been trying to convince him to see you,” Brianna said. “But he’s struggling through physical therapy—he still can’t walk after the knee surgery—and he doesn’t want anyone to see him this way. Especially you.”

“Well, that’s just stupid.” Madison flicked her hair over her shoulder. “I’ve known him since kindergarten. I witnessed his chubby phase in seventh grade, and his shaved-head phase in ninth grade. I can handle seeing him with a knee brace.”

“His face is also bruised and cut up from the glass,” Brianna said. “I think he’s more embarrassed about that than the knee.”

“It’ll heal,” Madison said. “And I don’t care about any of that. I just want to see him.”

Her eyes filled with tears as she stared at the doors that led to the private patient rooms, hoping that by some miracle, a doctor would walk through and tell her that Oliver was ready to see her. She hated that their last words to each other had been said in anger. The days after his accident, when he was in the coma and she wasn’t sure if he was going to make it, had been the most terrifying of her life. And while she was still upset about his bet with Peyton, she kept thinking about what he’d told her before leaving the party—that while the bet had put everything into motion, his feelings for her were real.

Had he been telling the truth? She wasn’t sure. But she did know that she couldn’t lose him. She wanted to be there for him, but how could she be when he kept refusing to see her?