The Downfall of a Good Girl. Kimberly Lang

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СКАЧАТЬ a serial killer in his spare time. I just don’t like him.”

      “Then tell me why.” Expectation written all over her face, Lorelei leaned back into the corner of the couch and stared at her. “And I mean it. No wiggling out.”

      Vivi struggled for words. She was really too fried to handle deep conversations tonight. Charm and personality were like superpowers, and both Lorelei and Connor had them in spades. Connor, though, had turned supervillain with his, and used those powers for evil instead of good. Lorelei had never used her superpowers against Vivi or anyone else to get something she wanted. Lorelei didn’t use people the way Connor did. So it probably made it hard for her to see how someone else could.

      Vivi sighed because it was just too hard to put into words. “Are you trying to tell me that you’ve never met a single person that you didn’t like? Who just rubbed you the wrong way?”

      “Of course I have, but I’m not you. You like everyone. Everyone likes you. You’re the closest thing I’ve ever seen remotely close to an actual saint, so this irrational and extremely juvenile head-butting with Connor just isn’t you. It doesn’t make sense.” Her blue eyes narrowed and sisterly concern crept into her voice. “Is there something you’re not telling me? Did Connor…?”

      I do not need that kind of rumor floating around. “No. There’s nothing dark or evil lurking.”

      “There were all those rumors around the time you were Mississippi River Princess…”

      “And they nearly cost me the crown. But none of them were remotely true.”

      She saw Lorelei wasn’t totally convinced. Funny that she’d never mentioned those rumors bothered her before now.

      “You swear?”

      “Hand to God.”

      “Good. Because I will kill him for you if I need to.”

      The show of loyalty warmed her. At least Lorelei liked her better than she liked Connor. “Thank you, sweetie, but it’s not necessary. If Connor needed killing, I’d have taken care of it already.”

      That lightened Lorelei’s mood. “Then tell me. How bad can it be? Did he pull your hair in kindergarten? Steal your lunch money? Tease you?”

      “Yes.” Lorelei frowned and Vivi shrugged. “He did sing that song he wrote about me all the way to Baton Rouge on the eighth-grade field trip.”

      “Oh, well, that explains it all.” Lorelei snorted. “Connor Mansfield wrote you a song. No wonder you hate him so much.”

      “It was called ‘Vivi in a Tizzy.’”

      Lorelei raised an eyebrow. “I love you, cherie, but you often were.”

      “That’s beside the point. No fourteen-year-old girl wants a cute fourteen-year-old boy making fun of her.”

      “Ah, I see. There’s a little unrequited tween crush—”

      Oh, for a different choice of words. “Stop right there.”

      Lorelei grinned at her.

      “First of all, I happen to know for a fact that you failed Psych 101, so please don’t try to analyze me. Secondly, we don’t live in a sitcom. And third, I’m really, really tired of people shoving Connor in my face and telling me to like him. That’s just annoying and it makes me like him even less.”

      “That’s hardly his fault.”

      Maybe it was the wine, the late hour or just the exhaustion, but Vivi finally sighed. “Marie Lester.”

      Lorelei looked confused until she placed the name. “What’s Marie got to do with it?”

      “He used me to get to her.”

      “What?”

      Vivi rubbed a hand over her face. This was why she didn’t want to talk about it. “You know how sheltered and sweet Marie was, right?” At Lorelei’s nod, she continued, “That’s why her parents sent her to St. Katharine’s. New Orleans is this big bad sin city, and they figured she’d be safe there.”

      “And?”

      “Junior year, Connor’s friend Reg asked Marie out and she said no. She considered them a bunch of hell-raisers, and she was too good for that. Connor took that as some kind of challenge and a chance to show up Reg.”

      “Okay…but still not really following you.”

      She took a big gulp of wine. “Well, Marie and I were lab partners and her parents just loved me, you know.”

      “Of course.”

      “So Connor started hanging around me, being nice and all, in order to make himself look better to Marie.”

      Lorelei nodded. “Because if you said he was an okay guy then Marie might change her mind?”

      “Exactly.”

      “So that’s why Connor started hanging around our house more.”

      “He was just using me to get to her. And to top it all off he didn’t really like her. He just wanted to prove he could get Marie when his friend had failed.”

      “It’s a jerk move, but really…” Vivi shot a look at her and Lorelei trailed off. “Oh. You thought he was interested in you. Ouch. That’s why you slapped him at your coronation.”

      The hurt and humiliation she’d felt at seventeen might have been dulled by time, but her twenty-eight-year-old self remembered the blow to her ego and pride. She nodded.

      Lorelei rolled her eyes. “That was years ago. Teenage crap. I don’t know a nice way to say this, but…get over it.”

      “He lied to me, used me, hurt me and made me an unwilling accomplice in his quest to use Marie in order to one-up one of his friends. I don’t care if it was teenage crap. He was wrong. And, even worse, I should have known better. Even after years of his crap I fell for it.”

      “And you can’t just let it go?” Lorelei shook her head. “Wow, Vivi. That’s really mature.”

      “This from the girl who is still mad at Steve Milner for cheating on her.”

      “He left me at prom to go have sex with another girl!”

      “So call me when you’re over that and we’ll talk again about teenage crap I need to get over.”

      Lorelei’s lips pressed into a thin line. Vivi had made her point.

      “Even if I wanted to let that slide, I haven’t really seen anything in the intervening years to convince me that Connor isn’t still an arrogant, self-centered man-child. If anything, his fame has only fueled it. And since Connor is still holding on to his preadolescent grudges against me, I’m not too worried about maturity.”

      It was Lorelei’s СКАЧАТЬ