“Yes. Leopard urine. Never leave home without it.”

Mabel whined and yelped and strained against Noah’s arms. “All right,” he said finally. “Mission aborted.” He placed Mabel on the floor and watched her scramble out of the hall, her claws clicking on the marble. “She probably doesn’t remember you,” Noah said, still looking in Mabel’s direction.

I dropped my gaze. “I’m sure that’s it,” I said. I didn’t want Noah to see that I was upset.

“Well,” he said finally. He rocked back on his heels and studied me.

I willed myself not to blush under his stare. “Well.” Time to change the subject. “You are a lying liar who lies.”

“Oh?”

I looked around us, at the towering ceiling and sweeping balconies. “You kept all of this a secret.”

“No, I didn’t. You just never asked.”

“How was I supposed to guess? You dress like a hobo.”

At this, a mocking grin crept over Noah’s mouth. “Haven’t you heard not to judge a book by its cover?”

“If I’d have known it was Trite Proverb Day, I would have stayed home.” I rubbed my forehead and shook my head. “I can’t believe you didn’t say anything.”

Noah’s eyes challenged me. “Like what?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Like, ‘Mara, you might want to wear some makeup and put on heels because I’m going to take you to my family’s palace in Miami Beach on Sunday.’ Something like that.”

Noah stretched his lithe frame, locking his fingers and raising his arms above his head. His white T-shirt rose, exposing a sliver of stomach and the elastic of his boxers above the low waistband of his jeans. Button fly, I noticed.

Well played.

“First, you don’t need makeup,” he said as I rolled my eyes. “Second, you wouldn’t last an hour in heels, where we’re going. Speaking of which, I have to get the keys.”

“Oh, yes, the mysterious keys.”

“Are you going to go on about this the entire day now? I thought we were making progress.”

“Sorry. I’m just a tad rattled by the pug attack and Mabel’s freak-out. And the fact that you live in the Taj Mahal.”

“Rubbish. The Taj Mahal is only a hundred eighty-six square feet. This house has twenty-five thousand.”

I stared at him blankly.

“I was kidding,” he said.

I stared at him blankly.

“All right, I wasn’t kidding. Let’s go, shall we?”

“After you, my liege,” I said.

Noah gave an exaggerated sigh as he started walking to an enormous staircase with an intricately carved banister. I followed him up, and shamefully enjoyed the view. Noah’s jeans were loose, barely hanging on to his hips.

When we finally reached the top of the staircase, Noah took a left down a long corridor. The plush Oriental rugs muffled our footsteps, and my eyes drank in the detailed oil paintings that hung from the walls. Eventually, Noah stopped in front of a gleaming wooden door. He reached to open it, but we heard the careless slam of a door behind us and turned.

“Noah?” asked a sleep-ridden voice. Female.

“Hey, Katie.”

Even with pillow creases on her face, the familiar girl was absolutely stunning. She looked as otherworldly standing there in a camisole and shorts set as she had in her fairy getup. Without the costume and the pulsing lights in the club, it was obvious that she shared Noah’s extraterrestrial beauty. Her hair was the same dark honey brown color as his, only longer; the ends skimmed the lace bottom of her camisole. Her blue eyes widened in surprise as they met mine.

“I didn’t know you had company,” she said to Noah, suppressing a smile.

He shot her a look, then turned to me. “Mara, my sister Katie.”

“Kate,” she corrected him, then gave me a knowing glance. “Morning.”

I couldn’t manage much more than a nod. At that moment, a perky, blond cheerleader was doing cartwheels in my vena cava. His sister. His sister!

“It’s almost noon, now, actually,” Noah said.

Kate shrugged and yawned. “Well, nice meeting you, Mara,” she said, and winked at me before heading down the stairs.

“You too,” I managed to breathe. My heart rioted in my chest.

Noah opened the door all the way and I tried to compose myself. This changed nothing. Nothing at all. Noah Shaw was still a whore, still an ass**le, and still painfully out of my league. This was my inner mantra, the one I repeated on a loop until Noah tilted his head and spoke.

“Are you coming in?”

Yes. Yes I was.

28

nOAH’S ROOM WAS STARTLING. A LOW, MODERN platform bed dominated the center of it but otherwise, there was no furniture except for a long desk that blended inconspicuously into an alcove. There were no posters. No laundry. Just a guitar leaning against the side of the bed. And the books.

Rows upon rows of books, lining built-in shelves that stretched from the floor to the ceiling. Sunlight spilled through the enormous windows that overlooked Biscayne Bay.

I never imagined what Noah’s room would look like, but if I had, I wouldn’t have imagined this. It was gorgeous, definitely. But so … bare. Unlived in. I circled the room, trailing my fingers along some of the spines as I went.

“Welcome to the private collection of Noah Shaw,” he said. I stared at all of the titles. “You have not read all of these.” “Not yet.”

I cracked a smile. “So it’s a tail-chasing tactic.”

“Pardon?” I could hear the amusement in his voice.

“Vanity books,” I said without looking at him. “You don’t actually read them, they’re just here to impress your … guests.”

“You’re a mean girl, Mara Dyer,” he said, standing in the middle of his room. I felt his eyes on me, and I liked it.

“I’m wrong?” I asked.

“You are wrong.”

“All right,” I said, and pulled a random book from the shelf. “Maurice, by E.M. Forster. What’s it about? Go.”

Noah told me about the g*y protagonist who attended Cambridge in turn-of-the-century Britain. I didn’t believe him, but I hadn’t read it so I moved on.

“A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man?”

Noah belly-flopped on to his bed, affecting a bored tone as he rattled off another synopsis. My eyes followed the thousand-mile stretch of his back and my feet itched with the confusing impulse to walk over and join him. Instead, I pulled out another book without reading the spine first.

“Ulysses,” I called out.

Noah shook his head, his face buried in the pillow.

Satisfied, I smiled to myself, put the book back on the shelf and reached for another. The dust jacket was missing, so I read the title from the cover. “The Joy of … crap.” I read the rest of the full title of the thick, nondescript volume to myself and felt myself redden.

Noah turned over on to his side and said with mock seriousness, “I have never read The Joy of Crap. Sounds disgusting.” I blushed deeper. “I have, however, read The Joy of Sex,” he continued, a mischievous smile transforming his face. “Not in a while, but I think it’s one of those classics you can come back to again … and again.”

“I don’t like this game anymore,” I said as I placed the book back on its shelf.

Noah reached over to the floor next to his bed, near the acoustic guitar that was propped up against a sticker-covered case. He jangled the keys. “Well, we can go now. You can come back and grill me on the library’s contents later,” he said, his grin still in place. “You hungry?”

I was, actually, and nodded. Noah walked to a well-disguised intercom and pressed his finger on the call button.

“If you order some servant to bring food, I’m leaving.”

“I was going to make sure Albert hadn’t moved the car.”

“Oh, right. Albert the butler.”

“He’s a valet, actually.”

“You are not helping yourself.”

Noah ignored me and glanced at the clock by his bed. “We really ought to have been there by now; I want you to have time to get the full experience. But we can stop at Mireya’s on the way.”

“Another friend?”

“A restaurant. Cuban. The best.”

When we reached the car, Albert smiled as Noah opened my door for me. After the mansion was out of sight, I screwed up the courage to attack Noah with the questions that plagued me since learning of his assets. The financial sort.

“So who are you people?” I asked.

“You people?” He slipped on his sunglasses.

“Cute. Your family. Supposedly, the only people who live here are basketball players and has-been pop singers.”

“My father owns a company.”

“Okaaay,” I said. “What kind of company?”

“Biotechnology.”

“So where was Daddy Warbucks this morning?”

Noah’s face was curiously blank. “Don’t know, don’t care,” he said easily. He stared straight ahead. “We’re not … close,” Noah added.

“Clearly.” I waited for him to elaborate, but he lifted his sunglasses and hid his eyes instead. Time to change the subject. “So why doesn’t your mother have a British accent?”

“She doesn’t have an English accent because she’s American.”

“Oh my God, really?” I mocked. I saw Noah’s smile in profile. He paused before continuing.

“She’s from Massachusetts. And she is not actually my biological mother.” He looked at me sideways, gauging my reaction. I kept my face even. I didn’t know much about Noah, aside from his rumored extracurricular activities. But I realized then that I wanted to. I had no idea what to expect this morning when he picked me up, and to an extent, I still didn’t. But I no longer thought it would be some nefarious plot, and that made me curious.

“My mother died when I was five and Katie was almost four.”

The revelation knocked me out of my thoughts. And made me feel like a jackass, after picking not one but two unpleasant topics of conversation. “I’m sorry,” I said lamely.

“Thanks,” he said, staring at the bright road ahead of us. “It was a long time ago, I don’t really remember her,” he said, but his posture had stiffened. He didn’t speak for a minute, and I wondered if I was supposed to say something. But then I remembered everyone telling me how sorry they were when Rachel died, and how little I wanted to hear it. There was just nothing to say.

Noah surprised me by continuing. “Before my mother died, she and my dad and Ruth,” he tipped his head back toward the house, “were all really close. Ruth spent high school in England, so that’s how they met, and they stayed friends while at Cambridge, wreaking havoc and organizing protests.”

I raised my eyebrows.

“Ruth told me my mother was the most … enthusiastic. Chaining herself to trees and breaking into university science departments and freeing lab animals and such,” Noah said, as he placed a cigarette between his lips. “The three of them ran around doing it together—incomprehensible, if you know my father—and somehow, he convinced my mother to marry him.” The cigarette dangled from his lips as he spoke, drawing my eyes like a magnet. “While they were still in college. Some ultimate act of rebellion or something.” He lit the cigarette, opened his window, and inhaled. His face was carefully impassive beneath the dark lenses as he spoke.

“My grandparents were unenthused. They’re old money, were not fans of my mother’s to start, and thought my father was ruining his prospects. Et cetera, et cetera. But they married anyway. My stepmother moved back to the U.S. for vet school, and my parents lived la vie bohème for a while. When they had kids, my grandparents were happy. Katie and I were so close together that I think they were hoping my mother would go on maternity leave from civil disobedience.” Noah fed the ash of his cigarette to the expanse of highway behind us. “But my mother didn’t slow down at all. She just took us with her wherever she went. Until she died. She was stabbed.”

Oh my God.

“At a protest.”

Jesus.

“She made my father stay home to watch Katie that day, but I was with her. I’d just turned five a few days before, but I don’t remember it. Or much of her at all, really. My father won’t even mention her name, and he loses it if anyone else does,” Noah said, without inflection.

I was speechless. Noah’s mother died—was murdered—and he was there when it happened.

Noah breathed smoke through his nose, and it billowed around him before escaping through the open window. It was a gorgeous day, blue and cloudless. But there could have been a hurricane outside for all I cared. In an instant, Noah became different to me. I was riveted.

“Ruth went back to England when she heard about my mother. A long time ago, she told me that after my mother died, my father was useless. Couldn’t take care of us, couldn’t take care of himself. Literally a disaster—this was, of course, before he sold his soul to the shareholders. And she stayed, and they got married, even though he doesn’t deserve her, even though he’d become someone else. And here we are now, one big happy family.”

His expression was inscrutable behind his sunglasses, and I wished I could see it. Did anyone at school know about his mother—about him? And then it occurred to me that Noah didn’t know about what happened to me. I looked at my lap, fidgeting with the shredded knee of my jeans. If I told him now, it might sound like I was comparing tragedies—like I thought losing a best friend was comparable to losing a parent, which I didn’t. But if I said nothing, what would he think?