Read Online Wrath - 4 by Robin Wasserman - Free Book Online Page A

darkest hour, she’s nowhere to be found? Makes no sense,” Kane complained, shaking his head. “Not unless there’s something I don’t know. And you know how much I hate to be in the dark.”
    “Get used to it,” Harper snarled. “There’s a lot you don’t know.” She could tel Kane al about Miranda’s massive crush—after al , she had no reason to keep Miranda’s secret when her own were spread al over school. But Harper couldn’t bring herself to do it, knowing that if there was even a prayer of fixing things—and she had to believe there was—she should keep her mouth shut.
    “I can’t imagine that Ms. Stevens would have been so disgusted by your treatment of Adam that she would have walked away,” Kane mused. “After al , she’s nothing but lovely to me, and my behavior was just as … let’s say, repulsive? Stealing my best friend’s girlfriend and al .”
    “That’s not guilt I hear, is it?” Harper asked in surprise.
    Kane cocked his head. “You know me better than that. It’s just honesty. I’ve been tel ing you for years, Grace, you should just embrace your dark side. You’l have more fun.”
    “I couldn’t be having any less,” Harper complained, gesturing toward the speakers that had just begun blasting out some big-band golden oldies.
    “No, you must have done something to Miranda,” Kane continued. He wouldn’t stop pushing until he figured it out—but Harper wasn’t about to help him along. “And if it’s not about Adam, and not about Beth, it must be something else. Someone else—”
    “May I have this dance, madam?”
    Harper looked up to face a balding, pockmarked man stooped over their table and extending a liver-spot-sprinkled hand in her direction. Under other circumstances, she might have—oh, who was she kidding, would have—declined. But if it gave her an escape from this conversation …
    “I’d be honored,” Harper said, taking his trembling hand and rising from the table.
    Kane’s grin widened, and he gave her a jaunty little wave. “Have fun, Grace. Just keep those hands where I can see them….” The old man danced her away from the table, away from Kane and his nagging questions, and waltzed her across the lounge, proving to be surprisingly nimble. As soon as the song ended, another lodge member hobbled over to take his place. By the time every little old man in the place—at least the ones stil mobile enough to shuffle along without a walker—
    had taken his turn, Kane was slouched on the table, his breathing heavy and his eyes half closed, the Miranda issue forgotten.
    “Have fun?” he slurred, without lifting his head from the table.
    “Actual y, yes.” She hadn’t even minded when one of the men grabbed her ass. It was nice to be an object of desire again, even among the Viagra demographic.
    “Told you so,” Kane mumbled, half to himself. “Promised you a night to remember.”
    But Harper had done enough remembering for a while. That had been the best part about dancing in the darkness in the palsied arms of a stranger: It became almost possible to forget.
    He had to congratulate himself. He’d made it through the evening without al owing his emotions to leak through, his anger to explode. She had no idea that he’d seen her, with him .
    Hidden in the shadows, he’d watched her betray him. Even then, he couldn’t help but admire her delicate porcelain skin, pale as ivory against her ink-black hair. She moved like a dancer, every swish of her arm and tilt of her head graceful and deliberate, almost as if she knew he was watching, and was performing just for him. And for a moment, he’d imagined that his hands fol owed hers, trailing their way across her soft, creamy skin.
    But it was another man who took her hand in his. A stolen hand, a stolen touch’there should be punishment for taking something that doesn’t belong to you, he thought now.
    There should be punishment for giving it away, as she did, to another.
    He could have