The Ivy: Scandal Read Online Free PDF

behalf based on his confession on the boat. Besides, what if, given everything going on with his dad, he had suddenly changed his mind?
    “You’re right,” Callie conceded finally. “It isn’t any of my business.”
    “Good,” said Alessandra. “Then we agree.” Smiling, she removedthe lingerie from where she had tucked it in her bag. “You know on second thought,” she said, reopening Gregory’s dresser drawer, “I think I’ll leave this here. And I would ask you,” she went on, turning to Callie, “to leave my boyfriend alone.”
    “Uh…” Callie faltered. Did she have a choice, given that he currently appeared cut off from all modes of communication?
    “I’d hate to find out that it’s true what some of the other Pudding girls say,” Alessandra pressed on, “about how you’re a serial boyfriend stealer who slept her way into the club.”
    Callie flinched. Since when had the sultry but sweet sex bomb formerly known as Alessandra turned into such a, well—pardon the French— Thorndike ?
    “Sorry,” Alessandra muttered, seeing the look on Callie’s face.
    “No,” said Callie. “ I’m sorry. I’m sorry that you heard a nasty rumor about me, and I’m sorry that you chose to repeat it. But that’s not the only thing I’m sorry about.” Swallowing, she took another step toward Alessandra. “I’m sorry that I wasn’t completely honest with you when you asked me directly about my history with Gregory. You haven’t treated me like anything other than a friend since you got here—well, minus the past few weeks—and I have not done the same for you. So I apologize. Especially because I can’t change the fact…that we both have feelings for the same guy.”
    Callie held her breath. Alessandra seemed to shrink slightly before her eyes, appearing suddenly younger somehow, and not just because she no longer held the lingerie in her hands.
    “I…thank you,” the older girl said finally. “I appreciate your honesty. I also would have appreciated hearing it fromyou—or him—earlier instead of finding out when I went through his phone.”
    “His phone?” Callie repeated, remembering that day in the library when Gregory had brought her lunch and asked her advice, as a friend, about what to do regarding Alessandra’s trust issues, citing unsent texts she’d discovered addressed to another girl.
    Was I that other girl? Callie wondered.
    Alessandra shook her dark, wild curls out of her face. “It’s not important. But so long as we are getting everything out in the open now…I have to ask: when you two were stranded on the island, did you—um—did he—I mean, did you and him…hook up?”
    “No,” said Callie. Hard as it had been to resist, she wouldn’t trade a single kiss for the moment when he’d said, “I feel the same way,” his fingers brushing across her shoulder, warm like sunlight. It was like every muscle in her body had tensed and relaxed at the same time, flooding her with simultaneous feelings of exhilaration and relief, of security and anticipation. “He made it clear that he would never…cheat on you,” she added.
    Alessandra grimaced, roused from what seemed like her own faraway memory. “You know, before I—came to Harvard, I never had much luck with men. I was what you might call ‘a late bloomer.’”
    “Why do I find that so hard to believe?” said Callie, taking in Alessandra’s chocolatey brown eyes, her full luscious lips, and worthy-of-the-Victoria’s-Secret-fashion-show-runway body.
    “Believe what you want,” Alessandra muttered, “but it’s true. Before I met Gregory—Well, let’s just say, I was a completelydifferent person back then. I never knew what it could feel like to just…fit in. Or to fall in love.”
    Callie shuffled her feet, glancing at her dirty Converse.
    “I do love him,” said Alessandra in a tone that compelled Callie to look her in the eyes. “I didn’t expect to…but I do. And so do you,” Alessandra added