Twilight Read Online Free PDF Page B

were asleep.
    Except that he wasn’t. He was no more asleep than I was. Inside that battered and frail-looking exterior was a mind crackling with intelligence and vitality. Why he chose to hide that fact, I still don’t understand. There’s a lot about the Slaters that I don’t understand.
    “Your friend staying for dinner, Paul?” the attendant asked cheerfully.
    “Yes,” Paul said at the same time I said, “No.”
    I didn’t meet his gaze as I added, “You know I can’t.”
    This, at least, was true. Mealtime is family time at my house. Miss one of my stepfather’s gourmet dinners, and you’ll never hear the end of it.
    “Fine,” Paul said through teeth that were obviously gritted. “I’ll take you home.”
    I didn’t object. I was more than ready to go.
    Our ride should have been a lot more enjoyable than it was. I mean, Carmel is one of the most beautiful places in the world, and Paul’s grandfather’s house is right on the ocean. The sun was setting, seeming to set the sky ablaze, and you could hear waves breaking rhythmically against the rocks below. And Paul, who isn’t exactly painful to look at, doesn’t drive any old hand-me-down car, either, but a silver BMW convertible that I happen to know I look extremely good in, with my dark hair, pale skin, and excellent taste in footwear.
    But you could have cut the tension inside that car with a knife, nonetheless. We rode in utter silence until Paul finally pulled up in front of 99 Pine Crest Drive, the rambling Victorian house in the Carmel hills that my mother and stepfather had bought more than a year ago, but still hadn’t finished refurbishing. Seeing as how it had been built at the turn of the century—the nineteenth, not the twentieth—it needed a lot of refurbishing….
    But no amount of recessed lighting could rid the place of its violent past, or the fact that, a few months earlier, they’d dug up my boyfriend’s skeleton from the backyard. I still couldn’t set foot on the deck without feeling nauseated.
    I was about to get out of the car without a word when Paul reached over and put a hand on my arm.
    “Suze,” he said, and when I turned my head to look at him, I saw that his blue eyes looked troubled. “Listen. What would you say to a truce?”
    I blinked at him. Was he kidding? He’d threatened to off my boyfriend; stole from people he’d been asked to help; and neglected to invite me to the school dance, humiliating me in front of the most popular girl in the whole school in the process. And now he wanted to kiss and make up?
    “Forget it,” I said as I gathered up my books.
    “Come on, Suze,” he said, flashing me that heart-melting smile. “You know I’m harmless. Well, basically. Besides, what could I do to your boy Jesse? He’s got Father D. to protect him, right?”
    Not really. Not now, anyway. But Paul didn’t know that. Yet.
    “I’m sorry about the thing with Kelly,” he said. “But you didn’t want to go with me. Can you blame me for wanting to take someone who… well, actually likes me?”
    Maybe it was the smile. Maybe it was the way he blinked those baby blues. I don’t know what it was, but suddenly, I found myself softening toward him.
    “What about the Gutierrezes?” I asked. “You’ll give the money back?”
    “Uh,” Paul said. “Well, no. I can’t do that.”
    “Paul, you can. I won’t tell, I swear….”
    “It’s not that. I can’t because… I, er, need it.”
    “For what ?”
    Paul grinned. “You’ll find out.”
    I threw open the car door and got out, my heels sinking deep into the pine-needle-strewn lawn.
    “Good-bye, Paul,” I said, and slammed the door behind me, cutting off his “No, Suze, wait!”
    I turned around and headed toward the house. My step-father, Andy, had started a fire in one of the house’s many fireplaces. The rich smell of burning wood filled the crisp evening air, tinged with the scent of something else….
    Curry. It was tandoori chicken night.