Reluctance by Cindy C Bennett Page B

smiled.
    "I understand," he said, but somehow Dahlia doubted he truly did understand.
    She doubted that Cam, with his golden looks and infectious smile, had ever been shunned, that he had ever sat at a table only to have others leave just to avoid being seen with him, that he had ever been called doggy, beastly, or nerdy. She doubted he'd ever looked around a room and known the only people who would accept him as a friend were those who completely understood all those things.
    "Turn here," she said, directing him up Draper Avenue. He lifted his brows a little at the turn, but didn't say anything. When they reached the end of the street, she said, "You can stop here."
    He looked out the window. With surprise in his voice, he said, " This is where you live?"
    Dahlia knew how it looked. The house was the largest in the neighborhood—
    ostentatious, overbearing, shouting wealth at the tops of its lungs. She really wished her family knew how to blend in.

    "Yeah."
    She waited for the sarcasm, the cutting remarks, but, instead, he simply said,
    "Nice place."
    "Um, okay . . . thanks for the ride, I guess," she said, pulling on the door handle—
    to no avail.
    "Oh, here, let me get that. It sticks sometimes." He leaned across her to grab the handle, and Dahlia flattened herself against the seat. She'd never been this close to a boy she wasn't related to . . . and definitely never this close to one who smelled so delicious.
    For one crazy second, she had the urge to reach up and—
    "There you go," Cam said as the door swung open and a wintery blast of air drew her attention from her fantasy.
    Dahlia climbed out, then looked back. "Thanks again."
    He gave her a charming smile in answer. "See you tomorrow," he said as she slammed the door. With a wave, he turned his car in a wide U and drove away. Dahlia watched him go, and then, with dread, turned back toward her house—or as she'd come to think of it, the "monstrous mausoleum."

    * * * * *

    "How was work, darling?" her mother drawled. Dahlia knew her mother didn't care how her day had been. In fact, she thought Dahlia wasted her time at the hospital, doing menial tasks beneath their family status. She only asked because it made her appear to be a good mom. She was anything but.
    Rose Hardy, Dahlia's mother, was concerned with one thing and one thing only—appearances. To that end, she wore piles of makeup and dressed as if she were about to step onto a Paris runway. She never had a hair out of place, and she despised the gawky, unattractive daughter she'd been cursed with.
    Rose spent her time either at the gym, at lunch with her friends who shared her warped ideals, or doing some kind of charitable work that would get her accolades.

    Dahlia's father was cut from the same cloth. They wielded power Jace McMahon could only dream of. They were both the same type of beautiful, lanky, graceful people Jace was, only Jace paled in comparison. Their cold, cutting cruelty ran deeper than anything Jace could imagine. Yet Dahlia knew, given time and exposure to her family, Jace could become as powerful—if not more so—than they were.
    "Hey, sis ," Aster sneered as she came down the stairs. Aster, two years younger than Dahlia, already outshone Dahlia in every way. At eighteen, she was almost as stunning as their mother. Dahlia didn't doubt she would eventually be even more exquisite than Rose. She had an innate sense of fashion and was a trendsetter amongst her peers. Even in their short time in this new town, she'd already surrounded herself with a gaggle of mindless geese, friends who were happy to do her bidding. Her manipulation went beyond anything Dahlia had seen, and Dahlia had seen a lot .
    Her father, Ben, strode in, looking as if he'd just stepped from the pages of GQ.
    Her mother insisted on family dinners. How could they keep up the appearance of the perfect family if they didn't do a daily dinner that could shame any Norman Rockwell painting? Table talk surrounded Aster's