Sweet Valley Confidential: Ten Years Later by Francine Pascal Page A

same things. I mean, I like food, but I don’t want to sit around and talk about it all the time, especially while we’re eating. I want to eat and then get out and get some action; I like dancing, hangin’ out, fooling around. Even updating Twitter would be more exciting, if only I had something interesting to say.
    I thought it would be different, more like when we were dating, when it was all about what club we would be going to or flying down to the Caribbean for the weekend. I so loved the clubs. The fun of dressing outrageously in clothes you can only wear in clubs. And I loved the dancing.
    Regan never was that crazy about the club stuff. I think he was always like sort of jealous. Actually, he didn’t have to be because it really was all about the fun of the music, all those colors and lights and the excitement of feeling like you’re in a fantasy. It was thrilling and I thought it was great. What’s so wrong with that? Nothing.
    Except he makes me feel there is.
    I know he loves me, but it’s too much. In the beginning all that attention was delicious, but now it feels more like he’s obsessed, and it’s suffocating. I mean, he’s every place I turn. And like I feel a bit of an edge, that same edge that was so exciting when I first met him. Now it feels like almost dangerous.
    Maybe Elizabeth was right. She claimed that there was something dark in Regan, sensed it like an old brain warning, but I wasn’t about to listen.
    What she couldn’t possibly know was the magic of not having to think about Todd for the first time in too long. Marrying Regan Wollman would lift the weight that had been crushing me since that horrendous time five years ago. Going to L.A. after college didn’t do it for me, and besides, it wasn’t far enough. And then wasting time in a million meaningless PA jobs for all kinds of very unimportant people who didn’t really need personal assistants but had enough spare money and were just too lazy to do the work themselves didn’t help, either. None of that did anything to ease the pain that haunted me.
    Then I met Regan.
    He didn’t take me just miles away; he took me into another world. An older, sophisticated, international world, where I wouldn’t have to see Todd except on those occasional family events and even then we would be like strangers with nothing in common.
    The added bonus was I would be saying, See, I so got over you.
    True, I had been going out with Regan for only two months, but he’d swept me off my feet with endless attention and expensive gifts: diamond studs that were each more than a carat. In fact, like one point four seven, pure white set in yellow gold. Not my favorite setting, but I figured I could change it later.
    Turns out later is just about here.
    Plus, he’s always thinking I’m fooling around. I’m not different than I ever was. I’ve been the same Jessica forever. Even when I was just a little kid, I liked boys to like me. And they did, and I was happy. It’s what makes me, me.
    It’s not like that’s all there is in my life. I love my sister and my family, and I really want to do something with my life. Maybe like the PR stuff I loved in college. I know I’d be good at it, but it’s not possible if I keep traveling around the world like this. Regan does his business by e-mail or phone, so it doesn’t matter to him where we are.
    No, it so isn’t working for me.
    I admit the first four months were beautiful. I was his darling and could do no wrong. Quite out of character for me, but it was nice. Around the fifth month I did my first wrong, or at least the first one Regan noticed—the actor.
    It was one of those endless charity affairs. Yes, I flirted a tiny bit, harmless flirting, just me being me, but Regan took exception and like went a bit nuts. He twisted my arm a little too hard, then swore it was by accident. Turned out, my perfect husband had a flaw—he could be very jealous, with dangerous hints of physicality. I’ve been