All She Wants for Christmas by Jaci Burton Page B

could double date. Amanda went, though it was half hearted. Nothing ever came of those dates. Amanda never seemed intrigued enough by any of the guys to end up with a boyfriend, though she was beautiful, with mink brown hair, emerald green eyes and her captivating voice.
    “She never told me she was interested in you. She never even dated anyone long term in high school. I didn’t know.”
    Ethan nodded. “She didn’t want you to know. She was so jealous of you, Riley. Of your voice, your relationship with me. You had everything she wanted.”
    “No. That’s not true. That’s not the Amanda I knew.”
    Ethan sighed. “There were parts of her you never knew about. Hell, I didn’t even know about them until after you were gone.”
    “Like what?” She couldn’t believe the things he was telling her about Amanda.
    “Like her fear that you were more talented than she was, that her voice would never measure up to yours.”
    “How can that be? I’d never had training, and she’d been taking voice lessons her whole life. Her singing was beautiful.”
    He swept her hair away from her face. “You’ve been in the business long enough to know that all the lessons in the world can’t compete with raw ability. That’s what you had, Riley. You might not have had all the training she had, but you had natural talent, and no training can compare to that. And when it was clear your talent would outshine her, that you were destined for big things, she decided to take the one thing from you she knew she could.”
    Riley almost couldn’t say the word out loud, but knew she had to know the truth. “You.”
    He nodded.
    “How?”
    “You sure you want to know all of it?”
    “Yes.” Because she refused to believe that Ethan loved her one day and just decided to switch to Amanda the next. Though she had believed it, hadn’t she? She’d spent the past ten years believing it. Maybe it was time she let Ethan tell her what really happened.
    “She called me one night in tears. It was right after graduation and she said she’d been turned down for a scholarship to Julliard, the one and only place she really wanted to go.”
    “But she’d gotten so many scholarships to so many different schools. She could have chosen from…what? Five or six?”
    He shrugged. “I didn’t really know what she was talking about, but you know we’d all gotten close. She was always where you were, so I considered her a friend. I trusted her. I don’t remember where you were. She said she couldn’t get hold of you and there was no one else to talk to, so I went over there to give her some comfort because she was pretty freaked out. We were drinking beer, then whiskey. Her parents were gone, and you know Amanda always had a lot of freedom and access to whatever she wanted. And then we were drinking a lot. I was trying to make her feel better. It was stupid. We were talking and talking and I thought I had relaxed her by making her laugh. Hell, I was drunk as hell. Next thing I know it’s morning. I wake up in bed with Amanda naked next to me, and you’re standing there.”
    “Did you have sex with her?”
    He shrugged. “No. At least I don’t think I did, but maybe I did. I don’t even remember what happened that night. Does it matter? I shouldn’t have put myself in the position to be alone with her. I should have called you right away. I shouldn’t have been there drinking with her. It was stupid and I let her manipulate me, but I had to take responsibility for being there, even if nothing happened. I knew from the look in your eyes you believed what you saw.”
    She had believed it. She and Amanda had plans that morning. Plans Amanda had organized. She’d walked into Amanda’s room and found the boy she loved naked in bed with her best friend.
    She’d believed right away what she saw, put two and two together and figured Ethan had slept with Amanda, that Ethan had seduced her best friend. She’d assumed she hadn’t been enough for