Archie Spencer, brother of world famous musician Heath Spencer, has been living with Heath, his wife MJ, MJ's dad, and their twin daughters Kiki and Lulu in Los Angeles while attending UCLA, and having a pretty good time. After all, he's handsome, smart, rich, and living in the land of blondes and bikinis; could life get any better? Then Clio Santangelo wanders into his music theory class and he's smitten, badly. Clio is sort of famous herself, as she's the daughter of Pete Santangelo, one of the most sought after musicians in the world. She's winsome and willowy, dark and dreamy, a pixie with long dark hair and beautiful brown eyes, who plays the piano like an angel. She smiles at him and he's done for.
When Clio moves back to New York, Archie follows her, throwing caution to the wind, not minding that she's only seventeen, four years than him, and that she comes with a lifelong admirer, one Zeke Steiner, who's been in love with her since kindergarten.
But problems come up almost immediately. Zeke has an admirer of his own, named Joyce, who is envious of Clio, and waits for the day Zeke will notice her. And Archie, who enrolls at Columbia, soon has an admirer too, a beautiful girl named Willow, who can't believe Archie would want to be with a child like Clio. Willow is used to getting what she wants, and she wants Archie, badly.
How can such a convoluted mess resolve itself?
Willow's always been known as the good girl with the wealthy parents who could do no wrong. Little do they know that this seemingly perfect girl has some less than perfect secrets; and the fact that she's been sneaking out past curfew every night since the beginning of summer isn't the worst one.
Distancing herself from the people at school has become lonely, but everything changes when a group of bad boys that she meets after curfew one night transfer to her school and begin to take an interest in her; one even more than the rest. But will they be able to protect her when events from her past re-surface and begin to get her into more trouble than she ever wanted?
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We were a circuit, electricity flowing through us at every connection, every light touch igniting a heat that was exhilarating but dangerous. Like we could catch fire and burn to the ground at any second.
"Did you take your own advice? Did you ever forgive yourself?" I whispered, my words evaporating in the heat around us. He moved towards me, trapping me against the car door as his lips traced over my jaw, down to my neck.
"This," he whispered, his thumb tracing the waistband of my jeans, making my breathing falter. "Allowing myself to feel this happiness, to feel you...this is me forgiving myself." He kissed me, calming the raging storm in me and igniting a new one.
I wasn't sure which would cause more destruction, but I knew only one had pretty blue eyes and a effortless smile that could convince me it was all worth it. It probably was.