Learning Curves - By Elyse Mady Page 0,1

posterity.”

Leanne tried to swallow a smile at the thought of the ostentatious nuptials taking place in two weeks. She’d seen pictures of the dresses at the wedding shower. If her goal in life was to look like a bargain-basement call girl in violet dupioni, she would be bitterly disappointed not to be included in the wedding party. Luckily, Leanne would do almost anything, up to and including being boiled alive in hot oil, to avoid that fate.

“I think I’ll survive.”

A flare of temper lit Gillian’s blue eyes and Leanne knew she was treading on dangerous ground.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a bride in possession of a rich, straight man must be in want of a way to show it off. Maybe that wasn’t quite what Austen wrote, but when you spent as much time as Lee did, living and breathing eighteenth century literature, she felt it definitely captured the spirit. And since Jane had been a pretty dogged contender in the single-girl stakes herself, Leanne was sure she’d forgive a few liberties for the sake of skewering a self-absorbed opportunist like Gillian Saunders.

They’d known each other since birth and disliked each other almost as long. Unfortunately, considering their mothers had been best friends since they’d met competing in the Little Peaches Beauty Pageant, they’d been fated to spend their childhood and teenage years thrown together. Birthdays, pool parties, sleepovers. Year after year, special event after special event, their childhoods captured by snapshots of them side by side. Gillian, always smiling pertly, her blond hair curled and flawless, played up to the camera with ease, while Leanne, tousled and tomboyish, faded into the background, a book clutched in her hands from the moment she could read.

Even now, the mismatch continued. Gillian was a former pageant princess with an up-and-coming career in real estate; Leanne a quiet, introspective writer and academic.

Of course, as Lee had learned only too well over the years, Gillian was also narcissistic and completely unfazed by notions of right and wrong. Stealing Leanne’s high school boyfriend just for the fun of it. Pawning off the work of others to pass her university classes. Screwing around with an endless list of one-night stands. Even backstabbing her so-called friends never gave her a moment’s pause. Leanne doubted there were few depths she would scruple to sink to, if it worked to her advantage. Gillian used her face and her charm to weasel out of the consequences of her bad behavior, always being sure to look the part of an innocent and incorruptible angel.

And the façade worked because six months ago, Jeremy Fields, one of Wellington’s most eligible bachelors, got down on one knee and asked her to marry him. In less than two weeks, she would be center stage at a wedding modeled after the late Princess Diana’s, only larger.

Gillian was everything Sandra Galloway wanted in a daughter and everything, right down to her manicured French nails, Leanne wasn’t.

Suddenly, one of the bridesmaids squealed.

“Oh my God! Did I show you what I got? Fourteen carats, with platinum accents.”

Holding out her wrist, she displayed a thick gold bracelet. The rest of the table oohed and aahed, but in the dim light, Lee couldn’t make out the details.

“What is it?”

“It’s a charm bracelet, silly. From Italy. Whenever I try something new, I mark the occasion.” She held her arm closer for Leanne’s inspection.

Tiny figures cavorted on the small medallion. She peered closer. One, two…three? And were they…Leanne didn’t know that particular move was possible in precious metal, let alone in real life!

Tamara’s voiced dropped to a confidential whisper. “Ty said it was the best threesome he’d ever had. In fact, he thinks it might be time for us to start seeing each other…exclusively.”

Leanne sprayed out a mouthful of soda at Tamara’s confession. Clearly, she was moving in the wrong circles, sexually speaking, if threesomes were now considered part of the casual sex repertoire. Call her old-fashioned, but her idea of a fantastic relationship sure didn’t include swapping partners just for the thrill of it.

That’s not to say she wasn’t all for sexual experimentation in a relationship. Well, a relationship with someone other than her vibrator. She liked to think she had as many kinky ideas as the next sexually aware girl, even if she hadn’t had the chance to try many—okay, any—of them out with a willing partner.

Adventuresome sex with toys and assorted paraphernalia? Absolutely. Mind-blowing sex in diverse locales? By all means. It wasn’t like she was hanging out