I shake my head. “We’re not playing.”

“It would give you an excuse to get close to her. Don’t deny that you want to. I can read you too, Hudson.”

Without looking at her, I motion to the exit. “We’re done here, Celia.”

She sets her water bottle on the coffee table and starts for the door. “You’re done, Hudson,” she says as she crosses the room. “I’m not. I can play her without you.” She turns back to face me. “But be assured, I will play her.”

“Not this one, Celia. Find another play.” I’m admitting too much interest in Alayna. It can’t be helped.

“Yes, this one. The game’s already in motion.”

Panic grips me. Of course, I don’t show it, except for maybe in the tightening of my jaw. “What have you done?”

She’s triumphant, but she hides it as well as I hide my emotions. I only see it in the slight widening of her eyes. “I made an offer on the club.”

I’m immediately put at ease. “There’s been no time. The owner can’t have accepted already.” I don’t tell her that I’ll counter.

Celia lifts her chin to deliver her next words. “I told him my offer was good for an hour. He’s had no bites in the year that he’s had it up for sale. He accepted on the spot.”

Fuck!

How did I not see this a mile away? I’ve grown rusty in my time gone while Celia’s grown more calculating. She correctly assumed my weakness in this situation and secured her capital in advance of her approach. Fucking brilliant.

I don’t even consider that she’s lying. She knows I’ll check on her declaration the moment she’s left and she wouldn’t risk that bluff. Besides, our code has taught us to be honest whenever possible. Practically, it helps keep your lies straight. Also, it makes the games more challenging.

I’m not sure how to move next—that’s a rarity for me. I stall for time with a question that might provide me some insight. “Why?” I tilt my head, examining her. “Why do you care if it’s this girl or the next?”

“Because you care if it’s this girl.” It’s not said with spite. It’s honest. It’s raw.

I want to hate her in that moment. I want to loathe the way she’s trapped me, the way she’s baited me. The way she’s already destroyed something that interests me like the child on the playground that stomps on the butterfly simply because another child has given it his attention. It’s mean.

But I can’t hate her. She doesn’t intend to be vicious. I’m the one who schooled her to look for vulnerabilities and manipulate them to be advantageous. She knows no other way to connect.

Frankly, I don’t know any other way myself. There is a longing for that deep within me. Dr. Alberts hasn’t even begun to scrape the surface of that desire, but it is the one thing that keeps me from being completely sociopathic. I don’t care for people, but I want to.

That’s all Celia wants as well. “If you agree to play, I’ll let you buy my offer out.” She blinks. “Simple as that.”

With her checkmate, the ball is in my court. I could still walk away. But Celia will play Alayna Withers. It’s not a question in my mind. She’s never backed down from a scheme once she’s started it.

Then why should I care? I’ve let Celia play others since I’ve left our partnership, Stacy being the most recent example. I never made a move to stop that. Why should I now?

But I’ve already answered that. Because I’m intrigued. I’m bewitched. I’m beguiled. I am obsessed. Maybe this is the best chance to get close to Alayna. And even if I played the game, I wouldn’t have to work toward Celia’s outcome. I could work toward my own—to not break Alayna. It’s the biggest of excuses, but there’s nothing in the code about lying to ourselves.

There are other ways to fight Celia, I know. If I really tried, I could come up with another way to thwart her plans.

Knowing that is why I am completely culpable when I surrender so easily. There will be no battle. I will not counter Celia’s sly move. I will not attempt to dissuade her from her game. I will not make another appointment with Dr. Alberts. I will not fight.

“How much is your offer on The Sky Launch?”

With a smirk, she gives me the information.

I square my shoulders. If I’m going down, I’ll at least do it with pride. “I’ll have my financial advisor draw up the check.”

“Game on, then?”

My agenda is without point now. Even if Alayna Withers teaches me that people like us can survive, with this step, I’ve already proven that I can’t.

I seal my entrance to hell with my assent. “Game on.”

Before

“…and if Sherry doesn’t tell him that she likes him, then he’s going to end up with Marisa. Which is just wrong. Lance should be with Sherry. Don’t you think?” Mirabelle poked my bare thigh with her toe. “Are you listening to me, Hudson?”

“I am not.” Usually I didn’t mind Mirabelle’s babble about her friends, simply because the psychology of early teens and their so-called relationships was fascinating. But on this day, I had my own psychology I was working through, namely the psychology of Celia.

Mirabelle huffed in the deck chair next to me “You could at least pretend.”

Though evening was approaching, the day was still warm. I’d yet to change from my trunks after my earlier laps in the pool. By now, the sun had dried them and my skin glistened from the sun’s rays. This was one of my favorite pastimes this summer—soaking and simmering. Soaking in the rays while I simmered over my project.

“I could pretend,” I said. “I didn’t feel that was fair. If you want to keep chattering, that’s fine with me.” I moved my sunglasses down to the edge of my nose to look at her straight on. “But if you do, know that you’re talking to yourself.”

Mirabelle let out a sound of exasperation. “You are so mean!” Then she stormed off toward the house.

I’d thought I’d been pretty patient, actually. I could have told her to shut the fuck up, and I didn’t. I looked at my watch. It was nearly six. I gave my mother seven minutes before she came out to scold me for picking on my little sister, on the day of her big party, no less. The berating hadn’t even occurred yet and I was already tuning Sophia out. She’d probably already be half-drunk and half-bitch. Strike that, half-drunk and full-bitch. It was my mother, after all.

The party wasn’t really as big as she liked to pretend. Not by Hamptons’ standards—twenty families, various friends of my parents, including, of course, the Werners. Any minute Warren and Madge would show up with Celia. They were always the first to arrive at our end-of-summer parties. That meant I had very little time to finalize the details of that evening’s part of my project. And as September was just beginning, I had only a handful of days to bring the entire experiment to an end.

I pushed my sunglasses into place and lay back down. I’d come far with Celia since I’d begun my study, though the progress was slow. Taking Mirabelle’s advice to get to know The Subject, I’d spent hours upon hours with Celia. We’d played tennis almost daily and I’d taken her sailing on more than one occasion. She was maintaining her long-distance relationship with Dirk, and I let her talk about him to her heart’s desire. I encouraged their affair, praised the silly tokens of love he sent her on a weekly basis, repeatedly remarked on the positive effect he’d seemed to have on her.

My interest and support put her at ease. She’d let her guard down.

And then I’d slipped in.

Subtly, I’d begun making comments that insinuated a feeling of envy on my part. First, of couples in general. “People in love are so lucky to have found each other,” I’d say. Then I moved to envy of her and Dirk specifically. “You and he are lucky to have found each other.” More recently, my allusion of envy transferred to only Dirk. “He’s lucky to have found you.”