The boot camp pledge flashed in Hanna’s mind, along with all the sacrifices she’d made in the past few weeks. But then she thought of a stack of French toast, oozing with butter and syrup. It had been so long since she’d actually eaten a real meal.
“All right,” Hanna conceded, standing up and pulling Lucas to her. “I guess I can have a piece or two.”
“Excellent,” Lucas said, leading her to the kitchen. Hanna followed behind him, absently touching the Cartier necklace at her throat. A calm feeling of well-being settled over her like a warm blanket. Everything in her life felt absolutely right again. And best of all, the only person who knew her secret about boot camp, Dinah, and Vince was Kate—and she wouldn’t dare tell a soul.
Unhappy Hanna-kah
For a so-called popular girl, Hanna could use some lessons on playing it cool. The chinks in her hot-girl armor are more obvious than Kate’s lilac perfume. She’s desperate for Daddy’s attention, insecure about her love life, and in major need of a new bestie. (Ahem, she even tried to hang out with Kate.) But her biggest, baddest, most delicious fear: that she’ll make one wrong move and become the chubby, ugly loser she was in middle school.
Maybe I’ll just make her worst nightmare come true. Kate may have a reason to keep her Santa-kissing lips sealed, but I don’t. And there’s so much I could spill: her flirtation with Vince, losing to Dinah, fat camp, the cookie incident. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg. If I reveal everything—the purging, the lies, the paranoid delusion that Mona is still out there, waiting to run her down again—all of Rosewood will see just how messed up Hanna is. And we all know where crazies belong: The Preserve at Addison-Stevens. Enjoy your size-two jeans while you still have them, Hannakins, because a straitjacket is one-size-fits-all . . .
One down, three to go. Now on to little miss Emily Fields, who is stuck in snowy Rosewood with her Christmas-loving family. And while Emily may be decking the halls and full of good cheer, her Christmas is about to get a lot less merry. Ho, ho, ho!
Emily’s Pretty Little Secret
Chapter 1
All Emily Wants for Christmas
Late Friday afternoon, Emily Fields stood in her living room, pulling Christmas ornaments from the boxes her mother had brought up from the basement. Carols hummed from the stereo speakers, a fire blazed in the fireplace, and the piney scent of the Douglas fir they’d bought at the local tree farm filled the air. Emily’s older brother, Jake, and sister Beth were home from college, and the whole family was gathered in the living room to help with the decorations.
“Oh, Emily, don’t put Snoopy there.” Mrs. Fields rushed to the tree and scooped up the Snoopy-embossed ball Emily had placed on a low branch. “He needs to be next to Garfield, see?” She pointed to a ceramic Garfield near the top.
Emily’s sister Carolyn giggled, plucking a construction paper ornament covered in glitter and crayon squiggles from the decrepit box. “What is this?”
“That’s the drum Jake made in preschool!” Mrs. Fields waved the ornament in Jake’s face. “Remember this, honey?”
Jake stared at Mrs. Fields blankly from under his ARIZONA SWIMMING baseball cap and tugged on the ends of his chlorine-bleached red hair. “Uh, no.”
Emily concealed a smile. Her mother was a Christmaszilla, wanting everything to be as perfect as a greeting card. Every year they went to midnight Mass and waved around incense sticks. They always had a Christmas Day feast, which included a roasted turkey, stuffing, two kinds of cranberry sauce—a bowl of freshly made cranberry-orange relish as well as the store-bought cans—yams, mashed potatoes, and four different kinds of pies. Then they would sit down and watch every single Christmas special on TV, including A Very Brady Christmas, To Grandmother’s House We Go with the Olsen twins, and a Justin Bieber concert in which he sang all of the holiday standards.
Mrs. Fields collapsed on the couch and admired the tree. “This is going to be the best Christmas ever!”
“Let’s not go overboard.” Mr. Fields laced his hands over his ample stomach. “My bonus was a little smaller than usual this year.”
A tight expression washed across Mrs. Fields’s face. “We’ll make it work. We need a special holiday this year. We’ve all been through a lot.”