Dylan Read online

“You can’t!” Celia snapped, her gold necklace swinging back and forth. “You are not true Spanish.”

  “Puh-lease!” Alicia rolled her tired brown eyes. It was bad enough when Massie called her Fannish (fake Spanish) just because her father, Len, was American. But it was quite another thing to hear it from her own flesh and blood. And no self-respecting alpha would stand for it. The old Alicia would have admitted defeat and resigned herself to a summer of cheering on her cousins while she envy-watched from the sidelines. But the new Alicia was going to fight for her rightful place in the alpha kingdom. And she was going to win.

  “They asked for a true Spanish beauty, right?” Alicia pressed.

  The twins nodded, barely noticing as the porter snuck up behind them, reclaimed his cart, and sped off.

  “Well, what I don’t have in Spanish, I make up for in beauty.” Alicia tossed her hair. She was acting the part now—soon she would become it.

  “Point,” Isobel nodded, still using Alicia’s expression from last summer.

  “I say we sneak out of the house tonight and go to the Hotel Lindo. We will party there and search for ¡i! and his entourage and—”

  Sluuuurppppp. Sluuuurppppp.

  The sound of someone straw-draining the last drops of liquid from a glass bottle put an instant hold on their scheme session. Alicia turned to see why and came face-to-face with Nina, who had been lurking behind her, an empty Orangina in hand. She was still tall and thin. Her boobs were still massive. But she no longer posed a physical threat, thanks to her new hair-don’t. Thick platinum bangs and a bowl-bob grazed her rounded jaw. On a supermodel in New York who only wore skinny jeans, tight black turtlenecks, and matte red lipstick, this look would have been hawt. But on someone wearing a ketchup stained turquoise racer-back tank with yellow linen pants, it came off like more of a dare.

  “Hola,” Nina hissed, offering no embrace. She was obviously still bitter that the Pretty Committee had publicly busted her at the OCD Valentine’s Day dance for stealing their stuff. They’d then had the police escort her off campus and dump her at the airport.

  “Hola,” Alicia responded coldly. In the split second since Nina had appeared, it seemed like everyone who had been watching them turned away. She was terrible for business.

  “I know what you were talking about.” Nina rubbed her heavily lined brown eyes like she’d just woken up, smudging blue kohl under her bottom lashes. “But no one has ever seen ¡i! in person. What makes you think—”

  “Go get Cousin’s bags.” Celia stomped her gold sandal. “Ándale! Papa is waiting in the car.”

  Nina chucked her bottle in a metal trash can and stormed off to retrieve the only set of Louis Vuitton suitcases in the mix.

  Isobel leaned in toward Alicia, surrounding her in the unmistakable scent of Bobbi Brown’s Beach. “We must not let her know what we are up to. She is a—how you say … tagalong! And will make us look bad in front of ¡i!. If you want to have fun with us this summer, you must avoid Little Sister.”

  “No prob,” Alicia sighed, relieved that they were all thinking the same thing.

  “Ready?” Nina asked, wheeling two brown-and-gold suitcases, one in each hand. She led the way through the sliding glass door outside to the pick-up area.

  It was humid and sunny. The foreign smell of cigarette smoke and exhaust fumes wafted around them, reminding Alicia that she was entering an alternate universe where anything was possible. Betas could become alphas, Fannish could become Spanish, and Nina and her “rob hobby” could be easily avoided.

  Suddenly, Nina stopped walking. She turned around and smiled her toothy Julia Roberts grin at Alicia. “Did my sisters tell you we’re sharing a room this summer?”

  Celia and Isobel quickly turned to face each other, as if they were deeply involved in a telepathic conversation and couldn’t be interrupted.

  Alicia’s heart thumped to the beat of the salsa music blaring from a blue MINI Cooper that had just passed them. “What do you mean? I always get my own—”

  “Mama is renovating the guest wing.” Nina licked her puffy lips with delight. “So we will all be together. You, me, my graphic-novel collection, and your precious American clothes.” She winked.

  “Wait! What?” Alicia checked her pink, crocodile-strap Gucci watch, wondering if there was time to catch the last flight back to JFK.

  Just then, Nina rolled one of the suitcases through a steaming brown clump of …

  She stopped to examine the stinky wheel. “Uh oh, perro poo!”

  Celia and Isobel gasped while Alicia buried her face in her hands, knowing exactly how her poor Louis felt.