Their message was crystal-clear: Only if she was “good enough”would she get their love.

A fire lit in Jason’s gut, the same way it always did when he thought about the way her parents treated her. Why couldn’t they see what he did? She was funny and brilliant and, to him at least, so damn sexy he couldn’t think straight whenever they touched.

He’d loved her from the minute he’d seen her and it hadn’t taken long for her to confess she felt the same way.

Still, he had to admit that sometimes it bothered him how she insisted on hiding their relationship from her parents. They thought friendship was as far as things went. How wrong they were. If only she’d stand up to them, he knew she’d finally be free from all the pressure and stress of being their perfect little girl, but Jason didn’t want to force this issue with her either.

In time, he figured Emma would come to this conclusion on her own. And he’d back her up every step up of the way until that day came.

A spinach and feta quiche still warm in his backpack, he made his way across campus, walking up the steps of the quad just as the bells struck 11:30. Heading into the shadows of an overhang, he waited for Emma to walk outside with her parents.

Emma’s father walked out with his arm slung around the beefy, over-inflated shoulder of a campus football hero. Steven Cartwright. What the hell was that guy doing with Emma’s father?

Jason and Emma had run into Steven at the local pub a couple of weeks ago and Jason had wanted to flatten the guy for the hungry way he looked at her. Evidently, they were in the same killer Economics of Third World Countries class. Emma hadn’t wanted to stay long. Jason didn’t blame her and they’d left without finishing their drinks.

Emma’s mother walked out of the church next, her boring suit a perfect match to her boring hair, makeup, and pinched expression.Does she keep lemons in her pocket?he wondered. Otherwise how else could she keep that sour expression intact?

Finally, Emma emerged into the sunlight and Jason’s heart unconstricted. She probably couldn’t wait to get away from the dull super jock and her dreary folks.

He began to make his way around the side of the quad, planning on surprising Emma from behind the group. She could tell her parents they had to study for a big test or something. But just then the dynamic changed between Steven and Emma. Jason stopped dead in his tracks.

Emma’s mother basically handed her daughter over to Steven, while her father pushed the jock in his daughter’s direction as well. Emma and Steven met in the middle of her approving parents and before Jason could blink to clear his vision, Steven was bending down to kiss Emma, the same soft mouth he’d tasted himself only hours before.

Fuck! He’d kissed her! Some football player had kissed his girlfriend!

Jason dropped his backpack to the ground, intent on killing the blonde ass**le, if that’s what it came to.

But then, the unthinkable happened: Emma went up on her tippy-toes and kissed Steven back.

The ground dropped out from beneath Jason. His lungs weren’t working right anymore and he couldn’t think clearly. Instead of kissing that stupid football player, Emma might as well have ripped Jason’s heart out and stomped on it.

What was happening? She was his.Mine,he thought.

The sunlight glinted off of something on her right hand and Jason watched as Steven held it up for her parents to admire. Emma’s father slapped him on the back and for the first time in history, Emma’s mother didn’t look like a sourpuss.

Knife-sharp betrayal lodged itself in Jason’s chest. But still, he refused to believe that Emma was a willing party to this. Her parents must have forced this guy on her. And even though she lived in fear of disappointing them, any minute now she’d pull the ring off, she’d tell the guy to get lost.

And everything would be okay.

Only everything wasn’t okay. Because instead of telling Steven where to stick his kiss and his stupid ring, she was letting him hold her hand.

Worst of all, she was turning her face up to his, laughing at something he was saying.

Jason took off, straight toward them. In the back of his mind he knew it might be a better idea to cool off, to wait until Emma was alone so that he could hear her side of the story. But Jason wasn’t interested in what was fair anymore. In doing the right thing. Fuck being the good guy. Blood drained out of his face, his whole body felt empty, devoid of his usual boundless energy.

“Emma,” he called out.

She spun around and he knew. Guilt was pressed into her face, written all over her body.

She was betraying him. Leaving him.

For someone who didn’t deserve her. And never would.

“Jason,” she gasped, trying to pull her hand from Steven’s grasp. But Steven held tightly to her and there she was, stuck between two men and her parents.

Jason would have felt sorry for her, except he couldn’t go there. Not when everything he’d believed in had been ripped away.

“Looks like you’re having a big happy family Easter, aren’t you?”

His words themselves were innocuous enough, but not his tone. They burned his tongue, his lips as they fell.

“Can we talk about this later?”

She was pleading and a kinder man would have let her go, would have said, “Fuck it, she’s made her choice.”

But he wasn’t interested in being kind. Or in making this easy for her. She was going to tell the truth, goddamn it, admit that she was a coward. And a liar.

He shrugged. “Seems like it would be better to clear the air now that we’ve got everyone here, don’t you think?”

She shook her head, swiftly side to side, obviously expecting him to protect her from her parents one last time. Too bad she was assuming they were still on the same side, when she had clearly defected to the enemy camp.

The sick thing was, just like he’d always known but hadn’t wanted to admit during the past three years, a guy like Steven was a perfect fit for her. They would have blonde, dull kids, who got straight As and went into the family business.

Fuck.

Forcing his lips up into some resemblance of a smile, Jason turned to her mother. “Jane, your daughter and I have been dating.”

Jane gasped. “You? That’s impossible. Emma, tell me it isn’t true.”

But Emma just stood there, one tear tracking down her cheek.

Any other time Jason would have brushed it away. Now, he barely watched it fall.

“Walter, looks like you’ve found a much better candidate for your daughter, haven’t you? I assume he’s going to work for you upon graduation, keep everything neat and tidy in the family?”