Julian's words haunted Alison. "You're only a schoolgirl," he'd said, and Alison knew he still considered her a child. Could she really mean so little to him? Somewhere under all the planning and preparations Alison had cherished a faint hope that her business-arrangement marriage with Julian would turn into the kind of relationship she'd always dreamed of. But now, with sickening certainty, she realized that Julian had never loved her. And Rosalie was free again, deternimed to win Julian back. Alison felt suddenly that there was no use fighting anymore.