Forbidden Fate (Crowne Point 3)

The moment in the car. My uncle’s funeral. Hell…just every time we found ourselves alone together, something popped, something very unfriendlike.

I stepped closer as Grayson’s lids dropped.

“I’ve missed your blush, Snitch,” he rasped. “Missed the way your cheeks heat up like glowing amber. You know, it’s so subtle. It’s like another secret just for me.”

As if on command, my cheeks heated.

He dragged his thumb down my cheek with a barely-there smile. “There it is.”

Bad. Wrong.

But I don’t care anymore.

I angled my chin.

Then the doors behind us opened.

Grayson and I stepped apart as Tansy Crowne, Josephine St. Germaine, and Lynette du Lac filled the space between us. Gemma and her fiancé were behind them, and behind them, Gray’s wife and West.

My husband.

“Just in time,” Tansy said.

Behind us, a caravan of town cars was pulling up round the cobblestone driveway. The holidays. The remaining Crownes had just arrived.

The snow globe Gray and I had been building all day with sugar glass slowly fell apart around us, crashing to the floor.

Tansy Crowne, accompanied by a murder of servants at her back descended the white marble steps of Crowne Hall.

West came to me first, wrapping his arm around my waist as he had earlier. “I thought for sure you’d beat me.”

“I…”

Gray didn’t stop staring at me, even as Lottie came and took his hand.

If Gray and I had just stuck to the plan, we wouldn’t be getting caught like this. How do we even begin to explain why we were out here together? My car was supposed to take me home, but instead I was with Gray.

This was getting more muddled each day.

“We’re under the mistletoe,” Lottie said softly.

Both Gray and I lifted our eyes. Mine burned—it was like the pretty evergreen leaves were made with fire.

Lottie stood on her tiptoes for a kiss, and Gray returned it.

I turned from the sight, to West. “Mistletoe.”

The word came out robotic.

West arched a dark brow, but he tightened the arm around my waist and pulled me close.

“This would have made for a more romantic kiss,” West said. “I should have waited.”

“Should have waited?” Grayson repeated.

I ignored the way his growl made me feel and leaned in for West’s lips, letting the kiss happen. My eyes remained open, as did Grayson’s. As he kissed Lottie and I kissed West, Grayson watched me.

No, he bruised and burned me with his gaze.