Forbidden Fate (Crowne Point 3)

“I don’t need you,” I whispered.

The Neruda poem “I Do Not Love You” blasted through me. Grayson said he loved me.

But he only loved me as a dark, unwanted thing. In secret. In the cracks.

“You’ve got to be around six weeks along. You’ll start to show soon. How long are you planning to keep this charade up from your husband?” He bit out the words.

“Are you so certain we haven’t slept together?” I asked softly.

Grayson caged my feet at the foot of my bed, leaning forward until his chest nearly touched my legs, his hair wild and veiling his smoldering blue eyes.

His fingers fisted the fabric on either side of my legs. I felt like he was a second away from crawling up to me or yanking me down to him.

“If he touches you, I’ll kill him.”

I wanted to say something witty and biting back, about him having no right to say those things anymore. But his words, the growl he spoke them with, the look in his eyes…my throat dried. My skin tingled, my gut twisted, the excitement right before I was burned by a flame.

And then he stood up so fast, and suddenly there was an ocean of distance between us.

I looked away. “Does your wife know you’re here, in my bedroom, in the middle of the night?”

“I didn’t do anything a concerned brother-in-law wouldn’t have done.”

Brother-in-law.

Was that all we were now?

Fucking siblings?

I tore out of bed. “Leave.”

At my demand, Grayson glared and folded his arms.

The s

mell of spaghetti wafted stronger from this angle, making me want to hurl. Still I pressed forward. I shoved his chest, trying to force him out.

“I’ve hid behind sheets. Watched you get off your wife, watched you marry her. I’ve let you walk all over me. You can stay, Grayson. It doesn’t matter to me anymore. I’m going to my husband’s bed.”

I spun, but he grabbed my elbow. “Snitch, wait.”

Some kind of emotion throbbed in his eyes. Something powerful and deep…and secret. He kept so many secrets. I hated that there were things he wasn’t telling me.

The ocean between us was too wide.

I wanted to poke and pick at it, but the marinara was overpowering. I swallowed, trying to stop the inevitable.

Oh no. Oh no.

“Let me go.” I yanked my arm but he wouldn’t let go.

It happened so fast, the rising hurl.

“Let me just expl—”

I vomited all over his expensive pajamas.

GRAY