But I wouldn’t give him my reaction. I took a breath, then stood. I undid the towel, holding tight for a fraction of a second before dropping it to the floor. I kicked it into the corner. His eyes blazed; then he turned on his heel, shutting the bathroom door behind him.

GRAY

I stared at the door.

My imagination was weak fucking drink. The hair she kept up fell to her back, curls a careless halo around her face. She looked untamed. Divine. Water dripped down her curves like she was a seventeenth-century oil painting. Her breasts were full, the perfect size for my hands, begging to be bruised and bitten.

When my eyes dropped between her thighs, that was the moment I knew I was fucked.

A freshly shaved pussy. God fucking dammit. It was like a nun just ripped off her habit, revealing a sex kitten. Snitch was a paradox inside a contradiction. A strong jaw holding too-soft lips. Sex wrapped inside purity.

“Grayson?” my mother called, and I realized she’d been talking. “Did you hear what I said?”

I blinked, finding my mother holding her neck softly with her right hand.

“No. Sorry.”

“I said, did you see the latest stunt your sister pulled last night?”

Are you coming right now?

“I was a bit preoccupied.”

“Well, Abigail destroyed my beautiful maze.”

“Ah.” So that was why it was on fucking fire.

“Honestly, I’ve been up all night,” Mom continued. “Your poor sister struggles so much with emotions she can’t control. You know how your cousin Emmaline went on that retreat? She came back so much more…refined. I think it might be good for Abigail.”

Emmaline was all but fucking lobotomized. Our cousins looked at Rosemary Kennedy and thought, Well done.

This isn’t unusual behavior, my mother threatening one of my sisters in my presence. It’s a dance we do. She threatens them, and then I give up something so she doesn’t go through with it. Usually we’re more passive, we dance around it.

Gemma was caught with a gardener again, she might do better if we restrict her access to her own wing…oh, it’s such a shame how you keep ending up on those covers, Grayson.

Today I don’t feel like fucking dancing. “What is it you want, Mother?”

She made a sound in her throat like I’d just insulted her very core. “To talk with my son.”

But she didn’t say anything else, and she didn’t leave.

I guess we were fucking dancing.

“Something on your mind, Mom?

“If you really want to know…the house is atwitter with gossip.”

“Isn’t it always?”

She rubbed her jugular. “A Cinderella story, some are calling it—don’t give me that look, Grayson. I don’t know what else to call it, either, when you’ve stolen your sister’s girl and stowed her away in your wing.”