His wing? No one was allowed in his wing, not even maids or cooks or his freaking friends. It was the most heavily guarded place in this palace.

Remember to breathe. In. Out. In. Out.

“I’m Ms. Abigail’s girl…” I finally managed. “I need to stay in the wing with the other girls.”

He grasped my chin, dragging my eyes to his. Another illicit icy-blue flash before I closed mine tight.

“Not anymore.”

Eyes closed, Gray was somehow more present. His soft touch and seductive scent heightened. Gray smelled expensive and unattainable, something someone like me shouldn’t be close enough to know, like touching the Mona Lisa.

“She’ll be mad,” I said with closed eyes.

His thumb dug into my chin. “I don’t give a fuck.”

Silence dug and scraped as I weighed my limited options.

Then his breath warmed my lips.

I stopped breathing. My lungs stopped working.

“We can just pretend this night never happened,” I attempted. “You pretend you didn’t hear me, and I’ll pretend I didn’t hear you.”

That was the absolute worst thing to say, I realized too late. We hadn’t acknowledged what I’d learned in the dark, and that had been my nebulous armor. But then I spoke, and his grasp on my chin turned vicious, deep, cutting.

“Should we?” he asked, so deathly calm and quiet. “I don’t know, Snitch. How the fuck am I going to pretend I didn’t hear your psychotic little love confession? Gonna have to start sleeping with one eye open now.”

I closed my eyes tighter like that could protect me.

He dropped me with violent force.

“Pandora doesn’t go back in the box. You have ten minutes.”

What if I say no? pricked my tongue, but I didn’t dare ask.

Grayson and I are the same age; we’d lived in the same house for years, and even attended the same school for a while, but I doubt he remembers me at all, or even knows my name. Because I’m someone who has to close my eyes to keep from seeing his, and he’s someone who shines so bright it demands everyone’s stare.

I swallowed, then nodded, turning on my heel toward the servants’ quarters, when his sultry voice drifted over my shoulders.

“You have no idea what you did tonight. But you will, soon.”

The servants’ quarters were on the west end of Crowne Hall, and, like most of Crowne Point, were something out of Downton Abbey. They had been my home since late freshman year of high school, when my mother died. Each room had phones with a mainline to the Crownes we served, but we might as well have used bells on strings. Ms. Barn was head of the girls, and my uncle, Mr. Hale, was head of the boys.