Glancing up from his watch, Christopher gives me a meaningful lift of his eyebrows. I shrug my shoulders. What?

He sighs before turning toward Jamie. “So, West, you and Jean-Claude go way back, right?”

“Our mothers are friends,” Jamie tells him. “I’ve known him my whole life.”

“That’s right,” Christopher says. “You went to the same boarding school?”

“Our mothers did, in Paris, which is where they’re from. Jean-Claude’s family didn’t move stateside until we were teens, and then we didn’t cross paths academically until we went to the same university.”

I roll my eyes. Of course Jamie’s one of those people whose French mother went to boarding school. I bet Jamie did, too. He’s got prep school written all over him.

As Christopher asks him another question, Jamie drains the rest of his cocktail. It smells like bourbon and oranges, and when he swallows, my gaze dips from his lips to his throat.

I stare at him as they talk, telling myself I don’t have to like him for my artist’s eye to love observing how the soft lighting of my family home knifes down the long line of his nose and caresses the angles of his face, revealing sharp cheekbones, a sharper jawline, a tight slash of a mouth that might be secretly soft when he’s not pinning it between his teeth. A stuffy stick-in-the-mud shouldn’t be allowed to be this beautiful.

“Well, Miss Crabby,” Christopher says, nudging my crab mask and rudely dragging me back into the conversation. “Did you make this yourself?”

“But of course,” I tell him, feeling Jamie’s eyes on me and hating how that makes me blush. “I’m not even going to ask you, Christopher. This brown bear disguise is clearly store-bought.”

“Sorry to disappoint. Some of us are too busy working to make our own masks for Jean-Claude’s masquerade birthday party.”

“Well, at least you’re color coordinated.” Christopher’s dark hair and amber eyes are the same shades as his bear mask. I sink my fingers into his neatly styled locks and purposefully mess them up.

He flicks my ear. “Ever heard of personal space? Back up. You reek of peppermint schnapps.”

I dodge the next flick. “Better than having bourbon breath.”

Jamie watches us in silence, a notch in his brow, like he’s never seen two people good-naturedly tease each other.

Before I can make some jab about that, the lovebirds break apart on a loud lip smack, leaving my sister breathless and pink-cheeked.

“The things Juliet comes up with,” Jean-Claude says on a sigh as he stares down at my sister. “A masquerade party, full of people I have to share you with.” Tucking her tighter against his side, he adjusts the neckline of her wrap dress so her cleavage is covered. “When all I need is you.”