FORBIDDEN LOVE

Chapter Three

Richard tapped a fork against his champagne glass, and the sound cut through the chatter like a small, polite alarm. Conversations trailed off, heads turning toward him, and I felt my mother's hand find mine and squeeze.

"If I could have everyone's attention for just a moment," Richard said, raising his glass, his easy smile settling into something more solemn. "I promise I'll keep you from your wine only briefly."

A ripple of laughter moved through the terrace. I stood beside my mother, doing my best impression of someone who wasn't wishing the ground would open beneath her.

"Most of you know that three weeks ago, I married the most extraordinary woman I've ever met." He looked at my mother like she was the only person standing there, and I watched her cheeks go pink. "What some of you don't know is that Sarah came with a bonus I didn't deserve and definitely didn't earn."

He turned to me.

"This is Lily. My daughter, as of three weeks ago, though I like to think she's been mine a little longer than that."

More laughter. I felt my face heat and made myself smile, the tight, practiced kind I'd perfected over years of family dinners with people who weren't quite family.

"Lily, I know this hasn't been easy," Richard said, quieter now, aimed only at me even with forty people listening. "New house, new name on the mailbox, new brother upstairs who apparently can't be bothered to put a shirt on—" a laugh from the crowd, and somewhere behind me I heard Tony cackle "—but I want you to know how grateful I am that you let us try this. To all of you — please raise a glass to Lily. Welcome to the family."

Glasses lifted around the terrace. My mother's grip on my hand tightened, her eyes glassy with something that looked suspiciously like tears.

"Thank you," I said, because it was expected, and I smiled, and I meant maybe forty percent of it, which felt like progress.

The quartet shifted into something slower, something meant for dancing, and Richard set down his glass with the air of a man executing a plan.

"Sarah," he said, holding out his hand. "Dance with your husband."

My mother laughed and let him pull her onto the cleared space at the center of the terrace, and for a moment I just watched them — the way Richard's hand settled at the small of her back like it belonged there, the way she tipped her head back and laughed at something he murmured. I hadn't seen her look like that in years. Maybe not ever.

I didn't notice Aiden had reappeared until he was standing a few feet away in a fresh shirt, dark this time, sleeves rolled to his forearms like he'd changed in a hurry.

Then the song shifted, some cue I didn't catch, and Richard spun my mother toward Aiden while turning to extend a hand toward me.

"May I?"

I glanced at my mother, already laughing again as Aiden took her hand, and looked back at Richard's open palm.

"Sure," I said, because what else was there to say.

Richard danced like a man who'd been to a hundred of these parties and knew exactly how to make someone new to it all feel less like a decoration and more like a person. He kept a respectful distance and let the music do most of the work.

"You looked like you wanted to disappear back there," he said, quiet enough that only I could hear.

"A little."

"For what it's worth, I meant every word."

"I know," I said, and found, a little to my own surprise, that I did.

The song rotated us slowly, and I caught glimpses of my mother laughing at something Aiden said, his head bent toward her, easy and warm in a way I hadn't seen from him yet — not toward me, anyway. He probably had an entire version of himself reserved just for family, and I hadn't earned access to it yet.

Then the music shifted again, Richard handed me off with a wink, and suddenly I was standing in front of Aiden with no warning at all.

"Guess we're doing this," he said.

"Guess so."

He held out his hand. I stared at it half a second too long before I took it.

His hand was warm, bigger than I expected, and the second his fingers closed around mine something happened low in my chest that I refused, on principle, to name. He drew me in — a respectable distance, his other hand settling at my waist the way you'd hold anyone at a party — but I felt it anyway. Some current running under my skin that had nothing to do with the wine I hadn't been allowed to drink.

If he felt it too, he didn't show it. He was looking somewhere over my shoulder, jaw set.

"You changed your shirt," I said, mostly to fill the silence.

"Had wine on the other one."

"I heard."

That got the corner of his mouth to twitch before he smoothed it back into something neutral. We turned in a slow circle, and I was aware of every point where we touched — his hand at my waist, my hand in his, the careful few inches he kept between us like a rule he'd set for himself.

"So," he said finally, an edge in his voice now, almost mocking. "Hello, baby sister. How are you enjoying your welcome party?"

"Hello, big brother," I said, matching his tone exactly. "Oh, I'm having a blast."

"Mm. Sounded like it. You've had that face on all night."

"What face?"

"The one where you smile with your mouth but your eyes are doing math on how fast you could leave."

I opened my mouth to argue and found, annoyingly, that I couldn't. "That obvious?"

"Only to someone who's spent a lot of time perfecting the same face."

That surprised a real laugh out of me, and something flickered across his expression before he caught it and put it away.

The song ended before either of us said anything else. His hand slid from my waist first, mine slower to let go, and for a second his eyes actually met mine instead of sliding past them, and neither of us looked away first.

Richard's voice cut through the moment, calling everyone toward the cake table, and the spell broke.

Aiden stepped back, cleared his throat, and said, too casually, "Thanks for the dance, sis," in a voice that made the word sound like it cost him something.

He walked off toward Tony before I could answer, and I stood in the middle of the empty dance floor with my heart going far too fast for a dance that had ended thirty seconds ago.

I told myself it was the wine.

I hadn't had any wine.

By the time the last guests trickled out and the string lights switched off one section at a time, I felt looser than I had all night, like the party had finally stopped being a performance.

His door was open when I passed it, just a few feet down the hall from mine, and I only meant to glance in.

Aiden had his back to me, pulling his shirt over his head in one unhurried motion, and I stopped walking before I'd fully decided to.

I told myself I'd look away. I did not look away.

The lamp on his nightstand threw everything into warm, low light — the line of his spine, the breadth of his shoulders as he dropped the shirt onto a chair, the way his back moved when he reached up to rub his neck like the evening had left a knot there too. He was built like someone who worked for it and never talked about it, and I felt my mouth go dry in a way that had nothing to do with the champagne I hadn't been allowed to drink.

I thought, stupidly, unwillingly, about what it would feel like to press my palm flat against that back. Whether he'd go still under it, or turn around, or—

He turned around.

Not fast. Just enough. Like he'd felt the weight of being watched before he understood why.

Our eyes met, and everything in me went silent.

For one endless second neither of us moved. He stood there half-dressed with his hand still raised near his neck, and I stood frozen in his doorway like I'd been caught doing something far worse than looking, and maybe I had.

"I— sorry—" The words tumbled out in a rush. "I wasn't— your door was open, I wasn't trying to—"

"Lily—"

"I'm so sorry." I was already stepping back, heat crawling up my neck and into my face. "Goodnight."

I didn't wait for whatever he was going to say. I turned and walked fast down the hall, heart slamming, and let myself into my room, shutting the door behind me like it might actually keep anything out.

I stood there with my back against the wood, breathing like I'd run somewhere.

Through the wall, faint but unmistakable, I heard his door click shut too.

Neither of us said a word about it. But I lay awake a long time that night, replaying the look on his face when he'd turned around, aware that whatever this was, it had only just started, and it was already so much bigger than I knew how to handle.