Two

There was no possibility of me saying no. I suspect there were very few women on the planet who could say no to Grayson Barlowe. Besides, I wanted to speak to him but Niamh and Ethan couldn’t listen in. We had to stop this nonsense between our siblings before it went any further. In love with someone after only six weeks? It was ridiculous. Niamh was naïve and innocent and way too trusting. It had taken me three years to get engaged to Ryan, but of course, it had ended in tears. His, not mine.

Grayson led me to a private room on the other side of the hotel. It was furnished as a sitting room—twin soft sofas in plush velvet, long elegant silk curtains at the windows with a pelmet above. There was an antique writing desk and chair set on one side of the room and bookshelves on the other. The carpet was ankle-deep and hand-woven and it was a gorgeous shade of shell pink to match the silk curtains. It would have been a feminine room except for the cold marble statue of the hotel’s founder placed near the window, as well as a stern-looking portrait hanging on one of the walls. Those beady eyes seemed to glare at us as we made our way in as if to ask us why his peace was being disturbed. Rest in peace, old man, I said to myself. This fight is none of your business.

Grayson closed the door once we were inside with an ominous-sounding clunk. His eyes drilled into mine and I resisted the urge to look away. I balled my hands into tight fists, my spine ramrod-straight, my chin high—it had to be held high to maintain eye contact with him. He was well over six feet and I couldn’t help recalling how my ex-fiancé hated it when I wore heels. I reckon I could wear stilts around Grayson Barlowe and still have to crane my neck.

‘This has to stop and it has to stop now.’ His voice had a determined edge to it, hinting at a personality not unlike my own. Once I make up my mind, that’s it. I don’t back down.

  Although I agreed with him, I was unwilling to be on his side due to his insulting assumption my sister was a shallow gold digger. I found myself looking for reasons for Niamh and Ethan to continue their relationship despite my reservations.

‘What’s your main objection?’ I injected my tone with cool crispness. ‘They’re both consenting adults.’

His dark eyebrows snapped together in a tight frown. ‘My brother has been blindsided by your sister’s looks. And she wants someone wealthy enough to take care of her.’

I know my sister is stop-the-traffic stunning, but it was insulting that Grayson couldn’t see past Niamh’s looks to her sweet, gentle, and caring nature. ‘Ahem, it’s the twenty-first century. Women don’t need a man to take care of them.’ Call me a hypocrite but, feminist though I am, I sometimes fantasize about a man taking care of me. A man who would have my back and stand by me and encourage and support me. Who would love me for being me? Not a single man in my life past or present has ever done that for me, so you can see why it’s just a fantasy on my part. Sigh.

Grayson’s mouth tightened even further. ‘I will not allow my brother to be exploited by someone who’s only after a meal ticket.’

‘She’s not looking for any such thing.’ I knew it wouldn’t take him long to see how limited my sister was in some areas. Unlike his brother, Niamh has no visible disability but if you spend enough time with her it soon becomes apparent she has some limitations. Not physical but intellectual. She has a reading age of an eight-year-old. She can only do simple maths. She has a small working memory, so complicated tasks can easily overwhelm her. Her support worker has helped her enormously, and of course, I do everything I can, especially since Mum died three and a half years ago. It’s been Niamh and me against the world ever since and, let me tell you, it’s not always a nice world for people with acquired brain injuries. Or their carers.

Grayson scraped his broad-spanned hand through the thickness of his hair. I stared in fascination at the deep grooves his fingers left behind. I started to think about those long, tanned fingers gliding down the bare skin of my arm, or my legs... I shivered and then swallowed thickly and quickly realigned my shoulders and spine back into a stiff don’t-mess-with-me pose. It’s kind of become my default posture in life, to be honest. Always bracing myself for a fight. I had no idea why I was suddenly fantasizing about Grayson Barlowe’s fingers on my body. It’d been a long time since I’d been intimate with anyone but surely I could find someone a little more suitable than my number one business rival?

Grayson’s eyes came back to mine and a frisson coursed through my body. He had arresting eyes, a glacial ice blue with tiny flecks of grey. They were fringed with thick and long eyelashes that gave me an instant pang of envy. I had to use three coats of mascara and an expensive lash serum to make my lashes even vaguely noticeable.

‘What sort of work does your sister do?’

‘She doesn’t have full-time employment...as yet. She volunteers at a pet shelter.’ I moistened my dry lips with the tip of my tongue and added, ‘Is your brother employed?’

Grayson’s eyes followed the movement of my tongue with an intense focus that made something soft and feathery flutter across the floor of my belly. He rapidly blinked and screened his expression like a shutter being drawn on a window.

‘He works for me in a part-time position.’ His curt answer contained a weight of information about him. Information I suspect I was able to decode only because of my situation with my sister. There was a world of regret, guilt, pain, and quiet despair in Grayson’s reply. A world I was all too familiar with and knew I could never leave, even though I wished I could turn back time and do everything differently at that playground twenty years ago.

Grayson suddenly frowned again. ‘Are you okay?’

It was my turn to rapid blink as the sting of tears at the backs of my eyes took me by surprise. I was caught off-guard by his assessing look. I was caught off-guard by my spiraling emotions. Emotions I had stuffed so deep inside myself that I had almost forgotten they were there. Almost.

My baby sister wanted to get married and I couldn’t allow her to do it. Or at least, not in such a hurry. Not until I could guarantee she knew what she was doing. She had no experience when it came to men. She had never had a boyfriend before. I had spent my life trying to protect her from further hurt after the one time I failed to protect her. I could not bear to see her in any sort of pain, and emotional pain is one of the worst to experience. I should know, I’ve experienced it for years.

I brushed one of my hands over my eyes in an impatient manner. ‘I have hay fever. All those fresh flowers in the restaurant.’

He reached into his jacket pocket and took out a neatly folded snowy white handkerchief and held it out to me. I stared at it like it was something I had never seen before. But then, it had been years since I had seen one. Most people use tissues these days. Grayson’s possession of a freshly laundered and neatly ironed handkerchief seemed to suggest he was a traditionalist at heart. Or maybe he was doing his thing for the environment, saving our forests from being made into paper.

‘Take it.’ His voice had that note of drill sergeant command in it again, which made me want to refuse on principle but I mentally did a stocktake of my tote bag hanging on my shoulder and I wasn’t sure I had any tissues in there. Tampons, breath mints, lip-gloss, paracetamol, hand sanitizer, swanky new business cards that had cost me a fortune... No tissues. Then I recalled I gave my last purse-sized pack to Niamh two days ago when she had a nose bleed and I had forgotten to replace them.

I took the handkerchief from him and my fingers accidentally brushed against his. A ripple of energy flowed from his body to mine like a live electric current. I held his handkerchief up to my eyes, dabbing at them and trying to decide if I should blow my nose to give more authenticity to my claim of experiencing hay fever. I decided against the nose blow. Unfortunately, I have never been a dainty nose-blower. Seriously, I could stand in for a fog horn.

Along with the cleanly laundered smell, his handkerchief held a trace of his aftershave fragrance—an alluring blend of bergamot and citrus, and male body heat. I lowered the handkerchief from my face and folded it into an even smaller square. I needed something to do with my hands because, right then, I was tempted to reach up and touch Grayson Barlowe’s stubbly jaw. The dark regrowth generously peppered his chiselled jawline and my gaze was magnetically drawn to the sculpted perfection of his mouth. His lower lip had a sensual fullness, his top lip sharply defined as if his Maker had spent an inordinate amount of time getting it right as a sculptor works on their career-defining masterpiece. It was a mouth that hinted at a passionate nature that was carefully, vigorously held in check but once unleashed could be dangerous.

I suppressed another shiver, trying not to think of how dangerous it would be to be in bed with Grayson Barlowe. Dangerous and exciting and mind-blowing.

I stuffed the handkerchief in my tote bag. ‘I’ll wash it and get it back to you.’

‘Keep it.’

I shrugged as if I didn’t care either way, but I have a thing about returning borrowed things to their owners. Good manners and all that. Speaking of manners... Grayson and I had been invited to share in the celebration of Niamh and Ethan’s engagement, but here we were behind a closed door instead of raising our glasses to their happy union in the flower-filled restaurant.

‘So, what do you plan to do about your brother’s engagement?’

‘Stop it, that’s what.’