His lungs seized, denying him breath. Good. If he so much as moved wrong, his damned heart would explode.
Devil save him, hewantedit to.
Anything would hurt less than this. Even death.
Arran tortured himself with the reminder that after their embrace in the kitchens, he was destined to watch the rest of Lucy’s life play without him in it.
Oh, she’d be in his life.
She’d glow at Campbell’s side. Laugh easily. Smile freely. Campbell would earn every one of those smiles. And Arran? Arran would stand apart, watching what he could never have.
He wanted that happiness for them.
And God help him—he wanted it for himself more.
Warmth slicked his palms. He looked down at the crescents his nails had carved into his own skin.
For an instant, he swore Lucy felt his stare, calling to her, begging her for a single look. Her shoulders stiffened.
Not for him. He was already fading into an afterthought. An afterimage. A mistake in a flicker of time.
In the end, it wasn’t Lucy who looked his way.
Meghan did. She murmured to Campbell and Andromena, then excused herself and made straight for Arran. Running would only make her chase.
“Hullo, cousin,” she said in greeting.
Arran met Meghan with a brusqueness meant to deter discourse. “Cousin.”
Meghan settled her shoulder near his. “She is lovely.”
Who? Arran saw but one woman, and she wasn’t lovely. She was ruin wrapped in grace. An ethereal goddess moving among mortals.
Arran stared over the crowd’s heads, resisting the pull to look at her. And failing. His world constricted to one point.Lucy.
“You would have to be more specific,” he said curtly. “There are many ladies here.”
“Andromena.”
Andromena?
He barely heard the name. He tracked Campbell’s fingers brushing Lucy’s long, graceful ones. Heat licked up Arran’s spine, stoked by possessive fury. He fixed on the rage. Better to hold onto rage than cave to grief.
Meghan sent her shoulder sliding into his. “I am jesting, Arran. Why would I be talking about the ladies in our family?”
“Why wouldn’t you?” he asked, his voice hollow.
Why, with Arran’s heart seizing up again and again, killing him slowly, did they speak about anything at all?
Those fingers Lucy twined about Arran’s neck to drag him closer, while she moaned his name, now lay where they belonged—near Campbell’s. Soon she’d only moan one other man’s name in the throes of passion.
Blackness edged his sight. Violent thoughts, quick and shameful, snapped through him.
Arran with a fist around Campbell’s. Crushing his fingers. Breaking them for daring to—
He focused on drawing slow, even breaths.
It didn’t help.
