“I want even less.”
Jasper snorted. “You say that as though it were impressive.”
Greyson rolled his eyes. “I say it because it is true.”
“Oh, I believe it,” Jasper said. “It is just that I have never seen a man work so hard to remain unaffected. You have already decided this woman cannot touch you, and you have barely met her.”
“That is the correct way to approach marriage,” Greyson said without hesitation. “Emotion complicates matters.”
Jasper leaned forward, lowering his voice with false solemnity. “Greyson, my dear friend… you have the emotional range of a boot heel.”
Greyson glared. “And yet you remain here.”
“Because someone must watch you walk into matrimony as though it were a tenant agreement.”
Greyson exhaled through his nose. “This conversation is pointless.”
Jasper shrugged. “Most conversations with you are. I enjoy the challenge.”
Greyson resisted the urge to rub his temples. “Hazel Thorne wishes for a marriage without sentiment. I am offering exactly that. It is ideal.”
Jasper studied him for a long moment, his eyes too perceptive for Greyson’s comfort.
“She is more than sensible, Greyson,” Jasper assured him. “She is kind and tender. A woman you might actually?—”
“Stop,” Greyson cut in sharply.
He took a slow breath, trying but failing to steady himself. Jasper’s grin remained infuriatingly confident, as though he could see through everything Greyson wasn’t saying.
“Do not mistake me,” Greyson warned. “I will not fall for her.”
Jasper lifted a brow. “You sound very certain.”
“I am,” Greyson replied in a tone like steel. “You know that I made a vow years ago, never to let myself fall for the charms of any woman.”
Jasper sobered slightly. “Greyson?—”
“No.” Greyson’s voice cut sharply through the haze of tobacco smoke around them. “Do you know what happens when a man allows a woman to become the center of his world? Do you know what it costs?”
Jasper sat back, and his grin was now fading.
Greyson stared ahead, feeling the suffocating weight of the words he had not said enough times to make them hurt less. “I watched my brother die because of it.”
Jasper didn’t interrupt… not this time, although he knew the story. Everyone did.
Greyson continued more quietly now, but his voice was still edged with fury. “He was in love with a woman he could not have. And instead of bearing it, instead of bearing disappointment like any rational man, he leapt into the river in a fit of despair.” His fingers curled tightly around his glass. “He drowned for her, for a woman who chose to belong to another.”
He swallowed hard, and for a moment, he couldn’t breathe. It was almost as if he were the one, trapped under the waves, gasping for air.
“And she mourned him for all of a week,” he added coldly. “Then returned to her husband’s side as though my brother had never existed.”
Jasper exhaled, but he still didn’t say anything.
Greyson’s gaze grew darker. “And do you know what his foolishness accomplished? Besides ending his own life?”
Jasper’s eyes were focused on his friend. Greyson needed an audience for his rage, and Jasper was a willing one.
“It destroyed our mother,” Greyson said. His voice cracked, just slightly. But he heard it. Jasper heard it too.
