Chapter 1
Tobias
The groom in the mirror looked perfect.
Tuxedo custom-tailored by the same Italian house that had dressed Langford men for three generations. Boutonnière pinned at just the right angle. Hair styled by the wedding coordinator's assistant, each strand in its place.
I looked exactly like what I was supposed to be.
I felt like a ghost in someone else's skin.
The ceremony was at three. I'd been ready since noon—dressed, groomed, and photographed from every angle for the pre-wedding shots that would eventually fill a leather-bound album no one would ever look at. Now there was nothing left to do but wait.
Wait, and try not to think about the fact that in less than two hours, I would promise to love Elizabeth Ashworth for the rest of my life.
I turned away from the mirror and walked to the window. The gardens below were already filling with guests—women in pastel dresses and elaborate hats, men in summer suits, all mingling with champagne flutes and the easy confidence of people who belonged in places like this. The white chairs stood in perfect rows, three hundred of them, waiting for the moment when I would walk down that aisle and become someone's husband.
Elizabeth's husband.
I pressed my forehead against the cool glass and closed my eyes.
I'd spent my entire adult life pretending not to notice.
At sixteen, I'd caught myself staring at my roommate's back while he changed for lacrosse practice. The broad shoulders. The way his muscles moved under his skin. I looked away so fast I gave myself a headache, then spent the next week convincing myself it meant nothing. Everyone noticed bodies. It was normal. It didn't mean anything.
At eighteen, I felt my pulse spike when an older boy brushed past me at a party, his hand grazing my hip. I spent the rest of thenight avoiding him, terrified of what I might do if we ended up alone together. Afterward, I told myself I'd just had too much to drink.
At twenty-one, I kissed a girl for the first time—really kissed her, as I was supposed to—and felt absolutely nothing. No heat. No urgency. Just the mechanical pressure of lips against lips, my mind already wandering to something else.
I told myself I was a late bloomer. That the right woman would unlock something inside me. That everyone felt this way, and I just needed to try harder.
But late at night, when I couldn't control my thoughts, it was never women I imagined. It was hands larger than mine. Broader shoulders. The rough scratch of stubble against my skin.
I'd learned to shut those thoughts down before they fully formed. Push them away, lock them up, pretend they'd never existed. The Langfords didn't produce gay sons. The Langfords produced heirs—proper heirs who married proper wives and continued the proper bloodline. Anything else was unthinkable.
I didn't think about it. I dated the women my mother introduced me to, going through the motions of attraction even when I felt nothing. I kept telling myself that someday it would click; I'd look at a woman and feel the way I was supposed to.
It never happened.
Then, four weeks ago, I came to this hotel for a site visit.
It was an accident. A stupid, meaningless accident.
I stumbled at the fountain, not paying attention to where I was walking, and someone had caught me. A hand on my arm, yanking me backward. I lost my balance and fell against a solid chest, and then an arm wrapped around my waist, holding me steady.
Five seconds. Maybe less.
But in those five seconds, my body betrayed me completely.
The man's chest was broad and hard against my back. I could feel his heartbeat, slow and steady, while my own pulse raced. His arm pressed against my stomach, and the heat of his hand burned through my jacket. He smelled like clean soap—not cologne, just soap—and something beneath that was purely masculine.
I wanted to lean back into him. Wanted to turn around. Wanted to press closer and feel more of that solid warmth.
I wanted, in a way I'd never allowed myself to want before.
"Watch your step."
His voice was low and close to my ear. I turned my head and found myself inches from a face like a cliff wall—hard angles, sharp edges, gray eyes that revealed nothing.
