He saw Griffin’s throat work as he swallowed hard. Saw a darkness enter his eyes that Aaron knew so well. Perhaps Griffin understood his past a bit more than Aaron had guessed. Perhaps Griffin, too, had felt the pain when what he wanted seemed so huge and lonely and impossible.
“But you didn’t,” Griffin said softly.
“No, I didn’t. Noah caught me about to follow through, and he stopped me.”
Aaron pictured Noah, just a year older than he had been, storming into his room and snatching the gun from his hands. Pictured Noah grabbing him and dragging him to his feet to hold him. How they had both shook with terror at what they had nearly lost.
“You told him what you were?” Griffin encouraged.
“Not exactly.” Aaron shivered. “He kissed me. And I realized that Iwasn’talone.”
Griffin caught his breath, his face twisting in shock and horror. “Wait, you and Noah…you and my sister’s husband…”
“Were lovers for many years,” Aaron admitted. “And not just lovers. I loved him to my core, and I know he loved me. But he was titled and there were expectations. Hence Letty. The moment he proposed, we vowed to stay away from each other. To just be friends. But we couldn’t. Wecouldn’t. He hated himself for coming to me. I hated myself for letting him in. But we did it anyway.”
“Does Letty know?” Griffin asked. “Does she have any idea?”
Aaron smiled sadly. “Oh yes. She saw us, you see. And it all came out in a horrible rush. How I despised her at the time for being able to freely have what I could not. And she hated me for taking what he couldn’t give her. It was an untenable situation, made worse by…well, there were a great many things that made it worse that I won’t get into because Letty is your sister.”
Griffin flinched at the intimate implications of those words. “But you are friends now. I don’t recall a time when you weren’t. How did that happen?”
“You know Letty,” Aaron whispered. “Can’t you guess? She watched Noah suffer with his true self and she saw how much our being parted hurt us both. And then Noah got so very sick and…” He caught his breath as pain mobbed him. “In the end, we were bound be our twin grief. She for the husband she never truly had. Me for the man I could never freely love.”
Griffin was silent for a beat and then he sighed. “Of course…of course she would do that. Letty is…”
“Amazing,” Aaron finished with a soft smile for the friend he loved so completely. “When she fell in love with Jack, when it became clear that there would be the happiest of endings for her, there was no one who celebrated as much as I did.”
Griffin’s brow knitted. “You hurt Letty by your actions with Noah, but why does that interfere with us?”
Aaron stared at him. “How can you ask me that? Does Letty know what you are? Who you fuck? Where you go in London?”
Griffin’s face went tight and it answered the question even before he ground out, “No.”
“So you would have me hurt her all over again? I took her husband and now I would take her beloved younger brother?” Aaron sighed. “You are younger than I am—perhaps you haven’t seen or done as much. Let me tell you, it is better to hide what we are.”
Griffin lifted his chin. “I’ve been hiding what I am for years. Don’t say I haven’t suffered for it. Or that it doesn’t cause just as much pain. It sent me looking for any kind of acceptance, it sent me seeking out the kind of life Jack Blackwood used to live. My mistakes in trying to find my place nearly got my sister and her husband killed.”
Aaron arched a brow. He knew the story, of course—he had been part of it. “Then you have hurt her and I have hurt her. Doing it all again would be far too much. I won’t do it, Griffin. I…I won’t.”
Aaron moved toward the exit, but before he left, he turned back. Griffin was standing in the same spot where they’d kissed, his face pale, his hands gripped at his sides. Everything in Aaron screamed at him to go back. Not to walk away from the intensity of feeling he hadn’t experienced since the horrible moment when Noah breathed his last.
“I’m sorry,” Aaron said, choking on the words.
Griffin said nothing, just stared at him, and Aaron could take it no longer. He fled the gazebo, fled the lighted path beside it, fled into the dark garden so he wouldn’t have to face everything he wanted.
And everything he stood to lose by saying no.
Chapter Three
Griffin paused at the breakfast room door and allowed himself a long, deep sigh. Inside, there were gales of laughter, voices all chattering at once. He stood outside, wishing he could just slink away and never come back.
But he couldn’t, so he opened the door and came inside, placing a fake smile on his face. The moment he entered the room, that smile was tested. Aaron sat at the table, wedged between two misses whose names Griffin couldn’t recall, despite having been introduced to them last night and even dancing with one of them.
Aaron glanced up when he entered, his gaze sliding to Griffin slowly. His face pinched in what appeared to be pain, regret, and then he looked away. Griffin pressed his lips together tighter as annoyance gripped him.
Aaron was going to pretend none of it had ever happened. Aaron was going to deny the attraction between them. And now Griffin knew the reasons, but they still stung.
“Good morning, Griffin,” Letty said, moving away from the sideboard to press a kiss on his cheek.
