As soon as it was done, I handed the contract back to the lawyer, my skin still buzzing and my head still more out of it than was reasonable.Holy hell. I’m getting in trouble here. Deep, deep trouble.
Michael quickly reviewed the signatures, nodding his satisfaction before he looked back up. “Excellent. We’re all done here.”
Behind him, James looked genuinely thrilled. “Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful.”
I stepped back and reached into my jacket pocket, doing my best to just keep going through the motions. My thoughts were still swimming, my mind glitching completely at the fact that such a simple touch had affected me so profoundly.
That’s just stupid. It’s impossible.
“Right. There’s also this.” The ring box was weirdly heavy as I lifted it out of my pocket. I wasn’t a fan of the ring inside, but Jane and Kate had chosen it. Apparently, they’d spent two hours debating diamond shapes before landing on this particular monstrosity.
I slid my thumb into the groove and popped open the box, only just managing not to wince when I got my second look of the ring they’d sent with me. It was a lot. A large diamond in a halo setting with extra stones on the band.
It glittered like it was trying to blind someone, too big and too busy for Eliza, and judging by the look on her face when I took her hand, she thought the same. Still, she didn’t protest as I slid it onto her finger under the watchful eyes of her father and our family lawyer.
Once again, the only thing I could think about was what her hand felt like in mine, the electricity that seemed to hum right underneath my skin as soon as it was in contact with hers. Fora brief moment, her eyes lifted to mine and something sharp twisted in my chest, so cutting that it physically hurt as I held her gaze.
She isn’t mine. This isn’t real.
Even thinking that I might want her to be was crazy, but in that moment, with her hand in mine and that god-awful ring sitting between us, I had a brief flash of it. Possessiveness. Want. A longing for a future that wasn’t mine.
“Magnificent,” James said as he leaned over to get a better look.
Meanwhile, Michael was already preparing to leave, extending a hand toward me first. “I should be on my way shortly. I’m not a big fan of haunted castles and I have a flight back to Chicago tonight anyway.”
Before anyone could respond, Miriam appeared in the doorway like she’d been summoned by the universe itself, her all-seeing eyes focused intently on the lawyer. “If you’ll come with me.”
He seemed as surprised as I was at her appearance, but he nodded and stepped toward her. “Yes, of course.”
“I’ll see that you’re given a glass of brandy and a quiet dinner before you leave,” she said, waving for him to follow as she left the room.
“Stunning,” he muttered, not arguing with her at all.
Miriam seemed to have that effect on people. Within seconds, Michael had shaken everyone’s hands and he was gone. James went to a cabinet behind his desk, pulling out a bottle of scotch I’d never seen the label of before.
“This calls for a proper toast.” He produced three glasses from behind the desk as well, making me wonder what else he had back there as he poured amber liquid into each glass. “It’s nearly impossible to find this stuff these days. Very rare, but befitting of the occasion.”
He handed one glass to Eliza and another to me, then lifted his own and grinned between us. “To the newly engaged couple.”
Eliza lifted her glass politely, but I saw the way her nose wrinkled when she leaned forward slightly to sniff at the liquid. When James turned to set the bottle on the cabinet behind his desk, I reached over and snagged Eliza’s glass right out of her hand, quickly bringing it to my lips and swigging down the contents. All of it.
Just as James turned back around, I quickly pressed the empty glass back into her hand and took a long drink from my own. Eliza’s mouth parted slightly in surprise, but instead of calling attention to what I’d just done, she gave me a small, soft smile that hit me right in the chest.
James raised his glass to me again, practically beaming as his gaze held mine. “To the future, son. May it be bright and filled with as many boys as your father was blessed with.”
We clinked glasses and I took yet another sip of my drink, but even as I tried to fight it, another thought had started taking root in my head.I wonder how badly Alex and Dad really need Jesse to get married.
Because if I didn’t start putting some distance between myself and Eliza soon, she might be exactly the kind of woman I’d fall in love with. Only, for as long as my family kept insisting that it had to be Jesse, she would never be mine—and neither would any of those sons James had just mentioned.
CHAPTER 14
ELIZA
The dinner party thrown in our honor was small and intimate. At least, small by my father’s standards. Only a few dozen people milled around our formal dining room instead of the hundreds that usually appeared when an aristocrat got engaged.
These were my dad’s closest friends, men who had known him for decades, lofty, rich, and royally tied just like him. They’d arrived in polished cars just after sunset, their wives following like elegant shadows wrapped in silk and pearls.
Soon, the faint scent of expensive cologne and perfume lingered in the air while stories were swapped about land and lineage. It had been a long time since I’d been at a gathering like this, the sort that ran on the tradition of scotch before dinner and carefully veiled comparisons about whose family had been around the longest.
