The Grand Pact (The Grand Men #1)(106)

Nina slips her arms around his waist, hugging him with her eyes closed.

“We’re going out tonight. All of us.” He looks at me, telling me he means all of us. “We need it.”

“Hmmm.” Nina groans. “What about the babies?”

“Vinny will stay behind.”

“I can stay home,” Scarlet voices, but Mason shuts her down.

“You need the break too, Scar. Cars will be here at eight.”

“What time is it now?” Nina asks.

“Five.”

What? “We slept for hours,” I say.

“Jet lag is real.” He kisses Nina’s head and goes to leave. “Luce, can I have a quick word?”

I nod, shimmying down the bed and following him out the door.

He gives me a tight-lipped smile as he faces me.

“I’m sorry for the way I’ve treated you—”

“Mason, you don’t—”

“Yes, I do. You don’t deserve it. I’ve been a prick, and for that, I’m sorry.” He dips his head, catching my eyes and meaning his every word. “That being said, he’s fucking hurting, and he’s already better than he was last week. When he got home….” His nostrils flare, and he crosses his arms. “I’ve never seen him that way in my life.”

“I never meant to hurt him.”

“I know. But you did.”

“I don’t know how to fix it.”

He tightens his eyes on me. “Don’t you?”

“You think I should leave?”

“What?”

“Go home. You think I should leave?”

“Fuck, no. Luce, for Christ’s sake.” He pulls me into a hug, wrapping his muscular arms around my neck. His chin rests on my head, and I feel him pull in a long breath. “What do you want? Cause I keep thinking I know. That I see it, but then you come out with this shit.”

I swallow, glad he’s bear-hugging me and can’t see my face.

When I don’t answer after a beat, he pulls away and exposes me. I look up at him, knowing the answer will be clear to him.

“Thought so.”

“I don’t know what to do.”

“Be honest.” He lets me go and walks off down the corridor. “With everyone,” he adds just before he rounds the corner.

I drop back to the wall and take a second, needing to compose my thoughts.

What the hell am I doing?





30





Lucy





“Tell me you’re trying to kill off two men without telling me you’re trying to kill off two men.” Megan eyes me as if I’m the next ticket popping out at the deli stand. “You look insane!”

I look in the mirror and readjust my black vinyl-effect miniskirt. It sits high on my waist, dropping down a couple inches past my ass. My thigh-high black suede boots create a gap between the two, my tanned skin glowing under the artificial lights in the bedroom—my top matches in colour, cropped with a high neckline and long sleeves.

I push my hair over my shoulder, but the bouncy curls that Megan’s spent the last hour creating fall right back into place.

I turn and look down at her. She’s barefoot, wearing a black dress and her dark hair poker straight.

“Put your lippy on and come get another drink with me. I need all the alcohol in the world to get through tonight.”

Nina and Scarlet went to get ready in Nina’s room, and I can already hear the guys outside on the patio from Megan’s room.

I pick up my empty glass and walk to the terrace while I wait for her. I spot the guys sitting around the firepit right below us.

Charlie’s speaking fast, clearly a little tipsy and loose, and Mason and Elliot are laughing at whatever he’s saying—I hear the word spank and zone out. I don’t need to know what Charlie Aldridge gets up to after dark.

I’ve heard the rumours.

I don’t see Maxwell at first, but the light from his phone quickly directs me to him. He’s stood poolside, speaking on the phone.

My eyes drift back to the guys, and I smile as I watch Charlie laugh out loud. He doesn’t do this with many people, and I feel like an imposter watching him be so at ease without knowing he’s being watched.

I rest my arms on the metal bar that runs around the terrace and take in the sun as it dips below the horizon.

I can’t help this nagging feeling in my gut. Like the longer I spend here with my friends, the clearer everything becomes.

Maxwell is a good person.

He’s helped me these last few months.

But he isn’t my people.

He isn’t my person.

I feel Elliot’s eyes on me and shift my gaze to him. And the look on his devastatingly handsome face knocks the air right out of me.

It’s hungry.

This man, he wants me.

He seems almost boyish as he sits assessing me, his legs thrown wide and his hand nursing a glass of something I can’t identify between his fingertips. But that look on his face, the way his eyes pin me down, and the way his thumb dusts the side of the tumbler… This man wants to ruin me.

Piece by piece.

I don’t know how long we stare at one another. Maybe it’s a matter of seconds, or perhaps it’s longer. But the longer it goes on, the faster my heart races, the more my—