Page 59 of Love and Lies

I took a deep breath but didn’t say anything else—instead, I closed the gap between us, so close to him now that I could feel the heat radiating from him. Not that I needed it; the fire inside me was already fierce enough, and it reached a peak as Jess touched a hand to my face.

“Helena…” He murmured my name in a way no one had ever said it before, provocative and raw.

I knew how impossible this was. I should have left. But I didn’t. I did the opposite. I brought my hands to his chest, drawing them gently upward, waiting for him to put us both out of our misery. Jess gave the merest, sexiest half-smile, and leaned in…

Just then, there was a noise—voices in the corridor. It wasn’t anyone I recognized, but it was a sharp reminder of where we were, and I came to my senses. I gathered all my composure, and stepped away.

“Wait,” I breathed. “We shouldn’t… not here…”

“Helena?” Someone outside was calling me now, in a hushed tone, as if to avoid attracting attention. Lincoln. Right—he must have noticed that I’d left the dining room.

“Fuck,” I exclaimed, with a glance at Jessiah. “You should go. If he finds us here together…”

Jess’s eyes darted to the curtain between our room and the corridor, with that rebellious glint in his eye that I liked so much. If he left, he would be doing the exact opposite of what he wanted, and that wasn’t in his nature. I felt exactly the same. But there was too much at stake, including some things he didn’t know about.

I touched his arm. “Please, Jess.”

Finally, he nodded, giving me a look that didn’t exactly douse the fire in my insides. Then he disappeared behind the curtain that separated our little nook from the next one.

Not a moment too soon. That very second, the corridor curtain ripped open and my brother appeared—and from the look on his face, he had some idea of what had just happened.

Uh-oh.

26 Jessiah

I’d hardly made it into the next alcove before Lincoln showed up. And although I hated to go against my own desires for the sake of a Weston, I was glad that I’d left. Not that I thought we should have to hide—but I knew how much trouble Helena would be in if her family found out.

“What are you doing here, Helena?” her brother asked suspiciously. “Was he with you?”

Dude. He wasn’t just with her. He almost kissed her. I’d wanted to ever since that night at Bella Ciao. And I’d come pretty close to finally making it a reality—as my body was making very apparent.

I hadn’t been surprised to see Helena tonight; in fact, she was the reason I’d come. My mother had gotten the invitation weeks ago, but she knew I wouldn’t be up for coming along to play hotel testers with her. Until I’d heard that Helena was going to be here, and—against my better judgment—I’d taken the opportunity to finally see her again.

She’d been standing at that table wearing a knee-length, dark blue, slim-cut dress with a lace neckline, her hair down again. She looked amazing, just like every time I saw her, but of course I couldn’t tell her that, since we were surrounded by people who were just itching for us to provide gossip fodder. We’d been forced to ignore each other all night, but the longer the dinner went on, the more I felt like throwing caution to the wind and finding a way to get her alone. Especially as I could tell she wasn’t okay. So when she left the room, I got up and followed—and within a matter of minutes I discovered that she was just as frustrated by the situation as I was. And that I wasn’t capable of staying away from her.

At least until her brother showed up.

“Who?” Helena replied on the other side of the curtain. It sounded like she was making an effort to sound as clueless as possible, though she must have known that Lincoln was talking about me.

“Jessiah Coldwell, of course!” His voice was low, but he couldn’t hide that he was vexed. “I know you went home together from some club recently. And I’ve seen you tonight, the way you look at each other when you think no one’s watching. Are you seriously telling me you weren’t planning to meet him in here?”

I didn’t move an inch. As rude as it was to eavesdrop on other people’s conversations, I’d never cared much for etiquette, and I was worried about Helena. I pushed the fabric to the side a little so I could see what was going on.

“That’s completely absurd.” Helena folded her arms and leveled a look at him like he had a screw loose. My heart was pounding again just looking at her. “I wasn’t planning to meet him. I wanted—” She broke off.

“What?” Lincoln insisted.

She was silent for a moment and seemed to be wondering whether to tell her brother the truth. He didn’t wait to find out.

“Answer me, Len, or I’m going straight to Mom and Dad. How long has it been going on?”

“There’s nothing between Jessiah and me,” she said. “We just met by coincidence a couple times in the last few weeks, and—”

“And what?” Lincoln seemed genuinely concerned. Which surprised me—usually he was as cool and collected as his parents. This thing really seemed to be bothering him.

“At some point we… we realized we like each other, okay?” She held up her hands in defense.

That made me smile—the way she’d called us “we” so naturally. And she was right, I did like her. Although, if I were being honest with myself, it was probably more than that.