Elias studied my face for a long moment before sighing and looking up at the canopy. “I don’t know. Lucky bastard, I guess.” He glanced at me. “It is a boy, yeah?”
I nodded, though ‘boy’ didn’t exactly suit the thirty-year-old shady billionaire that was Tiernan Morelli.
“You shouldn’t assume,” he said in explanation.
“Do you like…boys?” I asked, because I’d wondered sometimes if he was gay, if that might be why Caroline had such a problem with him.
“Sure,” he agreed with a flippant shrug. “I like girls too.”
“Oh.” That made sense, it was only that Elias was so at ease with it that shocked me for a moment. He was a seventeen-year-old guy in a fairly traditional family. “That’s cool.”
He peered at me from under a lock of blond hair that fell into his eyes. It was obvious some of his coolness was an act, because he seemed relieved by my nonchalance. “Well, that’s a better reaction than it’s garnered before.”
I shrugged. “I don’t hate people for who they love.”
Besides, who was I to judge?
I’d just had rough sex with my family’s arch nemesis under their very roof.
I had no moral high ground to stand on, especially when the rug burns on my ass still stung as a pleasant reminder of my sins.
“That’s a nice sentiment,” he said, bitterness creeping into his tone.
I sighed, reaching out to squeeze his shin. “Truly, Elias. You’ve been nothing but a friend to me. Why would that change now?”
His eyes shone with moisture, round and vibrant blue like marbles. “You’re a good person, you know that? Everyone in the damn family pretends to be good, but they’re not. Not when it counts. You know what Caroline said when her watchdog Ronan found me fucking a man and woman together one day? That if I didn’t break it off with them, if I didn’t toe the line and end up marrying a respectable woman one day, I’d be disinherited and erased from the family.”
“That’s awful,” I murmured, taking his hand in both of my mine as if I could heal his emotional wounds with only a touch. “I’m so sorry, Eli, no one deserves that, but especially not you. You’re a good man and a good friend. I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t met you my first day at Sacred Heart.”
His stare was filled with tortured, vibrating energy as he chewed over my words. Then, he leaned forward suddenly, smoothly dipping into my space and cupping my cheek. I was so startled by the movement, I didn’t hesitate when he pressed a soft, chaste kiss to my lips.
Oh my God.
Elias was my cousin.
I tore away from him and jumped off the bed, my trembling fingers over my lips. “You can’t do that!”
Two stripes of red decorated his cheeks, an embarrassed flush he couldn’t hide even though he tried to hide the shame from his voice. “If you aren’t attracted to me, you only have to say so.”
“It’s not that,” I bumbled, pushing my hair way from my face as I let out a shaky sigh. “I mean, it kind of is, but it doesn’t even matter because we can’t be kissing.”
A wicked grin edged the corner of his mouth. “Why not?”
“This isn’t a game, Eli,” I snapped.
“I like that nickname from you,” he murmured, eyes soft as he went to his knees and face me squarely. “I like you, Bianca. Is this about me being bisexual? Fuck, everyone always thinks guys who say that are really just gay, but it isn’t true and honestly, it’s insulting you’d believe that.”
“I like you too,” I told him honestly, waring with myself.
He deserved to know why I didn’t want him, but could I trust him?
I’d trusted Tiernan and look what had happened there.
But Elias was a Constantine.
Not only was he my people, he was my friend.
So, I sucked in a deep, steadying breath and whispered, “We can’t kiss because we’re cousins.”
He blinked at me owlishly for a moment then burst out laughing, slapping his knee with one hand and holding his belly with the other.
“I’m serious,” I hissed.
“Yeah, yeah,” he crowed between fits of laughter. “And I’m a magical unicorn who shits fairy dust.”
“Elias,” I insisted, stalking forward to take his hand and jerk him forward so he was forced to brace on his other hand. Only when he was looking into my eyes did I repeated myself somberly. “We are cousins. My father was Lane Constantine.”
Silence dropped like a bomb. A nuclear wave of energy rippled between us, rocking him back onto his knees his hand slipping out of my grip. The air felt pressurized, weighing on me so heavily my knees shook.
“It’s true,” I said through numb lips. “Lane had a decades long affair with my mom, Aida, which produced Brando and me. We used to live Upstate and we saw him all the time, then he moved us to Texas because he didn’t want anyone to find out about us and use us against him.”
“Shut up,” Elias said, suddenly lurching forward to wrap his big palm around my mouth.
I mumbled into his skin, struggling to break away from him. Fear skittered up my spine. I’d never been scared of Elias, but suddenly he emanated the same cold, domineering energy Caroline and Winston did.
“Shut up,” he repeated on a low, angry growl. “You stupid, stupid girl.”
I stilled, blinking at him over his hand.
“Don’t say one more word,” he threatened before slowly removing his hand.
He glared at me for one long moment then cursed quietly as he scooted off the bed to check the hallway. Satisfied no one was lingering there, he closed the door and pressed his back to it, gaze searching the room.
“What are you doing?” I whispered, because the tense atmosphere wouldn’t allow for anything else.
“Making sure no one was listening,” he muttered. “But with Caroline and this lot, you can never be sure. C’mon.”
He powered over to the French doors and outside into the freezing December air.
I followed slowly, my heart beating hard and hollow in my throat.
Snow was falling, muffling the sound of everything in Bishop’s Landing. Lights twinkled on the houses and sprawling lots laid out at the feet of the Compound like cheaper models of the Constantine mansion. The dark sheet of ocean glittered like unpolished metal, corrugated where it met the shore.
It was beautiful, but I couldn’t enjoy it with Elias practically shaking beside me. I tugged my flimsy silk robe closer around me and hugged myself.
“I can’t believe you told me that,” he mumbled, almost to himself. “Please tell me no one else knows.”
“No, I mean, no one in the family.”
“But someone else knows you’re Lane’s daughter?”
I hesitated, Tiernan’s scarred face flashing across my vision followed by The Gentlemen of Lion Court. “Yes, a few people.”
“Jesus Christ, Bianca, how stupid are you?”
“Hey,” I protested. “Stop saying that!”
“I’m sorry,” he said immediately, cracking his knuckles. “I’m only saying it because I’m shocked and processing. And fucking worried. Jesus, Bianca, you can’t stay here.”