CHAPTER ONE

Clause's POV

I didn’t cry at my sister’s funeral. I was too focused on the man she left behind.

Everyone thought I was numb with grief. I didn’t correct them. I let them believe the silence, the blank stares, and the occasional slow blink were symptoms of loss. I even nodded when someone squeezed my shoulder, whispered, “She was so full of life,” or “She loved you both so much.” But the truth was ugly. Buried. Shameful.

Because deep inside, I wasn’t grieving her, I was obsessing over him. Gary. Her husband. The man I had secretly wanted since the moment I realized I could want.

He was everything I wasn’t supposed to desire. Tall, confident in a quiet way, always so damn composed. Even now, dressed in a black tailored suit with the tie undone and his jaw covered in days-old stubble, he looked like something carved out of regret and raw masculinity. His pain had deepened his presence. The grief clung to him like a second skin, making him even more magnetic.

And I hated myself for noticing. But not enough to stop.

After the burial, our family. Wealthy, broken, and trying to hold it together retreated to the private bar downtown. The kind of place that didn’t need signs outside. Entry was biometric. You needed more than a last name. You needed legacy. The rain hadn’t let up since the burial. My shoes were wet. My jacket was soaked. But I didn’t care. I was just searching for him.

Then I saw him in the private lounge section, shoulders hunched like a man who hadn’t slept in days, a crystal glass of amber scotch dangling from one hand. His other hand trembled slightly. The light above him cast shadows over his face, softening the sharp edges of his cheekbones, but doing nothing to dull the emptiness in his eyes.

Without thinking, I walked in and closed the door behind me.

He didn’t even look up. “Clause?” His voice was hoarse, the syllables heavy. “What the hell are you doing here?”

I hesitated for a heartbeat. Then crossed to the seat opposite him. “Just checking on you.”

He laughed. A bitter, ugly sound that ended in a cough. “I buried my wife today,” he said slowly, staring into the glass. “Your sister.”

“I know,” I said, quieter than I meant to. His pain wasn’t lost on me. But neither was the heat that rose in my chest.

He drank, then leaned back with a groan. “Everything smells like death,” he murmured. “My house, my car, even her damn perfume bottle on the nightstand... I didn’t even get to hold her hand. She died before I got there.”

I watched the tremble in his fingers, the way his jaw tightened as he blinked too hard. The man was crumbling, his carefully built exterior falling apart at the seams. And still... I couldn’t look away.

“I keep seeing her face,” he muttered. “In the casket. Pale. Like wax.”

He wasn’t even looking at me. He was lost in memory, the alcohol cracking him open, and I should’ve gotten up and left. But instead, I sat still, watching, listening, letting my gaze travel across the open collar of his shirt, the curve of his neck, the way the light gleamed off the slight sheen of sweat on his skin.

I was selfish. Filthy. I didn’t care.

He leaned his head back, eyes fluttering shut for a second. His breath came out in slow, uneven waves. “It’s like I’m outside of my body. Watching myself break and not being able to stop it.”

He looked like a man dangling on the edge of something permanent.

I moved without thinking. Reached out, brushed his jaw gently with my fingertips.

His brow furrowed. His eyes opened halfway, glassy and unfocused. “What’re you doing?” he mumbled.

My heart beat once, then again, and then I leaned in and kissed him.

Just one kiss. Soft, Hesitant, But real.

His lips were warm but still. He didn’t kiss me back. He didn’t push me away either. He was too far gone, too lost in the fog of grief and alcohol to even register what was happening.

The scent of scotch clung to his breath. My skin burned where our lips touched. It felt like everything I’d ever wanted was in front of me and slipping away at the same time.

I pulled back slowly, scared of what I’d see in his face. But he wasn’t looking at me. His eyes were barely open, his mouth parted slightly like he was trying to remember how to breathe.

“What... was that?” he slurred, words blurring together.

I couldn’t answer. The guilt hadn’t kicked in yet. Only fear. And adrenaline.

I stood quickly. “Nothing,” I whispered. “Nothing at all.”

Then I walked out of the room. My pulse thundering in my ears, my palms damp, my throat tight with confusion.

Outside, the rain had slowed to a drizzle. The sky was still dark, heavy with mourning.

But all I could think was: I just kissed my dead sister’s husband.

And he was too drunk to even remember.