Page 46 of Tempt

“You don’t need to protect her from me,” Grace protests. “Hazel, can I steal you away?”

Hazel glances at me, her eyes twinkling. “Are you okay if Grace grills me?”

“Do I get a choice?”

She leans in and kisses me. “I’ll be back to finish our conversation soon.”

15

Hazel

I don’t knowwhat I was expecting of Sam’s sister-in-law, who filled his loft with erotic art, and also calls him in the middle of the night in a panic, but it wasn’t this chaotic, bubbly ping-pong ball of a person. She’s little, barely over five feet, and as polished as Sam is, she’s his complete opposite.

When he said some people would be in jeans, he clearly meant Grace.

I think she has paint under her fingernails, too.

Her jeans look expensive, of course, as does her hair cut. But her face is bare, and the t-shirt she is wearing under a silk blazer readsDogs Adored, Humans Tolerated.

Her priorities cannot be faulted.

She drags me upstairs, dodging people sitting on the stairs, and pulls me into a more casual living room than the open space downstairs. There’s a couple making out in the corner, but Grace doesn’t pay them any attention. She sits in an armchair and pats the couch beside her. “Come. Sit. Tell me everything.”

“About what?”

“About you. All I know is that Sam bumped into you on the train, and you went to school together. Which means we technically went to school together, too, but I was a few years ahead of you.”

“It’s a small world.” I’m grinning, because despite my preconceived ideas of who she is, I like her—a lot. But I don’t know how much I want to tell her. I don’t know how much I want to tell anyone, about anything, ever. I’m a single child and an introvert. My life does not need to be a shared experience with the world.

“What do you do?”

“I’m a writer.”

“Do you know Alex, then?”

“We’ve just met once. Well, twice, I suppose now.”

“So you don’t move in his circles?”

My lips twitch. “No.”

“What do you write?”

“Erotica. Under a secret pen name.”

She gasps and claps her hands. “I make erotic art!”

“I know. Your pieces in Sam’s apartment are beautiful.”

“They aren’t all my work, but I sourced them for him. Only because he didn’t care, and I didn’t want his space to be completely soulless, you know?”

There’s something in how she says it, an urgency, a protective instinct, that softens my guard. “You wanted to make it nice for him.”

“He deserves that.”

I nod. “He’s grateful, too.”

Her highlighted blonde waves bob as she agrees. “He’s always so good about making that clear. He’s come a long way.”

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