Quintin

My family wants me to find a wife. It's my brother's fault really because he's behaving badly. Mother wants a nice marriage, to a nice girl. The problem with that is that I'm already in love with someone else. We could never be married though, it just isn't possible.

So I dance with my friend Celeste, to protect her from the vultures who want her for her money. She would make a lovely wife, to someone who wants to be a husband. The thing is... I really like her, she's lovely and so brilliant. And when she discovers my secret she's the only person I can talk to about the pain he's left behind.

But something else happens in his absence, nothing we'd planned, nothing I could have foreseen... and now that Celeste and I have become so much closer the only thing left to do is to figure out how to reconcile that with the one truth I've known my whole life... that I can not live without Calder.

...

I don't know what I want… but I do know what I don't. I don't want to be touched… not in the way a husband touches a wife.

That would be fine except that my family wishes me to marry, to get me out of their home and under someone else's responsibility.

I met a man, Quinn, who may be amenable. He's nice enough on the dance floor. We would suit well enough. I decided to follow him one night, to find out if he has a mistress and see if he'd be amenable to an arrangement of sorts.

Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd discover that his mistress… is a mister.

Never in my wildest dreams did I think seeing them together would arouse me in ways I never knew possible.

Now I have a problem because I won't come between them, not ever, not for anything. A love like that deserves to be together. And yet… I want for something I never wanted before… could there be another way?