There was no possibility of me saying no. I suspect there were very few women on the planet who could say no to Grayson Barlowe. Besides, I wanted to speak to him but Niamh and Ethan couldn’t listen in. We had to stop this nonsense between our siblings before it went any further. In love with someone after only six weeks? It was ridiculous. Niamh was naïve and innocent and way too trusting. It had taken me three years to get engaged to Ryan, but of course, it had ended in tears. His, not mine.Grayson led me to a private room on the other side of the hotel. It was furnished as a sitting room—twin soft sofas in plush velvet, long elegant silk curtains at the windows with a pelmet above. There was an antique writing desk and chair set on one side of the room and bookshelves on the other. The carpet was ankle-deep and hand-woven and it was a gorgeous shade of shell pink to match the silk curtains. It would have been a feminine room except for the cold marble statue of the hotel’s founder

‘Look, I don’t know the full extent of your brother’s disability but I think you’re doing both he and Niamh a disservice without a proper conversation with them first.’‘Marriage is out of the question. I’ll do everything in my power to stop it.’ His adamant tone riled me more than it should have. It was like I was programmed to adopt the opposite stance even though I agreed with him. But then he was a Barlowe, and I was a Clancy. We had a long history of going he-to-head.I rose from the sofa and nailed him with my gaze, still playing devil’s advocate. ‘You know, some people do fall in love quite quickly. Or don’t you believe in love at first sight?’His mouth slanted in a smile right out of the cynical playboy’s playbook. ‘No. But lust at first sight? Yes.’ There was a pulsing silence. The silence was so intense that I could just about hear my heart beating. I could certainly feel it hammering away in my chest like an industrial piston.Grayson’s eyes roved over my face in slow mo