“It’s going to be okay. You’ll see.” He’d been on the brink of offering a few more generic platitudes, but whatever else was poised on the tip of his tongue never made it out of his mouth.
Not when Taylor put her lips on his and kissed him for all she was worth.
Hell, maybe for all he was worth.
Two
Royce told himself to stop kissing her. Told himself that she wasn’t for him. She was the Thompson princess, and he the older heir to the Knox kingdom. No matter how poorly suited she and Bran were, or what she’d admitted to Royce in the privacy of the locked closet. He recited those reminders again and again but couldn’t seem to leave the sanctity of her seeking mouth.
Her lips were too lush, too ripe. She tasted like champagne and sex. Really great sex. It’d been a while since he’d had really great sex, so he allowed himself a moment to explore. To remember... Maybe discover was a better word because he didn’t find a single familiar memory to cling to in Taylor’s kiss. He only found newness. Excitement. A certain zest... If that was the right phrase.
Ah, screw it.
Who cared what it was called. Now that he’d tasted her, he was inclined to taste her a little longer. To indulge in what he’d been forbidden to claim. Though technically it was Taylor who’d claimed him. He was practically an innocent bystander.
Until he cupped the back of her neck. Until he swept his tongue into her mouth and sampled her deeply—giving in to the yearning that was only seconds old, but felt as if it’d been there a hell of a lot longer.
Royce valued control in all facets of his well-organized life. He’d always assumed it was the way he was wired—he’d inherited his father’s shrewd business intelligence, where Brannon mirrored his father’s excitement and spontaneity. The attributes had been divvied between the Knox sons equally and were doled out double to Gia—which was unfair, but nonetheless true.
Budgets and financial strategies made sense to him. Royce liked his role as CFO because it was predictable—math didn’t have “gray areas.”
Taylor was a gray area.
At ThomKnox, he’d carved out his dream career by age twenty-three. He was hailed a boy genius in this magazine or that blog post but he didn’t care for monikers or attention. He kept his focus on the numbers, which never lied. Gossip websites couldn’t claim the same.
Wouldn’t they have a heyday if they found out you were making out with your younger brother’s date?
That quiet reminder stopped him short of pushing Taylor against the nearest flat surface—the door in this case—and trailing his mouth down her neck and lower. Even though Bran had no claim on her. She’d said so herself. Royce’s younger brother was planning to propose and she was planning on dumping him. What more evidence did Royce need that those two were ill-fated?
He pulled away and caught his breath, not knowing she’d robbed him of it until he greedily sucked in a lungful of oxygen.
Her eyes were wide and wild, her mouth opened to say... God, he had no idea... Everything about the kiss made him want to claim her for himself. To take what she was generously offering.
For once, practicality failed him. Against his better judgment he leaned in to cover her mouth with his for one more taste. Monday morning would come and he’d deal with consequences. But they didn’t matter right now. What mattered was attraction. Set on simmer for years and now boiling over...
Just as he laid his lips on hers and pulled her flush against his body, the door at his back opened. They snapped apart like teenagers caught breaking the rules.
A breeze whooshed in from the force, sucking the air from the room, and judging from the look of panic on Taylor’s face, every ounce of air from her body. She backed away from Royce a step.
Brannon stood in the doorway, his expression filled with surprise that faded into rage so fast Royce nearly missed the transition. “I sent you to find Taylor not make out with her.”
“That’s not—”
“I saw the light under the door,” Bran said between clenched teeth. “And now I see the light in a different sense.”
Royce had looked out for his siblings for as long as he could remember. He was the responsible one. It wasn’t like he couldn’t have physically stopped the kiss when Taylor advanced, he just...hadn’t.
“It’s my fault,” he said, figuring she could blame him and save herself.
“Now I know why you discouraged me from proposing. So you could have her for yourself.”
“Excuse me?” Taylor interrupted, offense radiating off her like her sweet perfume.
“I was going to propose to you tonight,” Bran told her, his chin elevated.
“I know,” she said. Gently. She was kind. Maybe too kind if she’d been dating his brother for her late father’s sake more than her own. Why hadn’t she had that pertinent discussion with Bran before tonight? If she’d let him down easy, he never would’ve purchased a ring.
And if she’d never seen the ring, the kiss never would’ve happened.
Which shouldn’t have happened. But Royce was having trouble regretting it.
“You...knew?” Bran asked Taylor, his face turning an impressive shade of red.
“I saw you with the ring and I... I ran away. Royce found me. I didn’t mean to... I...I always wanted to kiss him.”
“You did?” Royce and Bran asked at the same time. The brothers exchanged irritated glances.
“I planned on breaking up with you this weekend,” she told Brannon, her focus solely on him. “In my head it was already done. I had no idea you were going to...” She gestured at his suit pocket where the telltale bulge of a velvet box confirmed his plans.
“I see.” Embarrassment and a hefty dose of hurt outlined Bran’s features before he turned to stalk down the corridor.
“Brannon, hang on.” But before Royce could come up with some sort of suitable argument, Taylor touched his arm.
“Don’t. This is my fault.” She chased after Bran, moving as quickly as she could in her gown and heels. Royce leaned on the doorframe and watched her go. He slowly became aware of two women outside the ladies’ room all but clutching their pearls. A member of the waitstaff had also witnessed the argument, but averted his gaze when Royce met his eyes.
Taylor caught up to Bran as he reached the exit and then they both walked outside. Royce rooted his feet to the floor. Taylor wasn’t his. She never had been. And whatever had happened in this Twilight Zone slice of time never should’ve happened.
He’d been caught up in a moment—answering the call of attraction. One he hadn’t known was there. He should’ve resisted. He knew better. His black-and-white worldview served a bigger purpose than simply ticking boxes on some cosmic checklist. Those rules and guidelines also kept the most important things where they belonged. In this case, kissing Taylor could shake the strong foundation of his very family tree. That had never happened before.
Nor would it, he vowed. Not on his watch.
Three
So, Saturday evening could’ve gone more smoothly.
The only explanation Taylor had come up with for the moment of insanity in the closet wasn’t a pretty one. She’d kissed Royce because she wanted to. Simple as that. One opportunity and a little forced proximity was all it’d taken for her to fulfill the dormant fantasy. The kiss hadn’t been thought out or rational. But since when was the heart rational?
Brannon Knox had nearly proposed to her. He’d taken first place for irrational!
As a result of her unplanned make-out sesh with Royce, the breakup with Brannon happened in the worst possible way. The kiss had put the final nail in that coffin. Actions speaking louder than words and all that. From the time her father declared Royce a no-go zone, Royce had taken up a certain amount of space in her world. He grew to be somehow bigger than life. Celebrity-like. Too far away to ever truly grasp. Which had amped up
the attraction tenfold.
Royce had been inaccessible until that stray moment in private at the gala. She’d never been in his circle, not really, because he was older than her. Yes, they saw each other at work often and yes, they’d had meetings—even private meetings—but her professional side was every bit as rigid as Royce’s. She’d never imagined a scenario that would lead to her kissing him in a coat closet. Kissing him ever.
Ugh. Slumping at her desk, she dropped her head into her hand. She wanted to die.
“Hiya, toots.” Gia Knox, the younger sister of the two brothers who had been on Taylor’s mind all morning, entered the corner office and shut the door. Taylor had gone to school with Gia—well, until college parted their paths. Taylor hadn’t had the brains to land MIT, but few did. Bran hadn’t been accepted. Royce hadn’t wanted to go there, not that his father had minded. Jack had a streak of whimsy mixed in with his business acumen, like grenadine in Sprite, and had encouraged each of his children to follow their hearts.
“Good morning.” Taylor kept her reply measured, not sure how her best friend felt about what had occurred Saturday. Taylor spent Sunday with her phone off, cleaning her apartment. As if that would purge any stray guilt.
“They’re both duds if you ask me,” the only Knox daughter said with a wink. Her long dark hair spilled over the shoulders of a scarlet dress that kept her curves contained and professional. She was a Knox genius in Jennifer Lopez’s body.
She was Taylor’s closest friend and the one person she’d considered running to after stepping in it Saturday night. The last place she’d wanted to be was that ballroom in a sea of people, especially with Brannon. He’d been so angry... Justifiably.
That night when she’d followed him outside to explain, he’d spun on her, his voice sharp and unyielding.
“Royce, Taylor? Really?”
“Brannon, it wasn’t—” She’d cut herself short of muttering a clichéd retort, though it was true. It really wasn’t what it looked like. What it looked like was that she and Royce were sneaking off to make out in the closet. In reality Taylor’s emotions had become tangled up in a rogue wave of attraction. “I never meant to hurt you.”
From there the conversation had stalled, Bran’s face dawning with the understanding that she’d seen the ring and fled. He hadn’t stuck around to hear her reasoning for kissing Royce, which was probably for the best. What else was there to say?
“Do you hate me?” Taylor turned from her laptop to face Gia, who gave a blithe blink and dragged the guest chair closer to Taylor’s desk. She sat, leveling Taylor with chocolate-brown eyes a touch darker than Royce’s.
“I adore you.” Gia offered a pitiable head shake. “I had no idea Brannon was going to propose until he huffed back into the party snarling about how he’d made a mistake.”
The blood rushed from Taylor’s face. What had he told Gia? What had he told everyone?
Gia’s hand covered hers. “I stepped out of the ballroom and into a private room with him, so don’t worry about the gossip mill. Royce saw us and joined, and Bran gruffly admitted he’d made a mistake planning to propose at such a big affair. I had no idea he’d planned on asking you to marry him, Taylor. I thought you two were completely caj. Which I told him, by the way. Royce said he went to find you for the Big Ask but instead discovered you locked in the coat closet hyperventilating. Was it one-thing-led-to-another or is there more?”
The lump of dread in Taylor’s throat remained, but she told her friend the truth. “I have no idea.”
She’d been wondering that herself. Was the kiss the start of something? And if so, how could she navigate those choppy waters? Gia knew the truth and didn’t hate her. Royce had greeted her this morning with a gruff “good morning” but he hadn’t seemed upset. Was two out of three Knoxes not hating her enough?
“Are you okay?” Gia rubbed Taylor’s knee.
Great question.
“I’m okay.” Basically. “Brannon must hate me.”
“His pride is hurt. But you don’t have to guilt-accept a proposal.”
Almost verbatim what Royce had told her. You don’t have to say yes to be polite.
“Even if you did guilt-accept a few dates,” Gia added.
Taylor watched her friend carefully. Gia had picked up on that on her own. When Taylor had started dating Bran, she felt like she’d crossed an unspoken boundary. How could she ask Gia’s opinion or voice concerns over her best friend’s flesh and blood? It would have been totally unfair.
“You don’t miss a thing,” Taylor told her.
“I was shocked when you walked into the gala together. I thought for sure he’d have a date and you’d come dance with me.” She pressed her manicured fingernails into her décolletage and fluttered her lashes. “Honestly, I thought you two would’ve broken it off by now. I could see the distance. Or, well, not the distance so much as...the lack of spark.”
“I was procrastinating. I care about him, just...not romantically. Not enough to marry him.” She wondered if Gia would be this forgiving if she’d seen what Bran saw when he’d opened that closet door.
Spark City.
When Royce grabbed her up to kiss her for the second time, she’d been overcome. Laying one on him without any notice was one thing. Him reciprocating... That second kiss was heady. Consuming. Sparks zapped her like a free-swinging power line. They’d coursed through her bloodstream and lit up her brain like a neon sign. One that read Royce Knox can kiss. And boy, could he. She’d shared a few kisses with Bran over the course of their tepid dates, but none of them had measured up to the kiss in the closet with Royce.
That wasn’t due to Brannon’s lack of skill or personality. He was fun and made her laugh on a daily basis. He was distractingly handsome, with a dimple punctuating one cheek and a full, generous mouth. He had Royce’s hard angles but there was an approachability to Bran that couldn’t be denied. The Knox brothers came from good stock—both men were damned good-looking.
But. She’d never been attracted to Bran. He was an incredible friend. Or had been before she ruined their friendship with a spontaneous kiss.
If she could have a do-over, she’d have broken up with Bran a week ago—or maybe never would’ve said yes to that first dinner date. Hurting his pride at the beginning would have been better than at the end.
“I never saw that proposal coming,” Taylor told Gia. “I assumed he’d lost interest. We were pretty much back to normal until the gala. He asked me to go with him and I didn’t see the harm in it. You know how tedious these events can be.”
“Lord, do I. So you two weren’t...” Gia made a lewd gesture to indicate sex.
“No! God, no.” Taylor couldn’t help laughing.
“Hey, it’s harder for me to hear than you, ladybug. If you ask me, this sounds like a big misunderstanding.”
“I half expected him to politely break up with me by night’s end.” Though hoped might be a better word.
“And he would’ve been so nice about it,” Gia said, which only served to make Taylor feel worse. “I’m not saying you weren’t! Don’t look at me like that.”
“I panicked. I never in a million years thought he’d...” She shook her head, picturing the diamond ring in the box. Bran had been admiring the shimmer in the muted overhead light, his face... Wait. His face.
“He was looking at the ring right before I ran off. He... He wasn’t smiling, Gia. He didn’t look happy or excited. He looked... I don’t know. Resigned?” And definitely not like a man in love.
“It really makes me wonder...” Gia let her thought taper off before pasting on a slightly insincere smile. “Never mind. Speculation is never good. Who knows what men are thinking?”
Taylor couldn’t let her friend off the hook after that teaser. “What? What were you going to say?”
“Conjecture. And nothing that would help.”
“It’s not like you to be coy.”
Gia chewed on her lip before she said, “I wonder if the proposal had anything to do with Dad’s retirement. Pending retirement. Bran’s being engaged would make him appear better suited for the role of CEO than Royce.”
“He wouldn’t?” But the sentence came out like a question because... Would he?
Brannon had mentioned time and again that his father would be stepping down. That he could picture himself in the role of CEO. Their “dates,” for lack of a better word, had been consumed by talk of work and Bran’s future at the company.
“Dad will retire sooner than we think, Tay,” he’d told her one evening over a second glass of wine for each of them. He’d described Royce as his “competition.” Bran had also mentioned that he wanted it more, but deserved it less. She’d argued in his defense that he and Royce were equally suited to replace Jack. It was the truth. The Knox boys each had winning qualities and were as dedicated to this company as they were to each other.
“I’m not saying he was using you, Taylor. I don’t think he came up with an insidious plan to toy with you to get what he wanted.”
“No, no, neither do I.” Taylor had known Brannon practically her entire life. Ambition wouldn’t cause him to stoop that low.
“But maybe somewhere down deep he thought it’d help to show some stability. Bran is the fun-loving one, after all.”
“And president of the company. It’s not like he’s goofing around.”
“Right. And you’re COO. A match made in heaven, on paper.” Gia tilted her head, her lips compressing. “Your dad always liked Bran for you.”
He had.
“I couldn’t live with myself if I drove a wedge between Bran and Royce.” Taylor sighed.
“That’s on them. You weren’t the only one in that closet. Whatever amends need to be made, you’ll work it out. What’s done is done. There has to be a part of you that is glad you don’t have to pretend with Brannon any longer.”
His Forbidden Kiss Page 2