Chapter 44

He felt real and solid and warm and lax. The agitation had gone, as if some poison had been drained out of him and the hollow that had been left in its absence had been filled up with the feel of Anna's body gripping his, her heat and her scent, the sound of his name in her smoky, sexy voice.

Let him go, Cedric …

His hand tightened in her hair. She was right, of course. She was right about all of it, he could see that now, and perhaps part of him had known all along. That in being so obsessed with having everything Vincent should have had, he’d kept his brother alive. Just as his father had in many ways. But his brother wasn’t alive. He was gone. And his only crimes were to have been born after Cedric and then to die before him.

So much anger over one dead boy. A boy he might even have liked if he’d gotten to know him. And as for his parents, well, maybe she was right. Maybe the fault lay with them, rather than a failing in himself.

It was something he’d nev