Page 62 of The Holiday Clause

When she returned with a bottle and two glasses of ice, Wren stopped her. “I have a yoga class to teach in an hour.”

“One glass won’t kill you. We have to celebrate. You got fingered by Greyson Hawthorne. This is mega big.”

“Ugh.” Wren winced. “We’re too old to use words like ‘fingered.’”

“Says the thirty-year-old virgin.”

“Hey! You keep that information in the vault.”

She waved her concerns away with amber liquid sloshing. “Who doesn’t love a virgin trope?”

Sometimes Wren felt like the most inexperienced woman in the world. “Does it even count as fingering if there technically wasn’t penetration?”

Jocelyn cocked her head in confusion, ice cubes clinking. “Jesus, any slower of a burn and the fire’s going out. What do you mean he didn’t penetrate?”

“I don’t know. It was more…rubbing.”

“Like an old-school bump-and-grind?” Jocelyn cocked her head, thought about it for a second, then shrugged. “Okay, that’s hot. But which billionaire bad-boy will it be? So many options! The golden retriever, the reclusive woodsman, or the alpha.” Despite her objections, Jocelyn poured two glasses. “What about the bonfire incident? Are you finally over that?”

The bonfire was something they never discussed because it had been that big of a deal to Wren when it happened. Just the mere mention of it made her entire body tense, muscles coiling with remembered humiliation.

It had been years ago. She was still in high school, but Greyson was years past graduation. She’d just heard back from the business school she’d applied to.Rejected.

The sting still resonated, a paper cut on her pride that refused to heal. Who knew it would only get worse before the day was over?

Wren didn’t know why Greyson was the first person she ran to for comfort, but he was. When she got to his house, he had some friends over. This was before he’d built his home in the woods, and he still lived with Magnus.

She’d walked up on them in the midst of a conversation about typical guy stuff—work, sports, women. One of his friends spotted her first and smiled. The other men quickly noticed her as well. Everyone seemed friendly enough, except Greyson.

“What are you doing here, Wren?” They no longer spent as much time together as they had in high school, and she wondered if that was more than circumstantial. Sometimes, it felt like a personal choice—but never hers.

“I didn’t know you had company.”

“Whoa, Grey, did you double-book?” one of the guys sitting around the bonfire joked, flames casting shadows across their faces. “We can take a walk.”

“Shut the fuck up, Andy.”

She realized then that his friends assumed she was just one of his booty calls, another girl in a rotation she never knew existed.

“This isn’t a good time, Wren.”

“Oh.” The sting of the rejection letter burned through the back pocket of her jeans like a brand. She didn’t want to go home, and she didn’t want to think. She came there because she wanted to forget, to lose herself in his familiarity.

Without invitation, she pulled a beer from the cooler, condensation slick against her palm.

Greyson caught her hand before she could open it, his fingers firm and warm against her wrist. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Having a beer.”

He took the bottle from her, and his friends howled and whistled as if she’d just been called to the principal’s office. “Not a chance.”

He had a lot of nerve. He’d been drinking since freshman year and she was just around the corner from graduating. “Don’t be a hypocrite.”

“Looking out for you isn’t hypocritical.”

“Well, you’re not my father.” She yanked the bottle out of his hand and cracked it open, the hiss of escaping carbonation sharp in the night air.

Greyson scowled with disapproval as she chugged down several gulps, the bitter taste foreign on her tongue. The guys hollered in full support of her rebellion and pushed another chair closer to the fire, sparks dancing upward into the darkness.