This man seemed to be studying me.
I decided Lottie would rather I head inside than attract attention.
“Wait,” the man spoke, and I stopped short, too trained to not stop. He walked around and came to me, stopping in front of me.
“Do you work here?” he asked.
“I work for the Crownes…”
“How long?”
I did the mental math. “A while.”
“Do you live at Crowne Hall?”
His questions were spitfire.
He looked like he was in his mid-thirties and wasn’t unattractive—he had that tall, dark, and handsome thing going on. He didn’t have a press badge and was dressed in the same soft linen as everyone else, but he had that deep, probing look in his face that made my gut churn.
“Yes,” I finally said.
“Do you know the couple?” He nodded at Grayson and Lottie.
I shifted. “Everyone does. If you’ll excuse me.”
I made a motion to leave again, but he stopped me with another question. “What’s your name?”
My discomfort had now morphed into warning.
“Um…” I struggled with the need to always be respectful and the feeling that if I told him, I’d be really and truly screwed. So I just opened and closed my mouth.
He looked at my clothes; then his eyes zeroed on my locket, the one that I couldn’t get myself to take off.
“That’s a beautiful piece of jewelry. Who gave it to you?”
I slapped a hand over my neck. “My mother.”
It had happened in a split second. One minute he was eyeing me, the next he ripped out his phone and snapped a picture of me.
“Hey!” I shouted. I covered my face, but it was too late. He was still eyeing me with that same suspicious look, but then he turned over his shoulder slightly to yell to someone I couldn’t see.
“It’s her! The Cinderella of Crowne Hall.”
Eleven
STORY
* * *
“What? I’m not—”
A flash so bright it blinded me cut me off. I put my hand up as another one went off right after. I tried to back away, but I fell into another person.
“When did you fall in love with Grayson?” the person behind me asked.
My heart pounded. “I don’t…you have the wrong person.”
I’d had one job today: stay away from the press.
Guards were trying to break up this impromptu press conference, dragging them away one by one. I was certain they would lose their Crowne family press passes—a coveted item. Only so much press were allowed for each event.
Was it worth it?
“Do you hate Charlotte du Lac?”
“You have the wrong person,” I said again, a sinking in my gut. They had the right person.
“Did his family force you apart or did he abandon you?”
It felt like I’d been hit with a sledgehammer in the chest. Suddenly I wasn’t fighting to leave, even as the cameras went off, once again recording me at my most vulnerable for the world to see.
I didn’t know the answer to his question.
Was that the why I’d been searching for all these months? Why we were broken? I tried to search over the heat of the camera, the rapid-fire questions, to the grassy knoll on which I’d last seen Grayson.
Suddenly a hand grasped my arm.
Grayson?
Some primeval part of me recognized him as my savior before I had a chance to stop it. I lifted my head, covering my eyes from the cold autumn sun, trying to block out the glare and see who it was.
GRAY
* * *
I was walking to Story before I could think.
“What are you doing?” Lottie’s yell stopped me. I turned back. She stood between our parents, desperation racking every nerve in her body, her eyes pleading.
Only moments ago we’d been selling the “couple of the century” bullshit again.
I took another step.
Grayson, are you going after her?
Grayson, do you love her?
Grayson, when did it start?
Lottie held up her skirts, coming to me, eyes pleading beneath her wide-brimmed hat. She stopped before me and dropped her skirts to the grass.
“You will not leave me here in front of all my friends and the world. Not again. Smile, Grayson, and kiss me.”
She feathered her hands into my hair, drawing my lips to hers, mimicking. It was dark and ugly, and there was no love.
But she smiled.
Like my mother.
Like hers.
I ripped Charlotte’s lips off me, and the paparazzi went wild. Over Lottie’s head I could still see Story slowly being swallowed by them.
“Tonight we’re consummating this marriage, even if we have to do it in the dark, even if you have to call me by her name.”
Lottie kissed my cheek, then walked away, pushing through the photographers as they shouted questions.
I ran to the spot where Story had been, but she was gone.
STORY
* * *
I rubbed my chest as West led me back inside Du Lac Manor. “What the hell was that?”
“Have you not googled yourself, Angel?” he asked.
He sat on a windowsill that overlooked the still-going party. West had taken me back to his room. It wasn’t like Grayson’s, haunted and hollow. Golden trophies lined his walls. Memories blasted into me, of a younger me who still loved this boy. A boy who’d told her about how he hated being forced to play piano.
I stared at the glimmering gold trophies. I’d thought he’d lied to me about everything.
“Why would I?” I said, shaking out of that stupid part of me I still couldn’t squash.
I had googled myself. Once. When I was, like, eleven. It was just a bunch of random people I didn’t know, dead people, and of course, fairy tales. I guess if you’re someone like Westley, you had to do that kind of thing. You needed to know what people were saying about you.
But people don’t even know I exist, much less talk about me.
Westley’s brow knitted, making me think I might be wrong.
“What?”
“Do you have your phone?”
I shook my head. “The help is trained not to carry their phones while they work.” What if they—gasp—took a selfie inside Crowne Hall?
West exhaled and handed me his phone, his look telling me I wasn’t going to like it. Eyeing West warily, I took it.
He’d already brought my name up on the browser. My lips parted, unable to process what I was seeing.
When you googled my name before, random things that didn’t relate to me popped up. Now…now blurry photos from the night of Grayson’s engagement party popped up. The video from his wedding. The photo next to West.
Rumors. Conspiracies.
Truth.
And while some had taken to calling me Cinderella, others had taken to calling me a gold digger. A whore.
“What is this?” I whispered, though I knew. “When I looked last, no one knew my name. Now they know my mother’s name!” Then my eyes popped as I scanned another blog, dedicated entirely to my fucking locket. My head shot up, locking with West. “How do they even know about this?”
He gave me a rueful smile. “You’d be surprised what people find when your life becomes their hobby.”
I felt violated.
Confused.
Scared.
I rubbed my chest. “I spent my whole life trying to hide.”
“Well, you’re at the top now, Story. You can’t hide up here. Everyone’s always looking up, and when they do, they’re gonna see you.”
“I’m not at the top. I’m just a girl…a servant.”
Twelve
GRAY
* * *
Though many of the press had been removed, the Labor Day party still continued. I knew the rule—continue as. Continue as if nothing had happened while everyone was reveling in the scandal. Of course, i
t had been suggested Lottie and I leave.
So as not to draw any more attention.
Now I sat on the windowsill in Lottie’s bedroom, wondering how to fix the ugliness, the black sludge creeping in my marriage.
The door to her walk-in creaked open.
“Lottie?” I looked up. “Lottie, let’s get out—”
I broke off. Lottie stood in the center of the room, dressed in a black-and-violet silk robe—she promptly let the robe fall to the floor.
I looked to the ceiling.
“Why are you looking away? I’m your wife.”
Moments later her soft hand stroked my jaw. I ground my teeth, focusing on the lofted ceilings, the sound of the party continuing outside.
“I was going to ask if you wanted to get out of here. Go into town or to the lake, like we used to when we were kids.”
When shit wasn’t so fucked.
“She tastes like me, you know.” Lottie’s breath ghosted my lips.
That’s the dark, twisted irony. Lottie could never taste like Snitch.
It would kill her.
“Our lip gloss is the same,” she continued, trailing a hand down my chest.
“She doesn’t wear lip gloss,” I gritted.
“I made her wear it today.”
My eyes slashed to hers just as she pressed her lips to mine.
Barely a kiss.
Just enough to taste the light, glossy flavor. Some expensive flowery shit—not Snitch, but if Lottie was telling the truth, it was her today.
“Don’t tell me you don’t want this. Don’t tell me no.”
Maybe I didn’t give a shit if it was the truth.
I groaned, pressing my lips harder against hers.
“You can call me by her name,” Lottie breathed.
The spell snapped, and I broke away.
“You want it,” she said. “I can see you want it. Why did you stop?”
“Because it’s fucking torture!” It was too late to take it back. The damage was done, written on my wife’s face. “Shit. Lottie. Wait.” I gripped her chin between my fingers. “That’s not what I meant. Lottie, you deserve more.”
She let out a bitter laugh and yanked her chin away, grabbing her discarded robe from the floor. She tied the robe around her waist and stared at me.
“I’m going to be like them, won’t I? The women in my family. The ones who only had sex to procreate or because their husbands got drunk one night and couldn’t find a maid.”
“I need time. It hasn’t even been a month.”
I could see the words in her eyes, all the shit she wanted to say to me.
Fucking say it.
But when she finally spoke, her words were lifeless.
“Do you think if I dressed up like a maid and we filmed it, people would stop talking about you and her? Probably not, right? They’d just think you had a thing for maids.”
“Don’t ever say her name again. Don’t bring her into this again. Fucking ever. I’m gonna go for a walk.”
“Why bother pretending?” I was at the door when her soft voice drifted over my shoulder. “Every kiss you give me, every touch, every look…I know it isn’t for me. It’s for her.”
I stopped short, then kept going.
STORY
* * *
It only took until night before I was all over the news. Just an unconfirmed tabloid story, but the story had leaked all the same. The knowledge was like a fault line in my gut as I carried Lottie’s nighttime tea up to her.
The door to her—their—bedroom was already partially open.
Lottie sat on the windowsill, chewing her bottom lip, wrapped in a silk robe. The room was dark, the only light from the window, from string lights twinkling on the night-darkened lawn below.
I wanted to tell her sorry, but instead I said, “I brought your nighttime tea.”
I set the tea on a table beside her. Lottie stared out the window, her breath fogging the glass, shoulders slumped.
Whatever I said about today would sound like an excuse. The truth was, it wasn’t really about today, anyway. I still hadn’t found a way I could apologize for what I’d done.
I’m not sure there is a way.
I think you just have to let them hate you.
“We’re leaving soon,” she said lightly, softly.
I know. I counted the days until I could see Uncle. Six. Six more days.
Again the words I wanted to say got stuck in my throat.
You’re not supposed to be the villain in your own story, but every day I could see my role written clearer on Lottie’s face. The longer I stayed here, the further I cemented it…all the things I wanted to avoid.
Villainous.
Ruinous.
Slut.
“Do you have my lip gloss?” she asked.
“I never wore it. Sorry.” I handed it to her. She stared at it, then started laughing. Uncontrollably. Until her laughter turned into sobs.
I reached out to hold her, comfort her, I don’t know.
In the end, I took Lottie’s tea tray, leaving the tea.
I caught him, my ghost of love long past, an hour or two after returning Lottie’s tea. He didn’t see me or hear me when I came in, so I used that to my advantage. I leaned against the wall, watching him. Watching Grayson Crowne.
He placed what looked like a jar of peanuts on my nightstand. Fluffed my pillow.
And then he just…stayed. Inspected. He fingered the peeling wallpaper, exhaling. His head traveled to my small window, and I wondered what he was thinking.
“The servants’ quarters back home are better,” I said. “On clear nights you can see the moon.”
Grayson jumped. He turned around, eyes wide. Then he blinked, and impassivity washed over his features. He said nothing, moving to leave, brushing past me without a word.
Was he seriously going to leave like that?
“Hey!” I went after him, slamming the door before he could leave. “You left me your journal, didn’t you?”
He looked over my head at the now-shut door, still silent, as if I were an annoying wind that had closed the door.
“Did you read it?” he asked softly, eyes still on the door.
“No. And I never fucking will,” I lied. “Stop doing this.” I shoved him. “You said you would leave me to hate you.”
His eyes flashed to mine. “Stay the fuck away from Westley du Lac and I will.”
“Who are you to tell me what to do?”
“You’re right. Guess it’s not my fault you catch the eyes of all the du Lac men.”
I froze. Bile and acid rising up my throat. “What are you saying?”
“Just that if you hang out with West, not my problem what happens.”
“I’m asking for it, right? I didn’t say no, either, Gray. I liked him a lot. I wanted him to call me back after it happened.” I stared at him, willing all my hate, my anger, my fear to bleed into his soul.
His jaw clenched and he looked away, looked at the floor.
“You think I need you to save me, Grayson? All you’ve ever done is hurt me.”
That wasn’t true.
It wasn’t true at all.
But I was so, so hurt now.
“Fuck off. Fuck you. Did I ask you to punch him? That wasn’t for me. That was for you.” I opened the door with so much fury it slammed against the cement wall at my back. “Get out, Grayson Crowne.”
I walked by him, not bothering to watch him leave, because I didn’t want him to see my tears. Suddenly, I was slammed to my bed. The wind left me as all the time without contact vanished in a second, Grayson caging me on the mattress.
I stared into his icy blue eyes, veiled by wild rose gold hair. I could smell the sugar on his lips. He’d been chewing lollipops, and I could smell the whiskey he’d tried to mask it with.
“Do you know why I gave the dress to you? Why I married her in our wedding?”
Our wedding. Our wedding. Our wedding.
“I don
’t care.” So why did my heart beat?
“Even if that day couldn’t be ours, I wanted you to know it should have been.”
“Stop,” I begged him as tears leaked from the corners of my eyes.
“That I was picturing you.”
His lips skated mine, a breath away from destruction.
My voice wavered, and when I spoke, I’d lost all strength. “Please.”
“And it would always belong to you.”
When I decide to let you come again. Know it wasn’t for you; it was for her.
This scene was eerily familiar. Though his words were sweeter now, he still wouldn’t kiss me, still wouldn’t touch me. And when he inevitably left me…it would be for her.
“Belong to me?” I clawed at the anger taking root like a sapling in my gut. “For me? Which part? The part where you only touched me, only…only…” Came inside me. Told me you loved me. “Because your wife gave you permission?”
His eyes flickered with surprise, and I used that to push him off. Grayson moved with me until I was sitting up and he was on his knees, and we were eye to eye.
“Am I finally out of your system, Grayson Crowne?” My voice was shredded.
A cruel, barbed silence stretched between us. Grayson spoke with his eyes, but I was back to being unable to decipher it.
He stood up abruptly.
“Lottie told me about the postnup,” I said, standing with him. “She said if you so much as put a finger inside me…” I swallowed, moving on. “That night doesn’t belong to me. None of this ever did. When my uncle dies, I’ll leave. We can finally write The End.”
“Story—”
“Please leave, Mr. Crowne.”
Thirteen
STORY
* * *
My uncle died the day before we were going to return to Crowne Point on the third week of September. His funeral was held the first weekend of October. The beach was peppered in a mosaic of fallen leaves. It looked like a fairy tale.
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