Forbidden Fate

by Mary Catherine Gebhard

  “You said you wanted me to fight for you,” he growled. “So I’m fighting. We’re leaving tonight. You can have all the time you need when you aren’t surrounded by fucking sharks. You can hate me out of Crowne Point. You can hate me for decades.”

  He ripped me to him by my arm, crashing his lips to mine as the snow slammed against the windows. His other hand found my waist, anchoring me against his body. Our tongues collided as the chandeliers above us sizzled, and he kissed me until I couldn’t breathe.

  Until I tangled my hands in his hair and forgot to care.

  He pulled back, biting my bottom lip softly, gold mask glinting under the flickering light.

  “Wake me up every morning in my bed with a slap to my face,” he said low, “but be in my fucking bed. I am done letting you go, Snitch. We leave tonight.”

  He released me and I stumbled, my legs jelly.

  “If your heart is caged by thorns now, I’ll spend the rest of our life together ripping them out.”

  My heart cracked, and I looked at the window, completely white with angry snow. “Tonight?”

  He nodded and headed down the hallway, but he paused, throwing a look over his shoulder like he’d forgotten something. With two fast strides, he had me against the wall, slamming his lips against mine until all that held me up was his weight on my body.

  He pulled back, exhaled as if a rock had been lifted from his chest, and walked the way he’d been going.

  “Wait!”

  He paused, turning around.

  “Lottie said something to me. She said you were giving up everything. I don’t want you to do that. Nothing that makes you you, Grayson. I know how much your family means to you. I know how much you want to be a hero for your sisters. I know how much you want to be a good man.”

  He looked away. The flickering chandeliers cast a shadow on his gold mask, put his blue eyes in darkness.

  “You said no more broken promises, so promise me, Grayson. I won’t be okay with it. I…” I didn’t know what I would do, but I wouldn’t let him get away with it. “Promise me.” I raised my voice louder than the howling wind.

  He lifted his eyes. “I promise.”

  Forty-Eight

  STORY

  * * *

  There were only a few things I wanted to bring, and they were all tied to Grayson: the notebook, the pen, and my locket.

  “Where are you going, Angel?” West’s voice stopped me just outside the ballroom. With it, guilt grew strangling vines inside my chest.

  I turned and faced him.

  West has been nothing but kind to me. Am I really about to abandon him without word? He looked at me with the patient quirk of his lips I’d grown accustomed to.

  “I…” I broke off.

  West held out his hand. “Dance with me?”

  “There’s no music.” I stated the obvious, but I took his hand.

  He led me into the ballroom, out to the empty dance floor. As the chandelier flickered above us, the howling wind was our only melody.

  His hand found my lower waist and pressed me close to him.

  I looked around the ballroom, anywhere but West.

  What if Grayson is lying?

  West doesn’t deserve this.

  Or does he?

  “What are you thinking, Angel?”

  “Um…just that the holidays are a lot nicer than anticipated.” It wasn’t a total lie. Servants had always known the Nutcracker Masquerade—and the holidays in general—to be insane. The Crownes kept multiple doctors on staff for the event to keep quiet and deal with the inevitable drug overdoses.

  This was nothing like I’d imagined in the servants’ quarters.

  Actually, so far all the parties I’d had to attend hadn’t been that bad. Compared to being gambled, to being abandoned on a boat, they were almost…tame.

  “This isn’t the holidays, Story. The holidays haven’t even begun. It would have started tonight, but…” he eyed the blizzard.

  What the hell did that mean? The holidays started weeks ago. I opened my mouth to question, when my attention was grabbed elsewhere.

  Lottie stumbled near the white-chocolate-and-gold-leaf fountain.

  “I think your sister had too much to drink,” I said.

  He laughed.

  I looked at him. “What?”

  “You don’t need to pretend you give a shit about my sister with me, Angel.”

  I blinked at the cruel words. “You can be very callous sometimes, West.”

  He tilted his head at my words, a smile barely quirking the side of his mouth. “I’m starting to think you like that about me, Angel.”

  Grayson came back into the ballroom. He didn’t see me. He looked like he was on a mission. I watched him as he grabbed his grandfather and took him just outside, as he’d taken me only moments before.

  West dragged my gaze back. “I hope you’re not falling for the same trick, Angel.”

  GRAY

  * * *

  “I’m leaving tonight.”

  My grandfather exhaled. “How many times do we have to do this? It’s…getting repetitive.” I handed him the papers. “What is this?”

  “It’s the copy of the postnup with both Lottie and my signatures, as well as a notarized statement from me that I was the one in that video. It’s now in West du Lac's inbox.”

  He was silent.

  Then he laughed. “I always thought I was the greedy one in the family, but look at you, Grayson, throwing your entire family to the wolves for your own happiness.”

  I swallowed past the heartburn in my chest. “I gave you every opportunity to avoid this.”

  It was one more broken promise. Story would forgive me.

  Even if it took a decade.

  She would.

  “Your mother will be on the street. Your sister will lose everything she knows. Her fiancé. Her life. Her safety—oh, so a part of you does care.” He laughed at the look on my face.

  “You left me no other choice! You could have let me leave, could have let me cancel my wedding. I gave you so many fucking chances. Whose greed put us here?”

  “Everything I’ve ever done was for this family. I was going to make us untouchable.”

  I clenched my jaw. “If it wasn’t for you, we wouldn’t need any of that!”

  “I gave you the keys to a fucking kingdom.”

  “You gave me a lock to a fucking jail.” I took a deep breath. “I know you’ve been working with Mom. With my wife and father-in-law. With damn near everyone.”

  He tilted his head, smile growing. “Is that right?”

  “You still lost. Enjoy poverty.”

  I turned, searching for Story. We were getting out of this house. Tonight.

  “What you want is impossible,” my grandfather said to my back. “All you’ve done is fuck us. All of us. She’ll never be safe. You don’t get to run away from power just because you decided you don’t want it.”

  “I’m not running away,” I gritted.

  The ballroom was plunged into darkness as a scream sounded.

  “Lottie!”

  Forty-Nine

  GRAY

  * * *

  All around us, flames flickered to life as the servants rushed to light hundreds of candles.

  I pushed my way through the crowd gathered around Lottie.

  “We need a doctor!” Mr. du Lac yelled, looking around the ballroom filled with CEOs, socialites, and financiers.

  Gemma laughed. “I guess this is what you get for calling doctors the working class.”

  “Gemma Antoinette,” my mother hissed.

  “I already told her if she doesn’t take it easy she could lose the baby,” Mrs. du Lac said. “You shouldn’t even be here.”

  Shocked cries of “Pregnant?” rose out.

  I stared at Lottie and she stared back.

  Pregnant?

  Fucking pregnant?

  “We don’t typically announce it until the last trimester.” Mrs. du Lac patted
Lottie’s head, held her hand. “Our pregnancies are very rough.”

  “She’s pregnant?” I spun at Story’s voice.

  She took stuttering steps backward, eyes locked with mine, growing wider with betrayal. Heartbreak.

  Looking left and right.

  Mouth opening and closing.

  “Wait!” I yelled for Snitch.

  “Let her go, Grayson,” my mother trilled, bored. “She’s leaving before Christmas, anyway, right?”

  I shot my mother a harsh, furious glare, and she met it. A fucking rare time Tansy Crowne didn’t hide behind smiles. In an instant, her face was back to serenity.

  “How does your mother know I’m leaving—h-how do you know?”

  Story took another step back.

  “I was working with my grandfather—I was trying to get you safe, Story. It was before. Before—wait!” I shouted as she took another step back.

  “Don’t—get away from me.”

  “Wait! It’s not mine.”

  She paused on the outskirts of the ballroom. I could see the thorns of distrust in her eyes. I’d barely pushed through them yesterday.

  “Are you accusing my daughter of being a whore?” Mr. du Lac said. “Not all of us have your proclivities, Grayson.”

  Said the groping drunk.

  “Proclivities?” my mother said, voice rising with each syllable. “Have you stopped reading the newspapers, Arthur?”

  “It’s yours, Grayson,” Lottie said weakly.

  I slashed my glare at Lottie. “There’s no fucking way that baby is mine.”

  “Grayson, dear…” my mother spoke in her soft, bell-like voice, which I knew meant Shut the fuck up, we’re in public.

  “Isn’t this great news?” My mother tried to pivot. “A baby…how many months along?”

  “Four,” Mrs. du Lac supplied.

  My mother crossed an arm across her chest, her chin on her hand. “You must be due around June, then? A summer pregnancy. How delightful.”

  Almost a year to the day when this all started.

  I dragged my hands through my hair.

  Willing what she said to be a lie.

  No.

  Fuck.

  No.

  “I know what you’re thinking.” Tears surfaced in Lottie’s eyes.

  Mrs. du Lac patted a cloth on Lottie’s forehead. “You need to rest.”

  “I haven’t slept with anyone. That night…our wedding…I pushed it up inside me.”

  I think the room stuttered to a halt. Then I heard my sister cover what sounded like a cough, or maybe a laugh.

  If this was true, then Lottie had conceived on the same night Snitch had. Nausea made knots in my stomach as the knowledge hit me like a fucking boulder to the head.

  No fucking way that was true.

  I stared down at Lottie. “You are not pregnant with my child.”

  I lifted my head as the shouts of Lottie’s parents dulled to a buzz, pushing through the ogling crowd. “Story!” I called for her, over and over…but Snitch was gone.

  Fuck.

  “You’re going to leave your sick and pregnant wife?” my grandfather questioned. “Even your father wasn’t that cruel.”

  I paused.

  Then kept going.

  Fifty

  STORY

  * * *

  Pregnant.

  The wind howled as the blizzard slammed harder against the windows.

  His wife is pregnant. His wife is pregnant. It’s been staring me in the face for so long. Lottie is the girl in his dreams. Lottie is the one he loved. Lottie is the one he married.

  To Grayson, I would always be the girl behind the girl.

  Foolish me for thinking Grayson Crowne would ever love me in the light.

  I walked down the dark hallway, forgetting why I’d come. The wind howled as I passed the wing I’d stayed in with West.

  I wanted to exorcise Grayson Crowne from my body.

  From the very beginning it was always about one. Fucking. Thing.

  Her.

  Getting him back with her.

  So why do I feel like I’m breaking, I’m cracking? Little pieces of me chipping off with each step. The gold decorations glinted hauntingly in the dark.

  Grayson kept doing these things because I keep letting him. Our relationship isn’t built on trust, it’s built on my allowance of his fucking lies. I’m a pushover.

  I let him walk all over me.

  He promised he wasn’t touching her. I’m taking his promises like broken glass and they keep cutting my hands.

  I almost fell for it.

  I almost became the girl in the tower. Because everything had seemed to be falling into place. One of the artfully decorated trees caught my eyes, the glimmering metallic bulbs shining too bright in the darkness.

  The mistress always gets the holidays.

  “Angel?”

  I stopped short at West’s voice, as though I’d been ripped out of a dream. I turned to find him carrying a candle. We were just outside the antique room…I struggled not to fall.

  He still wore his bronze mouse king mask and the candlelight flickered against the bronze. He lowered the candle to my face as he approached me.

  “You don’t look very good, Angel.”

  I swallowed the lump of emotion in my throat. “And you would know?”

  “I pay closer attention than you think.”

  A heaving, deep ravine of sadness caved in my chest and threatened to destroy me. I lunged for West, standing on my tiptoes, wrapping my arms around his neck.

  He anchored my lower waist and dragged me flush against him as our lips crashed together.

  “We haven’t consummated our marriage,” I said.

  Fifty-One

  STORY

  * * *

  I shoved West into the antique room, and he stumbled back. West looked around at the cloth-covered antiques, more eerie in the screeching wind.

  I could feel it around us.

  A ghost.

  A memory.

  An entity.

  I eyed the spot I’d taken Grayson’s virginity, where I’d given my soul forever. The beautiful ornate rugs he’d pulled off the wall still lay on the ground, frozen in time. This place was a snow globe that needed to be shattered.

  I’ll ruin them.

  Good.

  A vision of Grayson’s wolfish grin blasted into me, shotgun shells of memory shredding into my soul. I stumbled. West grasped my elbow, peering down at me, warm brown eyes twinkling behind his mask.

  “What is this place, Angel?”

  A graveyard.

  I pushed West toward the rugs. At first he was a wall, unmoving, but then he let me. His intense stare didn’t let up the entire time. He had questions in his eyes I couldn’t answer, and more emotion than I was prepared to deal with.

  I gripped his massive shoulders and tried to shove him down to the rugs.

  I’m bruised.

  Black.

  Broken. I wanted to desecrate this room. The piece of me that wouldn’t let Grayson go—

  “Hey, slow down.” West gripped my cheeks.

  His brown eyes searched, probed. Every pause, every breath, I breathed in Grayson, and my lungs cracked with the betrayal.

  “Are you going to fuck me?” I snapped.

  West blinked, brows furrowing. He let me push him to the floor. I climbed on top of him, fumbling with the button at his trousers, fingers shaking. West’s hand covered mine, helping me, guiding me.

  His free hand slid under my dress, up my thigh.

  Slow.

  Easy.

  A direct contrast to my furious, fumbling movements.

  “No panties…” I could hear the grin, the lazy smile in his voice. “Since when do you not wear panties, Angel?” He gripped my flesh, fisting and bruising my ass. I froze, our eyes locked.

  Dirty little nun. Do you always sleep without panties?

  “K-keep the mask on,” was all I said.

  I p
opped the button on his pants. He was iron-hard, bigger than I remembered. Thicker than Grayson, I think, if it was possible. I dragged his pants past his roped thighs, my fingers trembling as I climbed atop him.

  My costume felt too much like a nightgown.

  “Story,” West said softly.

  Story.

  My name from his lips felt intimate, wrong. He’s supposed to call me Angel with a mocking, humorous lilt.

  “Don’t call me that,” I whispered. “Just…don’t.”

  “Story, slow down—”

  I fisted his cock, and he broke off on a hiss, head falling back.

  “Fuck. Story. Fuck.”

  West was hard at my entrance, and I swallowed air at the fullness. Everything burned. My thighs. My eyes. My chest.

  West grasped my chin. “Slow the fuck down, Story.”

  He gripped my thigh, bruising my chin with his free hand, forcing me to freeze as he split me in two.

  To feel a moment I wanted to rush past.

  Tears burned my lids. “I don’t want to slow down. Don’t make me slow down. Please.”

  His eyes cracked.

  No.

  I can’t see vulnerability in West. I needed him to be what he always is. Callous and cavalier.

  I tried to yank my chin away, but his grip tightened.

  “I want to make you come, Story,” West said. “Don’t want this to be a repeat of last time—”

  The door creaked open as West’s words slashed at the tender skin of my heart. My gaze jerked to the side, to a shadow that hung in the doorway.

  Messy rose gold hair. Deep blue eyes. Old and new memories intersected.

  I always wondered what you’d kiss like now.

  You’re my first…first…

  My eyes flickered back and forth, from my first cruel prince to my last.

  The roles had switched. Now Grayson hung in shadows, leaning in the doorway, arms folded, leg propped. My heart seized as I watched him, waiting for him to act.

  Waiting for him to rush in and rip me off West.