He knew?
He knew.
“I…” I swallowed. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
He grinned, like he knew I was full of shit. “Let me jog your memory, Angel. The day of your uncle’s funeral, you told me he had been a little…out of his mind lately.”
West picked a wildflower from the grass, a picture of ease.
My brow furrowed, trying to remember. The weeks following Grayson’s wedding and leading into my uncle’s death were a blur of emotion.
“He wasn’t the same in the end. Losing his mind. Going on about coins buried beneath poetry and wishes.”
West arched a brow. “Coins?”
I fell back against the cobblestone wall, feeling like I was going to faint and be sick. Was anything without motive? None of my words were safe. All this time, while I’d been trying to stay above water, the people around me were tying anchors to my ankles.
“He was out of his mind,” I said, voice shaking. “I don’t know what you’re talking about or why you would even care.”
“I could be your savior.” West held out the wildflower he’d picked for me, like some knight courting a lady. “I want to learn how you like to be kissed, Angel.” With his free hand, he placed his pointer finger beneath my chin, dragging my eyes to his. “I want to learn what makes you moan.”
My gut clenched.
Traitor.
“You will never make me moan,” I hissed, curling my fist around the flower and smashing the petals into pieces.
“Because I raped you?” His tone was level, but the flower stem snapped. For this second, honesty existed between us. Bloody, raw, and jagged.
West stood up and hopped up to the end of the cobblestone wall, one leg dangling to the wildflowers beneath.
To my left, another servant walked by, carrying a basket of what looked like laundry. I knew I should hold my tongue.
I raised my voice.
“Are you mad that I called you a rapist, or mad because now every time you look in the mirror you have to remember the night the same way I do?”
He lifted his head, eyes blazing.
“Oops,” I whispered. “I forgot to ask for permission to speak. Please forgive me, Mr. du Lac.”
Minutes disappeared as we stared at one another with only the sound of wind and the birdsongs fading with the sun.
“Dear little nun….” West’s calm, too soft, voice drifted over my shoulder.
My heart froze in my chest.
He held up my phone, the blue light casting his face in gaunt, statuesque shadows.
“I know I should be focusing on other, more important things. I should worry about my grandfather. I should worry about finding the coin…” West arched his brow at me. “What did you say again about not looking for a coin, Angel?”
“What is that? What are you reading?” I ran to him, reaching for the phone.
He stood on the wall, holding it higher, laughing as he continued to read. “But somewhere, he has his hands on you, and whenever he even looks at you…” West looked down at me. “I can’t fucking think.”
I reached helplessly for the phone. “Stop.”
“Giving up everything,” he mocked. “Living with that regret. It would have been easier than this. I never should have let you go.”
I didn’t realize I was crying until my tears blurred his mocking face.
“You’re getting a lot of text messages, Angel. It’s kind of annoying. Keeps me up at night.”
“How many more are there?” My words were broken. I grasped at his arm, digging in the soft fabric of his shirt, but now I used it more to hold myself up.
“Dear Snitch,” he continued. “It’s been a week. The dust has settled and…”
“And what?” I looked up at West, hope in my voice.
I hated that there was hope in my voice.
I was desperate for more words from Grayson. It didn’t matter that they were coming from my captor’s mouth.
“And what?” I tugged on the hem of West’s shirt, practically begging.
West looked down at me, studying me with a vicious curiosity arching his brow.
“Should I send him something back?” he asked lightly.
This is what it felt like to lose all the blood in your body. For time to actually stop. Because I saw him starting to type a response, but I couldn’t move my fingers. They felt frozen, like the time I made snowballs without any gloves.
“Dear Grayson…” West started. “What should I say, Angel?”
“Stop…”
“Dear Grayson…he felt so good inside me.”
I shoved him, but it was weak.
He laughed harder. “You don’t like that one. Okay. How about… Dear Grayson, why did you let me leave? You should have tied me to the bed. It’s torture here. I don’t know if we’ll survive. I think…I think I’m going to kill myself. By the time you get this message, I’ll already be dead.”
I stumbled back, tripping over my heels.
If Grayson got that message…
That would kill him.
West held his thumb to send.
“Goddammit, stop, please, I’ll do anything. Just don’t send that.”
He paused, thumb hovering. “Anything?”
I nodded. Everything was a blurry, teary mess. I felt like I’d swam the length of Crowne Beach, limbs sluggish.
“You would do anything for me, Angel? Anything for your rapist?”
I stared at the floor, tears falling. “Yes,” I croaked.
“Let me sleep in your bed.”
Six
STORY
West flanked the other side of my bed. He hadn’t left to change, only stripped out of his muddy riding boots and white shirt, leaving him in his tailored camel pants. His bare chest, tapered waist, and defined arms were backlit by the luminous gray night of Scotland. He looked regal. Like a prince from an old era come to take what rightfully belonged to him.
Grayson said if there was even a one percent chance of failure, he’d make us do it his way.
West knew about the coin—seemed to know so much more than we did.
The plan was already falling apart and it was barely the end of week one.
West slid into bed, beneath the sheets. The weight dipped on his side. I gripped the sheets, staring dead ahead at the single candle.
You can be very callous.
I’m beginning to think you like that about me.
Was West right? Did I have a weakness for cruel princes? Was there a broken lock in my heart somewhere that allowed them to sneak by?
“What are you thinking?” he asked.
His voice was too close.
This night doesn’t belong to you.
This sideways vision doesn’t belong to you.
“You don’t want my honesty, West.” My voice was too thin. Too afraid.
“Try me.” His voice slid on my skin, his closeness confirmed when his soft touch glanced my cheekbone. I flinched.
West rolled to his back on an exhale, putting his arms above his head, biceps flexing. “If you’re trying to seduce me, you’re doing a terrible job of it.”
I blinked. “What?”
“You don’t think I know your plan, Angel? Seduce me, destroy my engagement, destroy everything I have on you and Grayson, destroy Du Lac Enterprises, turn the tables and put Grayson Crowne on top so you can ride off into the sunset together.”
“That’s not—”
He sighed, shooting me a look like please.
Fine. If I was going to continue this, I guess I had to acknowledge the truth: I was at a severe disadvantage. West knew more than I did. I worked the silky bedspread between my fingers, grinding my teeth.
“If you want to seduce me, don’t you think you should try harder?” He rolled back on his shoulder, trailing one finger down the slope of mine.
I swallowed.
I should. I should try harder. But how? I didn’t think this through. Even if I want
ed to fake it, my shivers, my goose bumps, my sighs and cries…they weren’t mine to give.
They all belonged to Grayson.
“I would be happy to give you everything you want, Angel. You don’t have to steal it. Don’t have to work behind my back.” He reached behind him, grabbing his phone. I breathed a gulp of air at the space.
“Password protected, stored in multiple clouds. You can delete it with the press of a button.”
I bit my lip. It was a trap.
“When you choose me, I’ll give you this without hesitation.”
Slam.
The trap shut.
West threw his phone back on the nightstand without breaking eye contact, and then his eyes fell to my stomach. “How much longer do you think you can hide it, Angel?”
Fear bubbled noxious in my gut, and I turned to roll away, when his hand fell to my rounded stomach—holding me in place.
“You forgot the fatal flaw in your plan,” he said easily, palm pressed too possessively on my stomach.
I glanced at him.
“What happens when you fall for me? Really, truly, love me?”
I will never love you.
He seemed to read my mind. “You have a few months until you give birth. A few months to pull off your plan…or for me to win over your heart. Who do you think will be more successful?” His eyes lifted to mine. “Because in that time, my sister will also give birth to his child. She’ll carry on the Crowne name.” I tried to pull away but his grip tightened like a claw on my stomach. “And you will give birth to my child, with my name.”
“My heart will never belong to you. This child will never belong to you. Even if your name is on the birth certificate.” I swallowed back the fear that climbed at those words. “Even if you tattoo it on our bodies. We still wouldn’t be yours.”
He removed his hand as if I were fire, and I sucked in air, trying to fight back the tears.
“I wanted to aim for your heart,” West growled. “Don’t make me aim for your obedience.”
“You wouldn’t even know where to look for my heart.”
West glared at me a moment longer, then rolled to his back.
I cursed myself for being so fucking bad at this job of deception.
And so we stayed like that, shoulder to shoulder, neither one falling into sleep. I tried to stay awake, refusing to sleep next to him. But each blink got heavier, the wall fuzzier…
I woke disoriented, quickly scrambling up. The songbirds were singing, but it was still dark out. The clock read two in the morning. West was gone, where he’d slept rustled. For that I felt grateful, and I relaxed into the sheets.
Put my heart in a cage and treat it like a songbird.
My song will wait until you return.
Is that what happened? Was my heart still waiting to sing for West, all these years later? Even though it had been left to rot in the cage, its song now emaciated and withered.
I drifted back to sleep, listening to the sweet yet oddly macabre sound of a songbird at night. And I cursed my heart. Cursed it for holding on to West like a rusted, flaking thing.
Seven
Dear Atlas,
I’m looking out at the moon and I want to pretend you’re here with me. That it’s you in my sheets. That I can see your tired eyes and you’ll wrap your arms around me.
I feel like I’ve cheated.
More so than when I had another man inside me.
The night belongs to you.
My sideways view belongs to you.
My shadowy confessions belong to you.
I don’t like him beneath the sheets.
I hate the mess he left, the wrinkled confirmation he was here, even more.
But I’ve decided that memories are armor as much as they are wounds.
Because,
The night belongs to you.
To us.
So whatever he does in the night, it can’t hurt me.
Because,
I remember your sideways face.
I remember your shadowy smiles.
The way you shift on the mattress when something hurts your heart. Or how the mattress shifts beneath me when you slide on top. The perfect weight of you, or your perfect strength and heat. Your groan that echoes in my bones and lungs.
I know it’s been less than two weeks since I left, but it feels like ages. Too much has happened.
I’m worried about you.
I’m worried about your sad smile.
I know you’re not reading this, so I’m hoping you can feel it.
Please don’t give up.
I’m not giving up.
I’m safe…we’re safe. As cruel as he is, there’s a line he doesn’t cross. Maybe because he thinks he has a real chance with me, maybe because he knows you’ll always come—I feel you here. A ghost watching me, watching him.
Or maybe he doesn’t cross it because he’s not all evil.
That thought haunts me the most.
The thought that keeps seeding that briar inside of me, giving it water and light.
When he left me, I stayed awake watching the stars give their wishes back to the sun. I couldn’t stop wondering as I looked out at the billions of vanishing stars keeping us apart: why do so many love stories keep princesses locked in towers?
The princess spends more time with the villain than the hero.
Eight
STORY
Two weeks had passed.
Two weeks without Grayson.
The phone was dead.
Useless.
“I heard a story about the Cinderella of Crowne Hall,” my girl whispered—my girl, because I had one now. At least I was allowed to talk to her…
“You are her, aren’t you?” she pressed.
“Why does it even matter?” I sighed. I kept getting asked this question with the same, low-voiced excitement, as if they were asking for an extra piece of chocolate after being told no.
“The Cinderella of Crowne Hall is a servant.” My girl looked away. “It would be so amazing if she’d become a mistress.”
I frowned at my girl in the mirror. More amazing than when I’d been his wife? Behind me, she fastened a silky blue dress, so beautiful it looked like it had been plucked from a painting. My curls de-frizzed, shining like satin.
I felt like I was losing myself, getting uncomfortably used to this life. A porcelain doll, silently purposeful.
Another line from Emily Brontë came to mind.
I wish I were a girl again, half savage and hardy, and free. Why am I so changed?
“You have the wrong person…that girl doesn’t exist.”
“Oh.” Her face dropped.
“I don’t know why everyone is acting as if being a mistress is such a big deal. I’m basically a whore.”
She dropped the pearls she was about to string around my neck on a gasp. They scattered everywhere. I got down to help her, when a violent flashback assaulted me. The night Grayson married Lottie.
I hate you because I know he’s going to be thinking of you tonight. The same way, maybe, you hate me. Because after tonight, he’ll be mine.
Tangled and twisted, that’s what the four of us had become.
My girl startled at me helping her. “I’m sorry, miss.”
“I didn’t mean to shock you,” I croaked.
“You didn’t…” She scooped up the rest of them. We both rose to our feet, and she went to find another necklace for me.
“Well…you did. It’s quite a big deal. You stand behind them. They don’t let just anyone be you.”
A mistress is not an excuse to lower the bar; even your father knew that.
I was weary with memories, they held my shoulders down like too much gravity. If I only knew how prophetic Beryl’s words would have been that very first day I spent with Grayson.
“So you want to be a mistress?” I asked as she came back to me.
“There is nothing more romantic than being a mistress. A prince sweeps you off your fee
t, and no one can touch you ever again. You belong to Mr. du Lac and anyone smart won’t even look at you. There aren’t many more powerful than a du Lac.”
I thought of my Grayson.
“Is that what they tell you?” I said, catching her eyes as she tightened a diamond pendant at my neck. “This is romantic? You are nothing more than another piece of property. If it was romantic, you would stand beside him, not behind him. You wouldn’t be beaten until you forget how to speak. You wouldn’t need an archaic tradition to keep other men’s hands off you. But you’ll get the holidays. So there’s that.”
Her brows caved, just as the lawyer from the first week came into the room, briefcase in hand.
My girl faded from my back like the fog outside, rolling from the hills into the sky.
“Have you decided?” the lawyer asked, directing me to the table we’d first sat at.
She laid out both options just like she had two weeks ago, only now I was expected to sign them.
“Two weeks is not enough time, sir,” I jerked my head to the side, where Madame stood as a shadow in the doorway, West across from her.
“Story?” The lawyer tapped the paper with a pen.
“One. I choose…” I took a deep breath. “I choose option one.”
It was the only option I could choose, but my hand shook as I signed the papers.
“I implore you—”
Once again my attention drifted to the doorway, where Madame shot me a vexatious look.
West raised a hand, stepping into the room. “She’s ready.”
The lawyer rose, putting away the now signed paper.
“Welcome to the du Lac family—Mr. du Lac.” She nodded her head at West who’d joined us.
Her words struck me—no one had ever welcomed me to the du Lac family when I’d been married to West—and I swallowed thick at her advice.
West gave me a hand, lifting me from the chair. “Are you ready, Angel?”
Was I ready?
As a mistress, I couldn’t speak unless spoken to, my place was written as second. Somehow I’d need to find the strength to be seen, to live with dignity, while being the most shameful and hidden I’d ever been.
If I don’t, the person I want to be, the dream I have for Grayson and I, will disappear completely.
Destroyed Destiny (Crowne Point Book 4) Page 4