Our girl?
I think I short-circuited. I spun and slammed West into the wall before my next breath. “Our girl? There is no our girl.”
The hallway was empty, only our rippled reflections cast in the glass window.
Every day I remember how he felt inside me.
I pressed my forearm into his neck until the veins popped.
And now I can’t differentiate them inside my head.
Deeper—his Adam’s apple digging into my skin.
A deep, gnawing cavern of self-loathing.
He was hurting her. I could see crossing the line, ending it here.
He coughed, sputtering, “You fucking need me.”
A wave of black washed over my eyes; I could barely see West past the throbbing in my skull.
He was hurting her.
West gripped my forearm, pulling it off enough to cough out the words: “All this reuniting the family shit is bullshit. My father burned down du Lac Manor just to force your hand so we could stay here. He burned down a house with centuries of history. A house he got a boner just talking about. Just for the chance at a coin. ”
There it was again, that knot in my gut.
Fear.
Everyone knew more than us.
But I schooled my features, I lied.
“I don’t see what the fuck this fairy tale has to do with me or Story.”
He laughed. “You’re just as shit at lying as she is. I already know you’re looking for it, Gray. You sent her a lot of texts.”
I slammed my knee into his gut and West doubled over. I knew she didn’t get my texts, but West reading them? I stepped back, dragging my hands through my hair.
After West caught his breath, he spoke again. “Who is that coin connected to, Gray? Who the fuck had it last?”
His implication was a slow leak begging to burst.
I caught my bottom lip, twisting it, bruising it—anything to slow the spinning thoughts.
West continued. “My father wouldn’t let a chance for a coin slip through his fingers. Do you think Beryl Crowne would? What has he done? What will he do?”
Stolen from him.
This was all my fucking fault.
I gave Woodsy a coin thinking it was the best gift I could give him, and it was the worst.
I put Story in danger.
“There is only one thing a du Lac and a Crowne have ever agreed on, and it’s their disdain for her. What are they going to do when they find out she’s the key to finding the one thing they’ve been after for decades?”
I slammed West back against the glass, caging him with both arms. “And how the fuck would they find that out, West?”
“They won’t.” A slow, easy grin speared his lips. “If we work together.”
I snarled. “You’re working with your fucking father.”
“I haven’t told my dad jack shit in months. We were raised to believe those coins could do anything. Grant wishes. Change lives. But you know the truth. It’s only as powerful as the person making the demand. There’s one wish I want granted. I think it’s the same as yours. There are four people standing in the way. Four people who would rather light the world on fire than grant it.”
The coins weighed heavy in my pocket as he spoke, seemed to burn through the fabric. Four gold coins was enough to demand almost anything of anyone…
Bloody and pointless.
“Don’t you have a fiancée?” I gritted.
“Don’t you have a wife?” he clapped back.
“You have a real knack for rewriting history, West. You conveniently left out the part where all of this is your goddamn fault, because you saw something you wanted, so you took it, even though she didn’t want it. Again.”
West’s nostrils flared. “I did what I had to do to keep her safe. With me, she isn’t a threat. That baby is relegated to a place they understand. As my mistress, she won’t tear apart an empire. As my mistress, she’s safe. You were too chickenshit, too moral, to make her your mistress.”
“Because she would have been miserable.”
“So what are you going to do, Gray? What’s your big master plan to save her?” He leaned forward, glare sharp, our noses almost touching. “You gonna steal her off into the sunset and live happily ever after?”
I ground my teeth.
Every day Story spends with West was a thread pulling apart my veins. When she was gone, I didn’t eat, I didn’t sleep. I lay awake at night thinking about all the different ways I should have saved her. It always came back to letting her leave.
I imagined what he could be doing to her—what I’d let happen.
If I’d just dragged her into the blizzard, maybe we could have made it into town, maybe it wasn’t that bad, maybe we both wouldn’t be stuck here—
The thought drove me down another spiral.
His eyes narrowed. “What about the innocent baby in her belly with the ability to tear down two empires? You think your grandfather will let that shit slide? How’d that work for your father? They’ll never stop looking for her, and you fucking know it.”
“Maybe,” I agreed, stepping off. “But you are no better.”
He grabbed my wrist, stopping me from leaving. “You can’t beat them without me, Crowne. You need me. We both want the same thing. So why not a truce?”
Seventeen
STORY
How can a princess locked in a tower save a prince prisoner in his own castle?
This was the question that kept me awake, picking at my lip until copper bites my tongue. Maybe this plan was doomed from the start. My bite marks throbbed, Grayson’s on one side of my neck and West’s the other.
Grayson was all I could think about.
On his knees.
I didn’t believe Lottie at first—I couldn’t, it was too insane. But was Grayson Crowne really a prisoner in his own home? Were those the consequences for loving me, for us not taking the chance to run? My throat was dry, chest hollow.
Every second I doubted myself more.
My only reprieve was that for the past two hours, West has left me alone.
I was back in the wing West and I had spent months in—I’d been dragged back here. It was like the past two weeks hadn’t happened. Only now my room was filled with luxurious accoutrements, my walk-in closet overflowing with various dresses, shoes, and luxuries all my size.
When I lived with my mother, I used to dream about being Cinderella, being whisked away into a fairy tale.
I suddenly felt very stuck.
Very confined.
I was the one who found my mother when she overdosed. That was the day my life changed, when I went from living in a ramshackle apartment, to a black castle.
I would get a castle—a prison—in Scotland.
I jumped off the bed and threw open both double doors—and was immediately met with a wall of black suits. Two men the size of linebackers glared down at me.
“Going somewhere, Angel?” Just behind them, West got off the couch, standing to his feet.
“What is this?”
“Your guards. You were attacked only a few weeks ago, remember?”
I rolled my lips, studying their callous faces. After what I’d just witnessed with Grayson…I knew they were here to keep me in, not keep me safe.
West reached them, and they parted like water for Moses. I walked backward, trying to keep the space between us. It was useless. He ate the distance until my back was flush against the cold glass window, and there was only a thread of shivering air separating us.
West reached into his pocket and I tensed, expecting the worst. He handed me a black credit card with Du Lac Enterprises written in silver, and my name written above it.
“There is no limit,” he said simply.
I flexed my jaw. I didn’t want this. I didn’t want any of this.
“Your girl will be here every morning.”
“I have servants. Guards. An allowance. This is all very nice.”
“I told you
we take care of our mistresses.”
Right. Take care.
His bite mark still throbbed on my neck, painful and humiliating.
“What happened earlier?” I changed the subject.
He forced me flush against the window.
“You spoke out of turn.”
“That wasn’t what I meant. What happened after I left? I agreed to this because Grayson was supposed to be safe—his family safe.”
I couldn’t say the word prisoner. It was too surreal.
“He is. They are. But did you think that the stunt you pulled at the Nutcracker Masquerade would have no consequences? That’s naive, even for you.”
West gripped my chin, and on instinct I shoved him. Mistake.
He gripped my wrists. “You need to learn your place, Angel,” he gritted. “I can’t protect you—”
“If I refuse to understand the rules.” I fought the urge to roll my eyes, but by the way his grip tightened I’m sure he got the gist.
West was a number of things, but he was not my protector.
He thrust me to him by my wrists until we were flush against one another. “Who needs to die for you to realize this isn’t a game? That your kisses have consequences?”
I breathed through my nostrils, refusing to answer him.
I know. He thinks I’m not aware of how precarious my love for Grayson is? I was viscerally aware. I’d barely been back hours and nearly ruined everything.
The ways I was allowed to love Grayson kept dwindling.
“Don’t get any ideas about leaving this wing.” His grip bruised. “Don’t wander the halls without me. Don’t speak unless explicitly addressed.”
My heart raced. “Or what? This has been my home for over a decade.”
A look passed over his eyes, but then he let me go.
“Have you given my proposal some thought?” He dragged a thumb along the edge of his square jaw, watching me. Waiting.
I’ll kill him before I let that happen.
I looked away.
“You loved me once,” he said softly, one knuckle glancing the fresh bite on my neck. “Be my angel, fall for me.”
I jerked my head away. “You are not my god, and I will never bleed for you.”
He clenched his jaw, nostrils flared, and I took a step to him, feeling a little bit more empowered. I raised my chin.
“You want my heart, West? How do you think I or anyone could ever love you if all you do is lie?”
“Grayson Crowne tells you the truth?” He smiled venomously. “Is that why you’re so curious as to what happened while we were gone?”
I know Grayson has another secret.
Something was very wrong.
But I could feel Grayson’s truth bleeding from him in a way that West would never understand. Our connection went beyond simple truth and lies. I just had to wait for him to tell me why his eyes ached.
So I stood taller. “He tells me all his truth. Grayson Crowne is more honest than you will ever know how to be. Because you’re wrapped in so many lies, I’m starting to wonder if even you know the truth.”
His eyes flashed.
“I tried to warn you,” he yelled. “All those months ago…I told you he would marry her, and I told you this is all you could ever have. A place at my side.”
His words stabbed my kidney. Stabbed that constant, needling fear…that maybe he was right. Maybe no matter how hard Grayson and I fought, we wouldn’t ever win.
“I’m not at your side, am I West?” I said softly. “I’m behind you. Voiceless. The only reason you ever chased me was because you wanted to ruin me all over again. From the very beginning, this has never been about love. It’s been about greed. Stop lying.”
“You want me to stop lying?” he asked. “Fine. I was only ever allowed to marry you because my father saw an opportunity. I could ruin your reputation and spend months looking for a coin right under your nose. It was the perfect plan.”
He’s been looking for that long? He had a months’ long head start on us. I tried to swallow back my hollow fear.
West tilted his head, reading me. “You can get so much accomplished when your wife loves another man.”
“Was anything real?” I whispered.
He gave me a look. “I don’t know, Angel, was it?”
I looked away. “I was honest with you. I told you I didn’t love you. You pretended to love me. You used me. Stop saying you love me, it’s over, you won—”
“You think I’ve won?” he growled. “I won’t have won until you love me again.”
“Then I guess you’ll always be a loser,” I gritted, “because there is no happily ever after for you.”
Silence descended, the sound of a soft wind blowing sand and snow along the beach outside.
Then he smiled, but his eyes were cold. “This is our happily ever after, Angel.”
Eighteen
STORY
I can’t stop thinking about Grayson on his knees. I went to church once, when my mom was seducing a pastor. The image of Christ on the cross still haunted me.
Naked.
Head down.
Suffering.
In my dreams, I saw Grayson this way. Thrown to his knees over and over again, the memory distorted.
I wished I could write Grayson more than anything, but I had no phone. No way of contacting him. Curious, I opened up my nightstand to see if Grayson’s notebook was still there…
It was.
I fingered the worn leather. If I couldn’t write him directly, I would write alongside his old words.
Dear Atlas,
The night we kissed you shone like a god.
I remember thinking you were cruelly, fatefully designed like only a god can be.
Angels will do anything for their god, right?
Fight, fall, bleed.
But angels aren’t supposed to kiss their god, and I did.
I kissed the lips of a god, so fate punished us.
The constellations ripped themselves apart.
Reworked and remapped;
Their paths hidden from us.
You are divine, so we were divinely punished.
But I will wander the heavens for eons until I find those secret trails.
There aren’t enough stars in the universe for us to cross.
The door creaked, and I scrambled up, dragging my sheets with me and chucking the notebook under my pillow just as West entered the room.
“You’re awake.” He looked…sheepish? Rubbing his neck, looking up at me through thick lashes. “Merry Christmas, Angel.”
He was still in pajamas, red and green plaid with little Christmas trees. He looked…innocent. No sooner had I noticed the arm securely tucked behind his back, then he brought out what was hidden, shoving a poorly wrapped red satin present into my hands.
I stared at it, trying to banish the thought that he had wrapped it himself. “What is this?”
“Open it,” he all but grunted.
My fingers shook as I lifted the red-bow wrapped box. I nearly dropped it when I saw what was inside.
“What…how?” It was all I could manage.
Once upon a time, I fell in love with a boy who saw me—he was the only one who had ever seen me.
Until Grayson.
I slowly lifted the proof of that out of the box, hundreds of gum wrappers, brittle with time, falling through my fingers.
I never told West the secrets I told Grayson, the truth of my mother or why I was really at Crowne Hall. We were kids. That summer, while Grayson had kicked over my bucket, West had snuck me gum.
I never told him I kept the wrappers in a box like the lovesick teenager I was. After the night West raped me, it disappeared. I thought the servants had mistaken it for trash.
All this time, West had kept it.
Who was West?
The boy who remembered my poems and kept gum wrappers for over a decade?
Or the man who lied, who blackmailed and threatened me and those
I loved, so I’d stay at his side?
“Do you like it?” West asked, impatience hot on his tongue.
“I don’t know what this is,” I lied, voice hoarse.
I dropped it to the ground and the wrappers fluttered like dying butterflies out of the box. I couldn’t look him in the eyes. It hurt the rusted, flaking piece of my heart that still clung to West.
He lifted my chin, forcing my eyes to his. I waited for the cruelty. The harsh words.
“Do you think lying will fool your heart, Angel?” He tilted his head, like he could read the words in mine. Pity warped his warm brown eyes, then he let me go.
“I gave you last night because it was…” He trailed off, looking for the word. “Emotional,” he ended, a cruel tilt to his lips. “But I expect your decision by dinner. Will you choose me?”
I mashed my lips together. I couldn’t make this decision alone. I couldn’t decide to sleep in West’s bed, while I’d barely spoken with Grayson.
“Your girl will be here in a moment.”
He left, smashing the wrappers beneath his black leather shoes.
The Crownes’ Christmas traditions were engraved in 24-karat gold. It was an all-day affair, with multiple outfits and hairstyle and makeup changes. Everyone invited—the du Lacs, the Crownes, and the Corrosion of Crownes, of course—used this as an excuse to try to outdo one another. Their morning belonged on the covers of magazines, but it was the one day a year in Crowne Hall where no paparazzi were allowed a press pass, where no visitors could visit, only family.
Of course, servants didn’t count as people to the Crownes. They were like…appendages. Appliances. They were always there, expected to be present, especially on the Holidays.
I was beginning to notice the mistresses were held to a different standard of dress, a higher one. Gemma could be found behind a mountain of still wrapped, color-coordinated presents, the tips of her white furry slippers visible, one long arm stretching lazily as she sipped from a crystal glass of champagne. But for me, nothing short of a crinoline would do under my velvet dress. I must have had on at least four layers of clothing.
As West and I walked farther into the sitting room, I paused on one person who didn’t fit in, neither a Crowne nor a du Lac, leaning alone on a window. I recognized his silvering brown hair and cut jaw from the horrible Labor Day weekend.
Destroyed Destiny (Crowne Point Book 4) Page 9