With that cryptic comment that didn’t make me feel any better, West left, and I left to go find Lottie. The guards must have known I was coming, because they only narrowed their eyes as I walked by.
“Just let me do it!” I paused just outside the door to her section of the wing.
I knew I was only here to bring the pen. I could leave it outside the door, even, but the pain in her voice was knife-sharp.
I pushed open the door, taking a step inside.
“Why are you here? It’s Christmas, you should be with your wife. Does she even know you’re here? Or did you lie about that, too?”
The voices were faded, coming from deeper inside her wing, so I kept walking, my feet taking me to the master, and even deeper, just outside the bathroom to an already open door.
“Charlie—”
“Don’t call me that.” The sobbing continued, warbled. “Just go.”
Just on the brink of the master bath, I felt like a voyeur. This moment wasn’t meant for me, but it felt like I should still be there.
I took a step inside, onto the marble tile. Lottie was standing naked in the tub, her hair dry but dripping from the tips. She was in distress, fighting with all her strength with—Jack?
He was not the cool, composed man I’d seen on Labor Day. His short brown hair was wild, his clothes wet with bathwater. Lottie wrestled with him for something in his palm, and it fell to the ground with a clang.
A bloody razor.
I must have gasped, because both Lottie and Jack’s eyes snapped to mine. He stared at me, a deer in headlights, before quickly snatching it off the ground as Lottie reached for it.
“I—” He ran a wet hand through his hair. “I have to go.”
“Good,” Lottie said. “Go. Get the fuck out and never come back.” I don’t know if I’d ever heard her swear.
He flinched slightly at that, but kept walking, stopping only in the doorway, his shoulder to mine.
“Can you—I’m not supposed to be here.” He spoke frantically. His hand was bleeding, and I saw it was because he held the razor in his palm. “I want to stay.”
He looked over his shoulder at Lottie, then his phone sounded and he shook his head, rushing out the door.
Lottie bent down, reaching for another razor and I ran into the room. I gripped her wrist, trying to get the sharp object to release from her grip.
“Why are you here?” she yelled at me. “I’m doing you a favor.”
“Lottie…I…” Is that what she thought? That I wanted her dead? “Think about your baby.”
She gave me a look like I was insane. “I am.”
We paused, the air heavy, then she sobbed, dropping the razor. Minutes passed like that as she stared at the fruity wet tile, crying.
“Lottie, I’m going to call a doctor.”
“Don’t!” Her eyes slashed to mine, the first sign of life since the man left. “No one can know about this. I’m…” She took a breath. “I just wanted attention.”
I bit the side of my lip.
I helped her out of the tub.
Sort of like I did when I was her girl.
But now Lottie had snapped entirely. She wasn’t making me dry or dress her because she felt I was beneath her. As I pressed soft cotton to her hazelnut skin, she stared blankly out at the ocean.
I lifted one arm, sliding her silk robe on it, repeating the action with the other arm.
“I have a secret,” she said the word secret like it cut her lungs coming out. “I don’t want to keep it anymore.” Her brows caved in anguish. “But my mom…the families…” she started hyperventilating.
I understood that, at least, having a secret.
I looked at her hands, her wrists, her arms. She’d mostly cut her hands, probably fighting to get the razor, so it wasn’t too bad, just a lot of superficial bleeding.
After cleaning up the wounds, I brought her to bed.
“I have a secret,” she whispered, her eyes rolling over to find mine. “Keeping it is ruining everything. But if I tell it, I’ll ruin everything.”
“Which option will hurt the least people?”
Her brow furrowed, and she turned back to stare at the ceiling.
“Do you have dreams?” she asked suddenly.
“Um…”
“I don’t have any dreams,” she mused softly. “That’s a lie, I dreamed he would love me.” She spun to me. “But I mean, my friend Aundi wanted to be an influencer. My other friend Pipa wanted to go to Paris to study fashion. I don’t have dreams like that. I try to think of one and it’s just blank. Black. Nothing.”
She waved her arms dramatically above her, as if envisioning the black nothing. I studied her. Maybe Lottie did have dreams, but she was like Grayson, and had kept them so close to her chest, that they’d become a secret to even herself.
“A poet,” I admitted quietly.
“A poet,” she repeated the words, like she was testing it out for herself. “That’s a nice dream.”
It was nice talking to Lottie like this, even though the circumstances that allowed me to lie next to her in her bed were just as dark as all the others in our twisted relationship.
Because for a minute, in this soft cottony bed, it did feel a little bit like before.
“Mostly…” I continued. “I want to be a mother different than mine. I want to have a family different than what I had.”
“That sounds really nice.” She rolled over, eyes locking with mine. “I have a lot of half-siblings,” she said. “I don’t talk to any of them. I don’t know anything about them. My mother…” Her brows caved again, pained. “To know them is to accept them and to accept them is to invalidate our own existence.”
She spoke the way Grayson occasionally did, like the words weren’t her own.
I reached out, touching her shoulder, trying to offer some kind of comfort. I should probably hate her, and she me, but all I felt was sorrow. I still remembered the girl who watched Grayson with twinkling eyes and who smiled at him when she thought he wasn’t looking. That girl brought Grayson to me, I stole Grayson from that girl, and now that girl is gone.
Her twinkling eyes were bruised, and her smile was withered.
“Why are you here?” She slashed wet brown eyes to mine.
“I had to bring you this.” I handed her the EpiPen and she froze for a moment, then she started laughing wildly, like it was the funniest joke, until the laughter died.
“Promise me you won’t tell Grayson or anyone else about this?” Lottie yawned.
She sounded like she was getting sleepy, which was good, I think. Good for her to fall asleep and forget about this night.
“Lottie…I…I can’t keep secrets from him.” Not ever again.
“Please,” her brows caved, begging. “I don’t want him to feel like he can’t hate me. He’s going to need to hate me soon. And you know him, he’s…”
For all the cruelty Grayson used as armor, he was incapable of hate.
Slowly I nodded.
At that, she seemed to relax. Lottie held a stuffed animal to her chest, a pale green one, and she stared at the ceiling. She looked too young, too broken. It reminded me of the portrait I’d caught Grayson staring at.
None of the little Crowne children smiled. I wondered if the artist meant to capture that, their displaced love.
“You’re the one who should hate me the most,” she said softly.
I turned back. “I don’t hate you, Lottie.”
Her brown eyes found mine. “You will.”
Twenty-One
GRAY
“We should really wait for Lottie to do the toast.” Lynette shivered on the terrace—everyone shivered on the terrace.
But my grandfather insisted on having the toast out here after dinner, to watch the sunset.
“Great,” Gemma gritted. “I really wanted frostbite for Christmas.”
“Grayson,” Lynette continued. “Where is she?”
Everyone looked to me, as if I ha
d an answer.
I should, I guess—I was technically her husband.
I rubbed my neck. “Uh…”
Three seats at dinner had been empty. Lottie, Jack, and Josephine’s.
“I don’t think she’s feeling well,” Story said.
Lynette tilted her head. “And how would you know?”
Even I was curious to the answer.
Story’s lips parted. “I…ran into her in the bathroom earlier.”
So we descended back into silence. Gemma looked at her phone, hand shaking with the cold. The soft rustling filled the air, expensive satin gowns brushed across the cobblestone as all the women moved back and forth, trying to stay warm. Even my grandfather wasn’t immune, foot tapping.
“Honestly,” my mother said. “Are they brewing the champagne?”
“Westley.” Lynette wiggled her hand to her son. “Keep your mother warm.”
Story was alone, across the terrace, and West eyed her, yet went to his mother.
Small fir trees lined the terrace, their lights twinkling in the twilight. Snowflakes fell, illumined by a dusky sunset over the beach.
Story was alone…
Fuck it.
West’s stare followed me across the cobblestone as I went to stand next to Story.
“Little wife.”
Story stiffened, looked left and right. I hated that, the way her eyes widened and her body froze.
“I’m not doing anything, Snitch,” I said. “Just standing next to you. You said you wanted to talk.”
I speared my coat pocket, watching my grandfather across the terrace.
I wasn’t doing anything—I wasn’t. Just leaning against the wall, talking. Her breath heated the silver-tinted sunset and I itched to give her my coat.
I kicked up a leg. “Talk, Snitch.”
“I’ve been so worried about you…” she said, quietly. “We’re being foolish. We promised we would be better this time. Be more careful. We’ve been back not even a day and almost ruined everything.”
I wanted to close my eyes and listen to her husky voice. So goddamn unique, like everything about her. I’d never forget her voice until the day I died.
Instead, I focused on the monsters peppering the terrace, watching us in bespoke pea coats.
She continued. “In Scotland, West told me he would give us everything he had on you if…” she paused. “If I chose him over you. If I slept in his bed. I was supposed to give my decision last night. I can’t. I couldn’t tell him anything unless I talked to you first.”
I wanted to fuck her into the wall.
Fuck that insane idea out of her head.
“I will never let that happen.” I closed and opened my fist, picturing ripping West from his mother and tossing him over the wall. “I will never send you to his bed.”
“What choice do we have? He knows about the coin, Grayson. He acted like he knew so much more than he was letting on while we were in Scotland. And…” She sucked in a breath. “Earlier today, Josephine just pulled me aside and told me I should have found the coin already. I didn’t even know she knew about it. Grayson…” she trailed off. “Everyone seems to know.”
I don’t trust Josephine St. Germaine. Why the fuck did she tell Snitch that? If she did give me those coins, then why the fuck did she choose now to tell me?
But I’d be lying if I said it didn’t make sense.
Everyone at Crowne Industries is bought and paid for, and Beryl Crowne’s word is law, but it didn’t used to be that way. It was famous in our family how we nearly lost everything. The string of bad business decisions and bad luck that plagued us, culminating in my father’s death. But somewhere in there, amidst all that bad luck, my grandfather became the sole decision maker of Crowne Industries.
We went from nearly losing the company, to being number one, so no one questioned it.
But maybe we should have, because it all led to the same conclusion: Beryl Crowne as king.
I pressed my palm deep into my forehead, until I saw white. I was beginning to crave power like a new type of drug so I could save her.
Is this how it started for my grandfather? Did he start out a puppet?
Across the terrace, my grandfather watched me with a lifted brow.
I didn’t know what to tell her, so all I said was, “I know, little wife.”
“You do?” She jerked to me. “Grayson, please, let me in. Why do you have so many secrets and thorns?”
She looked up at me through her long lashes, snowflakes had landed like powdered sugar on them.
Maybe she was right. I’m avoiding talking to her, had been using my lips to silence hers. Because I couldn’t lie to her, but I can’t tell her the truth either.
If we can’t run, but staying meant putting her in constant danger…then what options did we have?
“Let me in. Please, Atlas.” Her voice tore as she begged me to tell her the truth.
I was so goddamn scared. It’s a living thing inside me. I wanted to be strong for her, the prince and hero she saw, but everywhere I looked I saw dead bodies.
I saw her.
I was fucking weak, like my grandfather said.
“Tell me your fear, Grayson.” She lifted her hand like she wanted to press a palm to my cheek, then remembered where we were, and dropped it. “I see them wrapped around your heart. You’re doing the Grayson Crowne thing.”
I scoffed. “The Grayson Crowne thing—”
“Where you think if you keep me in the dark you’ll keep me protected.”
I didn’t know where to start. I wasn’t trying to lie or keep secrets, I just…didn’t know how to say it aloud.
They’ll never stop looking for her, and you fucking know it.
There is no getting out of this world, Grayson. Not alive.
Everything in me said to take her and run, but what did that mean now? Would we have to run forever?
“I don’t know how,” I said honestly.
“You can tell me anything, Grayson. Why do you have thorns on your heart?”
Because I’m afraid I’m doing all the same things that got my father killed, left me fatherless, and left me hating him.
Because I’m worried our child will hate me too.
Because after two weeks of my grandfather carefully chipping away at the lie I was raised with, I don’t know if running is even an option.
But I didn’t say that, because I can’t say that. Not even to the love of my life.
“One percent, Snitch,” I growled. “One percent. When I agreed to this, I said if there was even a one percent chance of failure, we’d do it my way. Can you really tell me there isn’t a one percent chance?”
“That’s…” She swallowed. “It was always an insane stipulation…” She paused, eyes narrowing. Probing. That fucking Snitch stare that ensnared and enthralled me, like she was ripping apart layers I didn’t even know I had.
“You’re lying,” she said. “This isn’t working. We’re lying to each other. I want to tell you everything. I want to bleed with you—” she broke off, as footfalls sounded. West was walking back to her.
Her eyes shifted back to me, and she spoke faster. “But we only get these five minutes—if we’re lucky.”
I was raised with bedtime stories of dead kings. That Crownes are owed. The Crownes take. And I would one day rule. I used to think the world stopped and turned at my word.
That was a fucking lie.
I turned slightly. Body still facing forward, my head angled to hers. Hers did the same, neck arching unconsciously to keep my stare.
“If you insist on going down this road,” I gritted. “I can’t promise I’ll still be the man you love on the other side—”
My mother clapped her hands as a servant came on to the terrace. “Ah, there’s the champagne! I was beginning to think you we’re brewing it yourself—cider for Lottie, of course,” Tansy said, making a point to single out Lottie. “Wait, is Charlotte still not down?”
“Miss me, A
ngel?” West wrapped his arm around Story.
Champagne was handed out, even to Story.
She held the flimsy, crystal stem, staring into the bubbling gold liquid.
“A toast,” my grandfather raised a glass of champagne. “To a new era of Crownes and du Lacs—” The servant’s blood curdling scream cut my grandfather off.
Twenty-Two
GRAY
Josephine St. Germaine lay face down below a Christmas tree on the terrace steps.
Dead.
The red and green ornaments shined garishly bright, a macabre juxtaposition as a sheet was placed over Josephine’s pale, beautiful face.
“Slipped on the ice?” My mother rubbed her neck. “Unfortunate.”
You know how unpredictable the weather can be.
Story had so many questions in her eyes but I couldn’t meet them.
A sad, bored version of “My Favorite Things” continued to play from a string quartet somewhere. Gold and silver and white ornaments glittered along the tinsel dotting the stone railing.
My mother in her final Christmas dress of the evening, chatting with Lynette like they’d been friends for decades and not bitter rivals. My grandfather and Arthur, sharing a scotch underneath a string of evergreen.
All while Josephine was carried off the terrace.
They all had agendas, both intertwined and conflicting, like thorny vines forced to grow together, pricking each other and bleeding, yet unable to grow upward without their support.
My grandfather, a megalomaniac who would tear down anything and anyone for a scrap of power. My mother and Lottie, whose motives hide under the banner of family to advance their own egos. Lottie’s father, too much like my grandpa, but without any finesse—it made him dangerous and sloppy.
They were all narcissists, so what really united them? Was it really to close the centuries-long divide between them? I didn’t fucking buy it.
Would I be subjecting Story to a worse fate? On the run, never safe, never able to pursue her dreams, always hidden. Having to hide her name, her identity, her very self.
I promised Woodsy I wouldn’t let her disappear.
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