He crushed his lips against mine, groaning into my mouth. “I’ll build a kingdom for you, little wife.”
“I’ll blow up the world for you, Atlas.”
He tangled his hands in my hair, pulling me ever so slightly into the morning sun rays. “Someday, I will kiss you in the sun.” He entangled his hand in mine. “Someday, we will walk down these halls hand in hand. Someday, you’ll wake up in my bed.” He growled the word my against my lips, and it sent shivers down my spine.
We kept our foreheads pressed together, until the sun grew hot on our backs. Until the sounds of the morning, of servants cleaning and prepping for the day reminded us that someday wasn’t today.
“What are they setting up for?” I asked.
A grim look shadowed the carved planes of Grayson’s face. “It’s a New Era of Crowne. Something to do with the baby, I’m sure…”
“They can’t still be doing that? Josephine just died.” Even as the words left my mouth, I knew the truth.
Nothing stopped a Crowne event.
Not Mother Nature.
Certainly not something as pedestrian as a death.
My eyes found his slowly, fear seizing my gut.
He gripped my cheeks. “Everything will be fine.”
Will it, though?
I don’t know what it meant that the two most powerful families in the world thought I had what they wanted. All I knew was that I was woefully underprepared.
“I guess…” I said quietly.
I think he read the disquiet in my eyes. “Every moment we can, we will meet in our room.” He let me go, voice gravel, as he trailed his nose along my neck. “When we can’t, you will write me your letters, and whenever I see your eyes, I’ll be able to speak to you. Let the world try to divide us. We’ll always be connected, Story. Because when you kissed me, you slid inside me.”
“Let’s have a code word for when everything gets scary and overwhelming. A code word for when I want you to hold me, to tell me you love me, but you can’t.”
His eyes softened. “What would our code word be?”
I think of the poem by Pablo Neruda, the one that I’d always felt connected to Grayson.
“What about…Neruda?”
He pressed a kiss to my lips. “Neruda, then, little wife.”
“When this is over, let’s still live in Crowne Point. Somewhere far enough away from their influence, but still close so you can visit your family.”
Some emotion clouded Gray’s eyes, something dark, and he pulled back.
“This will work, right?” I held him, forcing him to stay close. “We’ll both be free?”
He pressed his forehead to mine, but his eyes still ached. “Yes, little wife. We’ll be free—”
West’s laugh broke us apart. “Were you planning on fucking her while I slept in the other room?”
In an instant, Gray’s grip on me tightened to a bruise.
West leaned in the door, eyes traveling down my exposed thighs. Grayson yanked the material down and West’s eyes traveled back up.
Grayson slowly stood off the bed, arms folded, blocking my view of West and his of me.
“Still am,” he said with the trademark Grayson Crowne ice, the very tone that had shivers down my spine months ago.
Something crackled and popped between all three of us.
Something wrong.
West exhaled, shaking his head at me. “My darling mistress, I keep finding you in the most compromising positions.”
For a moment, it looked as if West was going to force me back to him, but then his attention landed on Grayson.
“Are you ready to talk?”
West and Grayson shared a look, and again it was as if they were speaking in a silent language.
Grayson turned to me. “Neruda.”
I love you.
Without so much as a second look in my direction, Gray closed the distance between them. He placed his hand to West’s chest and shoved him out of the room, slamming the door shut behind them.
My prince and my villain, alone together.
Leaving me with our tangled sheets, and the prickly reminder: two jealous men who refused to let me go and also refused to share me, a single shaky truce between them, and only one happily ever after up for grabs.
The stakes? Well…other than death?
Our already fragile hearts.
Twenty-Five
GRAY
War makes for very strange bedfellows.
Words my grandfather used to say echoed in my head as I was caught in a staring match with West du Lac, fighting the urge to pummel his face into the fucking wall.
“You know if you kill me now it’s just straight-up murder, right?”
“Debating whether or not I give a shit,” I said lightly, scratching my pinky along my bottom lip. “I made a promise to Story, about what I would do to you if you hurt her. I don’t like breaking my promises to her.”
“I haven’t laid a hand on her.”
He’s been hurting her in other ways.
Fucking with her head.
Her heart.
He seeded the briar in her chest.
But, I knew if I told him that, he’d see it as a win.
So I stayed silent. It was only us in the sitting room now, with just the crackle and burn of the fire for light.
“You said I’d need you. At this point, I see no reason to trust you. So let’s not trade in trust,” I said. “Let’s trade in secrets.”
A secret for a secret…
I gritted my jaw at the unwilling memory, waiting for him to speak.
West grinned. “Good idea. You go first.”
I rolled my neck. Yeah. Right.
“Fine.” West exhaled. “I’ll go first, but then I’ll choose your secret.” Before I could say Yeah fucking right, he continued. “Let me tell you what my father plans to do. He’s been after that coin since the day of that funeral. He plans to use it to get a majority stake in Crowne Industries.”
“He must have been pretty fucking pissed when you gave your coin to me,” I said.
West looked away, but quickly looked back. “I assume your grandfather is planning the same.”
I held in a scoff. Of course my grandfather was going to do that. All that New Era of Crowne was bullshit—they were doing the same fucking thing that divided them years ago.
“Once he’s secured Crowne Industries, he plans for me to marry Gemma as a final fuck you to Beryl Crowne.”
I folded my arms. “Gemma has been engaged for almost a decade.”
West shrugged a shoulder. “Beryl has a habit of marrying his children and grandchildren off for stability. It’s my father’s belief that we’ll offer a more enticing package: a piece of his old kingdom.”
My grandfather tried to marry Abigail off, he succeeded in marrying me off, and he’d had Gemma engaged for years. Yeah, he had a habit, all right.
Gemma’s fiancé wasn’t a great man, but he isn’t terrible. He was just your average, run-of-the-mill privileged rich asshole. But West?
I saw red, had West’s collar beneath my fists before I blinked. “Stay the fuck away from my sister.”
West gripped my hands over his collar. “I don’t fucking want your sister. You know my end goal.”
“Story? She doesn’t want you either. You have no stake in this battle, du Lac.”
“Maybe, but I’ll fight all the same.”
I laughed, bitter and caustic. “You raped her—” West flinched, and I paused, focusing on that reaction. That split second where his mask slipped. “You don’t like hearing that?” I asked softly. “That you raped her?”
West shoved me off. “Dunno, Crowne. Are you proud of the way you treated my sister for over a decade?”
A stalemate of silence passed. As the fire dwindled, West’s features were shadowed and hardened. For a moment, he looked a little like the older kid who’d once pulled me from my bed in the dark of our dorms, slamming me against the icy window.
>
Why the fuck was my sister crying?
I ground my teeth. “It’s not the same thing.”
West laughed, waving a hand in the air like whatever. “Now you. Give me a secret.”
“My grandfather—”
“Nope, my choice, and I don’t want information on your grandpa. I want info on Story. What does she like now?”
I guess that was the problem with inviting a snake into your bed.
They slithered.
I rubbed my jaw, tense from grinding my teeth. “Pretty fucking vague question, West.”
“Fine, I’ll narrow it down. How do you get her off?”
I focused on my breathing, on the in and out of hot air from my nostrils. It wasn’t even fucking day one of this, and I was picturing slamming his head into the floor.
“I think we need some ground rules,” I said at last.
He arched a brow. “Ground rules?”
“She doesn’t sleep in the same room as you, let alone bed. No public displays of affection.”
He laughed. “So you want everyone to know we’re full of shit? Got it. I’m gonna have to touch her, Crowne.” He leaned forward. “Definitely kiss her. Maybe even fu—”
I curled his stupid-ass bow tie beneath my fist, lips a breath away. “Before I came in here, I hadn’t decided if I was going to agree to your plan, or just fucking end you once and for all. I could still go either way, du Lac. So I think I should be real clear. The only reason you’re still breathing is Story.” I curled the bow tie tighter. “The minute that changes.” Curl. “My need for you changes too.”
I shoved him back.
“You owe me a secret, Crowne.”
“You want to know how she gets off, West? With me. It’ll never be you.”
West stood taller, eyes dark. “You want ground rules? Let’s start with how we’ll tell everyone it’s my child.”
Another biting laugh left me. “I’m starting to think you’re a bit of a masochist, West.”
“She’s showing. You know our parents already suspect it—if not outright assume. Soon the world will. If you’re so sure you’re going to ride off into the sunset, then what’s the harm? Don’t make the same mistake your father did—”
“Don’t fucking talk about my father,” I cut.
“I’m not finished.”
I folded my arms, waiting for whatever the fuck else he had to tell me.
“Stop treating my sister like a villain.”
That hit me unexpectedly, and my breath got caught in my lungs like smoke.
West looked away, almost like he was ashamed. “Help her the way we’re helping Story.”
I arched a brow. “You want me to tell you how to fuck your sister?”
“No, dick. I want us to free her. Free her from my mother. From my father. From this fucking world. I want to make sure that when this is over, Lottie is taken care of.”
“Why can’t her brother do that?”
West looked away. “Just promise me you’ll take care of her, Grayson.”
West held his hand out for me to shake.
“Does she know?” he asked.
“About our truce? Pretty fucking obvious.”
“That if you manage to get that coin, you’re not leaving this place.”
I shifted, my back suddenly aching—
The way you shift on the mattress when something hurts your heart.
Goddamn.
She knew me better than I knew myself.
I told Story I wouldn’t put my faith in fairy tales, and I guess for both of us, I have no choice.
One way or the other, Story would be free. My wife would be safe. Whether that meant finding the coin, or destroying my grandfather and becoming the thing I hated most: the monster that goes bump in the night.
Becoming the Crowne.
Anyone who came after her, would have to come through me.
A slow smile spread across West’s lips at my silence. “So there are some things you keep from the missus, then.”
My hand clasped his, then I yanked him to me, our noses barely touching. “So we’re clear, you don’t fucking touch her, she doesn’t sleep in your bed, she doesn’t sleep in the same fucking room as you, and you don’t take her phone again.”
He laughed. “Or you’ll beat me up again?”
“I’m still married to your sister, du Lac. I would hate to break her heart any more than I already have…especially with what stress does to her and the baby.”
It burned like acid coming out.
West’s eyes narrowed. “I thought you were the good guy in this story, Grayson.”
Your dream wasn’t exclusive to me. You want to be good to Lottie, and I want that for you.
I told Story I would do it my way…I just hoped she could forgive me.
I shoved him off. “I’ll be the villain, I’ll be the bad guy, I’ll be whatever I have to be, to keep Story safe.”
West grinned. “Truce.”
“Truce,” I gritted.
Twenty-Six
STORY
I fell asleep against the door, listening to the muffled voices of Gray and West, so I was disoriented when I woke in a bed. Last night came back to me in hot bursts.
“Are you feeling okay?”
Grayson sat on my bed, and I smiled, thinking I was in a dream. That I was back to before—before everything got ruined. Destroyed.
“Atlas,” I whispered.
“Grayson hogs the bed.”
The dream shattered with West’s voice. West came into focus behind Grayson, leaning in the doorway, in plaid pajamas with Christmas trees. Grayson wore what he had the night before, but no tie, and his dress shirt was rolled up and messy.
I looked around, realizing I was in the guest wing. My prison.
West.
West and Grayson.
I looked between the two of them, still unsure if I was dreaming. “What’s going on? What are you doing here?”
“Yeah, Gray,” West mocked. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m not leaving your side, Snitch. Never again.”
The night before. The truce.
Two of the most powerful men in the world, after me.
“You both slept here?”
Grayson leaned forward, brushing the hair from my eyes, but his glare was on West. “I didn’t sleep, little wife.”
“Grayson, you should probably get the fuck out unless you want everyone to know you spent the night here,” West said. “I just don’t know if the world is ready for our relationship—maybe go back to my sister. I wonder how she’s doing. Do you even know?”
West was clearly needling him. Any mention of Lottie, Grayson flinched like he was in serious pain.
Grayson rubbed a hand across the blond shadow on his jaw, dragging his bottom lip, eyes dark and jaw tense.
“Fuck off, West,” I gritted. I touched his arm and his eyes found mine. “I read somewhere you’re not supposed to break jaws before breakfast.”
His eyes softened on mine.
Still, I worried.
They don’t let me out of my wing unless it’s to take pictures or smile on command.
How often could Gray do this before getting caught? Before getting all of us caught?
“What’s going to happen when they realize you’re gone? I told you I didn’t want you getting hurt over me.”
I can do this. I can handle West.
And just like that the world dissolved—for about two seconds, then I felt a violent lurch in my stomach. I quickly bolted out of the room to the nearest bathroom, expelling everything from my stomach.
I wasn’t sure who grabbed my hair, or who handed me the handkerchief.
“You need to go, Crowne,” West said to my left—the handkerchief.
“I’m not leaving you alone with her,” Grayson gritted—my hair.
“Are you gonna walk down with us? Maybe you take one arm, and I take the other? Meanwhile Lottie is photographed alone and everyone lear
ns our dirty little secret.”
“Shut up!” I groaned.
And then silence, only the sound of terrible morning sickness. I had a flashback to two days ago, to Lottie in this exact position, head on her arm. Only she didn’t have her husband’s eyes to look into, another man handing her a handkerchief.
She had me.
Her worst fucking nightmare.
“Have you helped Lottie?” I croaked.
Grayson’s brow furrowed. “She hasn’t had morning sickness—”
“Oh no, is she sick?”
Soft as a feather, but cutting as a knife, all three of us collectively froze at Lynette du Lac’s voice. Grayson with his hands still holding my hair back, West with the handkerchief to my lips, and me, my head on my arm.
“Drank too much last night,” West said.
“I don’t remember seeing her drink…” Lynette stared at me, and I wondered what she was thinking, maybe it was the thoughts that had been going through my head.
How Lottie had been in this exact position, but all alone.
When I was a child, I was fascinated with the rose bushes that grew untamed outside my home. Their floral scent was stronger than the salt air, and I always tried to find the prettiest bloom to hold in my palm. One day, I found one deep in the bush, so I dove for it.
I cut myself up to my elbow on the thorns.
That was the tension—the threat—in this bathroom. Bloody, cutting, and hidden under a layer of perfume.
Some kind of wordless communication passed between West and Gray, and they stood to their feet.
Were we caught? Our grand plan over already?
Mrs. du Lac smiled at Grayson. “We were wondering where you’d run off to. You have everyone positively out of sorts.”
Grayson Crowne, the imprisoned prince, who’d ditched his royal guard—again.
“That’s my fault,” West supplied.
Lynette’s brow arched. “Your fault?”
“Grayson is the only one in this whole fucking place who knows how to play Call of Duty.”
“Mmm.” Lynette stared at me until it felt like my lungs would pop with a single pinprick, then she turned back to her son with a smile. “Good to see brothers getting along. Well.” Lynette folded her hands. “Perhaps he should return to his wife. We have a busy day ahead of us.”
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