“Nothing,” I hissed.
West grabbed my elbow, twisting my body and forcing my glare. “What did you do, Story?”
I yanked my elbow free. “Nothing.” I rubbed my neck, hot. “Why was your dad even here?”
He stared at me, but I refused to give him an inch.
“You have an hour to get ready.” He looked over my shoulder, and the guards grabbed me, dragging me back to my room.
But before the door shut, he said to my back. “I’m not the bad guy, Story.”
He was.
He had to be.
Still, an inky feeling settled in my gut. At the look in Arthur’s eyes. At the way West’s brows drew together, the way his voice caught on my name. Not Angel—Story. Like he was truly concerned.
I slid down my double doors, pulling out my phone.
Dear Atlas,
My heart is rusty.
What if he didn’t rape me?
What if…what if I’m like my mother?
What if because I chose the second time, it means the first was never wrong?
Atlas…Every little flake that falls from my heart leaves me with another what if.
GRAY
Dear little wife,
I would scrape the rust off your heart.
If you’d let me.
—Atlas
Every morning I started by sending Story two messages. First, a message to her phone where she read it directly. Then something else—a secret, from Atlas.
This wasn’t planned, but then she kept sending me secrets, truths she wasn’t ready to say aloud, and I grew addicted.
Story’s secrets were mine.
Every. Single. Goddamn one of them. The ones she kept from herself, the ones she wasn’t ready to tell, every single fucking one.
“Grayson, so glad you finally made it downstairs.” My mother snapped me back into reality—the reality where another pointless Crowne party continued, as though Josephine wasn’t found on the terrace just outside.
My mother exhaled. “I would have chosen a lighter suit…Lottie is wearing rose and you will clash.”
She wrapped her arm around mine, leading me through a crowd of wide-eyes toward Lottie, so I could play pretend husband.
“With your grandfather gone—”
“And where is grandfather, again?” I cut her off.
He might be gone, but the world still spun on his axis. My guards still watched me with beady eyes. So wherever the fuck he went, it wasn’t good.
She tilted her head, blinking blue eyes like I’d asked what two plus two was. “Switzerland, of course.”
“Couldn’t even stay for the funeral?”
She put two fingers to her temple. “Please don’t remind me. It’s hard enough planning your child’s birth on top of New Year’s, now we have this.”
“Was Josephine’s death a bit of an inconvenience for you?”
She smiled tightly, but said nothing as we landed next to Lynette and Lottie and a horde of reporters. Lottie seemed surprised to see me, and that made my chest ache more. She was expecting to be left here.
Alone.
To face a horde of vultures.
“Good to see you’ve finally joined us, Grayson,” Lynette said with a smile.
I gave her my best fake grin. I thought I hated Lottie, but it was nothing compared to what I feel for her mother.
Visceral.
Everyone stood around Lottie on her chaise, talking to various reporters with easy and rehearsed smiles. While Lynette and my mother crooned about the baby, Arthur talked about what it meant for the vision of Du Lac and Crowne Industries. My sister, still hungover from the night before, leaned against her fiancé as he looked at his phone.
The Christmas tree hadn’t been taken down yet, the smell of pine overpowering. Behind it, the gilded floor-to-ceiling windows displayed an icy beach.
My mother had planned this long before Josephine died—this seemingly candid family photo op. Everyone was here, everyone save the one person who should be.
“Oh, the Crowne family bassinet!” My mother said to some question a reporter asked. “It’s an antique that dates back to our noble ancestors in England.” My mother sounded drunk at the idea, eyes rosy.
“How in the hell is that still safe?” Gemma blurted, looking up from her phone.
“Well it housed you just fine, Gemma…”
“I think it’s the size of an avocado,” Lottie whispered to another question.
Lottie looked…off. I tried to muster that decency that existed somewhere inside me. When she spoke, her words were barely above a whisper. She reminded me of an old doll whose cracks had been repainted too many times.
I should hate Lottie for everything she’d done. For forcing me into a pregnancy she had no right to, but I just felt…an ache. A twist. Deep in my chest. Every fuck-up, from beginning to end, had been collaborative.
For the first time in months, I looked outside of myself.
Outside of Snitch.
And I looked at Lottie, one-fourth of this fucked up equation.
“Lottie, are you feeling well?” I asked, low so no one could hear us.
She waved me off. “I’m fine, Grayson.”
“Grayson! Lottie!” some paparazzo called.
Lottie turned to them automatically.
I turned to them. “You’ll wait.”
I gripped Lottie’s chin, dragging her gaze back to mine. I didn’t know what to say to her. What I could say. She didn’t deserve this. We were both fucking trapped.
“They’re such a sweet couple,” someone in the crowd whispered.
“Look at how he dotes on her.”
Her face collapsed as if reading my thoughts. I could physically see every muscle cave in. But all she said was a soft, “We have a show to put on.”
She turned back to the cameras, and something inside me snapped. I grasped her wrist, pulling her off the chaise and pushing aside cameras.
“Grayson…” My mother warned in her saccharine tone.
I ignored her—I ignored Lynette calling after us, too, and dragged both Lottie and myself through the party, until we were alone on the terrace.
Lottie blinked at me. “What are you doing?”
For once, the terrace was all but empty—it was too cold. Would they even care if they knew a death had occurred the night before? They only came to these parties to gawk at us like elephants of old menageries, anyway.
“It’s fucking disgusting,” I snapped. “Josephine died yesterday. We’re in there giving an interview about pregnancy diets.”
Lottie looked at me like I’d grown two heads.
“What?”
“Why are you acting so surprised? This is our life. This has always been our life.”
“I was never okay with any of this.”
She scoffed and I raised my brows.
“You’re Grayson Crowne. You’re Playboy Gray. You were the fucking poster boy for all of this. If we had just followed the path they’d laid out for us, we never would have noticed the blood beneath the cobblestone.”
I took a step back.
Damn.
Bloody.
Raw.
Jagged.
Truth.
Lottie looked around. “You gave me an orchid out here once… I hate orchids.”
I quirked my head, shocked at that. “Aren’t they your favorite flower?”
“They’re supposed to be,” she said.
I looked around at the servants with downcast eyes. No matter how many times I said they could look me in the eye the past couple of weeks, my mother and my grandfather, still told them to keep their eyes down.
I looked at Horace, my sister’s fiancé since, fuck, age thirteen?
I never batted an eye at that.
None of us did.
Suddenly, my world was too bloody. The gold chocolate fountain streamed it. The walls oozed black.
“I need a fucking breath.”
“Stay.” L
ottie waved me off. “I’ll go and tell everyone you’re getting me lemons. I’ll pretend it’s a pregnancy craving, and no one will fucking notice, because I’m not allowed to talk about my allergy.”
She started to laugh.
“I…” My brow furrowed, not sure what to make of her help—or her descent into laughter. “Thanks, Lottie.”
She nodded in a wispy, not-quite-there way, then left.
For a few minutes, I was alone with my thoughts and the shivering, salty breeze. Then I saw her—Story. Leaning over the terrace and staring out at the cruel ocean. Sand and snow whispered around her, and she looked like a princess trapped in a snow globe.
Her perfect gingerbread cheeks shone—she was crying.
I wanted to trail my fingers along her spine.
I wanted her words.
I wanted to tear the fucker out of her. Rip out that jagged shard that made her bleed.
I want her blood on my hands.
But even on the empty terrace, that would be too obvious. So I dug my fingers into my pockets, and went to her. I leaned in the opposite direction against the railing, a good space of distance between us.
“Little wife, why are you crying?”
She startled. “If anyone sees you—”
“Stop warning me, Snitch,” I growled. “I know the consequences.”
She dragged her bottom lip between her teeth, nodding.
I repeated my question, voice harder. “Why are you crying, Snitch?”
She sniffed, wiping snot from beneath her nose. “Just…hormones.”
My heart is rusty.
I remembered her letter to me. The one she thought I wasn’t reading. Did she think I’d judge her? That I’d think her soul wouldn’t shine so diamond bright? A secret for a secret maybe…so I leaned back on the stone railing.
“I can’t look at Lottie anymore, Snitch. Not because of what she did to me, but because of what I’ve become.”
Her eyes grew, and she leaned just a little bit closer.
“I’ve treated her horribly. I should at least treat her with some modicum of kindness for the child she carries inside her, and I just…I can’t look at her. I fucking hate her. I hate myself.”
Silence stretched, the ocean our whispering voyeur. I was starting to think she’d never let me in. Then her raspy voice carried softly on the waves.
“He’s bad,” she whispered “He’s cruel, but then…sometimes he’s not. You are my soul, my light, but he is in me, Grayson.”
Side by side, we stared forward at opposite directions—her at the beach, me at the party inside. But we’d moved closer, until her arm was flush against mine. Her lips were tauntingly close, all I’d have to do was turn my neck to the side, and we’d collide.
“He is in my heart,” she continued. “He is a rusted, flaking piece of my heart.”
I shifted, crossing one leg over the other. I shouldn’t be getting hard at this, at my wife crying, at her pain, but it’s like fucking heroin when she tells me her secrets. I crave her dirty insides, the parts she thinks I don’t want to hear.
Only I’ve been there.
Story licked her lips, pupils dilated.
I wondered if she was like me.
We were in view, so I couldn’t touch her, but I could talk, I could weave the fantasy around us so thick it became a mirage.
Our pinkies touched. It was just our fingers, but it was dangerous.
Illicit.
Right.
She curved her pinky around mine—
“There you are.”
We both jolted, the fantasy shattered, then spun.
Arthur du Lac stood on the terrace, staring at Story as if he’d won. Behind him were Lynette, my mother, West, and even Lottie. Dread wrapped around my gut.
“A bit cold for pictures on the terrace,” I said, measured.
“What’s going on, Arthur?” Lynette asked. “Why did you drag us away from the party?”
Arthur’s beady eyes hadn’t left Story, and I looked to her. Something had happened, it was clear by the anger in her stony gaze.
“A mistress overstepped her bounds this morning.” Arthur glanced to West. “I tried telling you she was poorly trained.”
West’s brow knitted. “What did you do, Angel?”
Before Story could speak, Arthur grinned—triumphant. “She assaulted me.” Arthur turned to Story. “Get on your knees, Mistress.”
STORY
“On your knees.”
For the first time in I don’t know how many years, I hesitated.
The number of times I’d had to fall to my knees ran through me like electric shocks. Years of living with the Crownes, drilling obedience into me until I forgot who I was, until I knew only to fall to my knees.
I glared at Arthur. He was attacking a maid—was I not supposed to intervene? There was a slight, darkening bump above his brow. I felt no remorse. I wished it was bigger.
Grayson took a step, and I saw his intent in his coiled fist, in veins throbbing along his wrist and neck.
“Neruda,” I whispered, and he froze.
He threw me a wild, deranged look over his shoulder. I pleaded with him with my eyes, with that single word, to stop. They would tear him away, they would throw him in his wing, and they would hurt him.
The veins in Arthur’s neck throbbed the longer I stood—everyone waited for me to obey. My eyes scanned the terrace, but it had nearly emptied. Just immediate family. I had an eerie feeling. It was like before with Grayson. I remembered being asked to empty rooms as a servant. I never thought anything of it.
Mr. Crowne needs the library cleared.
Mrs. Tansy needs the sunroom free of guests.
I watched servants clear the terrace, and had the feeling of floating out of my body, watching this as someone else.
Mr. du Lac needs the terrace cleared.
“Neruda,” I begged Grayson, and fell to my knees, jaw clenched.
This will be the last time.
My uncle always said the only way to survive was to keep my dignity, and for me, I thought that meant living unseen.
Maybe that was the problem.
Maybe by hiding I’d actually given more power to those around me. I’d shoved flashlights into their hands and let them shove me into the shadows.
I needed to find the girl who gave West gum wrappers.
The girl who once stared Tansy in the eyes.
As a mistress I couldn’t speak unless spoken to, my place was written as second, but somehow I’d needed to find the strength to be seen, to live with dignity, while being the most shameful and hidden I’d ever been.
I know if I didn’t, the person I wanted to be, the dream I had for Grayson and me, would disappear completely.
“There.” West grazed his pointer along my jaw, from ear to ear. “I think she’s learned her lesson.”
It didn’t feel over, not by the look in Arthur du Lac’s eyes.
Grayson was barely holding it together, flexing and unfurling his fist.
Arthur’s hand fell to his belt. “You know the rules.”
“I don’t think that will be necessary, Dad,” West bit out.
Rules.
Flashbacks to Madame, her ruler landing between my shoulder blades.
I can’t protect you if you refuse to learn the rules.
West bent down, wrapping his arm around my waist, dragging me up to his side. “You see, I can’t let anything too rough happen to her.” He held up a small, black postcard.
The sonogram.
“We’re expecting.”
Twenty-Nine
STORY
I stared at the sonogram in West’s hands. Our little lemon, Grayson’s Christmas present to me, in his hands.
Lottie was the first to speak. “You’re expecting?”
I broke off before the word left my lips.
Don’t. Speak.
Learn the rules.
So instead of apologizing, I just…was quiet, and tried to
get around the person.
“Is it really my brother’s baby?” Lottie’s eyes swiveled from me to her brother.
Why did she sound so desolate? And why did I want to tell her the truth?
I could only focus on Grayson. Nostrils flared, jaw clenched so tight the muscle bounced. And his eyes…they were the sun. Burning with a pain so stark I wanted to look away before they blinded me. Pain so hot it lanced.
My little Meyer lemon was not West’s.
Her face crumpled. “Con-congratulations.”
“She’ll be taking the du Lac name, then,” Tansy eyed me, eyes sharp.
I opened my mouth to say of course not but it was like West could sense it. He gripped my elbow painfully. “Of course.”
Lynette eyed me, venomous. “Wonderful.”
West used his grip to spin me, and before I knew it, his lips were on mine. I closed my eyes tight, my lips tighter.
I hate you.
I hate you.
I wanted the words to bleed into him.
Bleed into me.
When he finished, Grayson and Lottie were gone, and people poured onto the terrace—even though they shivered. Music flooded the terrace, louder than inside, as if Tansy was trying to drown out what just happened.
“Well…” Lynette gave me one last look, then returned to the ballroom. Arthur du Lac followed his wife inside, staring after me, his look leaving shivers down my spine.
West’s grip on my hip was iron, as if he knew I wanted to bolt.
“We said we wanted to wait,” I hissed at him.
“And you told me nothing happened.” West waved at someone across the terrace. “A thank you would be nice.”
I could barely breathe through my indignation. “Thank you?”
“I just did you both a fucking favor.”
“A favor?” I yelled, but it was drowned out by the music.
West gripped my elbow, spinning me to him. “You’re showing, Angel. Everyone knows, but now they think it’s mine. Or at least, we planted a seed of doubt.”
“We said we wanted to wait!” I said it again, because it was all I had. It was my Hail Mary.
“Should I have let my father whip your back with his belt?”
I swallowed air. That was what was going to happen? Arthur’s dark eyes popped in my head like the Cheshire cat’s disappearing stare.
Destroyed Destiny (Crowne Point Book 4) Page 17