She threw up her hands. “Hiding in here won’t stop them from knowing.”
West gripped her elbow. “Angel, wait—”
She yanked her elbow free. “Fuck you.”
The door slammed and I immediately opened it to go follow, when West said to my back, “This is all because of you.”
I spun. “Me?”
“It’s your fault I threw down that fucking coin in the first place.”
I ripped a sucker from my suit jacket and shoved it into my mouth so I didn’t beat him into the fucking floor.
“So, you always had issues taking responsibility for your actions then, West?”
He took a step to me. “You taunted me.”
“I didn’t know shit about you and Story.” I took a step to him. “But if I had, you can bet I would have done more than taunt you.”
“If I hadn’t thrown down that fucking coin, my dad wouldn’t even know about Story. I never would have followed her. Never would have been forced to marry her or make her my mistress. The house wouldn’t have burned down. None of this would have happened; the world wouldn’t know.”
“Careful, your poker face is slipping.” I gritted.
“Years ago, I made a mistake—”
I dragged my finger across my bottom lip. “Is that what you’re calling it?”
“You did the same thing to my sister.”
I saw red. “I might be the worst thing to happen to your sister, but I never did what you did.”
“You ghosted her! You ghosted my sister for decades.”
It took me a minute to breathe back the rage. “The only reason I’m not beating you bloody right now is because that mistake you made is now front-page news. She needs me more than you need a broken bone.”
West stared behind me, at the door Story had just gone through, a distant look in his eyes. If I thought he were human, I’d think this affected him.
Maybe it was a reminder of what he’d done, and how he couldn’t erase it.
But I didn’t think he was human. He was a narcissist, a control freak, and his image had been tarnished.
I opened the door to find Story, slamming it shut on West.
STORY
The eyes of socialites in their spring dresses were glowing red monsters in the twilight garden. Everywhere I looked, someone looked back. I stumbled over cobblestone—I didn’t know where I was going, just that I needed to go somewhere.
The fading sun was too bright.
The twinkling lights Tansy hung blinded like a sun flare.
West was the victim, because why would a victim marry her rapist? Why would she stay with her rapist?
I shouldn’t have gone online. That was the worst mistake. I wanted to know how far it had spread, and instead…my fairy tale slammed back in my fucking face.
It’s over. Grayson could never love her after this. Why would she do this?
They were in my head—everyone who thought they knew me, who thought it was their right to use my life as their story—they were in my head.
A few feet beyond, visible through falling nighttime petals, the garden’s tall hedges separated.
The ocean.
I covered my head with my hands, ducking through whispers that built around me like small spider bites on my skin.
She could have run to a prince, instead she ran to her fucking rapist.
It wasn’t the people calling me a liar that made knives form in my chest. It was the ones who’d previously appropriated my story as their fairy tale. They knew enough to yell the fears I whispered to myself.
I was Team Story, now I’m Team Fuck Her.
I fell against a hedge, grasping my chest until I twisted it into tight rosettes.
It was darker here. Silky petals fell in the shadows, catching the moonlight. The salty, soft smell of the ocean was a siren’s call. Shadowed beneath tall hedges on the edge of the garden, with everyone at least a few feet away, I felt safer—then two women in pink and orange cocktail gowns stepped in my way.
“Called it.”
Aundi and Pipa. Pipa held a plate of the small cakes Tansy had prepared for the party, filled with various frostings and jams.
I sat up straight, instantly on guard. I wasn’t sure if it was a good or bad thing that I’d hidden myself from the rest of the party.
“Didn’t I?” Aundi looked to Pipa. “The day we saw you buzzing around Grayson, I said that girl is a lying, social-climbing whore.”
Pipa nodded. “You did.”
“What do we do with lying, social-climbing whores?” Aundi asked.
“Expose them.” Pipa shoved the plate onto my head.
They smeared jam into my hair, laughing. But their laughter soon faded from my ears, as every moment over the last few months played before me in my mind.
From the first time these two girls had thrown food on me and pushed me to my knees, to every humiliation after, every time I’d buckled and given in, to now, when I’d run from a room full of vultures picking apart my worst secret.
This time, I didn’t fall to my knees. This time, I stayed standing. Even as the jam fell into my eyes.
My uncle had a vision of my future. My child was almost done growing. How much longer was I going to let this happen?
When they were done, I wiped cake out of my hair, tossed it to the ground, letting out a sigh.
“Oooh shit, is Cinderella finally fighting back?” Pipa laughed.
I looked at the frosting on my hands.
I did itch to do something to them, to rip at their dresses and make their fake smiles fall, but I looked them in the eyes instead.
“None of you like me,” I said. “None of you will ever like me or ever accept me. And…” I sighed. “Thank you. What a relief to know I did something right. Because who wants to be respected and adored by someone like you?”
For the first time, Aundi and Pipa were speechless. They reeled like they’d been slapped.
“Throw cake on me, rip my dress, whatever you do to me, I’ll never come down to your level.”
I walked away from them, not waiting for a response. I went through the hedges, onto the beach, cake dripping from my eyes, until I was on the sand and hidden from view.
Where I could hide and cry.
Because despite what I’d said to them, I felt like I was going to vomit.
Everyone knew.
Everyone.
I’d never felt more naked in my life.
“I’m afraid I’ll never be able to see him as the villain,” I whispered into the dark, ocean air.
“I’m afraid…” I raised my voice. “I’m afraid that makes me the villain.”
“I’m afraid—” I gripped my stomach, raising my voice to a scream. “I’M AFRAID IT’S MY FAULT.”
It came out of me in a cathartic wail, but it was gone so soon, disappearing into the salty, dark air. I stared into the dark, like I could still see the words.
“What are you doing?”
I jumped at Lottie’s voice. “Oh, fuck.”
Behind me, Lottie watched from a few feet away, her hair blowing in the wind.
I shrugged. “I didn’t think anyone was around.”
“I didn’t think anyone would be here either,” she said.
I waited for her to leave, but oddly, she came to me and sat beside me on the sand. For a while, we sat shoulder to shoulder. Then, one by one, she picked jam and cake from my hair, dropping it to the sand with a plop.
“Grayson is looking for you,” she said softly. “He looks like he’s about to start a fight.”
I chewed the inside of my cheek.
I just needed a minute to myself.
“I think that’s all of it.” She swiped the cake from her hands on her pale gossamer dress.
I’m going to get in a lot of shit for talking back to them. If anyone was going to throw a fit, it would be Aundi and Pipa.
As if Lottie read my mind, she said, “I’ll tell anyone who questions that I said you could t
alk. So…don’t worry.”
“Why are you friends with them?” I asked the question that had been burning my tongue for months.
Lottie’s brow wrinkled. “I mean, I don’t really get a lot of options for friends. You don’t really get options for…anything. This is who your friends are, this is who you’ll marry, and if you disobey…” She swallowed thickly, then blinked, like coming out of a dream. “Do you ever feel like this is the most you’ve ever needed a drink, but once again, fate is giving us the middle finger?”
She leaned back, elbows digging into the sand, one hand on her rounded belly.
I leaned back, doing the same. “Yup.”
We sat in silence, with only the sounds of the crashing waves. Lottie picked at her thumbnail.
“I feel like I should say something to you,” she said softly.
I laughed jaggedly. “Please don’t.”
“I just want you to know the world doesn’t believe you, my parents will lie and pretend they don’t believe you…but I do.” Her eyes slowly drifted to mine.
Tears clogged my throat again, and thankfully, Lottie looked away. After a minute of grinding my teeth and forcing the tears down, Lottie spoke again.
“Why were you yelling?”
I contemplated lying. I contemplated putting up a wall. I felt like Lottie and I were connected, and like how it had been with Grayson, we were the only ones who understood each other. I didn’t sense any malice from her, and I hadn’t for months. We were both stuck on this vine together, forced to poke each other with thorns when we would have rather cut the vine. Because sometimes, in life…we don’t get many options.
“Do you ever…” I stared out at the black ocean waves crashing on the sand. “Do you ever have deep fears that you’re afraid to say aloud? But once you speak them…it’s like…” I struggled to find the way to explain it. “It’s like saying Voldemort’s name. When you don’t say them, they fester inside you, and they get bigger and bigger, but when you finally speak them… It’s so silly, but oh my God. I feel so much better.”
Lottie was silent for a while. The music from outside bled through the hedges and into our air. When she spoke, I almost mistook it for the party.
“I have something inside me.”
I turned my head. “A fear?”
“A secret…and a fear,” she whispered.
“Maybe you’d feel better if you screamed it out loud.”
Her brow wrinkled, and she stared at her stomach, when Grayson’s pained yell tore our attention backward.
“Story!”
Behind us, Grayson stood on the empty beach, one foot forward as if about to sprint to me. The breeze spun his white shirt, giving a devilish glimpse of his golden abs. His rose gold hair whipped wildly around burning blue eyes.
I was standing before I realized it, my walk turning into a run. The minute I stood, he was already running to me, and we met in the middle. He crashed me into a caged hug.
After a moment that lasted too short, he gently pulled my face back, examining me.
His face bled emotion. First, relief, then fury—at the cake Lottie had barely managed to clean.
I couldn’t handle sympathy, not when I was struggling with the feeling in my chest. This badness. This wrongness. Those people on the internet were right. I was wrong. I was fucked up. I was sleeping in the bed of the guy who did me wrong, and I don’t know why I couldn’t just say he was bad, when I was staring my Prince Charming in the face.
I tried to pull my face back, but Grayson’s grip dug into my chin.
“Please,” I begged.
His eyes hardened, thumb digging into the flesh. “I was the villain until you made me the hero in your story. You saw me before anyone else, before I saw myself.”
My lips parted, but nothing came out.
His words came over my bloodstream, soothing the bubbling acid burning through my veins. How did he know? How could he possibly know? How could he read the words in my head like he could feel the heartbeat in my chest?
Tears marbled my eyes. Could he read the words inside my head? Or had my heartbeat become so loud it was Morse code, betraying my feelings to him.
His grip slipped from my chin, sliding to the back of my neck to push our foreheads together. His other hand slid from my back to my stomach, and then the first beautiful thing since this awful day began happened, she kicked—with her father.
Our eyes collided.
Hope.
He swallowed so hard his Adam’s apple lurched.
With his palm digging into my stomach, Grayson continued, “I don’t know what you see in him. But I know it’s your curse to see what others can’t.”
I wanted so badly to kiss him in this moment.
Didn’t he see? This was why I could never let him go.
Forty-Four
GRAY
Didn’t she see? This was why I couldn’t let her stay. This was my hell, and I never should have dragged them in.
“What if we don’t find it?” Her fear came out a strangled cry. “I can’t lose you.”
“You’ll never lose me, Snitch.”
Her eyes searched mine frantically. “You said something similar when we learned I was pregnant. I don’t want a life of you watching me a thousand miles away. A life where we never see you.”
She tried to pull back and I gripped both sides of her face, thumbs digging into her cheeks—
“I should have known I’d find you with him. You really are quite unfaithful.”
Our little bubble popped as West came stumbling out of the hedges onto the beach, a bottle of champagne in his hand.
I put Story behind my back, shielding her from West. He scoffed, taking a drink straight from the bottle.
Behind us, Lottie all but waddled up from the shore, a hand on her lower back. “West? Are you drunk?”
“Off his ass,” I gritted.
West laughed. “I’m just here to collect my fucking mistress. I think I’ve been really goddamn lenient. Do you know the rules she’s broken? The things I could have done—”
“Can’t you just go away?” Lottie yelled, cutting him off. “Why are you ruining things even more? It’s shitty enough having our parents; why are you trying to become them?”
West paused, then stumbled down the beach, grape vining on the sand.
“I’m the bad guy in the play.” He didn’t speak to any of us, he slurred a whisper into his drink. “I’m the one the crowd boos when he enters the stage.”
He swayed back and forth.
Suddenly, he jerked to Lottie. “But what about my sister?”
She sucked in a breath, backing up at his attention. I stepped in front of her, putting both Story and Lottie behind me.
West waved the champagne bottle in her direction. “My sister,” he continued. “So obsessed with not becoming our mother, so scared to marry a man who didn’t love her, she gave up everything else about her. Her purity. Her kindness. Her wholesome heart. Everything that makes Lottie, Lottie. And why?” He grinned into the bottle, eyes flickering to me. “She was hoping you’d love that instead.”
Story grabbed my bicep, maybe sensing I was ready to end his diatribe.
“Enter stage right, our main lead, Grayson Crowne!” West jerked the champagne bottle toward me, gold liquid drenching the sand black. “Grayson didn’t want to be his father, didn’t want to be disloyal to his wife, so instead, he became a coward and abandoned his wife in a loveless marriage. Will you abandon your unborn child too?”
West tilted his head, eyes narrowing as if waiting for me to respond. Story’s grip on my bicep tightened.
“He’s wrong,” she whispered.
He was fucking with me. His words shouldn’t bother me.
Yet, they did.
“Shut the fuck up, West,” Lottie said, but it came out a weak whisper.
West laughed at my silence.
“And my loving, loyal wife…I mean, ex-wife.” He grinned at Story. “You didn’t wan
t to be some man’s mistress and steal what didn’t belong to you, so instead, you became my mistress, the guy that stole the thing that mattered most from you. Or…” He laughed. “Maybe it didn’t matter that much.”
At that, I lunged, Story’s grip slipping easily. I had West’s shirt between my fists in seconds. He held his arms wide, not even bothering to fight back.
“He’s not worth it,” Story yelled to my back. “This is what he wants.”
“I’m not worth it, Playboy Gray,” he said, mocking Story’s distressed yell.
I shoved him off and he stumbled, falling to his ass in the sand, laughing. “You’re all so. Comedically. Tragically. Shakespearian-ly…fucked. You’re all so fucking afraid of being the thing that everyone sees you as, no one’s paying attention to what you’re becoming.”
“Then what are you, West?” I gritted.
He took a deep swig of the champagne, then wiped his mouth off on his arm. “The only one in this hell making the heat work for them.”
Story stepped in front of me before I could grab her back.
“I see you, West,” she said.
West grinned up at her, warped from behind the glass bottle. “Do you, Angel?”
“You’re in hell with us too. The flames are burning us, but they’ve consumed you.”
His grin flickered, then he looked into the bottle. “Empty.” He threw it to the side, shattering the green bottle on a rock.
Story ran to Lottie, gripping her arm. She’d gone pale and looked about ready to faint.
“I need to take Lottie back.”
I went to her. “I’ll help—”
“We’re fine,” she cut me off, looking back at West. “He’s off right now…I don’t trust him. Will you watch him?” At my face, she repeated, “We’re fine. I swear. Neruda.”
Fist clenched, I watched them leave through the hedges. When they were gone, I looked back at West.
He stared at the ground, at the shards of green glittering in the sand.
“Just because you don’t get Story, doesn’t mean you have to become them.”
His gaze slashed to mine.
“We don’t have to become our parents. We don’t have to continue that legacy. Burning down our own houses. Killing our sons. Selling off our children. Excommunicating daughters and granddaughters. It can end with us.”
Destroyed Destiny (Crowne Point Book 4) Page 25