Destroyed Destiny (Crowne Point Book 4)

by Mary Catherine Gebhard

I have spent my time in Crowne Hall searching under every poem…

  As I read further down the page, my anger grew and evolved into a living thing. I remembered West’s curiosity in Scotland, one I’d discounted for manipulation of my heart.

  It had been more.

  So. Much. More.

  I took a breath, remembering the odd nighttime songs, West absent from bed. He’d been looking for the coin. I told Gray the story, how curious West had been, how the birds sung in the night.

  “He was looking for the coin,” I said.

  “You were right,” Gray said. “The fear you had about it being in Scotland was true.”

  “I’m so fucking stupid.”

  Grayson placed his hand on my head, stroking my hair. “You’re not stupid. West had a months-long advantage. When we started looking, he’d already searched Crowne Hall. He knew what we didn’t: Woodsy was never the key. It was never about his poems or his favorite poetry, it was always you, your poetry. Woodsy desperately wanted you to write. So he buried it beneath the first poem you ever wrote him.”

  Tears blurred my eyes. “Why wouldn’t my uncle just do that here? Fucking Scotland?”

  “I don’t think your uncle could have ever predicted what would happen to you,” Grayson said softly. “Crowne Hall was dangerous. Arthur du Lac burned down his house to get at it. Scotland was a safe choice. The last time it was used was for Josephine…” Grayson trailed off. “I suspect Woodsy gave it to her years ago.”

  “Why didn’t West use it? All these months he could have used it.”

  “It was the one thing holding you to him,” Gray said. “He wanted you to love him. Truly love him.”

  You’ll never be able to leave me until you find it.

  “I hate him,” I whispered.

  Grayson continued to stroke my hair in a soothing rhythm. “There’s more. West has been writing in it since last year.”

  I clenched the leather.

  I really wasn’t sure if I wanted to read it, or just toss it in the fire and be done with him. Still, I flipped through pages.

  Addicted.

  Needing the closure.

  I stumbled on the first entry, dated the night of the poker game.

  What has she been doing all these years? She’s still so beautiful. Does she still think of me like I think of her? That night got me through everything… My beautiful songbird with the heart of an angel.

  Does she still sing for me?

  Another one, dated the night after New Year’s.

  Dad was way too fucking nervous when he saw me talking to her. I never should have done the bet…she was just a servant. He still doesn’t know how I got rid of the coin. I told him I lost it playing poker. If dad finds out about Story, then she’ll never be safe. He doesn’t accept she’s the love of my life. He can never know.

  But why is she with Grayson fucking Crowne?

  The next entry was the night of the ball, of Abigail’s engagement.

  Rape? Fucking rape? Fuck her. Just like everyone else. She never loved me. Just like all the maids that tried to ruin Dad.

  Dad will know what to do.

  That was the last entry until after we got divorced, and it was dated right around when we got married. Then the next one was right after West stopped his father from attacking me.

  I think I fucked up.

  The next entry was marked April of this year, a few months after I’d started sleeping in West’s bed.

  Every night Story falls asleep in my bed and I watch her until the sun comes up or until my eyes force themselves shut. I think about the beginning, trying to pinpoint where it all went wrong. Was it that night? Or was it the first day I saw her, and I realized how little I actually had?

  Because suddenly I had something for myself—a feeling in my chest no one could take.

  Maybe that’s when it went wrong, because I was too young to know what it was. I lingered around her, clung to her, stuck to her, but I didn’t know why. I was just addicted to it.

  Then I was caught hanging with Story, and that feeling I thought was all mine, corrupted into hot shame. It became theirs.

  I didn’t want to admit—couldn’t admit—that what we had was real. So I took the bet. There was no harm in it.

  She’d never find out.

  I’d never get that far with her.

  I just liked talking to her. I liked that there was a piece of this planet my parents didn’t touch. A piece for me.

  Then that night—

  It cut off abruptly. I wondered what would have caused him to stop writing so quickly, for the ink to bleed halfway into the blank page like he’d hurriedly stopped writing and slammed the book shut. I scanned through pages and pages looking for more, addicted on insight, until I found the next entry, dated March.

  Every now and then, I get a ghost sensation. I feel their hands slam into mine when I come out of the servants’ quarters. I hear their laughter.

  And I hear mine.

  I didn’t even fucking know they saw me go down to her.

  It was easier to stop going to Crowne Hall than it was to see her. Why would I explain anything to her anyway? My father had my life planned out for me. She was a blip. A nothing.

  But there had been a few minutes, when through the small, uneven window in her bedroom, I could see the moon. Her breathing was soft, and she was warm. For a moment, my life wasn’t laid out for me. I didn’t see every year until my death.

  It was perfect.

  It was the only perfect moment in my life.

  How do I say sorry for that? If I say sorry, it means the only perfect moment in my life was wrong.

  Tears fell, wetting the ink on the pages. There weren’t many pages left, and West had written in a way that left many blank, but I kept flipping them.

  My fingers felt numb as I did so.

  The only entry after that, was dated the night before he died. It was weird, I wanted to know what had gone through his mind all the time he was with me, keeping me captive. I wanted to know why he did the things he did, but there was nothing, no entry.

  So I read the final entry, dated the night he’d kissed me and called himself the villain.

  I took it for granted. I thought her song would wait until I returned.

  I ignored the unwritten line in that poem.

  Feed the bird.

  If you don’t feed the bird, the bird fucking dies.

  I fucking raped her.

  The best night of my life was the worst of hers.

  I couldn’t keep reading as my tears fell down and smudged the words on the paper.

  “I never thought I’d hear him admit it, and even now it’s just on paper. I don’t know if I’m happy or sad…or mad…or…”

  I set the diary down as a rush of sobs wracked me. Grayson fell beside me on the couch, pulling me closer.

  “Have you read this?” I asked.

  He nodded. “After reading this, I don’t know, Story. A part of me thinks he always knew what would happen, which is why he made me promise to get Lottie out. He knew the day he agreed to work together he was going on a suicide mission.”

  “So why even pretend to be winning me over?” I couldn’t breathe as the rush of just everything overwhelmed me. “Why fucking hold on to the coin? Why?”

  Grayson and my eyes locked.

  He wanted redemption.

  “I hate him.” I chucked the journal at the wall and the brittle spine broke in two. “All these months, he had it. We could have left. We could have been free. Why is my heart breaking again?”

  Grayson grabbed me, ripping me to his chest, but careful not to smush Sonnet. My tears melted into his shirt in a mess of sobs and snot.

  “Because he loved you,” Grayson said. “Because he was trying to protect you. Because he died protecting and loving you. Because you’re Story Hale, and it’s your curse to feel what others don’t.”

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I just…reading this, I’m so sad. Our win feels lik
e a loss. I wanted to free you. I made you go from one cage back to another. This house, this place…”

  He pulled my face from his chest, forcing me to see his burning eyes. “I was never shedding this cage. There are too many people relying on me to stop the iron bars from getting rusty. But now I have the key. This was the only way. I’ll control everything. I’ll control what they say about you. I’ll control who touches you. I’ll control everything.” His voice warbled, barely restrained.

  He gripped my chin, bruising. “You made my dream come true, Story Hale. You saw what no one else could. You saw the good in all of them. You made me a good man. A hero. A good father. I would have been none of those things if I abandoned my family. I would have been nothing without you.”

  Tears fell harder, faster. “I feel like if he had just told the truth, if they had just told the truth, none of this would have happened,” I said. “We could have avoided everything.”

  “You’re right,” he said easily. “None of this would have happened. We would have run, my grandfather would still be in power, and never brought to justice. We’d have avoided our destiny.”

  I frowned. “That’s not…I guess…”

  “You said our destiny was divided, but I think we always had a path and it was clear: we weren’t supposed to be together. That’s why everything kept pointing back to them,” he growled. “We had a destiny, and it was fucking wrong. We finally fucking destroyed it.”

  He crushed his lips against mine, growling against my lips. “I promised to build you a kingdom; don’t apologize for blowing up the world so I could.”

  My Atlas carried a world that would never know how grateful they should be.

  My tears fell, but as they did, so did the watercolor of us fade—all of us, the thorny vine of fate that had woven West, Lottie, Grayson, and me together—blurring and distorting for a final time.

  Seventy-Seven

  STORY

  Grayson held our baby to his chest.

  Asleep.

  Rose gold hair fell across his sleeping eyes. For the first time in a while, he looked content, truly content. Sonnet rose and fell with his breath, and he covered her back with one arm, the other holding my hand.

  King.

  Protector.

  I spent over a month in Grayson’s wing—our wing—the bed, mostly. A month with our daughter, living happily ever after. I didn’t want this moment to end.

  But he slowly opened one eye, first landing on her, then on me.

  “Hey,” he whispered, a soft barely-there smile curving his lips.

  I smiled. “Hey.”

  “How are you doing?” He absently thumbed my nightgown’s lacy shoulder. I was back to my nun nightgowns, as he called them, and he’d bought a never-ending supply so that he could rip them from my body whenever he wanted.

  “Are you mad I took Crowne Hall with the coin?”

  “Yes.” He stared forward, jaw hard. Then slowly, his gaze traveled down to mine. “Now I have to think of a different wedding present.”

  I bit my lip, trying to stifle a smile and failing. I knew technically we were married, but we both wanted to make it official. Still, neither of us had proposed.

  Yet.

  I was going to propose to Grayson Crowne. Today.

  “I think I remember promising you the stars… Will you compromise and take a constellation?”

  I giggled and he groaned. “That fucking laugh. I’ll buy you anything in the goddamn universe, so long as you promise to never stop laughing.”

  “I promise.”

  His eyes lowered, hooded, then Sonnet stirred.

  He tore his gaze from me, to her.

  “She has your eyes,” Grayson said, running his finger along Sonnet’s nose, letting her grab his finger. “I bet she’ll have your talent.”

  In the full month we’d been together, he’d barely taken his eyes off her.

  Sonnet scrunched her face in the way I knew meant she was about to cry. I lifted her up to my naked chest to feed her. Grayson watched, lips slightly tilted, blue eyes swirling with an emotion that was hard to decipher.

  “What’s that look?”

  In answer, he leaned over me, arms caging both me and Sonnet, lips hovering and vibrating against mine as he spoke. “I thought you knew all my looks, little wife.”

  His mouth descended, crushing. “It’s what it looks like when Grayson Crowne has everything,” he said, lips brushing mine. “Family, Snitch. I’ve found my fucking family. I dare anyone to try to take it from me again.” His voice lowered into a growl with the threat.

  I placed a palm on his cheek, and he turned into it, biting my thumb, teeth grazing the soft flesh of my pad. He sucked my thumb into his mouth, eyes burning. Getting me all worked up with nothing but his teeth and my finger.

  A soft, quiet moan slipped from my lips and I reached for him.

  He gripped my wrist. “Don’t move. You’ll disturb her.”

  A month we’d been living happily ever after, but we hadn’t slept together. We’d done everything but. Grayson refused to let Sonnet out of his sight again, even with Gemma. Not even in a bassinet in the other room with a monitor—and he refused to do anything in front of her.

  While Sonnet fed from my left breast, Grayson explored the right side of me. He was unhurried in his touch, exploring every inch of me from the swell above my right breast, to the dip in my abdomen, to my inner thigh—as if he didn’t already know me, know the secret parts of my soul. Silent, as he did so, devouring me with his eyes.

  I swallowed a gasp as he slipped his thumb inside me.

  “Fuck me,” I begged.

  His eyes slid to Sonnet.

  “She’s finished. She’s asleep. Fuck me.”

  He groaned. “You’re making this fucking impossible, Snitch.”

  “So fuck me. It’s impossible to break Grayson Crowne.” I huffed—practically pouting.

  He lifted his head at that, brow arched. “You think it’s impossible to break me, Snitch?” With his question, he climbed above us, starting a ruthless rhythm, grinding into my bare pussy, his cock only sheathed by his pajamas.

  It was almost like the beginning, with only the thin satin of his pajamas our barrier. But unlike the beginning, he hid nothing from me in his deep blue eyes. Every emotion was laid bare—his love unending.

  “Story Hale…You’ve always been able to break me.” I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think past the thirst and hunger in his eyes, the hardening of his jaw and flare of his nostrils, or the incessant rhythm of his satin-covered cock over my very bare pussy. “I crumble at your fucking feet.”

  He bent until his lips brushed mine. “Should I fuck you, little wife?”

  “Yes, please. I ache.”

  His lips skated along my neck. “You’re aching? My poor little wife.” Still he just ground against me with the same momentum. “Where should I fuck you? Your cunt? Your ass?”

  The idea sent shivers up and down my spine. I wanted it. I wanted him. Now. My teeth tingled with it, and I arched into him.

  It was like he knew, because his laugh shivered along my lips. “You’re so fucking transparent, Snitch.”

  Then he was off me. He took Sonnet carefully from my arms, putting her in the green bassinet that rested beside our bed and beneath one of the many gilded floor-to-ceiling windows.

  Then his eyes were back on mine—hungry—as he reached for something from the drawer.

  I sat up on my elbows. “Why are you getting a condom?”

  I wanted him bare. Skin to skin, like always.

  “Because I’m going to fuck your ass.” He pumped himself at the image. “And then I’m going to finish inside your cunt.”

  Heat rushed through me at the image.

  He grinned, crooked. Dark. I watched him, transfixed, as he rolled the condom on his hard cock. I licked my lips, and his eyes dropped to that.

  “Later…” He bent over, lips at my ear, voice sliding along my marrow. “I’ll fuck your
ass again and come inside that too.”

  I groaned, ragged.

  It’s happening. Fucking finally—

  Then there was a knock.

  “Ignore it,” I groaned.

  “Sir?” One of Grayson’s guards called from the bottom floor. “You wanted to know when she was leaving.”

  Downstairs in the foyer, the double doors were open, shedding lemony light onto the marble floors—and a mountain of luggage. A flashback to Asheville hit me. I’d seen that luggage once before. Now, Lottie stood before them, getting ready to—

  “Were you planning on disappearing without a goodbye?” Grayson’s deep voice echoed in the hallway. It had a subtle spice of irritation to it. Because after everything Lottie, Grayson, and I had been through, he was hurt.

  Lottie spun, eyes wide like she’d been caught. A moment or two passed, the salty summer breeze blowing. She looked at her feet, working one of her low-heeled camel shoes on the marble.

  “I was hoping to leave without a big to-do,” she said at last.

  “Where will we find you?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure…Asheville is gone. My father and brother are dead. My mother is…well I hope I never see her again. I guess I’m going to try to find myself.”

  “But—” Grayson started, and I gripped his bicep. He looked down at me, a deep groove between his brows. Pain. Worry.

  I knew what Grayson was feeling, because I felt the same bitter conflict. After everything, it was coming to an end. We had no real connection to Lottie anymore, but I worried for her. She was in the same boat as us, but without any tether or life boat.

  Yet it wasn’t my place to demand answers.

  The best thing we could do was let her go.

  I squeezed his bicep and he let out an exhale. Like okay.

  “Charlie?”

  Lottie froze at the voice. In the pale sunlit doorway, a shadow of a man stood. He took another step inside, and his features became visible.

  Jack.

  Lottie’s Jack.