I wove through clothed antiques worth more than I’d made in all the years I’d worked here and groaned out the window. Grayson Crowne was going to think I was like every other psycho girl sending him used panties, when in reality, I want nothing to do with him or anyone like him.
I had hoped to go my whole life without ever being seen by Grayson Crowne. I’d spent years working my way up to Abigail’s girl. I was all but entirely screwed for missing her dressing.
All my life at Crowne Hall I’d lived by a code: don’t be seen. I dressed conservatively so no one paid me any attention. It was the only way to survive. In one stupid, foolish night, I’d made my worst nightmare a reality.
Now he knew.
Now I knew, forever, what he tasted like.
I dropped my head onto the sill with a sigh just as Abigail Crowne ran out onto the sandy grass below, falling down. I lifted my head, leaning out the window, trying to get a better look. Tonight was her sister Gemma’s birthday, and Abigail had a notoriously bad relationship with Gemma. I wouldn’t put it past Abigail to start something.
A few seconds later, a very tall man approached her. He looked familiar, but who was he? I squinted as if that would help.
“I thought I told you not to fucking move.”
I spun around, breath seized. Grayson stood in the doorway, the yellow light behind him making him bolder, greater. He’d been so quiet I hadn’t even heard the door open.
“I didn’t—”
“I definitely didn’t leave you by the window, but if you’re planning on throwing yourself out…” He waved a hand.
My lips parted at the cold words.
He hadn’t spoken with any heat before, and he didn’t now. Whatever sweetness, empathy, or even anger I’d glimpsed before, was gone. There were no emotions at all. Nothing. This was the Grayson Crowne I knew. Apathetic and entitled, smiles that barely veiled his boredom, edged laughter usually at someone else’s expense.
I raised my shoulders slightly. “That isn’t what I was doing.”
He rolled his rose petal lips. “Too bad.”
I fought the urge to bite my nail, instead digging into the windowsill beside me. His blue eyes seemed to glow brighter in the dark.
Grayson Crowne was more than gorgeous; he was divine. There was a reason girls fell at his feet. He had more Instagram accounts devoted to him than could be counted, his Twitter stans ruled supreme, and it wasn’t uncommon for people to tattoo his name for attention.
Grayson Crowne was infamous, notorious; he had the world begging for just a look—and he knew it.
The Crowne family’s iconic rose gold hair fell wild over his eyes, straight but reckless, like him. The only thing marring his perfect features was a slightly crooked nose, from one too many fights. Considering the Crowne’s on-retainer plastic surgeon, it said more about his personality than it did his bank account.
Maybe it was a warning that he, too, was unhinged, because of all the people to piss off, Grayson Crowne was the worst.
“What are you going to do to me?” I finally asked.
He tilted his head, lids heavy and bored. “Are you one of those chicks that gets off on punishment?”
I opened and closed my mouth before finally managing a very witty and eloquent: “I—huh?”
He took a step toward me, and I wanted to step back, but I was already flush against the window. “You must have heard what I do to the servants who make eye contact with me.”
I quickly looked at the floor, shock and fear fighting to pound the drum in my chest. Almost ten years I’d lived in Crowne Hall and I’d never once looked a Crowne in the eyes. What made me think I could look Gray in his?
He was the worst of them all.
The cruelest.
Maybe even more so than his mother, Tansy. One time a guard accidentally caught Gray’s eyes while saving him from a crazed fan. The next day he was just…gone. No one knows what happened to him, but people have theories. Some even think he was deported—even though he was a United States citizen.
Another torturous moment passed, and I knew he’d stepped even closer to me, because his bright-white sneakers came into view. Sneakers I knew cost more than a mortgage payment, that he would wear once then toss.
“Go get your shit out of whatever dark hole you’re living in,” he said.
Shocked, I snapped my head up, catching his eyes once again. He arched a dark-blond brow, and I quickly looked away.
What the hell is wrong with me?
“Why?” I finally squeaked.
Would I be like the guard? A ghost story the servants told each other?
When Gray finally spoke, every nightmare I imagined paled. “You’re coming to my wing.”
His wing? No one was allowed in his wing, not even maids or cooks or his freaking friends. It was the most heavily guarded place in this palace.
Remember to breathe. In. Out. In. Out.
“I’m Ms. Abigail’s girl…” I finally managed. “I need to stay in the wing with the other girls.”
He grasped my chin, dragging my eyes to his. Another illicit icy-blue flash before I closed mine tight.
“Not anymore.”
Eyes closed, Gray was somehow more present. His soft touch and seductive scent heightened. Gray smelled expensive and unattainable, something someone like me shouldn’t be close enough to know, like touching the Mona Lisa.
“She’ll be mad,” I said with closed eyes.
His thumb dug into my chin. “I don’t give a fuck.”
Silence dug and scraped as I weighed my limited options.
Then his breath warmed my lips.
I stopped breathing. My lungs stopped working.
“We can just pretend this night never happened,” I attempted. “You pretend you didn’t hear me, and I’ll pretend I didn’t hear you.”
That was the absolute worst thing to say, I realized too late. We hadn’t acknowledged what I’d learned in the dark, and that had been my nebulous armor. But then I spoke, and his grasp on my chin turned vicious, deep, cutting.
“Should we?” he asked, so deathly calm and quiet. “I don’t know, Snitch. How the fuck am I going to pretend I didn’t hear your psychotic little love confession? Gonna have to start sleeping with one eye open now.”
I closed my eyes tighter like that could protect me.
He dropped me with violent force.
“Pandora doesn’t go back in the box. You have ten minutes.”
What if I say no? pricked my tongue, but I didn’t dare ask.
Grayson and I are the same age; we’d lived in the same house for years, and even attended the same school for a while, but I doubt he remembers me at all, or even knows my name. Because I’m someone who has to close my eyes to keep from seeing his, and he’s someone who shines so bright it demands everyone’s stare.
I swallowed, then nodded, turning on my heel toward the servants’ quarters, when his sultry voice drifted over my shoulders.
“You have no idea what you did tonight. But you will, soon.”
The servants’ quarters were on the west end of Crowne Hall, and, like most of Crowne Point, were something out of Downton Abbey. They had been my home since late freshman year of high school, when my mother died. Each room had phones with a mainline to the Crownes we served, but we might as well have used bells on strings. Ms. Barn was head of the girls, and my uncle, Mr. Hale, was head of the boys.
Gray might not have known who I was, but he definitely knew my uncle. If there was any servant the Crownes knew, it was Woodson Hale. He’d lived at Crowne Hall longer than Grayson had been alive, and he had cleaned up more messes for them than a fucking Roomba. He was one of the few servants the Crownes respected.
I sighed when I got to my bedroom. The wallpaper was peeling from the beach humidity. My bed was a twin, there was no closet, so I had to make do with a dresser smaller than most, and I had only one slightly crooked window above the bed.
But it was mine.
; Or…it had been.
“Where have you been?” Ms. Barn’s baritone voice startled me into a rigid spine. “I covered for you when Ms. Abigail called down, but I will not do that again—where are you going?” She broke off, seeing my paltry personal items shoved in my hands.
“Mr. Crowne has requested I stay with him.”
Her jaw tightened.
I adjusted my grip, barely stopping my notebook from toppling down from my mountain of things.
“You don’t have to do that, Story,” she said after a moment. “The Crownes are a lot of things, but they aren’t that kind of employer. They don’t spoil their own fruit. Whatever he requested, I’ll work it out. Stay here. I’ll talk with Mrs. Crowne.”
“It’s not like that,” I mumbled.
At least, I hope it isn’t.
I rubbed my uniform-issued black leather flats on the cement floor. I sensed if I told her the truth, I would be in even more shit, so I told her an abridged version.
“I looked him in the eyes.”
She sucked in a breath. “Story…”
My eyes wandered to the side, miserable, ashamed. The moon had risen outside my crooked, peeling window.
Ms. Barn didn’t try to stop me when I left.
I paused outside a black wood door, my uncle’s room. My uncle was like a father—actually, more of a father than my real father had ever been. He’d taken me in when my mother had finally succumbed to her demons. He’d always had dreams for me, even if I wasn’t able to make them come true. College, an MFA, out of Crowne Point, a better life than he’d led, than my parents had led.
My hand raised in a knock.
What would I tell him?
I can’t get fired. His health had been declining recently, and I’m the only one who looks after him. He’s someone who spent his whole life looking after others, so he doesn’t know how to look after himself. I force him to eat meals. I force him to go to the doctor. Without me, he’ll have no one. Crowne Hall isn’t exactly somewhere you can just stop by and visit.
He was also the only person in this mansion with a shred of sympathy left for Grayson. No matter how cruel or wicked Grayson got, my uncle’s understanding was unfailing. He always said Grayson Crowne was a nice boy who was forced to grow thorns to survive.
I dropped my hand.
He always said the key to surviving this job—to surviving Crowne Hall—was to keep your dignity. I think I’m about to test that.
The pitter-patter of my black flats tapping against black marble floors was the only sound as I walked to Grayson’s wing. Crowne Hall was deathly quiet—odd, considering there should’ve been a party going on, the one I should have helped Abigail get ready for.
I held my items tighter against my body.
The closer I got to Grayson’s wing, the darker it got.
Outside, Crowne Hall was known for its dark spires and shingles, a black castle that could be seen from anyplace in our town of Crowne Point. It was more than a mansion; it was a palace stuck in time. Inside? It was like something out of a Poe poem. Floral molding cut into pearly white walls, inky black railings and doors, with a peppering of gold trim.
Just outside Grayson’s wing, I stopped.
Two scary-looking men in charcoal suits flanked either side of the arched doorway. They didn’t so much as glance in my direction. Whereas Abigail had one constantly changing guard, Grayson was always flanked by a group of security.
I took a slow step, watching them.
When they didn’t stop me, I scurried past them, looking over my shoulder to double-check they weren’t about to take me.
They hadn’t moved a millimeter.
That didn’t calm me. No one got past them without Grayson’s say-so, not even maids.
Grayson was waiting for me.
I walked slowly down the hallway, soaking in my surroundings. I’d never been to Grayson’s wing. In fact, none of my friends and coworkers had. The only person who’d been here, whom he allowed here, was my uncle. He made my uncle clean the entire fucking thing.
And yet my uncle still defends him.
Grayson’s wing was long and winding, the architecture ornate, but it was so…empty. No pictures. No paintings. Nothing on the tables and no blankets on the chairs. Somehow my small bedroom felt more filled than this.
I finally reached his bedroom at the end of the winding wing. If I kept walking, I could go through a gilded door, taking steps down to Grayson’s own personal beach. I’d never heard of anyone going there, not even my uncle. Instead, I turned and faced black-and-gold double doors, so huge I had to tilt my head back to see the top.
We servants had one question we were allowed to ask the Crownes, one thing we could say to them. One.
You called?
Should I knock on his door and act like I was any other servant coming because he rang?
I looked back down the long, dark hallway, contemplating running back and trying to disappear among the cooks, when a crreak startled me. I took a sharp step back, my personal items falling from my grasp.
Grayson Crowne was sandwiched in the doorway, leaning against one unopened door. Shirtless.
Carved.
The paparazzi photos don’t do him justice.
I quickly scrambled to gather all my things, holding them tight to my chest.
“Let me go back to Abigail,” I said, trying again. “I’m nothing. I’m nobody—”
“Get inside,” he said, cutting me off.
He didn’t move from the doorway as I scurried inside, and I brushed his bare golden chest with my shoulder. I swallowed, trying to get my heart under control.
Once inside, I stopped between the arms of two black leather couches. For a second, I forgot to be afraid.
This was Grayson Crowne’s bedroom.
No one save close family and my uncle had ever been inside. It was the stuff of legends. Tumblr and Pinterest overflowed with the imagination of his fans, how they assumed a boy like Grayson lived.
And those pictures…all wrong.
Black and wood, iron and gold. I was reminded of Shelley and Poe, Byron and Brontë, all my favorites. My eyes wandered from the empty walls and emptier room, just like the hallway had been, nothing save bare necessities.
Everyone imagined Grayson as a prince living in a castle with warmth and laughter, friends and family. In reality, this place is dark, haunted, hollow, the only light from the chandelier.
“Get on your knees, Snitch.”
I jumped when Grayson spoke. His command didn’t hold any heat or lasciviousness; his words were burdened, bored, annoyed, as if scolding a toddler, like I was a chore. Don’t forget to remind the servant of her place.
I fell to my knees a second later.
A boy I once knew, Grim, told me if I was ever kidnapped to keep my eyes shut, because there was only one reason they’d let you see them, and it wasn’t good.
This was Gray Crowne’s bedroom. It’s not a fairy tale, Gray isn’t a prince, and I can’t think of any good reason someone like me is being allowed to see what many prettier, richer, more powerful women have never seen before.
“What are you going to do to me?” I whispered.
“Tell me who sent you and I might let you live.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Gray still in the doorway. As a servant, you got good at watching the Crownes without actually looking at them. One leg was propped behind the other, one hand up. Maybe looking at his nails? I wasn’t sure.
I could never be sure.
Watching a Crowne was like looking at an old, blurry Polaroid…you never saw the whole picture. Were never allowed to.
“No one sent me,” I said quickly.
He laughed caustically. “The Carmichaels? The Blacks? Maybe some rag looking for a good story?”
“It was no one, I swear! It was just me. It was an accident.”
I had a half second before I realized I was looking at him, when I saw he was smiling. He should’ve been angr
y at me, maybe even sad, but he just had that smile. The infamous Grayson Crowne smile, with the crooked petal lips that said nothing in the world could touch him, not even losing his chance at love.
Then it clicked why I could see those lips.
I quickly looked at the floor.
“No one…” He trailed off, a humorless bite to his words. “So interesting you found me at that exact moment, then. I guess it’s fate.” He practically drenched the last word in acid and chucked it at my face.
I knew he didn’t believe me, and I had no idea how to convince him, or what that meant for me.
He bent down, knees nearly touching my nose. I wasn’t sure if it was the sound of waves I heard or the blood rising in my ears.
“What are you going to do to me?” I whispered.
He grasped my chin and slowly lifted my head, until our gazes collided like a car crash.
“I’ll give you what you want then,” he said, lip hooked. “A night with Grayson Crowne.”
Three
STORY
* * *
A laugh bubbled and burst out of me while I waited for Grayson to drop the other shoe.
When Grayson stood up, saying nothing, silence spread like storm clouds. I kept waiting for him to talk, to tell me he was fucking with me.
Opposite me, out the window that rose two stories and cut across most of the room, iron-blue waves rippled molten white in the moonlight. One after the other, they dissolved into the black sea, like the humor inside me dissolving into dread.
“Wait, you’re serious?” I shook my head. “I won’t do it.”
“If no one sent you—”
“No one sent me,” I interrupted. “No one!”
“Well, if no one sent you,” he continued, boredom in his voice replaced with annoyance, “then how can the girl who watches me when I’m not looking”—he mocked my breathy voice—“not want my cock?”
Shame ran as if injected by a hot needle through my veins. Before this night, my crush was easy to ignore. Oh, Grayson Crowne is objectively handsome. Only a liar would say otherwise. That beating in my chest when he walks by? Anger. Anger at the way he treats me and my coworkers.
Stolen Soulmate Page 2