“That’s not old-fashioned, Grayson. That’s a bit progressive.” She wrinkled her nose at the thought. “With Abigail’s wedding happening at the end of this summer, we don’t want yours to outshine, as it would inevitably. We’ll wait until Thanksgiving to announce, and then you and Charlotte can prep for a full year of media touring.”
“A year.”
“You’re Grayson Crowne. Your wedding isn’t an event; it’s history.”
This is what I should want.
So why the fuck can’t I get Snitch out of my head? Her soft, eager mouth. Her teasing body. Her insane honesty.
More.
I crushed my teeth against the sucker, splintering the candy like glass. It was like she’d been made for me, and someone switched up the shipping labels.
My mother stood, following my eyes to the door. “A mistress or two is fine, but don’t make the same mistake your father did.”
Parting words from my mother.
Tansy Crowne didn’t miss a thing. I’m sure the minute she saw Story, she knew something was up. Hell, the day my grandfather saw her in my bedroom, he probably ran a fucking background check on her. I dragged two hands down my face. My father had taken a mistress and “like a fucking idiot”—Grandpa’s words—fallen in love. So when she got pregnant, he didn’t “take care of it.”
The same mistake as my father, in their eyes, was keeping the babies. In mine, it was keeping a mistress in the first place.
None of this was how it should be.
Snitch should be gone.
Lottie should be the girl in my bed.
I never wanted to be my father.
Twenty-Six
STORY
* * *
I froze when Grayson opened the double doors, nervous that he would be upset with what I was doing. But he was in a trance. He walked to the center of the room, grabbed a vase that must have been worth thousands, and chucked it at the wall.
It shattered into thousands of gilded white porcelain pieces and then we descended back into silence. Thorny, leaded silence. Gray stared at the spot now scratched on his matte white wall where the vase had shattered, breathing heavy. His shoulders strained, his jaw even tighter.
My Atlas.
In him I saw me—not Story, but Storybook—the little girl forced to seal secrets to keep her mother’s world afloat.
Then his eyes found me, and they turned to ice. “What are you doing?”
I looked at the small mountain of clothes in my hands. “Packing.”
“No shit, why?”
“I succeeded. Lottie wants you, right? You’re getting married.”
He stalked to me like a predator about to eat its prey. I stepped back, hitting the back of the couch. Like the first time I’d come to him, my things started to tumble off my little mountain.
“Should we talk about how you know that?” Grayson growled. “You really have a knack for hearing shit you shouldn’t.”
I attempted to ignore him, tried to pick up what had fallen, when he grabbed my wrist so tight I opened my hand and the cotton shirt fluttered down.
“We were in the middle of something.”
This was never going to end any other way. With Grayson Crowne marrying the love of his life, and me forgotten. The stupid thing was I had been starting to forget. Pretend maybe things could be different.
“Deal’s finished. I’m out.” I broke off, voice disappearing down my throat as his knee separated my thigh, his hand slammed above my head.
He quirked his head, eyes narrow. “I thought you didn’t want this to end?”
“You’re getting married,” I said, keeping my voice even.
“That’s not what I asked.”
“Are you asking me to be your mistress, Mr. Crowne?”
My chest hurt, but I wouldn’t let him see the pain.
The second choice. The girl behind the girl. Good enough, but not worthy. My mother’s daughter, after all.
His eyes flashed. “Why are you calling me that?”
“That’s who you are to me. Who we are to each other.”
I could’ve sworn I saw hurt flicker in his blue gaze, but it was so quickly replaced with contempt, I couldn’t be sure.
“How much is a Snitch’s cherry worth?” He raked his blue gaze over me. “Ten seems fair.”
I sputtered. “Ten thousand? I’m not having sex for ten—”
He rolled his eyes like I was an impudent child, letting go of my wrist so I fell. Once again, my little mountain of personal items scattered at my feet.
Grayson stood straight, towering above me with folded arms like a god. “Million.”
Twenty-Seven
STORY
* * *
All the breath rushed out of me.
That kind of money would change my life, and he knew it.
“Why would you want to ruin everything we’ve been working toward?” I asked. “You’re getting married to her. I saw the way she looked at you on the dock.”
Unless…could he? Was he maybe feeling it too?
You’re starting to take up too much space inside me.
Words he’d whispered against my lips that had made hope sprout unwanted in my chest.
His eyes narrowed. “Don’t get butterflies in your stomach or hearts in your eyes. You’re an itch I need to scratch, Snitch. You’re mold on my soul, a growing infestation. I’m not going to end up like my father and grandfather, in a marriage with a mistress on the side.”
I blinked at the rare bit of honesty.
Mold. Infestation. An itch.
This is where I should tell the truth.
Tell him I’m not a virgin. Everything was built on a lie meant to save myself from another rich boy who only wanted to use me. Instead, I’d put myself back in the same fucking position.
West only ever wanted me because I was a virgin. He used me to get that part of me. I stared at Gray, wondering if he was the same.
“What if I wasn’t a virgin?” I tested. “Would you still want me?”
He arched a brow. “Think you’ll get out of it if you lie?” He laughed; then his face went dark, dangerous, and he leaned forward until I could taste the truth on his hot lips. “I don’t give a shit if you’ve had the entire New York Giants starting lineup in your cunt. I can’t be with her until I know what you feel like coming on my cock. I’ve been going about this wrong. I’m a Crowne. I take. I’m given. I’m owed. So name your price. I’ll pay it.”
Of everything Gray has said to me, those words hurt the most, because I’d always wanted to hear them. To West my virginity had been the only worthwhile thing about me, worth so much he’d betray me for bragging rights. I wanted to hear someone say my virginity was nothing, that the only thing that mattered was me, Story. So badly. In the end, I’d heard the words, but only because I didn’t matter.
Not at all.
He just wanted to use me to get another girl.
I swallowed the thickness in my throat and ducked under his arm, straightening my spine. “You could pay me a billion dollars and I won’t have sex with you.”
“I’ll turn you into a published poet,” he added. “A famous one. Shit, everyone will know the name Story Hale.”
I wasn’t sure what hurt more. The fact that he remembered my once biggest dream, or that he was now using it to try to make my nightmare a reality.
“I don’t want that,” I said, voice weak. “Not anymore.”
A crooked, knowing grin speared his cheek as he saw right through me. “Lottie du Lac’s family owns every publishing house on the East Coast, runs every major magazine.” They do? “When we’re married, one phone call and you can choose where you go. Do you want a Pulitzer? I’ll get you a Pulitzer.”
It was so, so tempting. But… “I don’t want to do it this way.”
He grinned, like he knew he had me on the line. “Snitch, this is the only way to do it.”
My poetry had once been how I was seen and heard. If I do it this wa
y, what kind of voice would I have? Would it even be mine?
“Don’t fucking find me again,” I said. “From now on, I’ll never look you in the eyes.”
“Offer stands until morning,” he said.
I slammed the door to Grayson’s bedroom behind me. Could he hear the desperation in my voice? The fear trickling like a leaking dam?
This isn’t about Lottie anymore.
I’m too close to giving him all of myself when he doesn’t even want pieces. Fuck his money. Fuck the thing throbbing in my chest to stay close. I need to get out. I ran out of the wing, past his guards, down to the servants’ quarters.
Most everyone would be asleep at this time of night, and the very quarters themselves were dark and hushed. Only the humming sound of pipes.
Home.
Mildewy, cramped, home.
A tiny part of me felt…empty. Missing. I ached for black and gold, for bare walls and barer insides, and a looming, lonely presence that wandered its halls like a ghost.
I quickly shook my head. I pushed open the door to one of the girls’ dormitories. Early morning ocean air drifted in through cracks in the walls, salty and cold. In a few hours Grayson would leave for his trip.
It would end, this knotty, wrong thing between us.
Ellie’s straight, dark-brown hair was visible on one of the cot-like beds. I launched myself at her like I used to.
She gasped and I said, “Ellie belly, it’s me.” She froze, and didn’t grab my arms and tug me tighter like usual. “Ellie?”
“Shouldn’t you be sucking Grayson Crowne off?” she whispered.
I froze, then sat back. She slowly sat up, sitting against the iron bedpost.
“I thought you believed me?” I asked after a minute.
“That was before he threatened everyone in broad fucking daylight over you, before he punched his best friend because of you.” She narrowed her eyes on me.
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
It didn’t. He told me over and over again I was worth nothing.
“I’m not mad that you’re with him, Story. I don’t know how you managed to get Gray Crowne to fuck you when he doesn’t so much look in the direction of the maids. I just wish you weren’t so damn fake about it.”
“I didn’t—I wasn’t—we never…”
She rolled her eyes and slid back down into the small twin bed, pulling a plaid cotton duvet higher. I climbed off her bed, staring at Ellie a moment longer, at the home I’d built crumbling in my fingers.
It was nearly two in the morning, but Uncle was a night owl like me. We used to share hot chocolate at this hour and talk poetry or the weird things poets did. Like how Mary Shelley kept her husband’s heart in a locket, or Byron’s mistresses would send him pubic hair as a keepsake.
My uncle was fond of reminding me that we weren’t any less depraved back then; we just didn’t have the internet.
I tapped on his dark wood door. Maybe now I was back, things could return to normal and he would talk to me.
“Uncle?” The door was a feather’s distance ajar, so I pushed it with my finger, and it creaked open. “Uncle?” I said again.
My uncle was awake, and when he spotted me, he umped. “Story, my God, knock first.”
On the bed behind him were pill bottles of all kinds, and flashbacks to the last time I’d seen Uncle with so many temporarily seized me.
“I did,” I said, staring at the pills on the bed. “What’s going on?”
He exhaled. “I didn’t want to tell you like this.”
“Tell me what?” The blood in me was hot. Boiling.
Silence built as jagged spikes between us.
“It’s back, isn’t it?” I whispered.
“It’s only stage one. A snip here, a snip there, I’ll be fine.”
“But what if you’re not? Is that why you’ve been ignoring me?” The second thing that came to my mind almost as soon as I’d spoken: “How are you paying for it?”
He nearly went bankrupt the first time. I suspected he was still paying off the bills, but he wouldn’t tell me. He wanted me to put all my money toward getting out of this place, toward my dream. Not toward “an already old and dying man”—his words. The Crownes provide decent health care, but at the end of the day, we’re still servants living in a country with pay-to-play health care.
“Hey.” He tapped my shoulder. “Don’t worry about me, Storybook.”
“But…”
“I’m tired,” he said, cutting me off. “We can talk more about this later.”
My uncle gently ushered me out of his room, shutting the door, until the very last inch of light was snuffed and I was standing in the dark in the hallway.
Deep down, I knew I had only one choice here.
One devil to sell my soul to.
I took a deep breath—and one last look at my home. I was pretty sure when this was over, there was no coming back.
Twenty-Eight
GRAY
* * *
Dawn was rising and the Crowne family jet was on the tarmac, ready for our annual summer holiday, when there was a soft knock on the door. I bit back the smile curving my lips.
Fucking called it.
“Come in.”
The door unlatched, followed by quiet. I focused on the book in my hand, refusing to look up. I wouldn’t let her see she affected me, that for the past couple of hours, I’d been staring at the same page, wondering if she really would come back.
Wondering what the fuck I was going to do if she didn’t.
“I’ll do it,” she said after a moment, voice quiet and husky—addicting.
Still without looking up, I reached for the coffee table, grabbing a stack of papers. I threw them in her direction.
“What’s this?” Not a moment later she said, “Another contract? You already had this made? You were so certain I was going to come back?”
“Ten million is hard to turn down.” Even for someone like Snitch, who I’d started to think was different. It was a cruel temptation to want her back, and also never want to see her again, so that my hope was right—she wasn’t like everyone else.
She didn’t just want the Grayson Crowne.
“I don’t want your money,” she spat.
I looked up before I could stop myself. She wrinkled the contract in one hand. Somehow when she glared, it made her eyes fucking bigger.
“My uncle gets it all,” she continued, “and he never finds out.”
My brow furrowed. What game was she playing? Did she think if she tried to act like some innocent altruist I would give her more money?
As if I hadn’t seen that before.
Silence passed between us, her glare stone.
“Why are you here, Story?” I asked against my better judgment.
She glowered. “To sleep with you, get ten million, and never see you again.”
I don’t know why that response fucked me up inside.
So I shook it off with a grin. “You didn’t read the contract. Again.”
She shot an uncertain glance at the papers. “Can’t we just seal it with another secret?”
“Maybe,” I said. “If you let me choose your secret.”
Discomfort colored her cheeks, and a wrinkle formed on her lips, but she said, “Okay.”
I set my book down. “Why do you like me, Story Hale? What is it about me that caught your eye?” It was a dangerous question to ask, because no matter the answer, the outcome was the same.
I marry Lottie, the girl I’ve loved for almost a decade.
I forget the girl who stole her way into my thoughts and heart.
She swallowed. “You’re Grayson Crowne. What’s not to like?”
I wasn’t expecting to feel a stabbing pain in my chest at her response. Something flickered in her eyes—regret? Like she could see my thoughts. So I quickly plastered a smile on my face. I was starting to be too transparent with Snitch. Not a good sign.
“Now you,” she said.
<
br /> I shook my head. “Sign the contract. I’ve been playing by your rules. Now we play by mine, Snitch.”
“So why ask me a secret at all?” She dropped her hands, desperation trickling from her words.
I shrugged. “Bored.”
Her mouth dropped. “You’re horrible.”
“The worst. Now read it.”
She swallowed, shooting me one last burning glare, before looking at the contract. At the first line item, a deep groove formed between her brows.
“No kissing?”
I stared at her lips.
I can’t stop thinking about her fucking lips. Can’t stop replaying our kisses over and over again in my fucking head. She’s black tar heroin, seeping through my lips and corrupting the very essence of me.
I want more.
Need more.
I shrugged. “You suck at it.”
Her pretty hazelnut cheeks reddened, but she just read more of the contract.
“I can’t tell anyone…I can’t talk to anyone?” She stared at me, and I shrugged. “How is that going to work?”
My jealousy—my possessiveness—had grown into a green, ugly monster that I had no right to feed. I should have killed it and buried it.
Instead I’d put it in ink and used ten million dollars to buy it the best fucking food on the planet.
“Standard NDA,” I said. “Keep your mouth shut.”
“I have to do whatever you say. If I need something, I have to ask you for it. I have to sleep in your bed.” She listed rule after rule, growing more indignant with each one. “No hugs?”
“I only want one thing from you, Snitch.” When she hugged me, I tended to forget that.
She ground her jaw, looking back at the list. “No lies?”
I don’t know what possessed me to add that rule. A hungry need deep in my chest was starting to form, and her brazen honesty fed it.
“P-Pick…” She stumbled over the second to last item. “Pick a safe word. Why?”
“That’s the most important one,” I said. “I’ve been holding back. I’m not doing that anymore. I’m not asking for permission.”
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