Stolen Soulmate

by Mary Catherine Gebhard

  Then slowly he turned to see who had come.

  “I had a feeling I’d find you here…” she said, brows knitted on me.

  Find him here.

  He’d brought her here. I don’t know why that cut me so sharply. It wasn’t like I was special.

  “I know we’re supposed to be keeping everything somewhat on the DL, but what about one dance?” Her spaghetti strap bodice pushed her breasts up every time she spoke.

  “Uh…” He took a step back, allowing space to breathe between us. He frowned at me, though, almost like he wanted me to say something. What? What could I say? That was his fiancée. Even if it wasn’t announced yet.

  Me? I was…well, I wasn’t really anything. I was just the girl stealing their happily ever after.

  This is why it couldn’t work.

  This is why we were wrong.

  I was a dirty secret.

  When I said nothing, Gray took her hand, leading her to the dance floor, her arm intertwined with his.

  STORY

  * * *

  Off to the side of the ballroom, against the wall, I watched Grayson dance with Lottie. They looked good together. Right.

  “Showing your shoulders. Sort of.”

  My spine stiffened at the voice. West.

  I didn’t bother acknowledging him, or even turning to face him.

  “Nice dress,” West continued. “Must have cost a fortune.”

  His obvious implication hung like a guillotine.

  Lottie placed her head on Gray’s shoulder and smiled at something he said. Then Gray’s eyes met mine. My heart stopped, the room disappeared. He was once again saying something to me in a language I still hadn’t learned.

  Then he looked back at her, smiling. She snuggled closer to him. My heart shriveled up.

  “They look good together.”

  I turned away from both him and the sight that was tearing my insides to ribbons, staring off into the crowd until they blurred into one glittery blob.

  “Do you think he loves you?” I clenched my jaw and he laughed. “Holy shit, you do.”

  “I don’t.”

  I can see myself throwing everything away.

  “He’s going to marry my sister. You could have the greatest fucking love story of all time, but he’s still going to marry her. You didn’t grow up in this world, Angel. That dopey look in your eyes means you’re on track for one thing, a broken heart.”

  “I don’t love him,” I repeated, queasy.

  “Want to know what I can offer you that he can’t? Kids and a place by my side.”

  My lips parted at his offer, but no words came out.

  “Crownes don’t have children with their mistresses. The bastards his father had saw to that. Us? Not so much. My father and grandfather have more bastards than I can count. Our mistresses are just as important to us as our wives. Some even more so.”

  I felt like I was going to be sick.

  Like mother, like daughter? Chasing other women’s men. Too busy loving someone she had no right to love to love her own daughter. The girl behind the girl, invisible and unloved forever.

  I glared. How did I ever think I loved West? “Is that all I am to you?”

  “That’s all you can ever be to any of us.” He shrugged like it was no big deal, picking out the cherry from his cocktail and tossing it to the floor.

  I eyed it.

  A servant would clean that up later.

  Someone like me.

  I gritted my teeth. “I’m not going to be anyone’s mistress.”

  West laughed again. “You already are.”

  It hit me like a gong to my chest. Is that what I’d become? Wearing the pretty dresses, sleeping in his bed. The in-between world where you’re given respect, but not respected, acknowledged, or seen.

  “There will be a time when you realize it, Angel. When he offers you everything and gives you nothing. When that happens, I’ll be there.”

  I clenched my jaw. “I don’t want anything from any of you.”

  West tilted my chin up with his knuckle, gaze softening. For a moment he looked like the boy who’d stolen my heart and shattered it. “I was stupid, Angel. I was a teenager. Give me another chance.”

  “To be your mistress,” I said, hollow.

  He thumbed my chin. “To be the love of my life.”

  My brow furrowed, and West dropped me, stepping back with his arms up in surrender.

  “I’m just giving her options, Grayson. Seems like you’re not being honest with her.”

  I looked over my shoulder, finding Grayson, hands fisted, a look in his eye I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen before. Unhinged. Ready to kill.

  Lottie stood feet behind him on the dance floor, face twisted like he’d left her there in the middle of a dance.

  “Do you have a fucking death wish, du Lac?” Gray gritted.

  West smiled at me. “Think about it, Angel.”

  West walked away, laughing, in on a joke that felt an awful lot like I was the punch line. Gray watched West walk away, eyes zeroed and sharp like a predator, until he was completely out of view. Then they landed on me with the same intensity.

  He gripped my wrist, dragging me to the arched doors of the ballroom.

  I looked over my shoulder at Lottie’s caving brow. “Grayson...”

  People were definitely watching.

  Staring, even.

  But he either didn’t notice or didn’t care.

  He pulled us out of the ballroom, a few feet down the hallway, before opening a door. It was a small closet used by the servants for spare linens. It smelled clean and soft. The light dark, but soft, like the muted string music.

  “Grayson,” I started again, when he slammed his hands on either side of my head, eyes furious and searching. By the fiery look in his glare, I was certain he was going to punish me.

  I swallowed.

  “Grayson. You can’t bring me to events and expect me not to talk to people. It’s insane and—”

  “Snitch,” he cut me off, voice rocky. I sucked in a breath, expecting the worse. “Shut up.”

  He dove for my neck, biting and sucking.

  Thirty-Six

  STORY

  * * *

  He’d leave marks.

  Visible marks.

  “Grayson,” I breathed. I grasped his shoulders for support as his lips found my collarbone, kissing, sucking, biting.

  “I fucking love my name on your lips.”

  My knees weakened, and he slid his hand from the wall, grasping the small of my back, hiking me up against him and the wall, his hands under my ass.

  He hiked me harder against his thigh, his dick iron against my stomach.

  “Y-You’ll leave marks.”

  He looked up at me, sultry and heavy lidded, then grazed his teeth along my collarbone. Goose bumps followed after them, tingling in my teeth. Between my thighs ached and throbbed. I threw my head back and sucked in a sharp breath.

  “Yeah, give me those sounds,” he said. His voice was rough like sandpaper, abrading my blood and making me squirm. He bit harder, and this time I gasped. “Fuck, those are mine. You don’t make those noises for anyone else.”

  Another bite, this one at the juncture between my neck and collarbone. A whimper escaped as my vision twirled into a kaleidoscope of pleasure.

  “You like that. Fuck.” He groaned. “Of course you do.”

  The room became only him. Grayson. Tongue. Teeth. Hands.

  “Your dresses are perfect,” he said. “My little nun. Do you wear them just for me?” He pulled a bit of the giving material aside, biting my shoulder, then laving his tongue over the wound. “A taunting, teasing, torturous nun.”

  He tugged on the sheer neckline, exposing my cleavage, paused. His blue eyes searched mine, waiting for me to tell him to stop. I licked my lips, his eyes dropped to them, then he tugged harder, exposing my breast.

  I was exposed.

  My heart must have pounded at three times the spe
ed.

  Obscene.

  Raw.

  That was how I felt.

  It was a tight fit, the material barely had enough give, and my breast pushed out farther. The dress dug into my ribs. Gray’s jaw clenched so tight the muscle twerked, and his eyes hardened.

  “I don’t like sharing you, Story,” he said, voice rocky and deep. “Any part of you.”

  He took my nipple into his mouth. I arched my back. Swam in a sea of new sensations. Tongue, lips, sparks shooting and catching fire in my abdomen, lighting a blaze in my gut.

  Teeth.

  I gasped, opening my eyes and catching his at the same time. A hot, burning question in them. He took my nipple between his teeth, and I grasped the collar of his shirt, his bow tie, anything, and he bit harder. I was wickedly burning, a pain twisted and set fires inside me I couldn’t ever hope to put out.

  Then I saw just beneath my thumb, a lipstick stain, a pale plum color.

  I don’t like sharing you…

  “I don’t like him talking to you.” His lips vibrated against my flesh. “I really don’t like him touching you.”

  He stood up, pressing his clothed chest to my half-naked one. My nipple was bruised and marked. And so was he.

  Just not by me.

  He grasped my chin, pulling my eyes to his. “This is mine.” He pressed down my chin for emphasis. My eyes wandered again, to his collar.

  Pale plum.

  A pretty color that matched Lottie’s dress so well.

  Grayson kissed my chin, his top lip barely grazing my bottom one, before pulling back to thumb my lips. “These are mine.”

  He leaned in like he was going to kiss me, but I turned my head at the last second.

  Pale plum.

  It paired so well with her skin, and the matte made her lips look plumper.

  “Kiss me,” Grayson growled.

  “You said no kissing,” I breathed.

  He gripped my shoulders, dragging me closer, fingers bruising. He was hard and throbbing against my hips, and every time I breathed, I breathed in Grayson. I could all but feel his heart pounding.

  “Fuck what I said, give me your mouth.” His teeth scraped against my chin, dragging along my neck, before following the same path with his lips.

  “The contract—”

  “Is that really all this is to you?” He dropped me and slammed his hands beside me in one motion. “A contract?” His blue gaze flitted left and right, searching mine.

  No, I need you.

  No, I love you.

  My eyes landed on his collar, where the purple truth lay smudged on his white shirt. Marked, because Lottie could mark him. She could kiss him. She had the right. Me?

  This dark closet was suddenly too fucking dark.

  This was my right.

  Darkness.

  He’ll marry her, leave me behind. If I’m lucky, I get holidays.

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  Coldness swept his face and sucked away my breath like a winter wind. He stepped away, eyeing me with that Grayson Crowne apathy and disgust.

  “Don’t leave this room, Snitch.”

  He opened the door, slammed it, and left me in the dark.

  I was alone for maybe ten minutes before I heard them. I had only fifteen seconds’ warning. Her soft giggles. His dark, cocky laughter. There was nowhere to run, so I had to hide, but a linen closet didn’t afford many places. I looked left and right, and dove behind a stack of unopened boxes as the door opened, two bodies falling through it.

  “Grayson, stop, people could walk in,” Charlotte laughed. Light flooded the room, then snuffed out, slammed shut.

  “Can’t wait to feel your pussy,” Grayson said, pushing her past the boxes, to me. Her back hit the wall beside me, and I crawled to hide, to not be seen. I shrank between two piles of linen, drawing one over my body, hoping to disappear.

  Lottie laughed. “You’re dirty.”

  I could see them through my flimsy sheet. They were fuzzy through cotton, but I saw him kiss her and saw her kiss him back. I couldn’t help but think of the one year I went trick-or-treating and my mom had just grabbed a sheet and cut holes in it.

  I’d wanted to be some princess or something.

  She’d made me a ghost. It was easier.

  “This dress is too fucking big,” Grayson said.

  Lottie turned around, bending over and hiking up her dress to give him easier access.

  I lowered the sheet a few inches, exposing my eyes but covering my nose. I needed to see the crash, needed to see for certain the moment my heart cracked in two.

  He ripped down her panties, then prowled over her, thrusting his fingers inside her.

  I wished for numbness, but my wish wasn’t granted. I was an exposed nerve forced to feel everything.

  “Do you like that, little nun?” Grayson groaned.

  “Nun?” Lottie’s delirious voice questioned. He never answered her, but by the way she gasped, he did something to make her stop questioning.

  Hot tears streamed down my cheeks, but I made sure to stay quiet.

  Grayson’s eyes opened, locking with mine as he kissed her neck and made her moan against the wall where he’d just done the same to me.

  While I was behind her.

  Then he closed his eyes.

  She cried out, hitting her peak while I could still feel his lips, my breast throbbing from his kisses. Bruises would sprout.

  I can’t breathe.

  I can’t breathe.

  Is this what a panic attack feels like?

  I didn’t even realize she’d righted herself. That they were ready to go, until Grayson spoke.

  “Come on, Lottie.”

  He shut the door once again, leaving me in the black.

  Thirty-Seven

  GRAY

  * * *

  Lottie hadn’t stopped grinning since the linen closet, and I felt like fucking slime. This was it. I was finally the Grayson Crowne everyone had always said I was, a callous playboy. The engagement party was over. Only a few shit-blasted men in wrinkled tuxes remained with their poor dates trying to keep them upright, and I ran my hands through my hair for probably the hundredth time. A few hours before, my sister had wandered into the ballroom in a ripped gown and running makeup.

  And with that, the party had ended.

  There was still no sign of Snitch. She should’ve come out by now. Was she seriously still sitting in there?

  Her teary eyes slammed into me like a bullet.

  Fuck.

  “You could come spend the night at my place,” Lottie said, dragging my attention back. “It’s always empty. You know how it is.”

  I did. We were raised without parents, but with more responsibility than anyone.

  I smiled softly. “Maybe another time.”

  Lottie’s smile wavered but didn’t fall. “I understand.”

  Fucking. Slime.

  I walked Lottie out to the curving driveway, where her driver was waiting and opened the door for her. She hesitated a moment before getting in, looking left and right like she was trying to work up the courage for something. She kissed me swiftly on the cheek, then hopped into the car, slamming the door shut.

  I stared after the sleek black town car, bile rising in my gut.

  On my way back to my wing I thought of what I would say to Story. I don’t know if I’ve ever apologized in my life.

  A Crowne doesn’t apologize, because they are never wrong. Everyone else is mistaken.

  My grandfather’s voice echoed in my head.

  I know what Grandfather would do. He wouldn’t even acknowledge what happened. Shit, Grandfather wouldn’t have let Story get away with a third of what I had.

  But I felt…wrong.

  On paper, we weren’t anything to each other. I didn’t owe her an apology. It’s not like we meant anything to one another. Lottie was who I was supposed to be with. Snitch made that fucking clear.

  But those words were starting to feel hollow.
A bell to ring when I needed to distract myself. The truth was what she’d said to me earlier, when she was on my lap before the party.

  I cared.

  I cared most for the one person I wasn’t supposed to care about. I cared when she was sad. I cared when she was angry. I cared when West du Lac looked at her. I fucking cared. I was starting to think she cared too.

  “Is that really all this is to you?”

  “Yes.”

  The memory slammed into me. I’d fucked up. I’d reacted. Another person who’d stolen their way into Gray Crowne’s heart just to rip it out. I opened and closed my fists, wishing I had something to punch, when obnoxious laughter echoed down the hall.

  Abigail’s fiancé was laughing with two assholes I vaguely recognized.

  Perfect.

  Whatever had happened to Abigail, this fucker had something to do with it. I wasn’t a good big brother. I was a fucking asshole, but I could be a dick to my sister, because she was my sister.

  I pushed the two assholes out of the way and gripped Abigail’s fiancé by the collar with one hand, dragging him to my face. They made a move to intervene, but I shot them a look, and suddenly they were very interested in something on the opposite side of the hall.

  “The fuck did you do to my sister?”

  He laughed. “Oh, like you fucking care.”

  I twisted the material at his throat until his face reddened.

  “I didn’t do shit, Crowne,” he coughed.

  I wanted to punch him. I wanted to let go of all my anger until his pretty boy face was raw and bleeding. This kid had always been a fucker, even back at boarding school. All he ever wanted was to be part of us. He used to follow us around, and we’d let him, only so we had a fall guy.

  “She ditched me for her dog,” he choked out. “Check your fucking phone.”

  Keeping his collar gripped tight beneath my fist, I fished around my pocket for my phone. The Finsta hashtag abbyslostdog had apparently been trending for hours, a photo of my sister Gemma kissing Abigail’s dog, Theo.

  I glared at him a second longer, then tossed him to the side, making him stumble backward.