“What’s inside?” I asked as he dropped it into my palm.
He grinned a crooked, cruel smile. “My heart.”
“You were supposed to die first,” I mumbled.
I guess, in a way, our love did.
I went to open it, and he put his hand over mine, stopping me.
“Don’t open it unless I’ve been an unredeemable jackass.”
“So wait a few minutes…”
Another grin, sliding a tongue across his sharp canines. From my angle on the floor, it made his jaw sharper.
“Yeah,” he said eventually, voice hoarse. “Wait a few minutes.”
Grayson stood as if he was going to leave. Leave without another word. Leave me with a token of our love as some kind of parting gift.
I quickly scrambled to follow.
“Why are you doing this?” I grabbed his arm. “I know you’re in there. I know it.”
Grayson covered my hand with his, and urgency became heartburn.
“Either allow me to love you or leave me to hate you!” I exclaimed, chucking the locket to the ground.
He froze as it skittered along the stone, into the shadows.
“I don’t want your metal, useless heart,” I whispered. “Don’t keep doing this to me.”
Filling me with false hope and promises. Reminding me why I can’t hate you.
A month of silence. Of trying to hate him and failing.
And then this?
His blue eyes softened for a fraction of a second. Then one by one he peeled my fingers off his biceps. Without so much as another glance in my direction, Grayson walked out of the servants’ quarters.
The golden locket glimmered in the shadows.
It didn’t feel like an apology or moving forward. It felt like an ending.
Fifty-Four
STORY
* * *
All of Crowne Hall in preparation. It was early September, which meant the holidays and dreaded mass migration of Crownes were not yet upon us. I assumed they were readying for the great Crowne Labor Day party, but that was usually on the weekend, and today was a weekday.
I was walking back to Lottie from visiting Uncle, and I caught sight of Ellie. She carried a tray of fresh fish to bring to the cooks, so I grabbed her.
“Is there something going on today?”
She looked at the floor. Still no one looked me in the eyes, but I wasn’t his mistress. I was just her girl. Just a few more months—maybe even less—I had to put up with this, and then I could leave, I thought morbidly. Dismally.
“Never mind,” I uttered, letting her go.
She scurried away.
When I got back to Lottie, the sound of glass breaking met me.
“Ms. du Lac?”
A vase broke against the wall, narrowly missing my head. I froze as Lottie screamed and grabbed a porcelain lamp, chucking it at another wall. I’d never seen Lottie like this—she was always so demure. She reached for something else, a crystal votive, and I ran to her, grabbing her arm before she could chuck it.
Heavy breaths wracked her body, tension in every viscera.
“What’s going on?” I hedged.
She jerked her head to the side, furious gaze colliding with mine. Then she shoved me off.
“Why don’t you leave?” she yelled. “You think you’re the only one who knows the unseen sides of him? I was the one who held him when his dad died. It used to only be me. Why are you still here? Are you hoping to seduce him back to you?”
I blinked, stunned.
“N-No! My uncle is here. He’s…dying.”
Her face collapsed. “That’s why you visit him so much.”
Tension drained from her limbs, and in its place sadness filled, sluggish, defeated.
“Why not anywhere else? The kitchens? Work as a maid? Why does it have to be me?”
When you’re out, you’re out. The servants have excommunicated me. I can’t work in the kitchens. I can’t even work cleaning the bathrooms. I mean, if Grayson still cared, maybe he could try to force them…but their revenge would make sure I never saw my uncle.
“I can’t work for the Crownes anymore,” I said simply. “I understand if you don’t want me as your girl. I…” Fuck. “I understand,” I ended lamely.
I don’t know where I’d go.
But I wouldn’t keep doing this to her.
Lottie looked at her perfect, nude manicure. “Of course I don’t want you as my girl. I don’t even want to see your face,” she whispered. “I don’t want to think about you. I wish you didn’t exist.”
When her eyes met mine, they glistened with unshed tears.
Instinctively I grabbed a silk handkerchief embroidered with the Crowne seal, dabbing her eyes so as not to ruin her makeup.
She slapped my hand away, and the handkerchief flew across the room. I got to my knees to fetch it, and she got to the floor with me.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry. This isn’t me. I’m not this person. I just…” She exhaled. “I can’t do this anymore.”
“You don’t have to apologize, Ms. du Lac.”
“Call me Lottie!” she screamed.
We both sat back on our asses. Lottie pulled her face into her knees, sobbing.
“Once my uncle…once he…” I couldn’t even get the words out. “I’ll leave.”
I don’t know where I’ll go. My life is here. I didn’t want to be so pathetic as to say aloud that this was my home. My home, a place that had rejected me, had tormented me, had barely acknowledged me. I didn’t want that to be me, but it was true.
This was my home.
So when it all inevitably ended—because it would end, the clock was ticking—I would have to leave, and I’d be without a home again.
“If the fates were fair…” she sniffed.
A box lay open with a pretty dress. I figured she needed to get dressed for whatever the hell was happening downstairs, and I looked for anything to avoid this.
“Let’s just get you dressed.” I lifted the dress from the box. “This dress looks pretty.”
She lifted swollen eyes. “You have no idea what today is, do you?”
It was something important, based on the number of paparazzi being ushered through the house, the increased security.
“Labor Day?” I guessed.
Lottie slowly got to her feet, defeat weighing her shoulders as she made her way to her bedroom. Pain strangled her eyes, and she looked at me like she couldn’t decide if she wanted to throw something at me or hug me.
“That dress isn’t for me; it’s for you.”
She slammed the door. I picked up the card discarded from the box. Written in green were the words, For my little nun.
The garment was an elegant, yet simple A-line dress with an off-the-shoulder neckline and lacy bodice that gave way to a pure snow skirt. It was perfect for their extravagant Labor Day celebration and reminded me of something Grace Kelly would wear.
It was gorgeous.
What did it mean?
Was he trying to say sorry?
I went to Lottie’s door, gently knocking. “Lottie?” I said softly.
“You are the last person she wants to see today.”
A cold, melodic voice straightened my spine, and I spun, finding a tall, slender woman who looked a lot like Lottie. She had the same creamy milk chocolate complexion and that inexplicably soft aura.
Class, the first word that came to my mind. Unlike the Crownes’, hers was subdued and somehow more intimidating. She wore supple white leather gloves that disappeared up the elbow, into a belted, sandy wool coat. She eyed me with nothing save coldness.
“I thought the servants at Crowne Hall didn’t meet the eye,” she mused, tilting her chin.
I quickly stared at the floor.
“I’m Mrs. du Lac, Charlotte’s mother, and you’re in my way.”
I quickly stepped to the side, still staring at the floor.
“Lottie, sweet pea?” Mrs. du Lac
knocked lightly. “It’s me.”
“Is everything okay?” I wondered aloud.
Charlotte’s mother tensed at my question; then her wide, brown eyes landed on my neck.
“That’s a very beautiful locket.”
I slapped a hand over it. “I…it’s…” Why was I stammering? It meant nothing. It was nothing.
So why couldn’t I take it off?
“I’m sure you can busy yourself somewhere else for the next hour. I need to have a conversation with my daughter that you don’t need to hear.”
“Of course.”
She eyed the card in my hand. “That card may have your name on it, but you will never wear that dress.”
I felt caught, like I’d stolen something, even though she was right. It did have my name on it. I wanted to hide it behind my back. Instead, I just stared at the floor.
Mrs. du Lac tested the knob, voice gentle now. “Lottie? I’m coming in.”
She opened and closed the door, and Lottie’s sobs echoed even through the thick wood. Dread spread like smoke in my body, faint but choking. The dress still lay in its box on the table, and I couldn’t help but wonder if Grayson wanted me to wear it tonight.
A Cinderella fantasy played out in my head before I could stop it. Maybe Lottie was crying because he broke up with her, maybe her mom was here to take her home, maybe this dress would take me to the party…
Maybe I was an awful, terrible human.
I looked at the dress again, shaking my head. I wasn’t going to play his game.
I slid out of Grayson’s wing, “busying myself” looking for answers as to what was going on tonight, and maybe a slice of pizza. I hated eating leftover fancy food.
Crowne Hall was even busier than when I’d left it. Double the servants on the floor, double the security, and more paparazzi getting walked through to the press room. A servant rushed by me, someone I didn’t recognize. They’d hired more help for whatever was happening.
“What’s going on?” I asked him, hoping he didn’t know enough about me to ignore me.
He paused, looking at the floor. “It’s taking place in the antique room.”
My heart squeezed at the idea of returning there, but still I wandered into the antique room.
Artificial snowflakes dusted the black windows like glitter. That was the first sign, when I should’ve turned around and run. But I stepped farther inside, my toes crushing an aisle of white rose petals, and, I was sure, real diamonds that cut the room in two. I was flanked by rows and rows of chairs.
Down the aisle was an arch, a backdrop, dripping with more flowers than I’d ever seen in my life. Hundreds of roses and calla lilies and orchids dotted with diamonds. At the helm was a boy. With messy spun rose gold hair, cutting blue eyes, and a suit so dark emerald it could be black…and an emerald pocket square to match.
That was when it hit me.
In my darkest, deepest nightmares I couldn’t have dreamed this up.
It wasn’t the Labor Day party. He wasn’t saying sorry.
I grasped a chair to keep from stumbling. This was our wedding.
But it wasn’t for us.
Fifty-Five
STORY
* * *
My breath left me in gasps as I tried to suck in more air. I stumbled again, falling into one of the elegantly decorated chairs and knocking it over. Heads turned, including Grayson’s. His eyes zeroed on me.
There’d been a time when that piercing blue gaze made my knees weak; now it just made my lungs collapse.
He took strides down the aisle, and I backed away, knocking into more chairs. He was too fast, and I was too out of control.
More people were looking. I backed away farther, tripping over some kind of lace or tulle decoration, bringing down a few chairs with me. I landed with a thwack, ass throbbing, head ringing when the back of a chair slammed into my face.
But still, for a minute, I was safely shrouded under their protection. My vision was obscured. I was safe in shadows, and I prayed for the earth to open up and swallow me whole.
Then Grayson reached in and gripped my wrist, tearing me from the mess of tulle and flowers and chairs.
“You’ve made quite an entrance.”
“You’re marrying her?” I shoved him off, and he grabbed my biceps instead. Probably for the best, as I was still unsteady, trembling.
“That’s how fiancés work,” he responded with a bored tone that cut me.
“Ass.” I tried to rip myself away to no avail. “You know what I mean. I thought the wedding wasn’t until next Christmas.”
Grayson didn’t answer, but his grip on my bicep tightened painfully.
This was why Lottie was so upset.
You have no idea what today is, do you?
Why did he send a dress, a white dress?
I thought we had time. I thought I had time. None of it felt real. Until…until now.
“Why are you doing this?” I searched his eyes.
Do you not love me?
Did you ever?
“Next year, today, doesn’t make any fucking difference.” He sighed deeply—I was a chore. I’d become a chore again..
“What aren’t you telling me?”
I punched his chest, but he didn’t so much as stumble. A few servants turned our way, but when Grayson shot them looks, they busied themselves with the decorating.
“Why did you give me that dress?” I yelled, so loud everyone couldn’t help but look, all turning to watch Story explode into whatever pieces remained.
He dragged me out of the room, back into the halls.
This time I managed to yank my arm out of his hold. We stared at one another in silence, the bustle of his wedding preparations around us our ugly melody. I wanted to yell and scream at him.
I wanted him to hug me and tell me it was wrong, this was wrong, he wasn’t marrying her.
I wanted to go back in time and have never kissed him.
His tux was perfectly tailored. A deep and intoxicating green, and when the satin emerald lapels caught the light, he was heart-stopping. Everything from his bowtie to the watch on his wrist was so perfectly put together. Meanwhile I was coming apart at the seams.
“That wasn’t your dress. You’re Lottie’s girl—a servant must have addressed it to you.” He checked his watch. “The wedding starts soon.” He lowered his wrist, arching a brow in the direction of his wing. “She probably needs help with her wedding dress.”
“I hate you, Grayson Crowne.”
He paused at my words, eyes pinched.
Maybe. Maybe he would say something, make sense of all this.
He turned on his heel, taking long strides back to the altar, never once looking back.
Fifty-Six
STORY
* * *
I knocked on the door before I entered. Now that I knew why Lottie was so upset, I felt like a bug begging to sit on her food when I came back.
“Come in,” Lottie croaked.
Lottie was sitting with her spine straight, staring into the mirror of her vanity. She was calmer, and her mother was nowhere to be seen.
She caught my eyes in the mirror. “Oh, it’s…you.”
Tension bubbled between us.
“I was told you needed help with your wedding gown, Ms. du Lac.”
She stared back at the mirror with a sigh. “I’m sure you know now I’m soon to be Mrs. Grayson Crowne.”
I was certain she didn’t say it as a jab to me, because there was too much sorrow in her voice. She stared at her face in the mirror blankly. Sometime while I’d been gone, hair and makeup had stopped by. She reminded me of a statue.
I went to the window, where her dress hung, my heart aching when I knelt before her with it, and she took an elegant step inside.
“You know that’s all I ever wanted,” she said as I pulled the dress up her body, “since we were little kids and we shared our first bumbling kiss. I thought, I’ve found my Prince Charming. But then he became Pl
ayboy Gray, and I was too afraid. I couldn’t see beyond it. Because I’ve watched my mom’s heart break over and over again as she loved my dad, who loved everyone but her.”
As she spoke, I swallowed my tears, adjusting the thick strip of satin off-the-shoulder trim. I tried to numb myself to what I was doing, tried to focus only on fabric. Not that I was helping the woman who would marry the man I loved into her wedding gown. My fingers trembled, my chest cracked.
Where did it all go wrong?
“It’s all my fault. All of this.”
I got to my knees, adjusting the snow-white A-line hem that just barely touched the floor. She was barefoot. She would need shoes. I repeated it over and over, looking for shoes, until I found the pair of glittering silver-and-glass Jimmy Choos that matched the dress.
Why did it have to be glass?
I slid one of her feet into them, then the other. I stood up, finished. She looked like a princess in her white dress. All that was missing was a tiara.
“I’m going to be his wife,” she said, rubbing the lace that clung just above her elbows.
“And I’ll still be your girl.”
We let the unsaid words linger between us like carbon monoxide. Invisible. Choking.
She’s going to be his wife. I’m going to be her girl, and I slept with her husband.
I loved her husband.
I still do, even though I should hate him.
Tears edged the ridges of her lids, and I reached for the nearest handkerchief on her vanity.
“Don’t cry on your wedding day, Ms. du Lac,” I teased without humor.
“Call me Lottie,” she said absently, then sighed. “I’m marrying a man who loves someone else…do you think fate hears what you want, and so she decides to give it to you, but in, like, the most fucked-up way possible?”
I laughed darkly.
Maybe.
“He chose you,” I said, heart breaking. “He loves you. This has always been about one thing, you. I was just…” I took a rocky breath that cut me all the way down to my lungs. “I was a thief. I stole him, and now I’m giving him back. This was the way it was supposed to be.”
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