Hurt welled in my chest.
Where was my Theo? Did he ever exist? This heavy-lidded, gaunt, square-jawed imposter was just like everyone else now, seeing only my scars.
His pale eyes narrowed. “You have a party to get ready for, Ms. Crowne.”
He said my name with such venom it slid inside my blood and burned; then he grabbed my arm, tugging me toward my wing.
Gemma’s birthday party had been planned months before, but I couldn’t help but wonder, Would I meet my fiancé tonight?
“I can—” I yanked myself free. “I can walk.”
My chest rose and fell with heavy breaths, and his eyes dropped to the movement before sliding back up my neck. There was no heat in his gaze, just ice, and it burned in a different, more painful way. He raised a brow, slightly tilting his head toward the wing. I summoned all of my imperial, God-given Crowne right to raise my chin, and I walked past him.
Even though everything in me wanted to crumble.
Especially as I felt him behind me, like a hot, heavy shadow.
Theo Hound wasn’t like the other bodyguards in my grandfather’s employ. Once upon a time, he was mine. We were just teenagers then, but I found Theo. I kept Theo. I almost gave him my heart, but like everyone else, he chose my sister.
Two
ABIGAIL
It was awkward and shadowy back in my wing. Theo hadn’t said a word, and I didn’t want to be the first one to break the silence. When I imagined our reunion, it was never like this, with another barbed wire kiss to shred us.
The last time we’d been together I’d kissed him. I was sixteen years old and head over heels in love with him. It didn’t matter he was eighteen and my grandfather’s protégé. Or that I could never be with someone like Theo, not without losing everything that made me a Crowne.
I’d kissed him.
Hours later I’d found him professing his love to my sister.
“You’re not supposed to look me in the eyes,” I muttered. The silence was killing me. I was Abigail Crowne, fire starter, scandal maker, the Wicked Bitch of the East Coast. I’d ruined reputations and destroyed lives, but a few minutes of silence with Theo and I was muttering like the schoolgirls had with Grayson.
Theo arched a brow. Slowly, deliberately, he trailed his gaze upward, landing on the petite crystal chandelier. Almost as if he was rolling his eyes at me.
I rolled my lips together, searching for pieces of myself Theo couldn’t take. I straightened my spine, folded my arms, and took a breath.
“I don’t need a babysitter,” I said. “The sooner you accept that, the easier this will be.”
His eyes flashed to mine, and heat seared my stomach.
I knew things about Theo.
Wicked things. Dirty, naughty words he’d whispered in my ear came drifting back, ghosting along my throat like his fingers.
“I—” A stutter threatened to erase the image. I swallowed, lifting my chin. “Stay out of my way, or you’ll end up back on the fucking streets, Theo. I brought you here; I can put you back.”
The words hurt me more than they did him, I think, because an almost-smile twisted his square jaw. He seemed to take up all the space in the room.
Outside, the crash of waves and trill of seagull caws amplified our silence. The sun was setting, and I knew I should be getting ready for Gemma’s party.
Theo walked across my room to the mini fridge hidden beneath discarded silk blouses and unmatched heels—Mother always said I was a mess even the maids couldn’t wrangle. He pulled out a water, and I was reminded again that Theo knew me, knew every hidden spot in my room and heart.
Theo had been in my room before, but I’d always snuck him in. Now my favorite pearly-pink couch had been replaced with a foldout—a foldout. I must have really fucked up to have my mother put such a thing in my wing.
He twisted the lid off the water, handing it to me. “I think we got off on the wrong foot.”
I took it warily. I didn’t want to be enemies with Theo. Sometimes I did things without thinking—most of the time. My heart was sore and bruised from him, but if I could go back in time, I wouldn’t have kissed him.
Both times.
I took a sip of water. “Why are you here, Theo? Really?”
He tilted his head. “Truth or promise?”
My breath hitched.
Laughter echoed in my ear, salt air and summer nights, Theo and I curled together on the sand.
Play a game with me, Theo. Truth or promise?
Theo stepped closer, pulling me from the memory. Instinct had me shoving him away before he could get too close. He slammed large palms on either side of my head, grin stretching like a lion about to eat its prey.
“I’m here for you, Abigail.”
Why didn’t that put my stomach at ease?
Then all at once, he shrugged, stepping back. “The sooner you get your shit together, the sooner I’m back with your grandfather. I’m here to protect your and Crowne Industries’ image until your wedding day. Nothing else.” He folded his arms. “Even stunts like earlier aren’t going to deter me, Abigail.”
Until my wedding day. I swallowed a rock at his words.
I knew it was coming. I’ve been to all the other weddings. First it was my unmarried aunts, then it was my uncles, then they went for the cousins, and even the second-cousins, so on and so forth. Slowly we rebuilt our family on the unsuspecting backs of those who dared to rise above us, until we were back where we belonged: above them.
To date, the only one not forced into a marriage was, ironically, my mother.
Rationally, I know it’s not the end of the world. Gemma says when she gets married, she won’t move out. She’s already planning on forcing Horace to move in. Crowne Hall is big enough that they need only see each other for events. They’ll continue to sleep with whoever they want, as they already have been.
But I don’t want that life.
I’m stupid enough to want love.
I lifted my chin. “I want to be the best Crowne I can be.”
He gave me a look, and for a moment I thought he was going to call me out. There was a time when I’d told Theo all my deep dark secrets.
Like what I really wanted to do with my life, or how I hated myself for wanting to be better than my sister. How I wanted to be something, do something, more than be just a Crowne.
How I wanted my mom to love me more than anything.
He smiled, but it wasn’t the smile I knew. It was cruel, his pale eyes gleaming with something wicked beneath the shadow of his dark brow, and his plush lips curled.
It sent shivers down my spine.
“Like I said, Abs. I’m here to help.”
He’d used his old nickname for me, but there was no caressing lilt. If anything, he may have called me a bitch for all the warmth there was.
I narrowed my eyes. “Truth?” I asked, trying to use our old game, the one he’d just called upon moments before.
He shook his head. “Promise.”
I watched him a moment longer, as if he would suddenly break and reveal all his motives.
He didn’t.
So I left him in my newly finished en suite—his room.
I turned to shut my double doors, and right before they closed Theo’s black leather shoe slid between them. I stared at it, dumbfounded, and in that second Theo slammed open the left door.
“It stays open,” he said.
“I’m—I’m changing.” The absurdity of having to say it aloud had me stammering over my words. I hated that.
His eyes traveled a slow, cutting path down my body before coming back to me, bored. “And I’m not interested.”
I couldn’t so much as scoff before he turned, giving me his back. My fingers itched with the urge to pelt him with the nearest hard object at his head—a lilac-scented candle.
I didn’t have it raised for a second before Theo said, “Sure you want to do that?”
How did he know? He hadn’t so much as shifte
d. His shoulders were broad, his legs spread, his hands behind his back in the perfect bodyguard position.
I dropped it with a thud to my feathery white carpet.
Theo wasn’t my best friend anymore, that was for sure. He was a bodyguard through and through, and I was beginning to worry he wasn’t like the others I’d scared away.
He looked at his wrist and, like he knew I was still staring, said, “You have forty-five minutes.”
I straightened, going to my walk-in.
When I’d first found Theo, he’d had to sleep with the rest of the servants in the servant wing. No amount of pleading had changed Mom or Grandfather’s mind. It wasn’t proper. It wasn’t right. Now Theo definitely wasn’t the sixteen-year-old I found, and neither was he the eighteen-year-old boy who’d left me. He was a twenty-three-year-old man. Hard. Chiseled.
Dangerous.
And he was just outside my bedroom.
I swallowed, trying to focus on getting dressed.
My dress was truly fit for a princess. A sheer white boned bodice, dipping low with a sweetheart neckline and mother-of-pearls dotting the boned corset and falling like raindrops down the tiered tulle.
They called us royalty in our town, and we couldn’t afford to ruin the image.
I added my finishing touch: a teardrop pearl necklace hanging just above the lace sweetheart. I touched the soft pearl resting just above my cleavage, wondering if Theo still remembered this secret. This piece of myself I’d only ever told him.
I couldn’t completely finish dressing myself. The silky rose laces corseting the back of my dress were impossible to tie. Normally I had someone dress me, a girl who was just a year older than me. She was new to me and her name was Story.
So where the hell was she?
I called down to the servants’ wing.
“Busy?” I all but gasped. “What do you mean she’s busy?” I wasn’t like Gemma or Gray, who had entire legions attending to them.
All I had was this girl.
When it was horrifyingly clear no one was going to help me, I hung up the Crowne Hall house line. A part of me wondered if this was another punishment, and if making a scene would make Mom even more upset with me.
So I determined to handle it myself.
I struggled, flexing in ways no person should flex, and I knew Theo could hear me. My breath was too loud, coming out in short gasps. Theo remained stoic at the door, not so much as flinching. When I fell off my chair and knocked over my coral porcelain lamp after another attempt, his cool, even voice finally drifted inside the room.
“Need help?” His head was still forward, his shoulders loose.
“No,” I snapped.
Yes.
“Five minutes,” he replied.
I chewed my bottom lip, staring at his back. Theo was a sentry. He didn’t so much as straighten his spine at my presence.
I watched my clock tick down. Four minutes. Three… I was going to be late for Gemma’s party, and Tansy Crowne would have me drawn and quartered.
“I need your help,” I blurted.
A barely-there perk of his slightly crooked ear was the only response I got before he came to me.
Theo was behind me for a long time, his fingers just beneath the lace of my dress. It only took Story only five minutes tops, yet he leisurely worked the laces. My heart rose and rose with each skim of his finger, the pad of his pointer sliding along my spine, teasing to the base. It took everything in me not to grasp the doorframe for support.
“What’s taking so long?” I demanded.
Silence.
Then, “Done.”
But his touch stayed, as if memorizing each traitorous heartbeat beneath my flesh.
“Thanks,” I said. Thanks? I didn’t thank people, especially not bodyguards. Not getting them fired was thanks enough.
Theo froze, and his grip tightened on the laces, forcing the dress so taut against my skin I couldn’t breathe. I opened my mouth to suck in air, but nothing came. I think I squeaked out a word, but if he heard, he didn’t act like it.
Suddenly he let me go, and I stumbled forward.
“It’s part of the job, princess.”
We were late, rushing through nearly empty halls to the ballroom where the party was being held. We were almost there when I heard, “Oh shit, the mutt’s back!”
Geoff, one of my brother’s friends, laughed with his friend Drake. I didn’t see any drinks in their hands, but it smelled like weed.
“Does that mean we can’t make the princess cry anymore?” Drake mused, watching me with sparkling interest.
“Not if you don’t want to get bit,” Geoff sneered.
I snuck a clandestine glance at Theo, wondering if their words affected him as much as they did me. There’d been a time when he’d been the only one at my back, and of course our world had afforded him cruel nicknames for his kindness.
Dog. Mutt.
He was stone.
Fine, I would be too.
We kept walking, leaving them to their laughter.
We rushed straight down and sat at the table high above the party without doing the regular meet and greet, and I could tell Mother was already upset.
I quickly scurried to the table and found my seat, but froze when I saw the item in my chair: a long-stemmed gold rose. I brushed the rose to the floor and took my seat. Roses were perfectly normal, especially at such an opulent party.
It wasn’t possible he could be here. It wasn’t. Crowne Hall was more fortified than the white house.
Still, my heart hammered.
Theo was a hot shadow at my back, his presence a boiling pressure. I was seated above everyone else, and I folded and unfolded my linen in my lap.
Crowne Hall was known for its extravagant parties, and tonight was no different. All the elite of Crowne Point were here to celebrate my sister’s twenty-third birthday.
I was seated at the very edge of the long, elegantly decorated table, and Gemma was at the center, wearing the Crowne family tiara. Mom didn’t even let me look at the thing. I folded my arms, trying not to feel envy, but it boiled venomous beneath my skin.
Grandpa wasn’t here.
I missed him.
The only one who showed me any sort of affection.
I shifted again in my dress. Something felt wrong.
I looked over my shoulder at Theo, standing sentry against the only wall that wasn’t a floor-to-ceiling window.
“Are you sure it’s on correctly?” I asked. I knew if I had another wardrobe mishap I’d be in deep, deep shit.
Theo gave me a deadpan stare.
I looked back out at the hall, at the rows of perfectly dressed partygoers seated beneath the domed ceiling and massive imported Italian crystal chandelier. No fiancé tonight, it seemed—just us Crownes above everyone else. Which meant I’d been spared.
Barely.
Before long the trill of crystal sounded, and eyes turned to me. It was my turn to do a speech for Gemma. I swallowed my urge to vomit and stood. My old high school classmates were in the crowd, having returned from their lives for the summer. From college or internships, things my family frowned upon, but I dreamed about.
I’m only twenty-one, and as the summer looms to its end, I fear it will be another year I won’t be afforded the same privilege.
Technically I have three younger half-siblings, the triplets my father had with his official mistress before he died. They’re still in boarding school in Switzerland. Some days I envied them. We’d been plucked from boarding school and told to amass influence at public school. Gray and Gemma ruled Crowne Point High. Back then, I thought it was the worst time of my life.
It was nothing to now.
I tapped my crystal glass with a smile.
I gave some bullshit speech about love and family, even looking to Gemma with a smile—she crinkled her nose at me. When I finished, I set down my drink. I was afforded the duty claps owed me. However, when I turned around, giving my back to the room,
everyone went silent.
My gut dropped.
A billion thoughts went through my head.
Did I have panties stuck to my dress? Was it see-through? Did Theo forget to lace the back properly?
We hadn’t been seen by anyone on our way down. What an awful way to learn my new dress was see-through. I was frozen, waiting for the pin to drop.
“Oh my God,” someone whispered.
“What is wrong with you, Abby?” Gemma hissed, suddenly at my side, her perfect nearly nude manicure digging into my elbow.
“Currently? I have a bitch-barnacle stuck to my arm.” I yanked Gemma off me.
Gemma scoffed. “This is low, even for you.”
Fear crawled up my throat, but I couldn’t let Gemma win. Still acting like everything was fine, I caught my reflection in one of the many gilded floor-to-ceiling windows surrounding the room. They opened out to the Atlantic Ocean, sapphire in the night, like looking into a black mirror.
My dress had been vandalized. Smeared along the pretty sheer skirt in red lipstick were the words: Gemma is a SLUT.
I gasped, grappling with the material to try and get a better look.
What. The. Fuck.
“You’re a fucking psycho,” Gemma hissed, still smiling.
“Pot meet overly priced plastic kettle,” I spat, dropping my dress.
“You’re envious, you’re hateful. You’ve always been that way,” Gemma said. “There’s a reason you don’t have friends, Abby. A reason we vacation without you. A reason Mom constantly wonders if you were switched at the hospital.”
I looked over the crowd, seeing my old classmates. Suit-clad arms were folded. Beautiful, professionally made-up eyes glittered under the low light, watching me. A hushed murmur began to rise like a slow wave.
I knew what they were thinking, and it gutted me like a harpoon. It was the same thought keeping me from being invited to parties, spurring me to show up uninvited and armoring me to act like I enjoyed ruining their fun.
God, Abby, take a fucking hint.
I just hoped someone would say they were happy to see me.
Heartless Hero Page 2