“You kissed me. You loved me.”
“I think you have me confused—”
That was when I noticed the rose in his hand, like all the other roses terrorizing me this last year. My eyes flashed between that and him. It couldn’t be him, right? Instinct had me stepping back, clinging to the railing.
“Who are you?”
I knew in my gut, but I still didn’t want to believe it. Stalkers are supposed to be ugly warts of a person. He was not. He was beautiful. He reminded me of the boys I’d gone to school with. Perfectly groomed, with soft skin and softer lips, and bright, clear eyes. His light-brown hair had a slight wave to it only professionally done hair could achieve.
In any other situation, I might have found him cute.
“You know me, Abby.” He took a step closer. “I was with you at Rosey, Abby. Roses for our time at Rosey.” He smiled like what he had said and done was sweet, not absolutely terrifying.
His words hit me like a struck gong, and I gripped the railing harder. I thought back to my time in Switzerland. I’d attended boarding school until age fourteen, my brother fifteen, my sister sixteen, when Dad was barely in the ground and Grandpa thought we should attend public school for “appearances.” I’m sure it had nothing to do with his briefly considering politics.
Rosey was a blur of drugs, partying, and going to school hungover. Boys and girls were divided into two campuses, but that hardly kept us apart.
All this time I’d assumed he was some weird, obsessed fan.
He was one of us?
“You promised you would stay in touch,” he continued. “You wouldn’t even accept my friend request. You never followed me back. You blocked me.”
The music warbled and bent inside itself.
“You give someone like the dog attention and not me? I could give you the world.” He traced his knuckles along my jaw. When did he get so close? “You’re Abigail Crowne. You deserve so much more.”
I tried to focus on the man in front of me. My tongue felt thick. I moved it around my mouth, as if that would help. My head was suddenly fuzzy. I rubbed it but it didn’t help.
Suddenly, it came to me.
“Newt?”
A flash of violent anger cracked across his face like lightning, and I sucked in a breath. “That’s what you remember?”
I knew it was a nickname, but my head was spinning so hard I couldn’t remember his real name. His last name was something with an H? Hollingsworth? Hathaway? That didn’t sound right…
Newt had gone through a growth spurt. He’d also lost the baby fat. But I saw it now. He was Newt, the boy I’d played spin the bottle with.
Once.
“I’ve had to watch you all over the news. With other guys. Naked and showing off.” The last part he nearly bit off.
“Newt, that was years ago…” Dizzy. I was dizzy. My grip was slipping on the railing. “We were kids.”
I barely remember you, I almost added.
“Stop fucking calling me that,” he snapped and snatched my wrist in a violent grasp. “My name is Ned.”
For some reason I couldn’t move, couldn’t fight him.
All my life I’d wanted to be the center of attention, to be noticed and appreciated. Outside of the shadows.
Newt, or Ned, smiled, his knuckles still on my cheek. “I’ll give you the attention a Crowne deserves.”
Then everything blurred.
Fourteen
THEO
I followed Abigail into the party, but she disappeared. So I grabbed a water and stewed as the disgustingly wealthy became more disgusting.
I broke her heart?
I scoffed into my water.
What kind of mental gymnastics was she pulling to think that up?
She’d kissed me, promised she’d never leave me, and then the next day I was sent to California. She knew what it meant to promise to never leave me.
She knew.
Didn’t she?
I sat up straighter, spotting Abigail coming out of a room, her arm around some guy’s neck. Classic Abigail. Pushing me away. Pushing everyone away. Show her a bit of affection, and she runs to a stranger.
“Hey, dog!”
Alaric, Geoff, Khalid, and two other fuckers I vaguely recognized, surrounded me, blocking my view of Abigail.
I raised a brow, lifting my chin at Khalid’s swollen finger. “Looking to break some more fingers?”
“I told you, you’re dead,” Alaric growled.
I looked over their shoulders, finding Abigail again, studying the guy all but carrying her. He looked like everyone else here. Entitled. Soft. Like if we were back in the Middle Ages he’d have an executioner, and that guy would be me.
“Five on one.” I eyed all of them. “Feeling brave now?” They glared. Abigail stumbled again.
“Listen…” I said, eyes still on Abigail. “If you’re looking to get your ass kicked, let’s do it quickly.”
They laughed; then, without further pretense, Alaric swung at me.
I dodged it easily.
Next Geoff came at me, then the two fuckers whose names I couldn’t remember, then Khalid. I dodged, letting them get tired.
All the while I kept my eyes on Abigail. She couldn’t keep her head up, and he was holding a little too tightly to her wrist. How drunk was she?
A sucker punch to the gut from Geoff temporarily distracted me. I grunted, focusing on them, ending it quickly.
Khalid got a broken wrist, Geoff and Alaric broken noses, the nameless idiots a few broken ribs. When I’d finished with them, we’d gathered an audience, and they lay on the ground, moaning.
They all got off easy.
“Last warning,” I said. “Find me again, you’re dead.”
I wiped my bloody nose, looking for Abigail. I might have a black eye, and my ribs would hurt, but they were still rich boys relying on privilege to win their fights. They didn’t know what to do with someone like me, someone who not only fought back but knew how to fight.
I looked for Abigail and just barely found her before she left the boat. She stumbled, her head lolling to the side.
That was when I intervened.
The guy gave me one look before trying to brush me aside. “Get out of here, dog.”
I ignored him. “Abigail?”
She barely lifted her head, eyes glassy. “Theo.” She smiled brightly when she said my name.
That more than anything made me suspicious. Had she been drugged?
“Abigail, how much have you had to drink?” I narrowed my eyes, trying to see how dilated her pupils were.
“I like it when you glare at me.” She said it like it was a secret, giggling.
Definitely drugged.
My attention turned to the fucker holding her. “What the fuck did you give her?”
“He’s giving me roses, Theo. I think he likes me. I wish you liked me.”
A heartbeat hung in the air. I didn’t have a minute to contemplate her confession, because I was too busy realizing this guy was the guy. I thought he was another date-raping privileged fucker who didn’t understand the meaning of the word no, like the assholes I’d just reacquainted with my fists.
He was the fucker terrorizing her?
His eyes widened, then he dropped her. He fucking dropped her. I grabbed her by the waist before she hit the floor, holding her up. He sprinted out the door, pushing drunken and high revelers out of his way, heading for the dock.
Everything in me wanted to run after him. But if I let Abigail go, she would fall. Or worse, go to the hands of someone like Khalid. So I watched him run, memorizing everything about him. Chestnut hair. Blue eyes. About five foot eleven. Cleft chin.
Abigail leaned into me, murmuring something I couldn’t hear. I attempted to get her walking, but she was fading fast.
I lifted her into my arms. Her head fell to my shoulder, arms around my neck, burying her head in the crook of my neck. I couldn’t help but think about how nice she smelled, how good
she fit in my arms, and how fucked the reason for holding her was.
Her asshole peers made whooping noises as I carried her out. Bright flashes went off, taking pictures.
When we got to her room, Abigail fell to the bed easily, already asleep. I made sure her head was situated properly on her pillow. She hadn’t worn shoes, and the bottoms of her feet were dirty. I wondered if they’d hurt at all tonight.
An ache in my chest formed that I quickly ignored.
She was like a princess amid all the downy silk sheets. Her dark brown hair curled around her face.
I pushed away a stray strand, pausing.
Eyelashes fell on soft cheeks, and her pouty lips parted for hushed breaths. She didn’t look wicked when she slept. Could she really have been hurting all this time?
I tried to shake off the thought, but it lingered.
Still caressing her cheek, I looked at her secret spot that housed a box filled with piles upon piles of pictures of Abigail. Alone, the pictures were mundane, but by the hundreds, they were downright sinister.
I stepped back, fiddled with the notes in my pocket, thinking of the disgusting promises that asshole had made.
That he’d nearly been able to make good on.
This was my fault.
I let her run. I let the shit between us come before her safety.
Never again. Nothing would come before Abigail, not even my heart.
A few hours later, when dawn was just breaking gray in the sky, there was a knock on the door to Abigail’s wing. I stood off the wingback, stiff from watching Abigail for hours.
I left one of the double doors open so I could still see her.
Tansy Crowne stood in the doorway, as if she didn’t even want to step one foot in the wing. One perfectly plucked brow arched. “I assume this is important.”
“Abigail needs more security,” I said, getting straight to the point.
She laughed, closemouthed. “Abigail needs a lot of things. More attention isn’t one of them.”
I eyed the box I’d set on a gold-and-glass coffee table, preparing for Tansy’s arrival. I’d had a bereft hope when I called for Tansy that maybe I could convince her with a simple plea. Abigail kept her secrets in a box for a reason. She acted like she doesn’t want her mother’s approval, but it’s the one thing she wants above all else. If I told Tansy, I was betraying her.
I lifted the box for Tansy, filling her in on everything as Tansy flipped through it with bored disinterest. It was a betrayal, and I hoped it was worth it. The thought of what would have happened to Abigail had I not been there…
Tansy was quiet after she reached the bottom, her eyes ever calculating; then she spoke. “Did you tell anyone else?”
“No.”
Tansy nodded. “We can hardly afford any more bad press.”
It was moments like these I was reminded with a dousing of ice cold water to my spine how different I was. You could almost think you were like them, and then they said shit like this. I told her her daughter had been drugged, almost carted off to God knows where, and her mind was on shit like the press.
“Abigail needs more security,” I said again, trying to keep the venom out of my voice.
She flipped back through the photos. “Mmm…”
“You can afford a small army for your other children, but I’m here telling you someone wants to harm your youngest, and you don’t care?”
“Where were you when all of this supposed drama was happening?” She lifted her head, pinning me with her gray eyes, taking in the dried blood on my shirt, the bruise forming around my eye.
Tansy had never liked me.
She glared when I didn’t immediately avert my eyes. I exhaled, looking away. You’re not supposed to look a Crowne in the eye. It was the rule all servants followed on threat of punishment, being fired—or worse. Me? I’ve always been in the gray.
I wasn’t a servant when Abigail picked me up. Now… now I’m something in between.
Even Beryl Crowne didn’t always have me follow the rule.
Tansy smiled and went back to photos she’d already seen.
I should’ve ended it there.
“Are you going to be so calm when your daughter is raped and left for dead?”
She cut herself on the corner of a photo with a barely audible hiss.
Slowly her eyes landed on mine.
“Abigail is not the sweet girl you make her out to be, Theo Hound. I thought you knew that most of all.” She didn’t bother stopping the blood. It dripped onto the photos. “When she was eleven, she skinned her own knee to get my affection. When she was twelve, she bled through her party dress and started a scene. When she was fifteen, well…” Her eyes pinned me, Abigail’s fifteen-year-old attention grab. “What makes you so certain Abigail isn’t behind this?”
Tansy left me with that question; however, she took a few of the photos and notes. I stared at the closed doors, hoping she would at least look into it.
Whoever he was, he had money and power. This went beyond some crazed fan’s imagination. He had the means to make fantasy a reality.
The most chilling part about it was that every letter is signed off your beloved. The photos are written alongside letters as if he was there with her, two couples going shopping together, or going for ice cream on a date.
It’s clearly a love letter, so what will happen if he can’t make the fantasy a reality? If it all comes crashing down?
Abigail was already starting to sit up when I got back. I went to her side, pressing her chest and telling her to lie down.
She pressed a hand to her head. “What happened?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. You were drugged—”
Abigail cut me off with a gasp. I thought it was about her being fucking drugged, but then her eyes widened on me, soft fingers coming to my split lip.
“Theo…” Her words were plush, almost as much as her touch trailing my cheek, down to the blood staining my collar. She tried to get up again, so I pressed harder on her chest.
She rubbed three fingers at my lip like she wanted to wash away the blood and pain. I shouldn’t like it. I definitely shouldn’t remember all the times she had washed away the blood.
“I don’t like you getting in fights,” she said, fingertips dancing lightly around the circumference of the bruise.
“Only for you, sweet girl.”
She lowered her hands, eyes down, working her now bloodstained fingers.
“Who was he, Abigail?” I asked softly.
She rolled her lips, eyes finding a gold-encrusted clock. “I need to get ready for France.”
“Paris? That’s what you’re worried about?”
“And Spain. Switzerland. I’m worried my siblings are packed and ready to go, and my mother is once again going to point out I’m not.”
I let her stand.
She walked around her room in a wrinkled party dress, clearly still disoriented. It tugged on my chest, and I wanted to help her.
I tangled my hands in my hair. “Who the fuck was that?”
“I don’t know. I was drugged, remember? Have you seen my suitcase?” She exhaled. “This isn’t my job… where the fuck is Story?”
“I know you’re lying.”
No one batted an eye when he had Abigail on his arm. There weren’t a lot of rules at those parties, but one was written in stone: only the invited were allowed. Some average loser fan wasn’t going to weasel his way in.
Everyone knew everyone, so Abigail knew him.
“Why won’t you just fucking let me in?”
She froze, looking over her shoulder at me with a wrinkle in her brow.
There was no reason for her to let me in, no reason for me to want it. Not anymore. Yet my chest still pounded with almost losing her, and I couldn’t get what she’d said to me on the boat out of my head. It was rough and raw in my voice.
She looked away and continued packing.
I fiddled with the bracelet in my po
cket. Abigail said I broke her heart, but she left me. She ditched me after taking me in and making me think I belonged somewhere, finally. For no fucking reason. One minute she was kissing me, the next I was gone.
I’d remember the day forever. When I learned I was being sent away, I figured a few thousand miles was nothing.
I’m going to California, Abigail.
Good. Don’t ever fucking talk to me again.
Then she slammed the door.
She’d made me feel safe, she’d made me feel like I could let down my walls, and then she’d gutted me.
Anger rose hot and acidic up my throat.
“I don’t know what the hell you think happened, Abigail.” I tossed the bracelet on the stand. It landed with a clack. “But you abandoned me.”
Fifteen
THEO
The Crowne family jet was just one of many they owned. It was over $500 million, paid for by Crowne Industries, and used mostly for shit like this—holidays. Every summer after the Fourth of July they went on vacation, ending with a few days with their grandfather in Switzerland. It used to be Abigail’s favorite time of the year; now she looked at the massive plane with melancholy.
A pang of guilt hit me.
“You’re late,” Tansy said, arms folded, standing at the foot of the grand staircase leading to the open doors of the plane. The ocean was a steely-blue line beyond the emerald manicured lawn and tarmac that was the Crowne Hall landing strip.
Abigail sighed, not bothering to explain herself, following her mother up the steps.
Inside, Gray had already kicked up his feet, remote in hand, video game on one of the many razor thin televisions inside the plane. Next to him, a girl sat, hands in her lap, eyes down.
Abigail zeroed in on her, jaw dropping like she was going to do a classic Abigail outburst, but then Tansy stepped in the way.
“I’m sure I don’t need to worry about you this time,” Tansy said, eyes thinning to a glare. Abigail closed her mouth, nodding, and Tansy headed to the master bedroom in the back, where she would take a cocktail of pills and wake up when we landed.
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