I pulled T2 from my bra—the only spot I could put anything—spinning it around on my finger, rose gold catching the light.
I missed Theo.
Stupid, broody Theo and his cocky smile. His slightly slumped shoulders, like he didn’t give two shits if people noticed him—but that’s all I could do.
I’d read each page of his mother’s diary before I left. She’d lived in Crowne Point and the one guy she’d slept with skipped town. She never saw him again, though she didn’t love him, and by sleeping with him she’d been forcing herself to be someone else.
A lot of the pages were rambling thoughts of a teenager, but each she addressed to him, sometimes to Theo or just “baby boy.”
When I’d finished, I hadn’t realized how much time had passed until the sky was dark and it was time to meet Gray.
My siblings hadn’t included me in anything past the boat ride, and I wasn’t sure where they were. So I drank in a dark bar, elbows on the sticky counter, occasionally rebuffing assholes. Everyone looked in their early twenties, and a few maybe younger, in their teens.
With nothing else to do, I opened the browser on my phone, searching for private investigators, toying with the idea of hiring one for Theo’s mom, but guilt kept me from sending them an email. It felt wrong to do this behind his back.
Gray and Gemma appeared, sprinting out of the basement, laughing. A few seconds later, a mob followed them, yelling words in Spanish I couldn’t catch.
I set my drink down.
“Ladrón!”
Thief.
I sat up straighter.
I came outside in time to hear Gray say, “I didn’t steal shit. I just let that fat ass dog out for a much needed walk.”
“Vete a la mierda, maldito ladrón!”
Gray doubled over, holding his gut and onto Gemma for support.
My Spanish wasn’t as good as my French or Swedish, but I caught enough to know the guy was pissed.
Sirens sounded in the distance and Gray and Gemma pointed at me. “We gave it to her.”
Everyone focused on me at once.
“¿Dónde diablos está mi perro?”
Something about a dog, and once again, not happy with me.
“Uh…”
When I looked back, Gray and Gemma had vanished.
FUCK.
I slowly raised my hands. A mob of about ten angry Spanish hipsters were waiting for me to give them information about a dog I’d never seen.
“Have…” I took a step back. “You…” Another step. “Checked…” I turned on my heel and sprinted away. “Idon’tfuckingknow.”
I reached the pier, finding Gemma and Gray already in the boat. The air was extra brackish, and the wind had picked up, whipping my oversized hoodie.
“What did you do with the dog, asshole?”
Gray rolled his eyes. “The dog is fine. It’s in the bathroom.” He turned on the engine, and that was when I noticed they were unanchored and pulling away from the dock. I ran to the edge, but there was already too much space between us. The sea was a dark void.
I could’ve asked them to stop, to come back, but it would’ve been pointless. I was such a fucking idiot. It hit me in the gut hard as they laughed, pulling the boat away.
I was the fall guy.
There was always one in every group.
I don’t know why I’d thought tonight would be any different. Of course the only reason they would invite me was because I was the fall guy.
But it hurt.
It hurt to be abandoned. Flashbacks to boarding school assaulted me. When Gray paid a boy to ask me to the dance, only so he could abandon me the night of. Or the time I thought I’d fallen in love with another boy, and he’d sent my dirty pictures to everyone.
And then Gemma had bribed someone on the yearbook to include them.
I’m no saint, either. My hands are bloody, my soul is stained. We’re all stuck in this vicious cycle of hurting and being hurt.
I glanced to my right, where paparazzi and officers had gathered. My options were slim. If I wasn’t home by morning, Mom would kill me. If I got spotted tonight, Mom would kill me. It was looking like Mom was going to kill me.
Gray waved, and the engine revved, dark water churning white as they got smaller and smaller, fading into the glittery night. “Enjoy the nunnery, Newt.”
Oh my God.
Newt.
Newt! After Isaac Newton, the nickname given to any fall guy at our boarding school. I’d totally forgotten he had a real name, because Newt—err Ned—was everyone’s fall guy back in Rosey, and no one called him anything save Newt all the years we were there.
I was on the precipice of remembering something important, so close to remembering his full name, his real name—
An arm yanked on my shoulder, pulling me back.
Theo.
“Did you think you could run from me, Reject?”
Theo dragged me to another boat in silence. This boat was nowhere near as nice as the one we had. It was a small, wooden one that fit two, maybe three, people and the engine sputtered. I wondered if he’d got it off one of the servants.
I kept thinking back to Newt/Ned, trying to remember his last name, but I couldn’t remember one person calling him by it in all the years we went to Rosey.
We tiptoed from the dock up whitewashed steps to the Spanish colonial, pausing to hide from Mother’s servants beneath the shadow of a wooden trellis. Theo’s chest was pressed to mine. His chin barely grazing my scalp. Below us, the sea slapped against the dock walls, a soothing melody.
“I read it,” I whispered. “I read her diary.”
Theo cleared his throat. “Told you, not much in there.”
There was so much in there. All of it was filled to the brim with love and longing. Our walls were finally falling down. Even in the past, Theo had never let me look through his mother’s diary.
I had to tell him about Newt.
“How did you find me?” I whispered.
That brought his attention to me, our eyes locking. “I’ll always find you, Abigail. Remember that next time you spend the energy falling out a window. I used to be the one catching you.”
Though his words made my heart leap, I pulled away. “That doesn’t answer my question.” The longer the silence pressed, the deeper my gut sank. I took a step back, night air and Spanish stars between us.
“How, Theo?” I pressed.
He worked his jaw. “Your key chain has a tracker in it.”
My heart dropped. “I’m such a fool.”
“No, Abigail—”
“I thought this gift meant something.” I tore the key chain from my bra. “I thought you cared about me. You told me to trust you. To stop telling lies.”
I’d been played the fool… again.
“Why can’t it be both?” Anger usurped his breath and he gripped my shoulders, dragging me to him, eyes blazing. “It’s because I care about you. Fuck, can’t you see that? Am I supposed to just sit around and hope nothing happens to you?”
“You could have told me. Why did you lie?”
He dropped me, and whatever remorse I’d seen vanished. “Following your lead, Abs. I know there’s something you aren’t telling me.”
Guilt swamped me. I knew I should tell him about Ned. Maybe I should’ve told him about him the day I realized we’d gone to school together, but there was still so much shit between us.
And now there was even more.
So I deflected. “You didn’t use this to save me. You used it because you trapped me in a room and didn’t like that I climbed out.” I chucked the pretty key chain into the open sea.
It hurt.
It hurt so much.
Theo watched the glimmering gold disappear into the black waters before turning back to me. “What happens if I can’t be there for you?”
“I guess we’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way. With trust.”
“Abigail.”
My mom’s voice was lik
e a damn Taser. I sprang off Theo, feeling caught despite having done nothing.
I rubbed my dark hair. “Uh, Mom. You’re up late.”
An agonizing silence followed my brilliant observation. Then she turned away, walking toward her bedroom. For a second I had hope she’d leave it at that.
“Are you coming?” she asked, impatience thin, feathery, and sharp.
Into her room? At two in the morning? Anxiety crawled like ants under my skin, but I followed. I could feel Theo watching after me.
A single lamp lit up the sitting room inside her wing. She sat on the antique love seat beside it. I could tell she’d been awake for some time, because her makeup was on, her curls were done, and, though she was in pajamas, they were the kind meant to be seen in.
I took a shaky seat across from her when my eyes landed on the items on the table between us. Photos and notes of me—of me? I looked more clearly. They were the ones Newt had sent. The only place they could have come from was my box.
My box.
A trillion questions flitted through my mind. How long has she had them? Why did she have them? And what could it possibly mean that it now sat between us?
“We need to talk,” my mother said.
I dragged my eyes away from the box, finding her dark-blue ones. Warm, Mediterranean night air whispered through gauzy curtains.
“In a few weeks’ time your grandfather will close this deal, and then your fiancé will meet us in Switzerland.”
The wrinkle in my brow deepened. This hardly seemed so important to discuss at two in the morning. My eyes flittered to the box.
“Okay…” was all I managed.
She pulled the box into her lap. “I’ve seen your evidence. A few pictures are nothing to be concerned about.”
She flitted through the photos and letters. I was missing a key bit of information. I still wasn’t grasping it. It was there, close, a needle digging the tip of my tongue.
She lifted her head. “What are you hoping to accomplish, Abigail? All I see here are love letters from a future fiancé. Ned Harlington is a good…”
When she said his name, all the rest of her words faded to darkness. I stared at the box in my mom’s hands. Harlington, the very same Harlington I’d heard spoken over and over since the acquisition began. The dots had been there, but I’d never quite connected them.
“Ned… is Edward Harlington?”
“The son of the man your grandfather has been trying to back into a deal for more than a year, your fiancé.”
Everything clicked into place. The roses in Crowne Hall. The Fourth party where I supposedly met my fiancé.
I could barely breathe. “Why is everyone calling him Edward?”
My mother blinked slowly. “Why do people call you Abby, Abigail?” Silence followed as my heart raced and nausea consumed me.
I was going to marry someone who’d drugged me, stalked me, threatened me. What would happen when there was no distance between us, no walls to keep me safe?
“We can’t afford a classic Abigail scene,” my mom said. “Nothing seems to be working with you. The only reason I submitted to having that boy back was to keep you on a leash. I think it’s time to send him away—”
“No, no. I’ll be good.” Send Theo away—again? “I’ll be better.”
Her sharp eyes narrowed, catching. Had I let on I cared too much? I knew if I backtracked, it would solidify what she suspected.
“I…” I swallowed. “I didn’t know. I didn’t realize who it was.”
I should’ve known. I should’ve connected the dots. I hoped in vain we could end it here, and Mom would let me pretend this never happened.
But he would be in Switzerland?
My throat closed at the thought.
She exhaled through her nostrils. “Edward Harlington is from a good family, he could marry any girl he wants, and he chose you. He chose us. I can’t even find it in me to be shocked you’re trying to ruin this—”
“I…” I cut her off, voice scratchy. “I made a mistake.”
I stared at the floor, willing a hole to open up and suck me in.
She eyed me with a sigh. “Come here.” I stood up, finding a seat next to her on the antique couch. “You know I don’t like being harsh with you.” She hugged me. She caressed my hair, holding me like she had when I was a little girl.
“I know,” I mumbled into her shoulder.
She sighed again, her disappointment seeping like water into my bones, deeper still, until I didn’t know where it had gone and could only feel it. Weathering and cold. Her fingers stroked through my hair, separating it like water in the way only she could.
Mom rarely hugged me, and anytime she did, it was usually after she’d emotionally obliterated me. How fucked up was it to live for these moments?
We sat in disharmonious silence. I didn’t count the minutes, and I tried to enjoy the rare mother-daughter time. Tried not to think about what led to it.
“I almost eloped, you know,” she said absently.
I don’t think I could have spoken if someone put a gun to my head. I stared at my mother, wondering if I’d heard her correctly.
“I guess you could say he was my Theo. He worked for my father in the mailroom, because back then there was such a thing as a mailroom,” she added, raising a brow at me. “He brought me cheap chocolates and we listened to music that would make my father’s toes curl.”
A small smile curved her lips, a real smile, soft and so un-Tansy-like. I tried to imagine my mom as anyone other than the woman who sent back perfectly fine cherries. Someone who ate cheap chocolate and listened to popular music.
“What happened to him?”
It was foolish of me to hope for a happy ending. She’d married my father; obviously she hadn’t ended up with her Theo.
Still, my heart stood on tiptoes.
“He died.”
Mom spoke as if we were discussing the weather, always composed, but I was struggling to breathe. Both her husband and her first—maybe only—love had died?
“Not at first,” she continued. “But watching me marry your father killed him slowly until he wrapped his car around a tree.”
She turned to me. “I made a mistake, Abigail. I made him think we could be together, and I let him fall in love with me.”
My eyes traveled to the door, as if I could see Theo on the other side. I’d always been selfish when it came to him. Selfish to take him, selfish to keep him, selfish to want him to stay.
“Did you ever think about giving it all up for him?” I asked quietly.
“You won’t marry Theo, Abigail. You can’t be a princess and marry a pauper.”
I didn’t know what to say. I just sat in the dimly lit room, picking at my jeans. The single lamp didn’t seem like enough light for the dark words.
“I know you think I’m a villain.”
“No, I—” I attempted, but she cut me off.
“I don’t want you to be like me, Abigail. Don’t make the same mistakes. Men like Edward are dangerous only if you let them be. He isn’t like your grandfather; he isn’t cunning.” Something flickered in her eyes, something like fear, but it was gone before I could be sure.
I couldn’t help my next words. “He threatened me. He stalked me. He drugged me.”
“He’s a coward. Cowards are easy to control.”
She smiled at me.
This was the first sincere conversation I’d ever had with my mother. I couldn’t help but wonder if anyone else knew this side of her. As uncomfortable as the subject matter was, I couldn’t help wondering if we were finally getting closer.
Then she sighed. “Maybe we should send you home. It might be easier for… everyone.”
All my hopes shattered.
Send me home? So that entire conversation meant nothing? We all hated this forced family time, but it was a Crowne tradition. They were cutting me out of the family picture, and I could feel the scissors scraping along my soul with each cut.
<
br /> “I can handle it,” I said. “I’ll… I’ll marry him.”
A long, palpable silence followed my words. When my mother finally spoke, it was about a completely different subject.
“Have you been to see Dr. Brenner recently?” she asked lightly, referring to our on-call plastic surgeon.
“No. Why?”
Her eyes lingered on my bare midriff, then returned to mine with a tight smile. “Maybe make an appointment when we get back.”
I rubbed my eyes as I left my mother’s wing. I wouldn’t cry, but they still stung. I could handle Ned. I’d been handling him. What I couldn’t handle? Being yet another disappointment to my mother and losing Theo in the process.
Twenty-One
ABIGAIL
Uneasy is the girl who wears the name Crowne.
My grandma told me that on my seventh birthday. Everyone said she was losing her mind and not to pay attention to her words.
I’m not so sure.
Since Spain, things with Theo have been off. On the surface, things are okay, but it feels wrong, a strong current beneath still waters. Our time in Italy flew by, and now we’re heading to Switzerland.
I haven’t told him the truth about my fiancé.
He hasn’t apologized for the key chain. Not really.
I want to tell Theo everything, but we’re hours away from Switzerland.
Switzerland.
Where I might see Ned and have no choice but to act like everything is fine, like he hasn’t been tormenting me.
Theo would rip Ned apart, and if Theo did that, Mom would rip Theo apart.
I glanced at Theo, sitting stoically beside me on the plane.
It feels like fate in a way. I haven’t seen my grandpa since the Swan Swell, since the day Theo ripped us apart. It prods something inside me, opens up the parts of me I’ve been pretending didn’t exist. The odd distance between Theo and me, the lies I’m telling, the secrets I’m worried he might be keeping.
We’re ignoring a chasm between us, and my grandfather might be the thing to shove us inside.
“Something’s bothering you, Abigail,” Theo said the moment we landed. Cool summer air whipped at our skin, the jet still powering down. “Something more than what I did.”
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