“I’m nervous to see my grandpa,” I lied. Guilt ripped apart his face, and he went quiet. Shame settled in my stomach.
A black town car pulled up, one of four, and I was seated alone with Theo in one as my mother and siblings took their own.
It wasn’t a short drive to the house, but it’s worth it. Switzerland was my favorite as a child. It’s our very own fairy-tale castle, with steepled roofs, turrets, and crenellations. Built into the top of the mountain and rising high into the blue sky, we took a winding road into verdant snow-capped mountains. A shimmering clear lake was below us, and evergreen spruce surrounded us on all sides.
Inside the castle, I looked around, as if Ned was going to pop up any minute, but it was just us and the servant staff.
“He’ll be here tomorrow. Remember what you promised.” My mother smiled and walked away, up the winding staircase toward her room. Servants followed, carrying her luggage.
I was jumpy in my skin. Itchy. Emotions were eating me alive. I couldn’t think about them.
So I did what I did best. I reacted.
Gemma was leaning against the wall, on her phone.
No more classic Abigail scenes.
My mom’s words were fresh in my mind. I opened and closed my fist.
“Have you seen Dr. Brenner recently?” I asked lightly, approaching Gemma.
She looked up from her phone. “No, why?”
“No reason…” I lingered on her midriff, long enough for a wrinkle to appear between her brows, then kept walking. I saw her tug down her shirt out of my periphery.
Why was it when I should be on my best behavior, I was always on my worst?
I hadn’t even crossed the foyer when I caught Theo’s gaze. He watched me too closely, seeing right through me. I walked past him like it wasn’t a big deal he was there, or that he’d seen what I’d done.
He fell in step behind me.
Our footfalls echoed in the vaulted castle ceilings, haunting. While the castle was centuries old, inside had been entirely updated. Switzerland was the light to Crowne Halle’s dark. Just as opulent but with pale blue, silver, and white decor.
My wing was no different, all silver and blue, with regal furnishings as old as the castle. The minute we got back to my room, I busied myself. I grabbed my suitcase, throwing it on my bed, wrinkling the satin. I had to unpack, because Gray still kept Story. So I focused on that.
“Are you ready to tell me what’s going on?” Theo’s low, steady voice was at my back.
“You’re not making much sense, Theo.”
Theo always had a hard time with how my peers got away with everything. I knew deep down that when it came to me, he wouldn’t let it go. Which meant Mom would never give me another chance, and somehow, worse, Theo would leave my side.
I was already out of my mind trying to figure out how to keep them away from one another.
Theo gripped my chin, drawing my eyes away from my haphazard unpacking. “Abs.”
Warning flared bright in my brain. Theo could see into me. He could rip out pieces of me I didn’t give him permission to take. He was clawing into my soul at that very moment.
I dropped to my knees, reaching for a distraction as much as I was reaching for his buttons. He grasped my wrists, holding me off.
“Fuck off, Abigail. Do you think I’m that simple?”
I bit my lip, looking away.
Still holding my wrists, he bent until we were eye to eye. “Who is he? Who has you this scared?”
“I don’t know.”
He dropped my wrists with so much force I turned in the other direction.
“Classic Abigail. At any sign of pain or hurt you build your walls. Can’t let anyone see those deep, dark insides, after all.”
I didn’t speak, focusing on his black sneakers.
“You spend so much time picking out the most precious items. You turn lost and forgotten things into treasure. Would you ever put them on some weak, breaking metal band?”
“Of course not,” I said.
“So why are you doing that with your soul, your heart?” He touched his pastel bracelet on my wrist. “Your bracelet will break if you keep building it with brittle wire.”
I knew he was talking about more than his bracelet, more than my jewelry. My heart ached.
“Why are you hurting, Abigail?” he asked softly.
“Don’t make me lie to you!” My throat was clogged with tears. I never cried. Theo was the only one who did this to me.
He watched me in silence for so long my knees started to ache. The muscle in his jaw twerked with how tight he clenched. The hollows of his cheeks even deeper, gaunter. His eyes were a campfire, blazing and fierce, yet soft.
“I can’t let this go,” he finally said.
“So don’t,” I said. “Just for now, for tonight.”
When I reached for him again, he didn’t push me away.
“What are you staring at?” I asked, peering at Theo from over a book. We were alone in the library, and every few minutes I’d look up from my book to see him staring.
“You.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “You get lost in a book the same way you get lost in my cock, you know that? It’s fucking distracting.”
I looked down, cheeks flaming.
“Shit, Abigail,” he said. “You know what that look does to me.”
Still looking down, I set my book on the studded suede arm of my chair, then got to my knees, walking to him. His eyes transmuted, burning coals. As I got closer, he spread his legs enough to allow me between his knees.
“Sweet girl…” Theo threaded his fingers into my hair, caressing from my scalp to the middle of my back. His eyes creased, and I knew he was about to rip open the wound between us.
“Don’t,” I pleaded. “Just… not right now.”
At least Theo and I seemed to have perfected this part. Communication, our emotions, our truths, were all tangled in the barbed wires of our past.
But this? This was easy for us.
I placed my head on his thigh, and he slowed his caress.
“Your grandfather wishes to see you.” I jumped up at the voice, hitting Theo’s chin with my head. He cursed and I rubbed my scalp, turning to find my grandfather’s guard in the arched doorway.
How much had he seen?
“M-My grandfather?”
I hadn’t met with my grandfather one-on-one since the night Theo had ruined my relationship with him.
I stood, leaving my book discarded on the soft velvet wingback, and followed the guard.
When we reached my grandfather’s office, the guard placed a hand on Theo’s chest, not allowing him to follow me through the doors.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Nothing bad is going to happen to me in my grandpa’s office.”
Theo’s frown deepened, his jaw clenched. Even I didn’t quite believe my words, but I followed my grandfather’s guard through the doors.
Grandfather’s guard deposited me like a package, then shut the door, leaving us alone.
“Edward Harlington is joining us soon,” Grandpa said, facing an expansive window. “I know you’re aware of his… predilections.”
Predilections, that was a nice way of phrasing it.
“You knew?”
Grandpa turned to his desk, unlocking a drawer. He pulled out photos, placing them on the desk. At first I was expecting them to be the ones from my box, assuming my mother had shared them, but they were of me and Theo, all from the last month.
Mostly in compromising positions, like kissing, there were even photos of us the night out on the Riviera.
My lips parted, but no words came out.
“There’s nothing I don’t know, Abigail.”
“Are you following me?” I finally managed.
“I would have been foolish not to, after what happened at the Swan Swell.” Grandpa folded his arms, watching me. “I know now you were not behind those photos, just like I know that it doesn’t really matter because
, in the end…” He sifted through some of them. “You were still a disappointment.”
A stale silence lingered, his disappointment etched in the wrinkles around his mouth. At me. At Theo.
“What are you going to do to him?”
“Do you remember the night you begged me to keep Theo?”
“U-Uh…” It felt like a trap.
“Theo doesn’t have any family, anything to keep him attached to something other than the job. He was the perfect protégé. At least, he was. What can you take from someone who has nothing, Abigail?”
I rolled my bottom lip between my teeth, recognizing that either way I answered, I’d lose.
“You take away what you’ve given them.”
I ran over to his desk, slamming my hands on it. “You can’t send him away. Please.”
I couldn’t lose Theo, not again.
He leaned forward on steepled fingers, eyes narrowed. “I think that’s up to you, princess.”
Princess.
He was calling me princess again, but the warmth had been replaced with an ominous lilt.
“This marriage isn’t a death sentence, Abigail. You can have your cake and eat it too. You just have to remember… you can’t be a Crowne without many sharp points.”
I focused on the meaning behind his words. Beryl Crowne would do anything to keep the Crowne name untarnished. Fear and foreboding strangled my gut.
I swallowed. “I understand. You’re either for this family or against it.”
THEO
I can feel Abigail slipping through my fingers, and I don’t know why, or how to fix it. Tonight will be the first meal she’d have with her grandpa since I’d wrecked that relationship, the first time she’d be in the room with him.
I was in Switzerland, which meant everyone had to dress for dinner. I was in a tux and Abigail was in an absolutely fucking cruel strapless black-and-emerald dress with a slit in the jewel-toned satin skirt that went all the way to her hip.
As I walked behind her to the vaulted medieval dining room of their Swiss castle, the grains kept falling. If I told him the truth, he’d fire me and make sure I never saw Abigail. Not telling him wasn’t an option either.
“Theo!” Her grandfather spotted me, waving me over to him at the end of the table. Abigail watched me warily as I went to him.
He clapped my shoulder. “I think a promotion is in order when this wedding is finished. You’ve been handling her well. Not a peep by the press.”
Abigail eyed me as she took a seat at the table.
Fuck.
“I’m curious, what could you possibly have done to get her so cooperative?” Beryl Crowne asked, digging his fingers into my shoulder.
“Just the usual…” I trailed off.
Beryl’s death grip on my shoulder wouldn’t give. “And did you enjoy your time on the Riviera?”
Abigail dropped her fork, eyes shooting to her grandfather’s. I focused on the meaning behind the words, uncertain why fear clouded Abigail’s eyes, why he was digging his fingers into me like I’d pissed him off.
Don’t date my granddaughters, don’t even look at them, and don’t get any ideas about biting the hand that feeds you.
Did he know?
“Oh, you made it!” Tansy said.
“How was your flight?” Beryl dropped my grip with his question, voice light.
Tansy’s thick wood chair slid along the marble floor, a servant at her back. A smile still lingered on my face when I saw who’d captured their attention. The mood didn’t vanish; it faded like smoke.
Standing in the arched doorway was the asshole terrorizing Abigail.
He ruffled his hair, lazy smile landing on Abigail. “The flight was too long, but I’m here now.”
I had him pressed against the gold-trimmed doorway before I could think. It was instinct. My forearm was at his throat, digging into his Adam’s apple, applying just enough pressure to keep him conscious.
Tansy Crowne’s shrill voice rang out behind me, telling me to let him go.
“You’re here early.” Abigail’s voice shook, and for that, I dug the forearm at his throat deeper.
Wait—early?
“Couldn’t wait to see you, babe,” he coughed the words, face purpling.
My glare deepened into an ache. Did she know he was coming?
Tansy had welcomed him. Beryl had welcomed him. He had gotten into one of the most fortified houses in the world. This guy wasn’t just one of them, he was somehow close with the Crownes. I stared at him, and as if reading my thoughts, he fucking smiled.
“Have you lost your mind?” Tansy shouted once more. “Let go of Abigail’s fiancé.”
Twenty-Two
THEO
“Theo, let him go,” Abigail said, suddenly at my side.
A good Crowne employee let him go, because whatever he’d done to Abigail, he was in their good graces.
I would fucking kill him.
“Let him go,” Abigail beseeched. She pressed her splayed hands into my side, trying to push me off.
From the corner of my eye, I could see Crowne guards making their way toward me. Mr. Crowne was getting out of his chair. While he had a smile on his face as he reassured Mrs. Harlington, there was nothing but coldness in his eyes.
I weighed the pros and cons of snapping this guy’s neck right then and there. As if sensing what I was doing, and knowing the outcome, his blue eyes glittered smug and assured.
My grip at his neck tightened, happy to see him grow red.
“Theo, please,” Abigail begged. Fucking begged.
I stepped off, shaking out my arms so I wouldn’t wring his neck.
His collar was wrinkled, and he rubbed his neck, but the fucking grin stayed on his face.
I let Abigail shove me out of the dining room, into the hall and all the way back to her wing, until we were in her room. Then I yanked my arm out of her hold. I dragged my hands through my hair, looking into her searching eyes. Everything in my body wanted to beat the shit out of him, end this fucking problem right now.
All my helplessness came rushing out in rage. “You fucking lied, Abigail. Again. You know him.”
What other secrets had she been keeping? She was sand. Slipping and slipping through holes I couldn’t see. She looked away, to an ornate silver mirror cutting our reflections in half.
“How long have you known?”
“Spain,” she admitted. “Well, I knew I’d gone to boarding school with him at the afterparty…”
Helpless frustration rose hot and acerbic, cutting through my chest and up my throat. I couldn’t be helpless, so I got angrier.
“How long have you known Grandfather was aware of us?”
Her lips parted, a deer caught in headlights.
“Fucking typical.” I laughed, but there was no humor in it. “You couldn’t tell the truth if there was a goddamn gun to your head.”
“I was trying to avoid this!” Pain strangled her. There was no Abigail glow and spark in her cheeks, she was hollowed and bone dry. Even the chandelier above couldn’t warm her. She looked miserable.
I started moving toward the dining room again, not certain of a plan but fueled by the need to fix this.
Fix that look on her face.
“You can’t.” She grabbed my wrist. I kept walking, dragging her with me. She dug her heels into the silver-blue patterned carpet in an attempt to anchor me.
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill him right now.”
Her grip loosened enough for me to shuck her off, but I only made it a few more feet before she ran in front of me, arms splayed, attempting to block my path.
“You’ll die.”
I shrugged. “Not good enough.”
I pushed her out of the way as gently as I could.
Blood.
That was the only way I’d be satisfied.
“What about the fact that even if you manage to get past all the guards in there, I’d never see you again?” she yelled a
t my back. “What about me? What about what it will do to me?”
I spun on her. “And what about me, Abigail? What do you think marrying him will do to me?”
Her eyes found mine again, shining even in the low light. “Are you offering me something different?”
I turned away with a curse.
I had nothing, no life to offer her. She was Abigail Crowne, and if she didn’t marry who they told her to, she’d end up alone, abandoned, and discarded like I’d been.
I couldn’t fucking do that to her.
Helplessness and fear bubbled up, and I slammed my fist into the wall. Plaster fluttered to the floor, my breathing roaring thunder in my ears, and then I felt it… her hands. They were so light at first I thought it was air.
I found her eyes, and she was already looking up at me. So gentle and fucking heartbreaking. As her world collapsed, she was still thinking of me.
After a moment, she pulled back.
I shook out my hand. “This isn’t okay.”
“It doesn’t matter! It doesn’t matter, Theo. When has it ever?”
I clasped her face between my palms and spun her around, pressing her against the wall. “You matter, Abigail. You matter.”
I slammed her against the wall, pinning her in a kiss.
ABIGAIL
Theo’s kisses were everywhere at once. My neck, my chin, my lips. Biting, bruising lips that disappeared to my neck and came back to my mouth, robbing me of breaths and sighs.
“Theo.” I tried to get his attention, but I could barely breathe through his kisses. He lifted both my hands, trapping them beneath one of his own. Loose plaster bit my back from where he’d punched the wall. In all my years with Theo, I’d never seen him lose control. Never. It was terrifying.
I didn’t fear for myself. I feared for him.
“Theo,” I tried again as he slid his hand up my thighs, inside the slit of my gown.
Lips, teeth, skin.
The room blurred, and I arched my back.
“Theo!” I yelled, as much to stop him as myself.
Theo froze, then slowly lifted his head from my neck. My heart broke. His lips were red from kissing me, his hair wild from how much he’d tangled it in his hands. His eyes were raw. An exposed nerve.
Heartless Hero Page 20