Forbidden Fate
Mary Gebhard
Copyright © 2020 by Mary Catherine Gebhard
All rights reserved
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
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Line editing by James Gallagher of Evident Ink
Proof Reading by Rumi and My Brother’s Editor
Cover by Hang Le
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All rights reserved.
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the above copyright owner of this book.
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Forbidden Fate
ISBN-13: 978-1-7338510-7-7
An Unglued Books Publication
www.MaryGebhard.com
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
What’s next
Heartless Hero Preview
Books by Mary Catherine Gebhard
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Acknowledgments
For the girls whose broken hearts never stopped beating.
One
STORY
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Fate is a thread; you can tie it in a thousand knots but you’ll always come to the same end. My mom loved to whisper that whenever things didn’t go her way, which was…often. As I stood across from Westley only hours after Grayson’s wedding, I pictured our thread. The thousands of knots we’d tied together. And in the end…Lottie’s wedding dresses hung up behind me. Her lingerie too. I would have to help her into them.
Help Mrs. Grayson Crowne.
The one and only…the one who should have always been.
“Grayson’s guards will be here any minute,” I said to West.
He smirked, quirking his plump lips just enough to flash his bright-white teeth. “Lottie is Grayson’s wife now.” I clenched my teeth at the pain those words brought as West walked closer, sliding one hazelnut finger along the vanity. “She gave me permission to be here. Something about forgetting her garter.”
As Lottie’s girl, I was supposed to bring it to her, but West picked up the lacy garment, twirling it around his finger. My eyes darted from it to him as fear crept up my spine. Westley had never been violent. Still, I was nervous. A few weeks earlier I had finally said what had been weighing on my soul: Westley du Lac raped me.
I don’t know how a man like West would respond to that…how any man would. I still wasn’t sure if I believed it myself. Rape, to me, was supposed to be bloody and vicious and cruel, not filled with sweet words.
“What do you want?”
“I told you I would be here,” he said for the second time. West was close enough now that I could smell his rich cologne, see his dark tux straining across his thick biceps.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lied.
Though West had promised to pick up the pieces that he said would inevitably fall after Grayson, he couldn’t be serious. He was just fucking with me. The boy who had ghosted me and taken my virginity for a bet didn’t actually want me.
Didn’t actually care for me.
West took a step closer, but I stayed put, refusing to let another man push me back.
“I can give you what you want, Angel.”
I scoffed through my nostrils. I should just ignore him, get back to work, stop poking at the wound, but I couldn’t stop this gnawing in my gut. Why? After everything we’d been through, why did West think I’d want that? It must be a rich thing, right? Being so arrogant. Believing everything belongs to you, even people.
“You can’t give me anything. I want nothing to do with you.” I turned from him, fidgeted with the second of Lottie’s dresses.
“So you’re just going to stay here?” he asked. “You know what a girl has to do for the bride.”
I swallowed. “I’m doing it. I’m getting her dresses ready.”
“Angel, you know that’s not what I mean.”
My fingers froze on the delicate lace, eyes traveling to the spiderweb lingerie just beside it.
A girl did anything for her mistress, whether it was dress her, clean her, listen to her woes. Rumors of old, ancient rituals crawled with a shiver up my spine. Girls forced to bring the bloody evidence back and, in some cases, help the bride after—anything to ensure a baby.
West laughed, but it was mocking. “You do know.”
Months ago I’d already come to terms with what I might be asked to do, because I would do anything for my uncle, even if it meant readying the bride for the love of my life while I was still sticky with his come.
“I’ll take you out of this place.” West’s touch found my shoulder, featherlight. “I’ll give you the happily ever after you deserve.”
I tried to focus on the lace, the window, anything but my heart rising into my throat.
Push him off.
Shove him away.
Do. Something.
“You know…we never kissed, Angel.” His low, smooth voice was in my ear now. “It’s all I can think about.” He pushed my hair to one side.
I exhaled a breath that scraped on the way out.
Then I spun and shoved him off, snatching the garter out of his hand, and exited Grayson’s wing without a glance in West’s direction.
My fast-beating heart was anger.
Grief.
Nothing more.
The wedding was in full swing, the big band carrying from the ballroom. Patrons in silk and sequins laughed, paying no attention to me.
“Angel—”
I looked over my shoulder, cutting off West before he could speak. “Why—how could you think I’d want
to be your fucking mistress? Just leave me alone, West.”
I didn’t give up everything to throw it all away on the man who’d thrown me away—
Grayson.
I came to a full stop.
Seated above everyone else in the ballroom, he tangled a hand in his rose gold hair as he talked to paparazzi. I looked at the garter in my hand, the one I was supposed to bring to the wife on his arm so he could peel it off her leg.
My heart crumbled like old granite.
He didn’t see me…and that was a good thing. I was back to being a ghost. My eyes found the bruise forming on my finger in the shape of Grayson’s teeth. A vicious wedding band, the only kind someone like me could ever have with someone like him.
“Marry me,” West said to my back.
I froze, and his hand clasped my shoulder, forcing me to spin. To look into his deep brown eyes.
“Marry me, Angel.”
I would have laughed if I wasn’t so disgusted, so broken, at the thought.
My soulmate left me in pieces, and the boy who ruined me—raped me—wanted to pick them up.
“You can’t offer that. None of you can!” I yelled before I could control my emotions. “You give away…you give away promises you don’t own the right to keep.”
I swiped at my tears.
West blinked. “I’ll take you down to the courthouse right fucking now.”
I glared at him.
He’d been the one to call me out on my naïveté, for believing in a happily ever after with Grayson. When I’d once thought Grayson and I were speaking in truth, it turned out West was the only one to offer me real truth.
There is no such thing as a happily ever after.
“I don’t know what your goal is here. I don’t know what bet you’re involved in again—”
“It’s not a bet—” he all but growled.
I cut him off. “But how little you must think of me. If you honestly believe I’d fall for that.”
Again, my brain supplied.
If you honestly believe I’d fall for it…again.
Not once, but twice, I’d fallen for a happily ever after. I was Cinderella in bare feet, walking across nails, pretending the only reason I couldn’t see my shoes was because they were glass.
I exhaled a shaky breath.
“There’s only one person keeping me here, and when he dies, I’m not staying around for another prince peddling his lies.”
Except a small, tiny piece of my heart wanted to go back to West. Wanted to make what happened between us okay. Because then, maybe, I wouldn’t have to look back on that memory with sadness.
It might wash away the stain.
“If you’ll excuse me,” I said. “There’s a wife missing her garter.”
West gripped my elbow. “Not even for revenge?” He thumbed my chin. “We can make him regret everything.”
Two
GRAY
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“Can I get a photo of the couple of the century?”
A man dressed in an ill-fitted tuxedo held up a camera to take a picture of us.
The wedding of the century. At least, that’s what was getting shoved up my ass from every angle, written in twenty-four karat gold on the six-foot wedding cake, spelled in diamonds across tables and walls, trending across social media because mother had paid for millions of bot accounts.
The Crowne-du Lac merge was the biggest marriage to happen in our world and my mother wasn’t going to let anyone forget it—or maybe it was an attempt to draw their attention from the blurry girl I’d brought to the engagement party, leaked in photographs online. We were the wedding of the century, the couple of the century.
“You could at least pretend to smile,” Lottie whispered. “It’s not like we don’t know how to pretend.”
Every Crowne is taught a wedding is just another business deal.
I had hoped to avoid that fate, but here I was.
I grasped Lottie’s hand, trying to offer her some kind of support.
She shot me her pretend smile. Sad, hollow, willowy. Fuck.
The paparazzo looked at his camera. “Perfect. Look how happy you are.” He snapped another few pictures and left, disappearing into the crowd.
We were seated above everyone, and I felt like some kind of royalty at a feast.
We had an entire year of this facade, an entire year of photo ops and pretending. Of paid paparazzi and paid magazine covers that were staged to look organic. Shit, we didn’t even get a fucking weekend to rest. This weekend we were headed to Asheville to celebrate Labor Day with Lottie’s family.
We were going on a veritable royal tour.
The food was made by some Michelin chef, a fucking steak I had to scarf down. It shouldn’t have bothered me. I did this all the time.
They think your favorite food is steak…
“Rare, like you like it, right?” Lottie asked.
I shot her another winning Grayson Crowne smile.
Our wedding planner appeared before us, and she bobbled her head in front of our long table for a good three minutes before I realized she was talking to us.
“It’s our first dance,” Lottie said quietly.
“Oh shit.”
I stood, offering my hand to Lottie so we could make our way into the center of the ballroom. The music started, and bright-white camera flashes went off one after the other. My eyes connected across the room, and I tripped over my shoe, into Lottie.
Snitch.
A few feet behind her was West.
Fucking West.
It was a brief glimpse, but I would always and forever recognize her. Only hours ago I’d been inside her.
Come inside her.
“Grayson?” Lottie’s concerned tone drew me back.
I started dancing again, plastered a smile on my face. Fuck, I really didn’t like that he followed her.
Snitch rounded a corner out of the ballroom, and Westley followed.
It’s not my place. Not my place to wonder if she still dripped me between her thighs. Not my place to care that Westley fucking du Lac was once again riding my girl’s ass—not my girl anymore.
Shit.
Fuck.
“Is something wrong?” Lottie asked, then blew out a breath. “I mean, other than the very obvious.”
My eyes were still on the door, but a small smile quirked my lips at Lottie’s honesty.
“I just think Strauss is a really trash waltz,” I said. “Couple of the century and our first dance is to the one song everyone plays for their first recital.”
Lottie laughed, and for a minute I forgot about Snitch and that I had no right to think about her anymore. For a second, it was normal and almost okay.
I fingered the rubies in her ear. “You hate red.”
She shrugged, as if it wasn’t even worth mentioning why she was wearing something she hated.
I couldn’t believe any of this was how Lottie had imagined it. Walking down the aisle to an empty altar, married to a man like me. Though her makeup had been fixed, her eyes were still red.
“Lottie, if you could do anything right now, what would it be?”
Her throat bobbed. “I don’t want to play this game.”
I wanted to give her something.
Anything to prove I wasn’t the man I’d taught her I’d become.
“Lottie—”
Her eyes flashed to mine. “You can’t give it to me.”
“I’m Grayson Crowne. I can do anything.”
Her eyes narrowed at the challenge. “I don’t want to smile for pictures. I want to take off this dress and this tiara. I want to talk to you and get to know you again in private. And…” She looked away, as if ashamed. “I don’t want to see her.”
I stopped dancing. “Let’s get out of here, Lottie.”
“Really?” She blinked. “Just…leave?” She looked around us. Our song ended and couples had surrounded us on the dance floor.
“We’ve taken enough pictures. Let’s
go have your perfect wedding night.”
Her mouth parted, and I clasped her hand, dragging her with me. Her laugh echoed as she gripped my shoulder.
“Are we really going to leave?” she whispered.
“Yeah—”
My mother stepped in front of us with a hiss. “Keep smiling.”
Naturally our smiles wavered.
“I said, Keep smiling.”
She shoved a phone between our chests. It was a shaky video, half the image obscured by something…flowers. White roses. Beyond them an obscene dance took place. A man’s naked ass, a woman groping him.
It was me. Me with Snitch, just hours before. Luckily there was no sound. They would have heard the words that were seared into my mind.
I love you, Story Hale. I’ll never stop loving you, Story Hale.
“It’s clear it’s a maid,” my mother said, pulling the phone back. “They don’t know which maid. But it’s clear it’s a maid. On your wedding night.” Her nostrils flared.
Lottie dropped her grip from my shoulder, and our hands separated.
“How many people have seen it?” I asked, voice rough.
“Just—” My mother held up her finger. “I’m going to fix it. So far it’s only on small forums. It hasn’t hit any major news. I’ll fix it—we’ll fix it. This should go without saying, but don’t do anything that would draw attention to this. Go mingle or go dance and smile.” She shot a pointed look in Lottie’s direction.
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