“Tomorrow a Corrosion of Crownes arrives.”
“A what?”
“Crownes from all over the world are descending upon the Hall for the Holidays, and you want us to just slip out and go to a doctor’s appointment without being noticed?”
Ignoring me, he grabbed my phone and said, “Get dressed. I’ll take you home.”
“What are you doing with my phone?” I asked as he left the room.
“Adding my number. I should have done it months ago.”
He shut the door.
I slowly got dressed.
I could be friends with Grayson Crowne. I could do this.
But it wasn’t until we got back to the midnight-darkened spires of Crowne Hall, that doubt sewed its way into my blood. Grayson got out of the town car and opened my door for me.
“Are you still going to want to help me if I stay with West?” I asked.
He paused with the door. “What the fuck does West have to do with this?”
“He’s my husband.”
He angled his head, bending so he could see me clearly and I had a good view of his piercing eyes.
“And I’m going to fucking fix that. I’m going to save you. Get you out.”
Irritation wove in my veins. Save me? Why am I the only one who needs saving?
A black town car pulled up behind ours. Almost on instinct, we took a step back, blending into the great black shadows of Crowne Hall. The driver got out of the car and opened the sleek black door, as Grayson had done for me moments earlier.
A woman bent her head, getting out.
“If you save me from West,” I whispered, “then I should save you from Lottie.”
“It’s not the same. You’re trapped.”
“I’m not trapped.”
Grayson scoffed, as though what I’d just said was the most ridiculous thing.
I can leave any time.
Right?
But I couldn’t stop thinking about West’s proposal. His real proposal. Grayson was offering me a goodbye, and West was offering me a life.
“My mistake,” I said softly. “I know you chose her. But if you’re not trapped, Grayson, then neither am I.”
In my periphery, I saw he’d snapped his head to mine, but I watched the woman who’d just arrived. Her hands were warmed in a fur muff. Her dress long and flowing behind her. Her auburn hair in ringlets down her back. It was minutes past midnight, and she looked ready for a ball.
Josephine St. Germaine.
The bastard Crownes didn’t arrive with the rest of the cavalcade, and neither did their mother. They always arrive the night before, because for one month out of the year, they slide smoothly alongside the other Crownes, as if they were always a perfect fit.
Josephine saw me watching her, and her red lips tilted ever so slightly. Then she turned back toward the hall, dipping her chin and heading inside Crowne Hall.
“Are you going to tell your wife?” I asked, eyes on Josephine disappearing inside the Hall.
“Are you going to tell your husband?” Grayson countered.
My eyes wandered back to his.
“Just friends,” Grayson said again.
“Friends,” I echoed.
The very first Crowne had just arrived for the holidays.
The late Charles Crowne’s mistress.
Thirty-One
STORY
* * *
I woke up to more texts from Grayson than I could count.
* * *
How are you feeling?
Did you have morning sickness?
What do you want for breakfast?
Snitch.
Answer your fucking phone.
What do you want for breakfast?
I’m coming over if you don’t answer your fucking phone.
I’m coming over.
* * *
That last one was sent less than five minutes ago, so I quickly sent a reply that I was fine and he was insane, and I went to shower.
Today was the first official start of the holidays. In less than an hour, the first round of Crownes would arrive. Cousins, aunts, all the others twice removed. They would be shepherded to corners of the house, and servants would be expected to unpack and cater to their whims.
I dropped my head against the tile as water ran down my back. The farther away you got from wearing the title of Crowne, the worse your behavior. It was like they were all trying to compensate.
I turned the shower off and wrapped a fluffy towel around my body. This mirror never fogged, and a weird part of me missed swiping it.
I guess I had rich people problems.
I also had more pregnancy problems…I think. I was unusually horny, and my entire body ached with it. I left the bathroom to go get dressed, not only for lunch but for my doctor’s appointment.
I stared at my empty closet as my stomach caved in. I was missing my dresses, the ones Abigail had stolen from her mother. All that remained were my original nun outfits, as Grayson liked to call them.
My towel fell to the floor. I walked into my closet and ripped off an empty hanger, throwing it to the ground.
I had to buy the Crownes presents, every single one of them, including cousins I didn’t know the names of.
I ripped another velvety soft hanger off the softly lit walls. Empty. All. Empty.
I dropped to the floor amid broken and empty hangers, focused on breathing, on not passing out. I knew who’d taken them.
The servants.
They were still trying to drive me out.
I needed to buy a whole new wardrobe. I’d need to somehow hide all of it so the servants didn’t see, or I’d just keep losing money.
I’d have nothing when I left. I wanted to save the money for my baby. Nothing for a new life…
A sound startled me out of my thoughts. I looked up, finding West watching me. He was in a burgundy suit with a dark-blue bow tie that somehow worked, in a way only a rich person could pull off. And I was…naked.
I was fucking naked.
I hurriedly reached for my discarded towel.
“How long have you been standing there?” I asked, scrambling to my feet.
“I knocked. Thought I heard you. Sorry, Angel.” His brow furrowed at the mess I’d made in my closet.
“I…” I held out a finger, as if I’d find my point. “I, uh…”
“The servants are fucking with you,” he said easily. He bent down, picking up my discarded hangers, the pearls that had come flying off their handles when I’d broken them.
“West, you don’t—”
“I want to help. Let me help.”
I couldn’t just sit and watch him clean up my mess, so I got down on my knees as well. Together we cleaned up the rest of my panic attack.
“Thanks,” I said, once everything was piled up. “How did you know? About the servants?”
“I’ve seen plenty of servants fuck with each other back at the manor.”
We were still on our hands and knees, facing each other. Wet hair had fallen across my eyes. One of my hands held my towel together, and the other kept me righted on the floor.
“They’d been nicer lately. I guess I just thought…I don’t know I hoped they forgot about me.”
“Firing one of them quiets them for a little, but in the long run, pisses them off,” he said.
I wrinkled my brow. “But I haven’t fired anyone.”
“Angel…” He laughed, trailing off like I was missing something important, then West pushed my hair behind my ear. “Have you given any more thought to my offer?”
His offer…to give him a chance? A real chance?
“Don’t let me interrupt.” Grayson’s icy voice pulled me out of my thoughts. I jerked my head in the direction of his voice, finding him in the doorway.
His eyes flamed, taking in me and West, on the floor, West’s hand resting on my cheek. I felt like I’d been caught by a lover.
I stood. “What the hell?”
“Oh r
ight,” West said, getting to his feet. “Grayson is here. Something about…breakfast.”
“In my closet?” I exclaimed, holding my towel tighter.
What was he doing? We were supposed to sneak out later to go to the doctor’s. Key word being sneak.
Whatever fire had been in Grayson’s eyes died, leaving them stony blue-silver. He rubbed the back of his neck, calm. “You were holding everyone up. That’s fucking rude.”
“Almost as rude as barging in on a woman changing?”
Grayson’s jaw clenched like he wanted to say something; then with eyes like cut stone, calm, arrogant Grayson Crowne returned. He turned on his heel and left.
West raised his hands, backing out slowly.
Just friends. Just friends. I repeated it to myself over and over again. I could be friends with Grayson Crowne. He needed a friend. He didn’t have any friends, not really.
I needed a friend.
I didn’t have any.
I can do this. Just friends.
But when I saw Grayson Crowne in his dark gray suit, his hair messed like he hadn’t slept, I knew I was fucked.
GRAY
* * *
Downstairs we held an informal reception for the first of my relatives who’d arrived in the morning, complete with live orchestra and brunch. It was the season for Meyer lemons, and my mother was throwing a fucking fit that we couldn’t use them in everything on account of that small bother it would kill my wife.
I was grateful. Grateful I didn’t have to eat a reminder of Snitch every five seconds.
Snitch was with West, who kept his arm around her as they talked with my aunt. My aunt Hetty always smelled like cigarettes and perfume, and was always somehow, someway, in need of money.
Hetty shoved her glass to Snitch.
Snitch took it, holding it with a furrow in her brow. My gut twisted in anger as I tamped down the urge to shove my aunt out of my fucking house.
Instead I grabbed the glass from Snitch and gave it back to my aunt.
She blinked, wide-eyed.
“Are you in the habit of pawning off your trash onto my guests?”
“She’s…a servant?” Hetty looked at the way Snitch was dressed, confusion in her eyes. Abigail was supposed to get her more dresses. She’d come downstairs in a nun outfit. And, fuck, I missed those outfits.
I pulled out my phone, quickly texting, Why are you dressed like a nun?
Story pulled out her phone, and when she saw the text, her eyes widened; then she quickly put it away.
I quirked my neck to the side. I did not like that.
So I texted her again.
And again.
Her phone vibrated until everyone looked at her.
“Do you need to get that?” Lottie asked.
Snitch shot me a look. “No.”
Lottie wound her arm around mine, her wedding ring glowing brighter under the chandelier.
Just friends.
Friends who freak the fuck out when their friends don’t respond to their texts.
That’s normal.
Maybe this morning was an overreaction. I feel outside of my skin when I’m not around her. It’s not new that I don’t sleep. What is new is the reason. I lay awake now thinking about Snitch. Worried about her. I don’t like that I can’t see her.
I wasn’t sorry I showed up in her wing. I probably should be, but I’m not. When she didn’t respond, I started thinking of worst-case scenarios. What if she was passed out again? What if she was bleeding? And on and on, all of them worse than the next, until my heart felt like it was going to burst through my chest.
The fact that she’s pregnant with my kid just…I’m getting twisted thinking about it.
It doesn’t feel right leaving her alone.
Snitch made some excuse about getting more to drink. I slid out of Lottie’s grasp, eyes on her. “I’ll be right back.”
I followed her to the champagne tower.
“Is your phone broken?”
“I never thought I’d regret the day I gave Grayson Crowne my phone number,” Story said, reaching for a scone. “This doesn’t seem like very friendly behavior, Grayson.”
“Friends check up on each other. Where are your clothes?”
Snitch paused. “Gone.”
“What do you mean ‘gone’?”
“It doesn’t concern you.”
I gripped her bicep, forcing her to face me. “I said I would help you with anything, Snitch. Day or night.”
She shifted. “What happened to keeping it a secret? I was supposed to meet you secretly. Now what?” She looked over her shoulder, where West was consumed by the uncle who could start a five-minute story and somehow take an hour to finish.
“You didn’t answer my texts, Snitch.”
“Well now we can’t go to the doctor. If we’re both missing it will look suspiciou—”
She broke off as I wiped a bit of the jam from her lips, licking it off my thumb. She followed the movement with her eyes. It was like the beginning. When I could kiss her only in pieces. In stolen moments.
“We should get you new clothes, Snitch,” I said, voice rough. “But nothing like the ones my sister got you.”
“What kind of clothes would Grayson Crowne approve of?” she asked, voice quiet, raspy.
Fuck.
I’d missed that voice; it said some of her walls had fallen down. I’d taken it for granted. Snitch had put up so many walls…so many thorns around her heart.
For a moment I pretended we were in a world where I could speak truthfully, and I looked her up and down.
“I like you best in nothing.”
Her eyes widened as West wrapped his arm around her waist. “Fuck, I thought he would never finish his story. What are we talking about?”
“I need new clothes…” she said.
Her eyes burned into mine while I still pictured her naked. Wondered what her tits looked like now. If they still fit in my hand.
Friends don’t picture their friends naked.
Story swallowed, her throat bobbing as though she saw into my mind, saw the dirty, dark thoughts.
“Great idea,” West said. “Want to go now?”
“Now?” Story swiveled to West. “Can we skip brunch?”
I ground my teeth. Every time she turned away from me to West, I wanted to rip her to me. West tilted her chin up with his knuckle, and I fisted the drink in my hand.
“We can do whatever we want, Angel. I’m not going to let my wife go without some damn clothes.”
Angel. Wife.
I took a deep breath through my nostrils.
Don’t punch the brother-in-law.
Again.
“But…” She glanced at me. I saw the worry in her eyes, the uncertainty. No doubt wondering how we were going to get to the doctor’s.
That was the least of my concerns, the easiest problem to solve.
West arched a brow.
“Sounds great.”
She shot me a look as West carted her out of Crowne Hall.
My grip tightened on my whiskey.
I want to be the one to take her. To provide for her. To give her everything—
Crash.
“Grayson!” Lottie gasped.
I looked at my palm, the pieces of glass now embedded in it from the flimsy crystal glass my mother insisted on using.
A few of my distant relatives looked over, no doubt hungry for some gossip to sustain them. Lottie grasped my arm, taking us out of the hall.
She held my bleeding hand in her palm.
“It’s fine,” I said. “I’ve had worse.”
“I’m worried about you,” she said.
About me?
“Lottie—”
“You don’t want me. I get it. But someone needs to take care of you, and she can’t.” Before I could respond, Lottie continued, “Stay here. I’ll go get you a bandage.”
Thirty-Two
STORY
* * *
It w
as like no clothing store I’d ever been to. For starters, no one else was there. Just a suede couch and spotlit mirrors surrounding us. I didn’t even see any clothes.
I turned to West. “How do we…shop?”
His lip quirked up a little, in on some secret I didn’t know. Then they appeared, the women—or clones, I should say. All dressed in the same form-fitted eggplant uniform with their hair pulled back in a tight bun, the only difference among them their hair colors. Blonde, brunette, and darker blonde.
“Mr. du Lac,” said the blonde one, who appeared to be their leader by the way she stood at the tip of the triangle. “Good to see you again.”
“We need daytime, nighttime, evening wear.” He rubbed his forehead, sparing me a glance. “We need everything.”
The changing room was as large as my bedroom, with a couch and table. Nothing like the cramped cubicles I used to change in. The women came in with me and helped me get dressed, the same as I had done for years with the Crownes and Lottie.
The first outfit they slipped me into was a satin number similar to the one Abigail had stolen for me. When I came out, West’s eyes narrowed on my bare shoulders, on my chest. He turned to the woman behind me with a smile.
“Perfect.”
I shifted.
It didn’t feel like me at all, and a spearing thought stabbed me: Grayson would have hated it.
We did this for over an hour. Without showing any emotion, the clones stripped me and dressed me, stripped me and dressed me, until we finally found one. It was a camel dress with a straight neckline that covered my collarbone and capped my shoulders.
They were getting ready to send me out, and I stopped them.
“We don’t…we’ll just set this aside. I like it.”
They ripped me out of that camel dress, and I was thrown into another one West liked. Then they tried on jacket after jacket. At least it was winter and the jackets would cover me.
When we finally finished, my heart was in my throat.
“We’ll take it all,” West said.
The blondest clone smiled. “We’ll get started on tailoring.”
West opened his wallet.
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