“Against?” I pressed.
His eyes burned. “Us.”
Us.
“What do you mean us?”
“Never mind.” He dropped me and shook his head. “You’re right. We’re late.”
He was closing his walls, building his thorns. Fate was almost upon us. I had to get it out. All the things I needed Grayson to know and hear and just listen to. The things only he could.
“I’m scared,” I said. “I’m scared I’m gonna do something wrong. What if I do something wrong?”
His eyes pinched, and he tilted his head, giving me that deep, probing look only Grayson could. The one that said he saw right through me.
“I shouldn’t be a mother. My mother shouldn’t have been a mother…but you would make a great father, Grayson.” He really would, he cared so much about his family. Grayson Crowne’s biggest secret wasn’t that he was a virgin, it was that the notorious playboy prince, known worldwide for being callous and imperious, loved his family and would do anything for them.
A small smile. “No, you would make a great mother, Story.”
It was fainter than a blurry Polaroid, but it was there, the image of Grayson and me, and our newborn. A happy family. A happily ever after. And no sooner did the picture come, did it vanish with his next words.
“I’ll be there for you, Snitch. I’ll hold your hair back. I’ll get you ice chips. Let you scream and hold my arm until you break the skin.” He stopped off, staring off somewhere I couldn’t follow.
And then what? What comes after, when the delivery is finished? He’ll go back to his wife and I’ll disappear.
“June…” That was my due date. “Almost a year to the day when this all started.”
“It’s hard picturing you gone from my life, Snitch.” He had the same look in his eyes as he had in the car, at the doctor’s office. I don’t know what it meant, but it made my gut tighten and throb.
Then he said, “Mistletoe, Snitch.”
I lifted my eyes.
It was like every stolen moment over the past months had been leading up to this second. We had a leak slowly eroding the moral line between us, and now that hanging flower above us was the final drop.
The moment in the car. My uncle’s funeral. Hell…just every time we found ourselves alone together, something popped, something very unfriendlike.
I stepped closer as Grayson’s lids dropped.
“I’ve missed your blush, Snitch,” he rasped. “Missed the way your cheeks heat up like glowing amber. You know, it’s so subtle. It’s like another secret just for me.”
As if on command, my cheeks heated.
He dragged his thumb down my cheek with a barely-there smile. “There it is.”
Bad. Wrong.
But I don’t care anymore.
I angled my chin.
Then the doors behind us opened.
Grayson and I stepped apart as Tansy Crowne, Josephine St. Germaine, and Lynette du Lac filled the space between us. Gemma and her fiancé were behind them, and behind them, Gray’s wife and West.
My husband.
“Just in time,” Tansy said.
Behind us, a caravan of town cars was pulling up round the cobblestone driveway. The holidays. The remaining Crownes had just arrived.
The snow globe Gray and I had been building all day with sugar glass slowly fell apart around us, crashing to the floor.
Tansy Crowne, accompanied by a murder of servants at her back descended the white marble steps of Crowne Hall.
West came to me first, wrapping his arm around my waist as he had earlier. “I thought for sure you’d beat me.”
“I…”
Gray didn’t stop staring at me, even as Lottie came and took his hand.
If Gray and I had just stuck to the plan, we wouldn’t be getting caught like this. How do we even begin to explain why we were out here together? My car was supposed to take me home, but instead I was with Gray.
This was getting more muddled each day.
“We’re under the mistletoe,” Lottie said softly.
Both Gray and I lifted our eyes. Mine burned—it was like the pretty evergreen leaves were made with fire.
Lottie stood on her tiptoes for a kiss, and Gray returned it.
I turned from the sight, to West. “Mistletoe.”
The word came out robotic.
West arched a dark brow, but he tightened the arm around my waist and pulled me close.
“This would have made for a more romantic kiss,” West said. “I should have waited.”
“Should have waited?” Grayson repeated.
I ignored the way his growl made me feel and leaned in for West’s lips, letting the kiss happen. My eyes remained open, as did Grayson’s. As he kissed Lottie and I kissed West, Grayson watched me.
No, he bruised and burned me with his gaze.
My heart felt like a violin bow used too much. Over and over again it played the same hideous melody. I wondered if the song hurt Grayson as much as it did me.
“What a perfect pair of pairs,” Mrs. du Lac murmured.
Thirty-Six
STORY
* * *
Crowne Hall during the holidays was a haunted, beautiful thing. With Swarovski icicles dangling from the balconies that glittered in the winter sun. A stark white twelve-foot Christmas tree jutting up two floors and icy garland along the bannisters.
It was a winter fairy tale, but it was more akin to being invited to the ice queen’s castle.
I remembered setting this up as a servant. The painstaking hours we spent hand-cutting lace snowflakes, polishing the icicles, being reprimanded when the air didn’t smell of fresh gingerbread in one hallway and peppermint in the other.
“What the hell was that kiss?”
“You’re supposed to be talking to your cousins from Luxembourg,” I mumbled.
“What was he talking about, another kiss?” He grabbed my bicep. “Did you kiss West?”
I rolled my shoulders back. “Yes.”
His eyes were locked on my lips. “Don’t kiss him again, Snitch.”
My chest pounded. “Or what?”
He stepped to me, clasping my lower lip between his thumb and forefinger. “You’ve forgotten so much, little nun. These are my lips.”
My gaze darted around the twinkling foyer. Anyone could see us.
I was about to move, step away, but then his next words froze me.
“It’s been too long since I’ve kissed my little nun.” The possessive, dark look in his eyes turned tender. Longing.
I swallowed a sigh that scraped down my chest.
I missed his kiss.
I ached for it.
I tried to step away, but his touch turned bruising, holding me in place by my lips. So I violently yanked back, gasping at the sharp pain.
“You don’t get to tell me who to kiss anymore, Grayson,” I said, holding my bottom lip. “You’re supposed to be my friend.”
“If you didn’t want me to own them, then you never should have fucking kissed me,” he growled.
A ripple slid up my spine and twisted my gut. Sparks and tingles and something wrong. I breathed like I’d run a marathon, locked on his lips. Looking for any distraction, I took off my coat. Gray’s jaw clenched, taking in the outfit West had picked out.
“What the hell is that?”
“A dress.”
He dragged his hands through his hair. “This isn’t you, Snitch.”
“You’re one to talk. You’ve changed, Grayson, or should I say, Mr. Crowne.”
His jaw twerked.
“What the hell is it to you how I dress and who I kiss, anyway?”
His eyes darkened. “I’m the father of your child.”
“So you get to tell me how to dress?” I met his eyes with a glare. “You were next to me on that porch. Are you going to tell me that you don’t kiss your wife?”
“If I do?”
“Whatever Lottie does to you…”
&
nbsp; I sounded petty.
I hated that I sounded petty.
“So if I fuck Lottie in the ass, you’re going to let West fuck you in the ass?” he demanded.
I froze so I didn’t flinch. “Yeah. I am.”
He stepped back, examining me. “You have thorns around your heart now, Snitch.”
His words hit me like a punch to the chest. I swallowed, trying to work past the emotion.
“And you have secrets burying yours, Grayson.”
Grayson worked his jaw back and forth. Across the room, I spotted West coming to me, through with talking to one of Grayson’s great-aunts.
“I want to tell you everything, Snitch,” he said, “but I won’t make any more promises I can’t keep.”
What the hell am I supposed to do with that?
I swallowed. “I don’t care. I won’t let you in. Ever again.”
I didn’t trust my words.
Grayson dragged his pinky across his lower lip, an action I now knew meant he was barely holding himself back.
“I don’t care if you hate me forever. I’ll cut myself on you. I’ll bleed. You’re worth it, Story Hale.”
“You said you were letting me go!”
“I—fuck.” He looked away, dragging his hands through his hair.
“Damn, Angel,” West said as he got to me, weaving his arm around my waist. “I like this dress on you.” He pressed his lips to my cheek.
It felt wrong and my gut tightened.
But I liked the look in Grayson’s eyes, as though he was two seconds away from punching West in the face and tackling me to the ground.
I thumbed my locket later that night with more desire to open it and see what was inside. I felt like if I opened it, I would end us for real, though.
This was all wrong. I was supposed to be moving on, not tangling myself deeper into his briars.
My phone buzzed.
Are you asleep?
I climbed up, sitting against my headboard, pulling my sheets with me and staring at the message the entire time.
Am I asleep?
I started typing out a response, then quickly deleted it and tossed my phone to the bed, breathing like I’d just run a marathon.
Space.
We need space.
A second later my phone vibrated again.
I know you’re awake. I saw you typing.
I put my mouth to my hand, fighting the urge to pick up my phone.
Though still in my bed, my thoughts go out to you, my Immortal Beloved.
And with that, I crumbled.
“Beethoven,” I whispered, even though he couldn’t hear me. I picked up my phone, lids heavy, body heavy.
Exhausted.
I’d been fighting this invisible force inside me from the moment Grayson and I collided in the antique room. Every molecule wanted to go to him.
Just give in.
At night…it was easier to stop fighting. Ignore the reasons why I had to fight. So I sent him one of my favorites from Zelda Fitzgerald to F. Scott.
I love these velvet nights. I’ve never been able to decide … whether I love you most in the eternal classic half-lights where it blends with day or in the full religious fan-fare of mid-night or perhaps in the lux of noon.
I waited in the dark for his response. My phone vibrated.
I can’t be clever and stand-offish with you: I love you too much for that. Too truly. You have no idea how stand-offish I can be with people I don’t love. I have brought it to a fine art. But you have broken down my defenses. And I don’t really resent it.
I knew the letter instantly, remembered the day I’d read it even. Vita Sackville-West to Virginia Woolf. Remembered wondering if I’d ever find someone to love me that way. I held my phone with both hands to my chest, staring out at the inky star-speckled sky.
Love.
His poem had said love. It wasn’t like we were saying the words aloud. We hadn’t even written them ourselves. It was nothing more than showing a friend something someone else had read.
So why did it feel like we were expressing something that was deep?
Buried.
I typed my next words, bleeding, bleeding.
If only I were a clever woman, I would tell you that you are the greatest marvel of all ages, and I should only be speaking the simple truth…You are not only the solar spectrum with the seven luminous colors, but the sun himself, that illumines, warms, and revivifies! This is what you are, and I am the lowly woman that adores you.
Juliette Drouet to Victor Hugo.
My phone vibrated within seconds.
My love has made me selfish. I cannot exist without you.
Keats.
He said love again, or…Keats did. My heart pounded and pounded in my chest as I wrote out my response, but before I could, my phone vibrated.
I miss you in my sheets, Snitch. I miss you on the floor. I fucking miss you. The longer I spend without you, the more I wonder if you’ll really have to chain me to the fucking bed when you leave. Or maybe…I’ll follow. Would you like that?
The phone seemed to grow brighter the longer I stared at it.
Grayson.
That was only Grayson.
Each breath I took was stuttering and rocky. Without a poem to hide behind, I wasn’t sure what to say. How much to reveal.
I had it on the tip of my tongue.
I miss nighttime with you.
I miss sleeping side by side with you.
I miss seeing your crooked nose in the dark, the way your lips curve when I say something too brazen.
I miss the secrets you’d whisper in the dark, only for me.
Do you share them with her?
Could you really leave her…could you really leave with me? Aren’t we too far gone?
But in the end, I said nothing.
Because, in the end, he was sleeping next to her.
I kept the text open, staring at his words as my fingers drifted to his mark on my thigh. I pushed down, imagining Grayson’s growl urging me on.
Harder.
Sparks.
Fire.
Grays—
My mind came to a stuttering, screeching halt as my eyes landed on my now-open door.
I scrambled up my bed, grabbing the sheets as I went. “What the hell are you doing?”
Grayson was in my bedroom, bedhead hair wild and falling over wilder eyes. How long had he been there? What had he seen?
He either didn’t hear me or didn’t care. He walked straight to my nightstand, and then, eagle-eyed, looked at me, zeroing on my hand, my phone. He grabbed it, turning it over, as if inspecting for damage.
He studied me, his eyes searching. I held my blanket to my chest, flushed and embarrassed. Had he come all this way to gloat? He was married, he had all the power, he wasn’t even here, and still I caved.
But all at once, he exhaled. Deep and long, as though something seriously heavy had been crushing his chest.
He dragged his hands through his hair, blue eyes pinning me. “Answer your fucking phone, Snitch.”
He tossed it in my bed, leaving without another word.
Thirty-Seven
STORY
* * *
The next morning I woke to another text.
When I am with you, we stay up all night. When you’re not here, I can’t go to sleep.
It was the poet Rumi. A smile came to my face, but I quickly squashed it.
Grayson was sending me love notes, even if we weren’t acknowledging that’s what they were…they were love notes. Like the ones my favorite poets used to send. My heart thumped, just as the door to my room burst open.
I pulled my sheet up to my chest, as one by one, servants dressed in black tore into my closet, ripping out my clothes, following each other out of my room like a line of ants.
My questions died on my lips. At first, I thought the servants had officially snapped and given up hiding their hatred for me. Then West came into the room.
“What’s going on?” I asked, still watching the servants carry my things out of the room.
“Apparently this wing is being fumigated.”
The way he spoke alluded to his disbelief.
“Fumigated? Just this one?”
“I’m being moved to the north, and you’re being moved to the south.”
I pushed my cheek with my tongue. “That’s… interesting.”
A servant came out of my closet, carrying the one dress I’d picked myself. Forgetting modesty, I dropped my sheets and dashed after him. I snatched it out of his hands.
“I need something to wear today.”
He eyed me coldly and kept walking.
Hours after Grayson left, the sun had risen, and I still sat in my pajamas, thinking. Grayson had poked at so many of my wounds.
A soft knock on the door had me lifting my head. I mumbled something about coming in, and West appeared, fully dressed for the day. I had some kind of appointment with the du Lacs and the Crownes, a tea date at the most exclusive tearoom in Crowne Point, probably in the East Coast.
Seeing me in my pajamas, he raised a brow.
“I’ve been thinking…I don’t want to go,” I said. “All this press isn’t a good idea. It doesn’t feel right.”
I want to eventually go back to who I was.
Blending in among everyone.
Just me, Story, not Cinderella, not anyone.
This was never supposed to be part of it.
West frowned. “Angel, have you not looked online?”
Not since I saw the last trend, a person who discovered how my mother had died. Everyone was having a field day with that. Cinderella’s mother was supposed to die silently, peacefully, with roses atop her grave.
Not with track marks in her arm.
I felt exposed. Violated. I wanted to pretend it wasn’t happening.
“Not recently,” was all I said.
He loosed a deep exhale that settled like lead in my gut, then came to sit beside me. He pulled out his phone, and all he did was search my name.
I stared at the results in dismay.
The STORY of How the Slutty Stepsister Stole Cinderella’s Spot
Forbidden Fate Page 24
