“Didn’t tell me what?” West’s voice was ice water down my spine.
Grayson’s gaze slid over my shoulder, cold.
I didn’t want to tell West.
I tried to think of anything else I can tell West.
“About…” I squinted my eye, thinking. “How I talked to the triplets.”
He exhaled a sigh. “I’m disappointed, I thought we were a team, Angel. So, you think the coin is in the graveyard?”
“If you heard me, why did you fucking act like you didn’t?”
West tilted his head. “I think you know the answer to that.”
I folded my arms, pissed.
“Let’s go now.” I stared at Grayson. Urgency like hot peppers in my blood.
“Sure,” West laughed. “That won’t be fucking obvious.” As if on cue, workers walked in the window behind West, to attend to Josephine’s grave.
“Then when?”
“New Year’s,” West said.
My shoulders dropped. “New Year’s? That’s so far away.” And so…morbid. Digging up a graveyard while fireworks popped overhead.
“My father will be gone by then, and Tansy has her firework show. Everyone will be distracted.”
Grayson had been uncharacteristically quiet during this entire conversation. I looked to him, eyes wide and pleading.
“That works,” he gritted.
West threw his arms around Grayson and me, squeezing us close. “Look at us working together. We should come up with some kind of special team handshake. Maybe we spit on our fingers, and together shove it up—”
Grayson stepped out of West’s hug and I put myself between them before he could make true on the threat in his eyes.
“We just have to survive it,” I whispered, gripping Grayson’s suit lapels.
“And then what, Snitch?” he growled. “What will become of us after we’ve survived?”
Fear clogged my throat. “What are you saying?”
“Nothing.” He looked away, taking a step back. My fingers slipped from him, holding on to air.
West laughed at my back. “Come on, Angel. We still have a few nights before the new year.”
I took a step toward Grayson, but his eyes stopped me. “Go, Snitch.”
My. Fault. Move on.
As West led me away, I couldn’t help but feel that night had become something…another thorn on the vine weaving us together, thick and bloody, and the more we acted like it didn’t exist, the deeper those thorns dove.
The harder it would be to pull them out.
Thirty-Three
Dear Atlas,
I remember that night in flashbacks of sensation.
Sometimes it’s sound. Your voice, an arrogant, sweet echo.
That night when he talked, it was your voice I heard, sliding down my marrow.
Or sometimes it’s the sounds I made.
The whimpers, the groans.
I made new ones for you but I never destroyed the old ones.
When I groan, do I want him? I don’t know how I can, when I only want to give my sounds to you.
I need to give them to you.
But they came from my body and they went into his.
I want to be horribly selfish. I want to ask things of you I don’t deserve, things I can’t even whisper. I want you to destroy the old ones.
Lay claim to my mouth, because it’s yours.
Yours to mark.
Yours to ruin.
Exorcise these groans from my body.
Raze anything he ever touched—including me.
Thirty-Four
STORY
And then what? What will become of us after we’ve survived?
I felt like I was walking on cracked ice going into New Year’s.
Would we find the coin? Would it end? What would become of Grayson and me, after all of this?
“You’ll crack the polish, miss,” my girl said.
I exhaled, dropping my hands to my lap—I’d been fidgeting with the clear coat of polish forced on my nails.
My girl went back to braiding my hair, and I looked out my frosted window. It wasn’t dark yet, but yachts had been docking all morning. A ball had been built over the weekend, placed a few meters into the ocean, and tonight it would drop into the dark waters as it exploded fireworks into the sky.
This party was second only to Fourth of July, and anyone who was anyone would be here. Dignitaries, socialites, actors and rock stars, politicians and their children. They spent all year angling for an invitation, and all I could think was…was this the night Grayson and I could escape?
After affixing white gold cuffs and diamonds in my braids, my girl left me for a moment, and I pulled out my phone. Tell me your words, Grayson had said.
All your words.
I could send him this, at least.
Dear Atlas,
It’s New Year’s Eve and all I can think about is getting a kiss from you. How silly is that? We have so much more important things on our plate…but all I want is one kiss from you.
“Mr. du Lac has requested you wear a tiara for the party.”
I set my phone down, looking into my girl’s clear eyes through the mirror. She held up a glittering tiara, smaller than the Crowne one, and a perfect accent to the box braids she’d spent all morning and most of the afternoon on.
“Mr. du Lac can go fuck himself,” I gritted.
My girl’s eyes widened. I exhaled through my nostrils. I don’t know if I’d ever get used to having a girl—to being waited on—but it wasn’t fair to take it out on her.
“May I see the tiara?” I asked.
She handed me the glittery thing with wonder in her eyes. I turned it over, the diamonds catching in the light. It would complement the dress chosen for tonight perfectly.
I snapped it.
“Oh no,” I cooed. “It broke in transit.”
She gasped. “That was hundreds of years old.”
“So are a lot of things that need to be broken…”
She set the broken crown on the vanity, and then we moved to the dress hanging in the window. It was made of silver and sparkling tulle like stardust. It looked a little bit like the first dress Grayson had ever bought for me.
To my left, on the vanity, the broken crown sparkled, refracting the overcast light from the window. My past, present, and future swirled around.
Servant. Snitch. Cinderella. Stepsister Slut. Was I ever just Story?
“What do they say about her now?”
“Miss?” she asked absently, fiddling with the bow at my back.
“The Cinderella, what does the story say about her now?”
Her fingers paused for a moment, before she continued. “In some versions, she was a servant who fell in love with the heir at Crowne Hall, but he was mean and cruel, and the du Lac man saved her by making her his mistress. In others, it’s reversed. The heir fell in love with her, but he was betrothed.”
She told me all the different versions, all bits and pieces of reality, but none the actual truth. It was like it had become…corrupted.
“And they think it’s me?”
“I think at this point we all pretend we’re the Cinderella. It’s like a fairy tale to us.”
“This is my life. I’m not a fairy tale,” I whispered. “I’m a real person.”
“You said you weren’t her, miss.”
Our eyes met in the window.
“Where is the tiara?”
We both turned at the voice. West wore a simple black tux, but it fit him perfectly. His bow tie was the same glittery material as my dress, and I wanted to rip it from his neck.
She curtsied for West, then quickly left the room.
“It broke in transit,” I said.
His eyes narrowed. “It’s survived three revolutions and two world wars, but it couldn’t survive one afternoon with you?”
I shrugged. The muscle in his jaw ticked, like he was trying to suppress a smile. His eyes dragged down my body.
Starting at my eyes, down my neck, lingering on my stomach.
He rubbed his jaw. “Do you know why people kiss on New Year’s?”
I didn’t, but my gut did that thing, that West thing, where I felt like I was about to step into a trap. So I stayed quiet.
He smiled, and held out his arm to me. “I’ll be sure to tell you later tonight.”
GRAY
Night had fallen on Crowne Hall, and I waited for Story to come down to the party. Yachts had docked off our private beach, each one filled with its own private debauchery. Later tonight, they’d go off into international waters, where laws wouldn’t apply to them.
Those yachts were fucking dangerous.
The triplets still hadn’t left. Across the ballroom, they watched me.
For the first time in over a decade, I had the strangest urge to go and talk to them. They would have to go back to school soon as they went to a similar boarding school as I had, and it was year-round. After the new year, they’d be gone.
My mother approached me, blocking my view of them. She was in a bright and glittering gold gown I’m sure she would say tastefully shone.
“Your sister is missing.” She waved a hand in the air on a sigh. “And your wife is looking for you.”
If she was talking about Lottie, I highly fucking doubt it.
“You’ll find her next to Lynette who, by some strange coincidence of fate I’m sure, is wearing a very similar dress to mine…”
I zoned out my mother’s passive-aggressive rant, which would take the next five to ten minutes.
I checked my Finsta for more secrets from Story, but only found photo after photo of tonight’s debauchery.
A princess from some small, little known European country doing a line of cocaine off a hockey player’s cock.
Two assholes lighting something on fire.
And my “missing” sister, clearly high on something, dancing on the bow of a yacht.
That was the New Year’s I knew. Bored rich kids trying to outdo each other. Not this, my mother’s parties, which were so rigid in their opulence, it was as if they were trying to make up for the darker world living directly parallel to it.
This time last year I was blitzed out of my fucking brain. Now I was almost too sober.
Too aware of my empty inbox.
I was getting impatient waiting for Snitch to tell me her secrets. Impatient and…fuck. I don’t know.
Eager.
I felt like a voyeur. A pervert in my own wife’s soul. I was addicted to the secrets, strung out on pieces of her soul. Maybe that was why I didn’t tell her, maybe it was entirely fucking selfish.
Lay claim to my mouth, because it’s yours.
Her words spun like a drug in my blood.
I don’t know what the fuck I’ll do if she keeps denying me access.
“Grayson?” My mother tapped my shoulder. “Did you hear me?”
“Yeah. Lynette stole your look.”
She laughed. “I wouldn’t say that. I wouldn’t not say that…but that isn’t what I meant. Your wife—”
Whatever my mother was saying completely faded into the background.
Story.
Hands down the most beautiful person in this room. Silver was her color.
Fuck.
All colors were her color.
She looked like a fucking princess.
Her eyes scanned the ballroom, searching, until she found me.
And then she stopped.
Smiled.
Melted.
Neruda she mouthed, before West dragged her off in a different direction.
I don’t know how I’m going to get her alone and give her the kiss she asked for, but if I had to start a fucking fire to clear the place, I would.
“Ah, there she is,” my mother said. She pointed toward the seven-foot Times Square ball drop re-creation that people had been taking selfies near all night. In script below the glowing ball it read: A New Crowne Year.
Lottie stood next to her mother, and I knew what was coming next. Go join Lottie, go be a good husband and father.
I left before my mother could say it aloud.
“Grayson!” Lynette crooned. “You look so handsome. More and more like your father every day.” I swore I saw a flash in her eyes. “Well, I’ll leave you two alone.” She winked at Lottie and left us.
Lottie watched her mother walk away, eyes glassy. “They want us to kiss, and then they’ll say it was taken at midnight. Our New Year’s kiss. So fucking romantic.”
“Lottie—”
She turned to me. “I told my mother we’d meet them on the terrace after, for the fireworks, but I think in a few minutes I’m going to get really sick…and maybe I won’t be able to take this photo.” Her eyes met mine, letting her true meaning sink in.
I didn’t know what to do with this new Lottie.
I didn’t know how to trust her.
On the terrace, her mother and mine watched us as we talked.
“I…” I rubbed the back of my neck.
I’m sorry I’m not the father of our child you deserve.
I’m sorry your dream turned into a nightmare.
I’m sorry.
“I’m gonna go.”
“Of course,” she said easily.
I slipped out of the ballroom as she went to join her mother and mine on the terrace. It wasn’t even ten-thirty, but maybe I could hide in our room, and when Story got the chance, she’d do the same.
STORY
A servant walked by with a tray of sparklers topping trifles in champagne flutes. I watched them disappear into the crowd, gold sparks bursting.
I hadn’t seen Grayson again, but he’d responded to my message, and I clung to his five words:
Anything for you, little wife.
It was still early in the night, the sun a glimmering orange line on the horizon. Tansy’s famous hour-long midnight firework show hadn’t begun, and I know we’d agreed to wait until just before then, but I wanted to leave now.
Be free of West before another year began.
As if sensing I was thinking about Grayson, West pulled me tight against his hip. “Want to make a bet? You’ll sleep in my bed tonight.”
“This again.” I pushed off him. “I’m not dumb, West. It’s a catch-22. If I choose you, then I don’t choose Grayson, and I have no need to sleep with you.”
“Ah, but, it’s the only way to save your prince, and you and Grayson have a bad habit of martyring yourselves. It gets so lonely in my bed… I might be tempted to share a video if you’re not there.”
I turned to glare, and West was already staring down at me intently.
“Westley du Lac.”
We both turned at the voice. I found myself looking into green eyes—I knew this guy, Hollywood, the guy Grayson nearly ended for just holding my hand at Unknown.
“Will I see you tonight? Both of you?” I could feel his eyes.
By the earnest way he watched me, I doubted he was wondering whether or not we were going to make it for Tansy’s annual firework display.
“We’ll see,” West said, then placed his hand on my lower waist, steering me away.
“What’s happening tonight?” I whispered.
“Irrelevant.”
“West!” someone called for him, beckoning wildly. West’s grip tightened on my waist, hard. “Du Lac!” The guy called.
“Don’t move from this spot,” West said. “And stop. Fucking. Talking.” I watched him join some guys who looked like they should be roofying the punch.
With him gone, I searched for Grayson. I hadn’t seen him in over thirty minutes.
I looked out over the room. At Abigail laughing with her sister Gemma. A year ago, I would have thought that an impossibility. Maybe absence really did make the heart grow fonder. The St. Germaines looked entirely bored on their phones. Across the ballroom, Hollywood watched me, his green eyes bright. Giving me goose bumps.
“Do you remember last Fourth of July?”<
br />
I turned, finding Lottie had sidled up to me.
“We met on the boat?”
I nodded.
She tilted her head, eyes misty as she recalled. “They’re going to go out on the yacht tonight and the biggest thing they have to worry about is their outfits. I am so jealous of them, Story. I remember spending all week finding that green dress, worrying if it showed too much skin…wishing he’d notice. I wanted Grayson to notice me.”
The life drained from her body again, like the memory stole all her happiness.
“He did,” I whispered.
Her eyes popped, head swiveling when I spoke.
“I was so jealous of you,” I said. “I knew he wanted you, that you were perfect for each other, but I was jealous he kept choosing you, anyway.”
Her eyes watered. “You gave me that pen and I thought I could trust you.”
I swallowed a lump in my throat. “I didn’t mean to fall in love with him.”
She sniffed. “I don’t even think I love Grayson anymore, Story, but… God, it hurts.”
“He’s still there? Like a rusted, flaking piece of your heart?”
Her brows caved. “Yes—”
“Oh my God, Lottie!” Aundi stumbled over, gripping her friend’s arm. Pipa stumbled close by. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you. Why are you still inside? Only old people hang out here.”
“Wait…” Pipa tapped Aundi’s arm excitedly. “She can’t get drunk.”
Aundi made a pouty face. “What are you even going to do tonight?”
“You could, though,” Pipa said. “We won’t tell. My mom drank with me and I’m fine.”
“I think I’ll pass,” Lottie said. “Thanks, though.”
“Come on. Come on. Come on.” They both goaded.
“Grayson’s not even here, so why are you?”
And. Don’t. Fucking. Talk.
“You know exactly where Grayson is,” I blurted. “Shocker. You know, even if Grayson did get enough brain damage to go for one of you, you would never be his number one choice.”
They both tilted their heads, as if seeing me for the first time, eyes sharp and venomous.
“So, what’s it like going from wife to mistress?”
Destroyed Destiny (Crowne Point Book 4) Page 20
