I swallowed a gasp at the sudden, sharp pain any memory of Grayson seemed to elicit. I held my stomach, riding the wave. When I came out of it, the guards were gone, and West was watching me intently.
I blinked, feeling caught. “What?”
“What did I say about being alone with my parents?”
“Believe me,” I gritted. “It wasn’t really a choice.”
His eyes narrowed. “What did you do?”
“Nothing,” I hissed.
West grabbed my elbow, twisting my body and forcing my glare. “What did you do, Story?”
I yanked my elbow free. “Nothing.” I rubbed my neck, hot. “Why was your dad even here?”
He stared at me, but I refused to give him an inch.
“You have an hour to get ready.” He looked over my shoulder, and the guards grabbed me, dragging me back to my room.
But before the door shut, he said to my back. “I’m not the bad guy, Story.”
He was.
He had to be.
Still, an inky feeling settled in my gut. At the look in Arthur’s eyes. At the way West’s brows drew together, the way his voice caught on my name. Not Angel—Story. Like he was truly concerned.
I slid down my double doors, pulling out my phone.
Dear Atlas,
My heart is rusty.
What if he didn’t rape me?
What if…what if I’m like my mother?
What if because I chose the second time, it means the first was never wrong?
Atlas…Every little flake that falls from my heart leaves me with another what if.
GRAY
Dear little wife,
I would scrape the rust off your heart.
If you’d let me.
—Atlas
Every morning I started by sending Story two messages. First, a message to her phone where she read it directly. Then something else—a secret, from Atlas.
This wasn’t planned, but then she kept sending me secrets, truths she wasn’t ready to say aloud, and I grew addicted.
Story’s secrets were mine.
Every. Single. Goddamn one of them. The ones she kept from herself, the ones she wasn’t ready to tell, every single fucking one.
“Grayson, so glad you finally made it downstairs.” My mother snapped me back into reality—the reality where another pointless Crowne party continued, as though Josephine wasn’t found on the terrace just outside.
My mother exhaled. “I would have chosen a lighter suit…Lottie is wearing rose and you will clash.”
She wrapped her arm around mine, leading me through a crowd of wide-eyes toward Lottie, so I could play pretend husband.
“With your grandfather gone—”
“And where is grandfather, again?” I cut her off.
He might be gone, but the world still spun on his axis. My guards still watched me with beady eyes. So wherever the fuck he went, it wasn’t good.
She tilted her head, blinking blue eyes like I’d asked what two plus two was. “Switzerland, of course.”
“Couldn’t even stay for the funeral?”
She put two fingers to her temple. “Please don’t remind me. It’s hard enough planning your child’s birth on top of New Year’s, now we have this.”
“Was Josephine’s death a bit of an inconvenience for you?”
She smiled tightly, but said nothing as we landed next to Lynette and Lottie and a horde of reporters. Lottie seemed surprised to see me, and that made my chest ache more. She was expecting to be left here.
Alone.
To face a horde of vultures.
“Good to see you’ve finally joined us, Grayson,” Lynette said with a smile.
I gave her my best fake grin. I thought I hated Lottie, but it was nothing compared to what I feel for her mother.
Visceral.
Everyone stood around Lottie on her chaise, talking to various reporters with easy and rehearsed smiles. While Lynette and my mother crooned about the baby, Arthur talked about what it meant for the vision of Du Lac and Crowne Industries. My sister, still hungover from the night before, leaned against her fiancé as he looked at his phone.
The Christmas tree hadn’t been taken down yet, the smell of pine overpowering. Behind it, the gilded floor-to-ceiling windows displayed an icy beach.
My mother had planned this long before Josephine died—this seemingly candid family photo op. Everyone was here, everyone save the one person who should be.
“Oh, the Crowne family bassinet!” My mother said to some question a reporter asked. “It’s an antique that dates back to our noble ancestors in England.” My mother sounded drunk at the idea, eyes rosy.
“How in the hell is that still safe?” Gemma blurted, looking up from her phone.
“Well it housed you just fine, Gemma…”
“I think it’s the size of an avocado,” Lottie whispered to another question.
Lottie looked…off. I tried to muster that decency that existed somewhere inside me. When she spoke, her words were barely above a whisper. She reminded me of an old doll whose cracks had been repainted too many times.
I should hate Lottie for everything she’d done. For forcing me into a pregnancy she had no right to, but I just felt…an ache. A twist. Deep in my chest. Every fuck-up, from beginning to end, had been collaborative.
For the first time in months, I looked outside of myself.
Outside of Snitch.
And I looked at Lottie, one-fourth of this fucked up equation.
“Lottie, are you feeling well?” I asked, low so no one could hear us.
She waved me off. “I’m fine, Grayson.”
“Grayson! Lottie!” some paparazzo called.
Lottie turned to them automatically.
I turned to them. “You’ll wait.”
I gripped Lottie’s chin, dragging her gaze back to mine. I didn’t know what to say to her. What I could say. She didn’t deserve this. We were both fucking trapped.
“They’re such a sweet couple,” someone in the crowd whispered.
“Look at how he dotes on her.”
Her face collapsed as if reading my thoughts. I could physically see every muscle cave in. But all she said was a soft, “We have a show to put on.”
She turned back to the cameras, and something inside me snapped. I grasped her wrist, pulling her off the chaise and pushing aside cameras.
“Grayson…” My mother warned in her saccharine tone.
I ignored her—I ignored Lynette calling after us, too, and dragged both Lottie and myself through the party, until we were alone on the terrace.
Lottie blinked at me. “What are you doing?”
For once, the terrace was all but empty—it was too cold. Would they even care if they knew a death had occurred the night before? They only came to these parties to gawk at us like elephants of old menageries, anyway.
“It’s fucking disgusting,” I snapped. “Josephine died yesterday. We’re in there giving an interview about pregnancy diets.”
Lottie looked at me like I’d grown two heads.
“What?”
“Why are you acting so surprised? This is our life. This has always been our life.”
“I was never okay with any of this.”
She scoffed and I raised my brows.