“You’re Grayson Crowne. You’re Playboy Gray. You were the fucking poster boy for all of this. If we had just followed the path they’d laid out for us, we never would have noticed the blood beneath the cobblestone.”
I took a step back.
Damn.
Bloody.
Raw.
Jagged.
Truth.
Lottie looked around. “You gave me an orchid out here once… I hate orchids.”
I quirked my head, shocked at that. “Aren’t they your favorite flower?”
“They’re supposed to be,” she said.
I looked around at the servants with downcast eyes. No matter how many times I said they could look me in the eye the past couple of weeks, my mother and my grandfather, still told them to keep their eyes down.
I looked at Horace, my sister’s fiancé since, fuck, age thirteen?
I never batted an eye at that.
None of us did.
Suddenly, my world was too bloody. The gold chocolate fountain streamed it. The walls oozed black.
“I need a fucking breath.”
“Stay.” Lottie waved me off. “I’ll go and tell everyone you’re getting me lemons. I’ll pretend it’s a pregnancy craving, and no one will fucking notice, because I’m not allowed to talk about my allergy.”
She started to laugh.
“I…” My brow furrowed, not sure what to make of her help—or her descent into laughter. “Thanks, Lottie.”
She nodded in a wispy, not-quite-there way, then left.
For a few minutes, I was alone with my thoughts and the shivering, salty breeze. Then I saw her—Story. Leaning over the terrace and staring out at the cruel ocean. Sand and snow whispered around her, and she looked like a princess trapped in a snow globe.
Her perfect gingerbread cheeks shone—she was crying.
I wanted to trail my fingers along her spine.
I wanted her words.
I wanted to tear the fucker out of her. Rip out that jagged shard that made her bleed.
I want her blood on my hands.
But even on the empty terrace, that would be too obvious. So I dug my fingers into my pockets, and went to her. I leaned in the opposite direction against the railing, a good space of distance between us.
“Little wife, why are you crying?”
She startled. “If anyone sees you—”
“Stop warning me, Snitch,” I growled. “I know the consequences.”
She dragged her bottom lip between her teeth, nodding.
I repeated my question, voice harder. “Why are you crying, Snitch?”
She sniffed, wiping snot from beneath her nose. “Just…hormones.”
My heart is rusty.
I remembered her letter to me. The one she thought I wasn’t reading. Did she think I’d judge her? That I’d think her soul wouldn’t shine so diamond bright? A secret for a secret maybe…so I leaned back on the stone railing.
“I can’t look at Lottie anymore, Snitch. Not because of what she did to me, but because of what I’ve become.”
Her eyes grew, and she leaned just a little bit closer.
“I’ve treated her horribly. I should at least treat her with some modicum of kindness for the child she carries inside her, and I just…I can’t look at her. I fucking hate her. I hate myself.”
Silence stretched, the ocean our whispering voyeur. I was starting to think she’d never let me in. Then her raspy voice carried softly on the waves.
“He’s bad,” she whispered “He’s cruel, but then…sometimes he’s not. You are my soul, my light, but he is in me, Grayson.”
Side by side, we stared forward at opposite directions—her at the beach, me at the party inside. But we’d moved closer, until her arm was flush against mine. Her lips were tauntingly close, all I’d have to do was turn my neck to the side, and we’d collide.
“He is in my heart,” she continued. “He is a rusted, flaking piece of my heart.”
I shifted, crossing one leg over the other. I shouldn’t be getting hard at this, at my wife crying, at her pain, but it’s like fucking heroin when she tells me her secrets. I crave her dirty insides, the parts she thinks I don’t want to hear.
Only I’ve been there.
Story licked her lips, pupils dilated.
I wondered if she was like me.
We were in view, so I couldn’t touch her, but I could talk, I could weave the fantasy around us so thick it became a mirage.
Our pinkies touched. It was just our fingers, but it was dangerous.
Illicit.
Right.
She curved her pinky around mine—
“There you are.”
We both jolted, the fantasy shattered, then spun.
Arthur du Lac stood on the terrace, staring at Story as if he’d won. Behind him were Lynette, my mother, West, and even Lottie. Dread wrapped around my gut.
“A bit cold for pictures on the terrace,” I said, measured.
“What’s going on, Arthur?” Lynette asked. “Why did you drag us away from the party?”
Arthur’s beady eyes hadn’t left Story, and I looked to her. Something had happened, it was clear by the anger in her stony gaze.
“A mistress overstepped her bounds this morning.” Arthur glanced to West. “I tried telling you she was poorly trained.”
West’s brow knitted. “What did you do, Angel?”
Before Story could speak, Arthur grinned—triumphant. “She assaulted me.” Arthur turned to Story. “Get on your knees, Mistress.”
STORY
“On your knees.”
For the first time in I don’t know how many years, I hesitated.
The number of times I’d had to fall to my knees ran through me like electric shocks. Years of living with the Crownes, drilling obedience into me until I forgot who I was, until I knew only to fall to my knees.
I glared at Arthur. He was attacking a maid—was I not supposed to intervene? There was a slight, darkening bump above his brow. I felt no remorse. I wished it was bigger.
Grayson took a step, and I saw his intent in his coiled fist, in veins throbbing along his wrist and neck.
“Neruda,” I whispered, and he froze.
He threw me a wild, deranged look over his shoulder. I pleaded with him with my eyes, with that single word, to stop. They would tear him away, they would throw him in his wing, and they would hurt him.
The veins in Arthur’s neck throbbed the longer I stood—everyone waited for me to obey. My eyes scanned the terrace, but it had nearly emptied. Just immediate family. I had an eerie feeling. It was like before with Grayson. I remembered being asked to empty rooms as a servant. I never thought anything of it.
Mr. Crowne needs the library cleared.
Mrs. Tansy needs the sunroom free of guests.
I watched servants clear the terrace, and had the feeling of floating out of my body, watching this as someone else.
Mr. du Lac needs the terrace cleared.
“Neruda,” I begged Grayson, and fell to my knees, jaw clenched.
This will be the last time.
My uncle always said the only way to survive was to keep my dignity, and for me, I thought that meant living unseen.
Maybe that was the problem.
Maybe by hiding I’d actually given more power to those around me. I’d shoved flashlights into their hands and let them shove me into the shadows.