Story grabbed my bicep, maybe sensing I was ready to end his diatribe.
“Enter stage right, our main lead, Grayson Crowne!” West jerked the champagne bottle toward me, gold liquid drenching the sand black. “Grayson didn’t want to be his father, didn’t want to be disloyal to his wife, so instead, he became a coward and abandoned his wife in a loveless marriage. Will you abandon your unborn child too?”
West tilted his head, eyes narrowing as if waiting for me to respond. Story’s grip on my bicep tightened.
“He’s wrong,” she whispered.
He was fucking with me. His words shouldn’t bother me.
Yet, they did.
“Shut the fuck up, West,” Lottie said, but it came out a weak whisper.
West laughed at my silence.
“And my loving, loyal wife…I mean, ex-wife.” He grinned at Story. “You didn’t want to be some man’s mistress and steal what didn’t belong to you, so instead, you became my mistress, the guy that stole the thing that mattered most from you. Or…” He laughed. “Maybe it didn’t matter that much.”
At that, I lunged, Story’s grip slipping easily. I had West’s shirt between my fists in seconds. He held his arms wide, not even bothering to fight back.
“He’s not worth it,” Story yelled to my back. “This is what he wants.”
“I’m not worth it, Playboy Gray,” he said, mocking Story’s distressed yell.
I shoved him off and he stumbled, falling to his ass in the sand, laughing. “You’re all so. Comedically. Tragically. Shakespearian-ly…fucked. You’re all so fucking afraid of being the thing that everyone sees you as, no one’s paying attention to what you’re becoming.”
“Then what are you, West?” I gritted.
He took a deep swig of the champagne, then wiped his mouth off on his arm. “The only one in this hell making the heat work for them.”
Story stepped in front of me before I could grab her back.
“I see you, West,” she said.
West grinned up at her, warped from behind the glass bottle. “Do you, Angel?”
“You’re in hell with us too. The flames are burning us, but they’ve consumed you.”
His grin flickered, then he looked into the bottle. “Empty.” He threw it to the side, shattering the green bottle on a rock.
Story ran to Lottie, gripping her arm. She’d gone pale and looked about ready to faint.
“I need to take Lottie back.”
I went to her. “I’ll help—”
“We’re fine,” she cut me off, looking back at West. “He’s off right now…I don’t trust him. Will you watch him?” At my face, she repeated, “We’re fine. I swear. Neruda.”
Fist clenched, I watched them leave through the hedges. When they were gone, I looked back at West.
He stared at the ground, at the shards of green glittering in the sand.
“Just because you don’t get Story, doesn’t mean you have to become them.”
His gaze slashed to mine.
“We don’t have to become our parents. We don’t have to continue that legacy. Burning down our own houses. Killing our sons. Selling off our children. Excommunicating daughters and granddaughters. It can end with us.”
He looked back to the broken glass. “It will end with us.”
Forty-Five
STORY
I carried Lottie back to her and Grayson’s wing, but we stopped a few feet from the guards. Hidden in an alcove with a small bench, gold lattice windowpanes at our back.
“This is as far as they’ll let you go,” she said softly.
I swallowed, because I knew. Even if I had Lottie to escort me, they wouldn’t let me in. I was banned from being with Grayson as much as Grayson was banned from being with me.
“Thank you,” Lottie said.
“It’s kind of overdue. I was a shitty girl.”
“I was a worse mistress.”
We both paused.
“Do you think my brother is right?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I admitted.
“I think he is,” she said. “I think I gave up everything that made me me.” She stared down the long, lonely hallway. “I want to go back to before. I want to take it all back. Every action, every word, every thought that made me this person. But… I don’t know how far back I have to go.” She looked at me, fear and anguish ripping apart her pretty face.
God.
I knew that. I knew that so much.
How do you go back to before?
“Did it start when I loved him? Or when he first chose another girl? Or is it when my mother started telling me the reasons why it’s my fault he chooses other girls. Or is it when I started to love, really love, yet another man who could never love me—”
She snapped her mouth shut suddenly.
Another tense silence passed with only the sound of the soft breeze.
After a minute, she wiped her tears away and said, “How do I get rid of the rust on my heart, Story?”
“I don’t know if we ever get rid of the rust on our hearts,” I said. “Or if we do, it takes a lot of work.”
“It hurts.”
I nodded, because…yeah.
It did.
Another few moments passed, and still Lottie didn’t move to go down the hallway. I held her, and some of the color had returned to her face at least.
“Why did you become West’s mistress?” she asked quietly. “Really?”
“I’m sure you know about the postnup…” As she’d had to sign it. Lottie nodded, and I continued, “Grayson sent that, video evidence, and everything needed to free us—and destroy himself and his family—to West. It was Grayson’s solution.”
“But he would have been so miserable,” Lottie parroted my words back to me.
“So West offered me a solution. I’m trying to get it all back, to delete it.” It felt like a lifetime ago when it all happened.
Her eyes grew. “Are you close?”
I fell to the bench, tears clogging my throat. All I could do was shake my head. Lottie sat beside me.
“He told me he’d give me everything if I chose him over Grayson. I can’t ever do that.” I exhaled, staring at my lap.
“Every day for the past month, I’ve slept in his bed and tried every password combination I could think of while he slept. I didn’t know what else to do—”
“Story.” Lottie gripped my forearm so tight it bruised.
I lifted my head, looking into earnest, warm brown eyes.
“What?”
“I know his password. He’s an idiot. He uses one password for everything, and like everyone else, he doesn’t think I’m paying attention.”
My mouth dried as blood rushed and pounded through my ears.
“It’s songbird,” she said, then shrugged like I don’t know why while inside I struggled to breathe.
Songbird.
I put my head in my hands. I would have never tried that, because the implication was too dark. That somewhere in his cold heart, West du Lac had a heart.
“Does that help?” she asked.