“Because he loved you,” Grayson said. “Because he was trying to protect you. Because he died protecting and loving you. Because you’re Story Hale, and it’s your curse to feel what others don’t.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I just…reading this, I’m so sad. Our win feels like a loss. I wanted to free you. I made you go from one cage back to another. This house, this place…”
He pulled my face from his chest, forcing me to see his burning eyes. “I was never shedding this cage. There are too many people relying on me to stop the iron bars from getting rusty. But now I have the key. This was the only way. I’ll control everything. I’ll control what they say about you. I’ll control who touches you. I’ll control everything.” His voice warbled, barely restrained.
He gripped my chin, bruising. “You made my dream come true, Story Hale. You saw what no one else could. You saw the good in all of them. You made me a good man. A hero. A good father. I would have been none of those things if I abandoned my family. I would have been nothing without you.”
Tears fell harder, faster. “I feel like if he had just told the truth, if they had just told the truth, none of this would have happened,” I said. “We could have avoided everything.”
“You’re right,” he said easily. “None of this would have happened. We would have run, my grandfather would still be in power, and never brought to justice. We’d have avoided our destiny.”
I frowned. “That’s not…I guess…”
“You said our destiny was divided, but I think we always had a path and it was clear: we weren’t supposed to be together. That’s why everything kept pointing back to them,” he growled. “We had a destiny, and it was fucking wrong. We finally fucking destroyed it.”
He crushed his lips against mine, growling against my lips. “I promised to build you a kingdom; don’t apologize for blowing up the world so I could.”
My Atlas carried a world that would never know how grateful they should be.
My tears fell, but as they did, so did the watercolor of us fade—all of us, the thorny vine of fate that had woven West, Lottie, Grayson, and me together—blurring and distorting for a final time.
Seventy-Seven
STORY
Grayson held our baby to his chest.
Asleep.
Rose gold hair fell across his sleeping eyes. For the first time in a while, he looked content, truly content. Sonnet rose and fell with his breath, and he covered her back with one arm, the other holding my hand.
King.
Protector.
I spent over a month in Grayson’s wing—our wing—the bed, mostly. A month with our daughter, living happily ever after. I didn’t want this moment to end.
But he slowly opened one eye, first landing on her, then on me.
“Hey,” he whispered, a soft barely-there smile curving his lips.
I smiled. “Hey.”
“How are you doing?” He absently thumbed my nightgown’s lacy shoulder. I was back to my nun nightgowns, as he called them, and he’d bought a never-ending supply so that he could rip them from my body whenever he wanted.
“Are you mad I took Crowne Hall with the coin?”
“Yes.” He stared forward, jaw hard. Then slowly, his gaze traveled down to mine. “Now I have to think of a different wedding present.”
I bit my lip, trying to stifle a smile and failing. I knew technically we were married, but we both wanted to make it official. Still, neither of us had proposed.
Yet.
I was going to propose to Grayson Crowne. Today.
“I think I remember promising you the stars… Will you compromise and take a constellation?”
I giggled and he groaned. “That fucking laugh. I’ll buy you anything in the goddamn universe, so long as you promise to never stop laughing.”
“I promise.”
His eyes lowered, hooded, then Sonnet stirred.
He tore his gaze from me, to her.
“She has your eyes,” Grayson said, running his finger along Sonnet’s nose, letting her grab his finger. “I bet she’ll have your talent.”
In the full month we’d been together, he’d barely taken his eyes off her.
Sonnet scrunched her face in the way I knew meant she was about to cry. I lifted her up to my naked chest to feed her. Grayson watched, lips slightly tilted, blue eyes swirling with an emotion that was hard to decipher.
“What’s that look?”
In answer, he leaned over me, arms caging both me and Sonnet, lips hovering and vibrating against mine as he spoke. “I thought you knew all my looks, little wife.”
His mouth descended, crushing. “It’s what it looks like when Grayson Crowne has everything,” he said, lips brushing mine. “Family, Snitch. I’ve found my fucking family. I dare anyone to try to take it from me again.” His voice lowered into a growl with the threat.
I placed a palm on his cheek, and he turned into it, biting my thumb, teeth grazing the soft flesh of my pad. He sucked my thumb into his mouth, eyes burning. Getting me all worked up with nothing but his teeth and my finger.
A soft, quiet moan slipped from my lips and I reached for him.
He gripped my wrist. “Don’t move. You’ll disturb her.”
A month we’d been living happily ever after, but we hadn’t slept together. We’d done everything but. Grayson refused to let Sonnet out of his sight again, even with Gemma. Not even in a bassinet in the other room with a monitor—and he refused to do anything in front of her.
While Sonnet fed from my left breast, Grayson explored the right side of me. He was unhurried in his touch, exploring every inch of me from the swell above my right breast, to the dip in my abdomen, to my inner thigh—as if he didn’t already know me, know the secret parts of my soul. Silent, as he did so, devouring me with his eyes.
I swallowed a gasp as he slipped his thumb inside me.
“Fuck me,” I begged.
His eyes slid to Sonnet.
“She’s finished. She’s asleep. Fuck me.”
He groaned. “You’re making this fucking impossible, Snitch.”
“So fuck me. It’s impossible to break Grayson Crowne.” I huffed—practically pouting.
He lifted his head at that, brow arched. “You think it’s impossible to break me, Snitch?” With his question, he climbed above us, starting a ruthless rhythm, grinding into my bare pussy, his cock only sheathed by his pajamas.
It was almost like the beginning, with only the thin satin of his pajamas our barrier. But unlike the beginning, he hid nothing from me in his deep blue eyes. Every emotion was laid bare—his love unending.
“Story Hale…You’ve always been able to break me.” I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think past the thirst and hunger in his eyes, the hardening of his jaw and flare of his nostrils, or the incessant rhythm of his satin-covered cock over my very bare pussy. “I crumble at your fucking feet.”
He bent until his lips brushed mine. “Should I fuck you, little wife?”
“Yes, please. I ache.”
His lips skated along my neck. “You’re aching? My poor little wife.” Still he just ground against me with the same momentum. “Where should I fuck you? Your cunt? Your ass?”