She stopped rubbing her arm and lifted her eyes to mine. “Be whoever he needs you to be.”
STORY
I slept on the cold floor instead of my ashy bed, so when I woke, my shoulder blades ached. I had a brief, painful flashback to my first nights with Grayson. But this time there was no one sleeping above me to talk to. No one to slip a blanket on me in the night.
I woke alone and cold.
I knew I shouldn’t have, but I browsed the internet. I was supposed to be forgotten, right? Except I saw my face splashed on the front page of the internet, bent next to Westley du Lac, a dopey, wide-eyed look on my face. Like I’d been caught. And now I had a name.
Cinderella of Crowne Hall.
I exhaled, falling back to the frigid floor, phone to my chest. They didn’t know who I was, didn’t even know my name, but they acted as though they knew everything about me.
Gold digger. Whore. Mistress. User.
But others loved me.
Wanted to be me.
They’d managed to contain the papers and major news outlets online, but not everyone could be bought. With a sigh I stood up, getting dressed in the little clothing that hadn’t been destroyed.
Upstairs the servants were prepping for the day, and a tray of pastries and sandwiches was set out for us. When I entered, the conversation stopped dead. I knew if I had any friends left here, last night had obliterated them.
To them, the only reason Lottie wouldn’t kick me to the curb after what had happened was because I was fucking her husband.
I tried to ignore it, tried to ignore how everyone watched me, and went for a sandwich. The tray was yanked back. All the servants looked at me with cold eyes.
They didn’t snicker or laugh, and somehow that made it worse. These cruel acts weren’t like what I’d bore upstairs with Grayson’s rich peers. These weren’t done for amusement. The humiliation was calculated. They were trying to break me down and run me out.
Old Story would have swallowed her voice. Tried to hide. Blend in.
“Do you think I want this?” I whispered.
I was about to go upstairs and attend to the love of my life’s wife. I’d probably see him. If there was a hell, I couldn’t imagine anything worse than what I was currently in.
But the only way I could be free was if my uncle died.
I lifted my head, my gaze flitting from one icy stare to the next, and raised my voice. “Do you think I want to be here?”
Everyone stared at me a moment longer, then went back to what they’d been doing. Eating pastries, talking, looking at their phones.
With the time allotted to me for breakfast, I could have gone out of Crowne Hall and gotten something in Crowne Point, but I had so little time with my uncle, so instead I went to him.
“Uncle?” I asked softly as I opened the door, in case he wasn’t awake.
“Sabrina?”
I paused at my mother’s name. I hadn’t heard it in years. He always used your mother or my sister.
“It’s me…Story.”
He sank into his pillows, eyes closed, and nodded.
“I was wondering if you had time for a poetry reading?”
“Tomorrow.” He opened one eye, locked on me, then closed it. “I’ll have energy tomorrow. Promise you’ll come back?”
“Promise.”
I closed the door quietly, but I stared at the wood. I wanted to press him, to beg him, beg my tired uncle who is dying of cancer to just please read me poetry, but Barn’s voice tore through the moment like ripping paper.
“What are you doing?”
I turned, finding her scowl. “I was…”
“Mrs. Grayson Crowne needs her tea.”
I looked at my uncle’s door, and she tilted her head, eyes slimming. “Of course.”
I would quickly give Lottie her tea—Lottie liked jasmine tea made with a flowering bud—and come back down to see Uncle before the afternoon.
I dreaded my walk to Grayson’s wing.
Or…their wing.
I knew as Lottie’s girl I would have to see him, see them.
I knocked softly on the door, pushing it open with the tea tray. Lottie was already sitting up, but she looked as though she hadn’t slept much.
“I brought your tea, Mrs. du—Mrs. Crowne,” I quickly corrected. I set down her tray in the spiny silence, arranging the porcelain as I’d done for Miss Abigail. Lottie was wrapped in a silk robe, her hair still in a bonnet, the circles under her eyes dark.
I looked around as I set the tea out.
“He’s not here,” she said.
“I—I wasn’t…”
“Do you know where he is?” She picked up the steaming tea, taking a sip. I finished setting out the items and stood up, eyes on the ground. “He’s getting a postnuptial agreement drawn up. I’ll get everything. If he so much as puts a finger inside of you, I get everything.”
I focused harder on my black leather flats.
I heard the sound of Lottie setting down the tea, the clink of the porcelain on the wooden tray.
“Grayson and I are going to Asheville to visit my family. I need my things packed. Get started.”
Asheville? Uncle and I had a poetry reading. I’d barely seen him this morning. The entire fucking point of this hell was to spend as much time with him as possible.
I lifted my head. “I can’t leave.”
Lottie’s lips parted like I’d slapped her. The air between us was toxic, even as the salty ocean breathed.
“You really have no shame,” she said softly.
I was filled with it. Consumed by it. Once my uncle died, I would leave this place and hide, try to exorcise the demons I’d summoned during my time in Crowne Point.
“Does Grayson know?” I said the insane thing. The wrong thing. The treacherous, ugly, fucked-up thing.
Lottie stood up, straightening her back. “Does my husband know what I’m asking my girl to do?”
I ground my teeth. Instinctively, before I could stop it, my eyes drifted above the glass wall to the lofted second floor, where his bedroom was.
“Go ahead and cry to him, Story. Who do you think he loves more? The girl he tossed millions at to try and get out of his life, or the girl he’s willing to lose it all for?”
Her eyes lingered on mine a moment longer.
“Asheville is warmer than Crowne Point. Pack light layers.”
Eight
GRAY
Lottie’s family lived in an estate in Asheville, North Carolina. It was built in 1895 by Victor Paul du Lac and had been in the du Lac family ever since. The entire du Lac estate originally covered more than one hundred thousand acres, but now it was down to a humble seven.
Spending the weekend with Lynette and Arthur du Lac after my sex tape had just rocked their daughter’s wedding had to be at the bottom of the things I wanted to do for our fucking honeymoon. But Asheville had been planned for as long as the engagement.
Lottie and I climbed out of the car first. Behind us, in her own car, Story did the same. Traveling with Story had been fucking hell. Every minute I saw her, I remembered coming into Lottie’s hand, picturing Snitch.
Snitch’s foot caught on the cobblestone, and without thought, I grabbed her elbow.