Heartless Hero (Crowne Point 1)

“You’re just trying to trip me up, get me caught and in trouble.”

I grinned. “Definitely.” She looked at me, catching my darkening eyes. “Doesn’t mean I’m not right.”

“I’m not falling for this.”

My grin widened. “The Abigail I knew wasn’t such a coward.”

“The Theo I knew wasn’t such a dick.”

I pressed a tongue to my teeth, halting a laugh. “That’s just not true.”

“I don’t even want to see you. I definitely don’t want to fuck you.” She turned back so fast her hair whipped my face.

“My little liar,” I said. “When will you learn just saying words won’t make them come true?” I leaned forward, breath skating along her neck, goose bumps betraying her almost as much as her pulse. “You wanna fuck me…but I’m gonna wait till you beg.”

She canted her head, eyes meeting mine over her shoulder. Something sparked in the clay depths. Desire?

She tore her body away from mine before I could decipher and said, “I have to pee.”

I followed her inside silently, leaning against the wall opposite the door, waiting. Many windows and arched doors opened onto the terrace, but most partygoers were farther down. This was not a cramped patio. Like everything Crowne it was luxurious, opulent, and extravagant.

I kept rolling the beads between my thumb and forefinger.

Abigail thought she saw me first, that the first time we met was when she got out of that car on the beach. She thought she found me.

I let her believe it too. Shit, I let myself believe it.

The truth was, I found her.

Before everything, before the day on the beach, before I broke her heart and she broke mine. She always wondered why I got in her car. I’ve told her half-truth after half-truth. I had nowhere to go. You were the best option. It was either sleep on the beach or get in your car.

What I didn’t tell her was we’d already met, and the bracelet in my pocket was the reminder of the week Abigail Crowne had cemented herself in my heart.

When we were apart, it was a lot easier to paint her as a villain. Now she painted insidious strokes across that picture.

Loud laughter carried on the ocean wind, and my eyes landed on the chucklefucks walking toward me, Alaric and Geoff. They passed without noticing me, walking down the terrace steps to the private beach.

There were so many assholes and bitches in her world—too many to keep track of—but I remembered Alaric and Geoff. We’d fought once before, but then it had been five against one.

Abigail was broken. Broken from her bitch of a mom, from assholes like these who’d made her life hell since birth. Broken. Only I wanted to break her. She hadn’t smiled once today.

I kicked off the wall.

“Oh fuck, it’s the dog,” Alaric coughed on a laugh when he spotted me walking down the steps. The overcast sky made the pale sand shadowed and cool.

“Did we bring a spray bottle?” Geoff asked.

They laughed again, then turned back to the ocean, lifting a small, sterling silver spoon to their noses. Could be cocaine, could be fucking Oxy for all I cared.

I crooked my neck. “You owe Abigail an apology.”

A pause, then another laugh.

I debated giving them one more chance.

Fuck it.

I grabbed them both by the collars, throwing them to the sand. I didn’t want them too bloody, couldn’t have what I’d done be obvious. As they attempted to stand, I grabbed them by their necks, pushed their faces deeper into the grainy sand. They coughed and choked on it.