Heartless Hero (Crowne Point 1)

She sat up straight, looking at me funny. “Why do you care?”

“Maybe I’m in the mood to read some, what was it? Stepbrother alpha…”

“Stepbrother alphahole,” she enunciated.

“Right.” Another grin I couldn’t stop. “That.”

Fuck, she was cute. It got under your skin.

Her shorts were too fucking short, showing too much of her silky thighs. The memory of her coming on my finger blasted into me. She was tight, so fucking tight. Just the thought of what she’d feel like wrapped around my dick had me shifting.

Our eyes connected.

“Theo, this morning—” she started.

A timer went off, and she peeled off the cottony mask, dropping it into her porcelain trash can. Now her skin glowed; she was too damn pretty.

I’d wonder forever what she was about to say.

“How did you do that thing to Geoff and Alaric?” she asked suddenly. “With the arm.”

I shrugged. “Training.”

She moved her mouth around, not happy with the answer. Her lips looked poutier tonight, I don’t know if she’d added gloss or what. I couldn’t take my eyes off them. Moving them around didn’t help.

I wanted to bite them.

First the top one, then the bottom.

“Do you ever wonder about your mom?” she asked, dousing my fantasy in ice water. The fuck? Could she stay on one topic?

“Is that my truth or promise?”

“No,” she said. “Just a question.” She picked at the forest green spine of her book. “I know you were in foster care for a while, and then you were on your own… before me. But your mom’s alive somewhere. What if she wants to know you?”

“She doesn’t.”

I could tell she wanted to say more. She kept picking at the green edge of her spine, watching me like a turtle was in her mouth trying to burst out.

I exhaled. “Speak.”

“I’m just saying.” She dropped the book entirely. “Your mom was so young when she gave you up. She’s an adult now. You’re an adult now. What if she’s tried to contact you?”

I was dropped at a fire station with my mother’s diary and only a name—Theo. There is no record of my mother. My last name came from the firefighter who found me. His favorite Sherlock Holmes’ novel was The Hound of Baskervilles.

Abigail fucking knows this.

“Maybe she gave you her diary for a reason… I’ve never seen anything like it. The beautiful red-leather and tree burned into the face is so beautiful. I’m positive it’s custom.”

This was classic fucking Abigail. She lives in a fairy tale, and has had a fairy tale image of my reunion with my mother ever since she learned I wasn’t an orphan, but was abandoned at birth because my mother was too young to raise me.

Some days I regret showing her my mother’s diary. For me, it was something to remember her by. But romantic-fucking-Abigail had stars in her eyes from that point on.

Abigail continued. “We could hire a private investigator to find where it was made.”

I narrowed my eyes. “We?”

There is no fucking we anymore. I moved to get off the bed. I don’t know what I was thinking, coming in here in the first place. Acting like it was five years ago.