Heartless Hero (Crowne Point 1)

I looked back over the crowd, trying to see. I swear it was Theo. Why was he by the windows?

“As if the only reason I don’t want you is because I want someone else.” That nearly had me laughing.

“I see you wondering where he went.”

I looked away.

Ned snatched my wrist, forcing me to look at him.

“What are you going to do, slap me?” I asked. “Slap the woman you apparently love?”

His grip tightened, but he let me go. I resisted the urge to rub my wrist.

“He doesn’t want you, Abby. Not like I do.” Thank God for that. “He’s not like us. He’s a social climber.”

“Theo Hound is not a social climber,” I said. Theo was so far from that you’d have to measure it in parsecs, but someone like Ned wouldn’t understand.

“Everyone knows it. The story is famous. The reject fell in love with the only thing to ever love her back, a dog who abandoned her for a chance at her sister.”

I chewed my bottom lip until I tasted blood. Ned’s words ripped pieces of me I’d been pretending didn’t exist, wounds that tore and tore and never healed. I wish Ned had laughed at or taunted me; it would’ve felt less real. He looked at me with pity. How dare someone like him look at someone like me with pity.

Theo didn’t fuck my sister.

He didn’t.

He’d promised it was all a misunderstanding.

Promises were sacred between us…

“The precious dog got sent away, and the moment he came back she forgave him, only for the dog to do it all over again.”

Freezing water filled my veins.

Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.

“Clever,” I managed, my throat stuffed with cotton.

Ned looked at his phone, an ugly smile spreading his lips.

“Do you really want to know where he went?” he asked, too quietly. His arm landed on my shoulder. I couldn’t move to take it off, a deer caught in the moment about to kill her. “Because I just saw him, actually…” Ned showed me his phone. “We all did.”

No.

The picture was under the finsta hashtag Abbyslostdog. Everyone was commenting, laughing at me. It had to be a mistake, a mirage, a deadly figment sprung from my darkest nightmares.

Then Ned gripped my chin, twisting my head to make me look. Through the crowd of ball gowns, tiaras, and tuxes, the picture came to life: Theo and Gemma kissing.

Theo opened his eyes, as if sensing me through the sea of tulle and satin, connecting with mine.

I dropped my champagne flute, briefly registering the cold gold liquid on my open toes.

Theo’s hand grasped the back of my sister’s head, his tongue diving deep into her mouth; then he looked back at her, and the crowd collapsed.

I shucked Ned off, pushing through the crowd.

Cries of Excuse me! echoed around me as my elbows flung to push them out of the way. I heard glass crash, red wine spill. My eyes were glued on the spot I’d seen Theo. Laughter, the trill of the violin, faded away.

Why would he do that?