Heartless Hero (Crowne Point 1)

Or anyone else.

It still hadn’t settled when Theo put on his black slacks. I didn’t realize what happened, how badly we were broken. I hadn’t moved, but he was getting dressed. I sat up, trying and failing to clasp my ripped bodice together.

“Where are you going?”

He eyed me, pants undone. “Somewhere. Anywhere.”

“But you’ll be back in my wing by tonight.”

A wrinkle formed above his brow. “No, Abigail. I won’t.”

He continued dressing.

He was leaving me in a ripped ball gown. He was leaving me ripped.

“Are you going back to my grandfather?”

He shook his head, and my chest caved.

Theo was leaving.

Again.

For good.

“You can’t leave,” I practically screamed. “You’re mine. I mean”—I tried to stifle my emotion—“I own you. I’ve owned you from day one. You belong to Abigail Crowne.”

He paused.

“It says so here.” I lifted my wrist, showing the bracelet I still wore. I hated how my voice trembled. “You belong to me.” He’d always belonged to me, before I knew it, before he knew it.

He was mine.

I was his.

He glanced absently at my wrist, where the bracelet I’d given him as a child lay.

Then, without so much as a flitter of emotion, he ripped it off. Pastel beads clattered violently to the marble floor. My breath caught and clambered in my lungs as they bounced on the floor.

I like you having something of mine. To think of me.

Whatever strength remained inside me vanished as beads slid under furniture, vanishing into shadows. I was a broken radio, static switching from numb to broken to pained. I didn’t know I could feel this amount of pain. My chest was ripping open. I thought the first time Theo left was brutal.

This…

This would end me.

Theo finished dressing. In black slacks and his white undershirt, he still looked like a celebrity. He was ruffled, and he made it look good. I resented that.

He headed to the door, and I thought I would have to watch him walk away. I thought he was through with me. I was foolish. I thought the pain in that moment was the worst I would ever feel. I was naïve.

He looked back at me, like I was an afterthought. “Say thank you.”

At first I couldn’t do anything but stare back, my words lost in shock. He couldn’t be serious.

Theo didn’t so much as smirk at me. He waited, bored yet still infuriatingly hot, watching me like I was some waiter taking too long with his order. He was serious. He really wanted me to say thank you.

I summoned rage. Good, easy, numbing rage. “Fuck you.”