Heartless Hero (Crowne Point 1)

“I’m sure you know if you don’t come through on your end of the deal, I’ll be watching,” I said. “I don’t have a billion dollars or endless resources, but I love her, and I have nothing to lose now.”

Tansy watched me with a shrewd look, rubbing two fingers together absently. I decided I was done staring into the face of the devil and turned to go.

I knew a happily ever after with Abigail wasn’t in the cards. When I took this charge, all I ever thought I could hope for was revenge. Yet hope for something more had broken through like weeds in the cement. There were moments after Tansy presented her deal when I’d thought love could overcome everything. I’d nearly caved when Abigail told me she found my mother.

Could she see how much it meant to me? Was my anger too transparent? Did she see the hurt beneath?

Abigail was the only one who ever cared.

Still, at every turn, I was reminded how fucking naïve that was.

Abigail and I were a fairy tale I was foolish to believe in. At least when I left, she would be taken care of, for real.

Thirty

ABIGAIL

It’s my birthday, I thought blandly.

It’s been a week and I haven’t changed out of the ball gown Theo took me in. I’m sure I smelled. Mother nearly threw a fit when I appeared at my engagement party looking like a Pride and Prejudice and Zombies reject.

I don’t give a shit.

I haven’t moved from my bed, either. No, that was a lie. Theo left his hoodie, and like a junkie addicted to the drug that’s nearly killed her twice, I put it on. To cover my ripped bodice, I said.

Not because it smelled like him.

Or felt like him, soft and warm.

A week hasn’t done anything. It still feels like it’s happening. I relived it over and over again. I couldn’t cry anymore. My tear ducts threw up their hands, out of water. I felt the moment inside me, though. Like too much alcohol or bad seafood. Felt him choose her and leave me. Felt the stupid hope I had that I could have had some kind of happily ever after, been more than Abigail Crowne, Reject Princess.

Someday I will be special. Someday I will mean something to someone. Someday I won’t be so alone.

I think it’s ironic the hope that was once the only thing keeping me going, was the very hope Theo Hound used to obliterate me.

Sweet girl, I would never leave you, not willingly, not unless I had to.

The words he’d

spoken to me the day I’d dropped my walls once more for him zinged through me.

Fucking liar.

I wiped my eyes, wishing anger would drown out the sorrow.

My laptop pinged, and I eyed it warily. A new email. Using it for the distraction it was, I dragged it off the floor and into my lap.

A new message from the private investigator I’d hired, letting me know he’d found Theo’s mom’s address.

I didn’t want this information. I didn’t fucking want it. It assaulted me. I didn’t want to know anything about Theo, let alone have this information, anchoring me to him.

I slammed the laptop shut, breathing heavy. I focused on the sound of the waves, trying to steady my breath, when I noticed my freckle. All hope of steady breath vanished.

That was the difference between Theo and me. He’d ripped that bracelet off me so easily, but I still have him inside me, just a few millimeters away from my bloodstream.

I couldn’t fucking take it anymore. I jumped off my bed and got out of my stifling room.

I hate Gemma, and the last few days I’ve been imaging various ways I can ship her to Antarctica, but she can still help me.