Forbidden Fate (Crowne Point 3)
Page 36
Grayson lifted him up by the collar, only to slam him harder against the wall.
What rules? What order? I didn’t want to ever find out.
“Grayson? West—oh my god!”
We all looked at the same time to see we had an audience. Lottie and her mother, as well as Mrs. Crowne and the man, Jack, had crammed into the doorway.
“What’s going on?”
One by one, their eyes landed on me.
I knew they knew the answer. I saw it in their faces, some kind of resigned disappointment. This obviously isn’t new behavior.
What is new, is Grayson and West.
“Grayson?” Lottie asked.
Grayson shot me a look. What was I supposed to do?
Slowly, reluctantly, Grayson let Mr. du Lac go and went to Lottie.
His wife.
“Just getting your father a nightcap.”
GRAY
* * *
Lottie lingered long after everyone had returned to the dining room. The wine stain on Lottie’s dress had set and spread. She stared at the broken glass on the bar and ground, a numb expression on her face.
“You saved her. You can’t stop saving her.”
“You said she chose to come here,” I said lightly.
It didn’t feel right. Normally I wouldn’t second-guess Lottie, but this felt calculated. For the first time, I stared at my wife, uncertain.
I wanted to give her another chance.
Give us another chance.
Not turn her into my mother, not become my father. Save us from that fate.
Her eyes lifted, and in them I saw nothing. “You’ve been talking to her?”
Silence wafted.
“Tomorrow the press arrive for Labor Day,” Lottie continued. “Everyone is waiting for you to fuck up again. They want to see if the rumors are true. If she really is the Cinderella of Crowne Hall. If I’m…” She trailed off, and I stopped.
The Wicked Wife.
Shame enveloped me. “Lottie, you’re my wife. My beautiful, absolutely not wicked wife.”
My words affected her, but not in the way I’d hoped. Her throat bobbed, like she’d swallowed down tears.
“I can’t stop thinking…If you didn’t think you were going to fuck her again, you’d get a postnuptial drawn up.”
She didn’t wait for me to respond. She turned on her heel, heading into the dining room. It was then I noticed her mother lingering in the shadows. She stood off the wall, coming into the light.