Forbidden Fate (Crowne Point 3)

* * *

I was walking to Story before I could think.

“What are you doing?” Lottie’s yell stopped me. I turned back. She stood between our parents, desperation racking every nerve in her body, her eyes pleading.

Only moments ago we’d been selling the “couple of the century” bullshit again.

I took another step.

Grayson, are you going after her?

Grayson, do you love her?

Grayson, when did it start?

Lottie held up her skirts, coming to me, eyes pleading beneath her wide-brimmed hat. She stopped before me and dropped her skirts to the grass.

“You will not leave me here in front of all my friends and the world. Not again. Smile, Grayson, and kiss me.”

She feathered her hands into my hair, drawing my lips to hers, mimicking. It was dark and ugly, and there was no love.

But she smiled.

Like my mother.

Like hers.

I ripped Charlotte’s lips off me, and the paparazzi went wild. Over Lottie’s head I could still see Story slowly being swallowed by them.

“Tonight we’re consummating this marriage, even if we have to do it in the dark, even if you have to call me by her name.”

Lottie kissed my cheek, then walked away, pushing through the photographers as they shouted questions.

I ran to the spot where Story had been, but she was gone.

STORY

* * *

I rubbed my chest as West led me back inside Du Lac Manor. “What the hell was that?”

“Have you not googled yourself, Angel?” he asked.

He sat on a windowsill that overlooked the still-going party. West had taken me back to his room. It wasn’t like Grayson’s, haunted and hollow. Golden trophies lined his walls. Memories blasted into me, of a younger me who still loved this boy. A boy who’d told her about how he hated being forced to play piano.

I stared at the glimmering gold trophies. I’d thought he’d lied to me about everything.

“Why would I?” I said, shaking out of that stupid part of me I still couldn’t squash.

I had googled myself. Once. When I was, like, eleven. It was just a bunch of random people I didn’t know, dead people, and of course, fairy tales. I guess if you’re someone like Westley, you had to do that kind of thing. You needed to know what people were saying about you.

But people don’t even know I exist, much less talk about me.

Westley’s brow knitted, making me think I might be wrong.

“What?”

“Do you have your phone?”