Forbidden Fate (Crowne Point 3)

Still, he didn’t reach for it.

My hand shook.

“Does this have to do with Gemma?”

He grinned that slow Grim grin that was somehow seductive and sinister all at once.

“There’s a bounty on your head. You have people looking for you, Storybook. The princess jumped the castle walls, and the prince is not happy.”

Grayson.

“Whatever he’s charging, I can double it. Triple it.” I thrust the cash in my hand harder. All Grim did was thumb the sign again.

My shoulders sagged.

I knew how this worked. They were going to take me and hold me until Grayson came back for me.

“I could pretend I never saw you, if the prince comes asking.”

My mouth parted. “Really?”

Grim shrugged like it was no big deal, eyes on his phone. With an exhale, I looked over the abandoned Wharf. At least I had my freedom, if only for a little while longer.

In this world…money is useless. You need power.

West’s words blasted into me. What good was having millions if no one would take it? His ring was in my purse…My number was still the same. Was his?

No.

No, I couldn’t go down that road.

“Ah, you forgetting something?” Grim called at my back. I turned, finding his dark eyes on my cash. My jaw dropped. Ten thousand just so he and his Horsemen wouldn’t kidnap me?

He put his phone away, and all at once his humor vanished. Grim was one of the tallest people I’d ever met, and with his shoulders straight, the shadows at his back seemed to dance along his muscles and make the ink at his neck one with them.

Some say he was called Grim because of his looks.

Those people are stupid.

I shoved my ten thousand dollars at Grim.

He smiled slow, putting the wad into his pocket, before leaning back against the post and returning to his phone.

“Nice to see ya, Cinderella.”

His voice seemed to follow me out of the Wharf.

I sat on the warped wood, kicking my legs out into the street. No one drove down this way. No one came down here, not unless they rolled with the Horsemen.

I pulled out West’s ring, and it caught the light. Why did West du Lac have to be the one to give me this? I stared at his contact in my phone, fighting the urge to dial.

A few months ago, I would have slapped myself for even considering calling West. Now I was so twisted up in grief, in heartache, in fear, I couldn’t think straight.

I held my stomach as if it would protect my baby from my own decisions.

Looking at the facts…West saved me when Grayson tried to gamble me. West saved me from the boat when Grayson left me for Lottie. He’d saved me from his own father. He was there when Grayson married Lottie and left me in the dust.

I thought Grayson was my white knight hidden beneath thorns, but maybe he’s always been the rogue, and I had just grown addicted to the pain.