Forbidden Fate (Crowne Point 3)

I won’t stay here.

I’ll disappear into the streets if I have to…and live like my mother did, I realized with nausea.

West looked at me. “Let’s just go to Europe, Angel. We’ll deal with the press.”

The point was to get away and eventually disappear. West was a means to an end, not the end.

“A few more weeks here and then they won’t care?” I looked into West’s eyes, ignoring the anger emanating from Grayson. Ignoring the way his muscles tightened when West leaned down and thumbed my cheek.

“They’ll forget we ever existed.”

That’s what I wanted. I could do a few more weeks.

I’d done years.

“Well…” Lottie finally spoke. “I suppose.”

“I don’t know, Grayson,” Tansy said. “Europe seems—”

“It’s decided,” Grayson said, cutting her off. “You’ll move in with us. It’s the least we can do for family.”

GRAY

* * *

Everyone left to gather in the great hall to eat—mother making sure to give me a look, letting me know this wasn’t over, that she’d be back for her pound of flesh. Grandfather lingered.

Then laughed.

And laughed.

Until the dark, booming sound echoed off the domed ceiling.

Then it died, and the silence was magnified.

“Is this everything you dreamed it would be, Grayson?” he asked.

I swallowed the emotion in my throat.

“Is this how you pictured it?” My grandfather threw out his hands. “She played you, you fucking idiot. They all played you.” Grandpa laughed bitterly. “Oh, but it was so romantic. So fucking romantic to sign away our company to her husband’s sister. You blew up your world for her, and look what she did? Married a du Lac.”

He wore his black eye proudly, the same way he wore the smug I told you so curving his lips. For once, I’d had the upper hand. He’d fallen for my bluff…and it didn’t fucking matter.

The harder I fight for us, the more I put Story in danger. I got married to save her—and in the end forced her into a marriage to save her from me.

This hell was too beautifully designed not to be fate.

“Are you fucking crying?”

My grandpa gripped my chin, dragging my face to his to examine my eyes. I wasn’t crying. I didn’t cry. He’d made sure of that years ago, but I was sure my eyes were red with years of unshed emotion.

We were so close. We could have left this world. Disappeared into normalcy. Got a fucking house in Wisconsin or something. I don’t know.

Fate. Fucking fate.

I stared my grandfather back in his red-brown eyes, giving him nothing.

“You were always so weak,” he said, digging his thumb into my chin.