Forbidden Fate (Crowne Point 3)

“What’s wrong, little nun?”

“Go away.”

He grasped my arm, spinning me. “Something’s wrong.”

How did he know? How did he always fucking know?

“Everything is fine. Go away.”

His thumb applied the slightest pressure above my elbow. Something weighed on his shoulders. I could see it in his heavy lids. The suit he was wearing was all wrong, not Grayson.

“What’s wrong with you?”

His brows rose. “Me?”

The soft laughter from Tansy’s solarium drifted to us.

“Did you hit your grandpa?” I asked.

Grayson was the only one I could ever talk with. Who was I going to talk to about poetry and my uncle? West? Who was I going to worry about my pregnancy with? Once again, Grayson and I were tangled in secrets.

Maybe he wanted to tell me everything, like I wanted to tell him.

Or maybe that was wishful thinking.

I pulled my arm from him.

“He threatened something that didn’t belong to him,” he said. His blue eyes traveled a slow path down my face to my collarbone, where his locket lay, the one I couldn’t take off no matter how hard I tried.

I took a step back and his hand shot out, gripping the locket, holding me in place.

“Let me go.”

“I will,” he said, voice rough.

His fist curled tighter.

“Was there no scenario where you didn’t marry her? Where you and I lived happily ever after?”

The minute I said it, I wished I could take it back, but in that moment I wanted nothing more than to know how I lived happily ever after with Grayson Crowne.

More than being pathetic.

More than anything.

He gripped the locket, eyes pinched. On me. “There was.”

“Why didn’t you choose me?” I asked. “What does she have that I don’t?” The words tumbled and fell from my mouth, jagged pieces of my already broken heart.

His eyes slashed to mine. “I’d do anything for you.”

“Except leave your wife.”

His jaw clenched, as if he was holding something back. Finally he said, “I would do what I had to do to keep you and the baby safe.”

I shoved him off, walking to my wing. I was so weak. So pathetic. I rubbed my forehead with the palm of my hand, trying to think clearly even though every time Grayson was around me my thoughts clouded into white fog.

A hand snatched my wrist. “I’m getting you out of this world, little nun.”