Forbidden Fate (Crowne Point 3)

I glanced at West, who was staring back.

When I eyed a new book on the nightstand.

“What’s that?”

West pulled away from the ice, reaching for the leather-bound thing. He handed it to me. It was a book of poetry.

“I seem to recall you and your uncle reading Keats every Thanksgiving.”

“You remember that?”

“You were mine before you were his, Angel.”

Every time he spoke like that made it harder to remind myself the reason I was here: to fucking leave.

“What are you getting out of this marriage, West?” I asked. “You already know about me. My cards are on the table.”

“If you’d let me kiss you, really kiss you, without some fucking tradition as our chaperone, you wouldn’t be asking that question.”

I lowered the ice seeping through the cloth, wetting my fingers. I can’t let him kiss me. I…I liked it too much.

“You never wanted to kiss me before.” I looked down, fiddling with the ice.

He lifted my chin with his knuckle, forcing my eyes to meet his warm ones.

“I was afraid.”

Afraid?

“West du Lac isn’t supposed to love a servant, Story.”

I felt the wrinkle in my brow. Then what changed? Before I could ask, West spoke.

“I want to get you a bodyguard.”

“Why?”

“I am fucking worried about you, Angel. You’re the moon, and some people out there want to snuff you out for no other reason than to bring you into the dark.”

I blinked, not expecting such…nice words from him. It almost sounded like when we were kids. He caressed a knuckle down my cheek. He leaned closer, as if he would kiss me. When I didn’t move to kiss him, he didn’t go any further.

“Story Hale, do you think you could ever stay with me?”

I dropped the ice and it clattered to the floor. “What?”

“You’re it for me. I want more than a few months. I want to have babies with you. I want to have a life with you.”

Babies.

A life.

“I…” I stood up. “The ice. I need to get more.”

I don’t like West. West is a means to an end.

I kept repeating it as I went to the kitchen to gather ice.

I grabbed a cloth, filling it with more ice. There’s a part of me…a part I promised to erase, and it won’t stop scraping at my chest with the words what if?