Forbidden Fate (Crowne Point 3)

We’d tried so hard to avoid this.

But fate had other plans.

“I don’t care. I don’t fucking care, Snitch.”

“You won’t leave your pregnant wife for me, Grayson. I know you. And I… I don’t know if I can let that happen. We’ve been trying to fight fate for months, Grayson. At every turn it’s obvious we’re not supposed to be together.”

“I told you, Snitch. Even if it takes the rest of our lives, I’m not letting you go.”

“There’s too much debris between us, Grayson. We’re broken glass and thorns.”

And then, like a burning sign of our infidelity, the lights turned on. The antique room stuttered into clarity.

“Power’s on,” I said, just so I had something else to say.

“Snitch.” Grayson grabbed my arm. “We’re still leaving tonight. I’m going to find Lottie, and I’ll figure things out, and in an hour you’ll be here. Waiting. Promise me.”

I can’t make Grayson choose between me and his wife. I can’t make him choose between which of his children to abandon. What a horrible, impossible decision. All Grayson had ever wanted was to be nothing like his father, and now he would have to decide…me or Lottie?

In the end, Grayson would always lose.

“Fucking promise me!”

“I can’t let you give up everything, Grayson.”

He gripped my shoulders. “Promise me you’ll wait, dammit.”

“I promise,” I said weakly.

He stood up, got dressed, but he didn’t leave. He stared down at me, jaw clenched.

“Do you not trust me to wait?”

He dragged his hands through his hair. “Every time we get close, something snatches it away. I want to run with you. Run out of this fucking place right now.”

“I don’t want our life together to be running and hiding,” I whispered. “I want it to be more. And you could never live with yourself if you abandoned your child.”

I could tell he wanted to say more by the way the muscle in his jaw feathered, by the veins throbbing in his fist.

Yet all he said was, “One hour.”

I pulled on my ripped dress when he left, lost to my own thoughts.

I think we tried so hard not to be the people we feared we might be that we became something even worse. What demons will we summon not to succumb to those we fear live inside us? What darkness will we give in to, what parts will we dirty and tarnish just to keep a little piece pure?

Because of every betrayal I’d experienced after entering the Crowne world…today was the worst. I betrayed myself. I betrayed the promise I made to myself the day West betrayed me. I wanted to be like the people I read about. I want to be someone who doesn’t make mistakes. I wanted to be powerful and empowered.

“Damn, Angel. You didn’t even wait an hour.”

I blinked out of my tears. West was standing in the room, and I don’t know how long he’d been watching me.

“West. How long have you been there?”

“Are you gonna call me a rapist again? Or maybe you wanted to call me Daddy?”

Fifty-Seven

GRAY