After a moment that lasted too short, he gently pulled my face back, examining me.
His face bled emotion. First, relief, then fury—at the cake Lottie had barely managed to clean.
I couldn’t handle sympathy, not when I was struggling with the feeling in my chest. This badness. This wrongness. Those people on the internet were right. I was wrong. I was fucked up. I was sleeping in the bed of the guy who did me wrong, and I don’t know why I couldn’t just say he was bad, when I was staring my Prince Charming in the face.
I tried to pull my face back, but Grayson’s grip dug into my chin.
“Please,” I begged.
His eyes hardened, thumb digging into the flesh. “I was the villain until you made me the hero in your story. You saw me before anyone else, before I saw myself.”
My lips parted, but nothing came out.
His words came over my bloodstream, soothing the bubbling acid burning through my veins. How did he know? How could he possibly know? How could he read the words in my head like he could feel the heartbeat in my chest?
Tears marbled my eyes. Could he read the words inside my head? Or had my heartbeat become so loud it was Morse code, betraying my feelings to him.
His grip slipped from my chin, sliding to the back of my neck to push our foreheads together. His other hand slid from my back to my stomach, and then the first beautiful thing since this awful day began happened, she kicked—with her father.
Our eyes collided.
Hope.
He swallowed so hard his Adam’s apple lurched.
With his palm digging into my stomach, Grayson continued, “I don’t know what you see in him. But I know it’s your curse to see what others can’t.”
I wanted so badly to kiss him in this moment.
Didn’t he see? This was why I could never let him go.
Forty-Four
GRAY
Didn’t she see? This was why I couldn’t let her stay. This was my hell, and I never should have dragged them in.
“What if we don’t find it?” Her fear came out a strangled cry. “I can’t lose you.”
“You’ll never lose me, Snitch.”
Her eyes searched mine frantically. “You said something similar when we learned I was pregnant. I don’t want a life of you watching me a thousand miles away. A life where we never see you.”
She tried to pull back and I gripped both sides of her face, thumbs digging into her cheeks—
“I should have known I’d find you with him. You really are quite unfaithful.”
Our little bubble popped as West came stumbling out of the hedges onto the beach, a bottle of champagne in his hand.
I put Story behind my back, shielding her from West. He scoffed, taking a drink straight from the bottle.
Behind us, Lottie all but waddled up from the shore, a hand on her lower back. “West? Are you drunk?”
“Off his ass,” I gritted.
West laughed. “I’m just here to collect my fucking mistress. I think I’ve been really goddamn lenient. Do you know the rules she’s broken? The things I could have done—”
“Can’t you just go away?” Lottie yelled, cutting him off. “Why are you ruining things even more? It’s shitty enough having our parents; why are you trying to become them?”