Destroyed Destiny (Crowne Point 4)

I kept playing it over and over in my head like a record that wouldn’t stop skipping. Was all of this heartbreak pointless, and was it all my fault?

“Did I mess everything up? Should I have run with you that night?” I turned to him, and he was already looking at me. The moon and stars his backdrop, the shadow clinging like velvet to his pouty lips and soft eyes.

Grayson.

I’d missed this, nighttime—our time.

“They don’t get it.” He traced my lips with his thumb. “They can’t. I feel sorry, they must not know love. Every single one of those women would have jumped at the chance to run away with me, Story Hale. Only you had the guts to say no. Only you cared enough to say no. Only you had the strength.”

I couldn’t stop the tears from running.

Spilling down my cheeks and salting the pillow where I’d first opened my heart to him and all those nights after.

He didn’t thumb them away. “You’re the moon, Story Hale. Some people will want to snuff you out for no other reason than to bring you into their dark”

I paused as West’s words came back.

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.

But if I had to guess who said it first, it would always be my thorny prince.

He gripped my face so tight it bruised. “You are the only person in this goddamn universe looking out for me. You are the only person who loves me enough to be hated. You are the only person who loves me.”

I pressed my forehead to his. “I want to spend what hours I have with you, just with you.”

Not the press.

Not the public.

Just him.

So for a while we lay together, talking about everything and nothing.

With my cheek resting on two hands, I stared into Grayson’s deep eyes. “Did you give my uncle all that money?”

The way he bit his bottom lip and looked away let me know the answer was a solid yes.

“Why?”

“He was like a father to me. I would have given him everything, if I could.”

I swallowed the tears in my throat. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Grayson caressed his knuckles down my cheek. “It wasn’t my secret to share, little wife.”

I told Grayson of the cryptic letter my uncle left me, and how everything seemed to point back to Scotland. How I felt like I should know where it was.

“We’ve already looked everywhere,” I said. “I don’t understand why my uncle didn’t just tell me where it was or give it to me. Why all the secrecy?”

“Your uncle worked with us the longest out of anyone; he saw our darkest. He knew you weren’t ready. What would you have done if he handed you a coin on his deathbed?”

I worked my mouth. “I don’t know…probably forgotten about it. Lost it. Given it to someone…”

I probably would have tried to give it to a lawyer the day Grayson threatened me.

“I’m starting to worry…” I trailed off, chewing my bottom lip. “What if the coin is in Scotland? What if that’s why everything pointed there? What do we do then? My uncle wanted me to go, Josephine said I should have found it, the triplets were expecting me… What if it was in Scotland this whole time? What if we’re too late?”

He rolled away from me, staring at the ceiling. Silent.