Stolen Soulmate (Crowne Point 2)
* * *
Hollywood guy wound his fingers in mine, leading me through the crowd. “It’s just beyond here.”
It felt wrong to hold his hand, wrong and dangerous, but I let him. I let him weave us through the crowd, past skimpy dresses and bikinis that shone like dragon scales. Above us, I even caught a glimpse of Abigail dancing on one of the stages, until we were at the edge of the club, overlooking the black sea.
Technically Grayson hadn’t said anything about holding hands with others.
“Do you know what’s inside these rocks?” Hollywood asked.
“Shouldn’t you be deep-throating the Academy?”
Grayson.
Grayson, with a twinkling sea of dancing at his back.
Hollywood heartthrob stared at me a moment longer, then slowly lifted his bright-green eyes.
“Nice to see you, too, Crowne,” he said easily.
Grayson didn’t look at me, but I knew better now than to think his attention wasn’t laser focused on me.
“This one belongs to me.”
Hollywood eyed me. “Didn’t see your name on her.”
Grayson stepped forward and grabbed my elbow, his grip surprisingly gentle. “It’s not on me they don’t teach you to read in Hollywood.”
Grayson didn’t wait for his response, dragging me away.
“Talk to you later, new girl…” Hollywood’s voice drifted over my shoulder. Grayson’s grip tightened at his voice. It excited me—it shouldn’t have, but it did.
My heart pounded. At Hollywood’s attention, at Grayson’s tight grip, at being talked about like I was little more than dirt once more.
Grayson shoved me into a room built into the rock and slammed the door.
“Am I not giving you enough attention?” he asked, tone deadly impassive. “Did you forget what you signed already?”
“Don’t talk to anyone,” I mumbled. “But that’s an insane request, and I won’t fucking follow it. And he came up to me.”
A pause followed, the thumping beat pounding against the rock like it wanted to get in.
“Why do you care?” I asked.
He laughed. “I don’t give a shit.”
“Liar,” I yelled. “You act like nothing matters, like you’re just as corrupt and depraved as the rest of them, but I see you, Gray.”
He stepped closer, voice a low snarl. “What do you think you see?”
I stuttered. “I—I—”
“Tell me, Snitch. What do you see?” He cornered me against the wall, shoulders wide and head bent. Forcing me to crane my neck back to see into his eyes. “You must have painted a pretty fucking picture in your head. I wonder if you can outdo my stans—their pictures are pretty goddamn perfect.”
“It’s not pretty,” I whispered at last.
He reeled, and even in the low light, I saw the surprise, the furrowed brow.