I nodded, unable to speak.
He gave me a wicked, curling grin. I couldn’t stop staring. It was so beautiful. So bright. Like the sun had come out after a year of unrelenting storms. This was Grayson Crowne, the rose without the thorns, the boy without the heavy armor, Atlas freed.
He arched a brow. “You’re staring.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile. Not really.”
He closed his lips, but the smile stayed, and the warmth in his eyes. The softness. I wanted to kiss him. I wanted this moment to be different, for us to not be strangled by circumstance.
“This has been the most amazing, magical dream of my life,” I said. “I don’t want to wake up.”
He pushed the hair behind my ear, hand staying. “You don’t have to.”
I woke to a pair of pants in the face.
“We have to go,” Grayson said.
He tossed more clothes at me, some of them not mine. I looked outside. It was still dark. Only a few hours, if even that, had passed. Grayson scrambled around the penthouse, dimly lit by one desk light and the glittering sea outside.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“The Crowne papers came out,” he said absently.
“They have that in Italy?” I wondered.
Gray made a face. “I get them delivered everywhere I go. If you don’t own them, know them…” He said the last part absently, almost like they weren’t his own words.
He dropped the papers on the foot of the bed, reaching for phones I didn’t even know he’d brought. He must’ve had five cell phones, and they were all going off. Grayson looked like he’d been hit with a bomb. I wondered what could have been so terrible. A terrorist attack? Something with Crowne Industries?
While Gray frantically buttoned up his shirt, a cell phone on either shoulder, I reached for the paper.
ABIGAIL CROWNE ELOPES WITH MYSTERY BODYGUARD.
“You let her fucking leave?” Gray said into one phone, then snapped into the other phone, “Don’t. They aren’t related.”
When the calls ended, Gray sat down on the edge of the bed, his tie undone. “What the fuck is she thinking?”
“She loved him.”
He lifted his head at my voice, staring out at the inky Roman morning. “I always thought he was a dog who wanted to use her. Who wanted her money.”
“People would probably think the same about me,” I said lightly.
He tensed.
“You were protecting her.”
He made a noise like yeah right. It was so hard for Grayson to admit he cared. So hard. Grayson Crowne, who said he hated his sisters, who pretended he couldn’t give a shit what happened to either one, so painfully obviously grieved the loss of her.
“Now?” I hedged. “What do you think about him now?”
He dragged two hands through his hair. “I don’t know. She’s gonna lose everything.”
“Can you help?”
“Are you trying to make me a good guy, Story Hale?”
“You already are a good guy.”