Another scoff, disbelief evident in the way he refused to look at me and simply stared out the window.
“I’ve decided you care about your family,” I said.
“Oh, you?
?ve decided.”
“Yep.”
He laughed, dark, unamused.
“You’re just doing that Gray thing where you care so much about something that instead of admit you care, you do the opposite. You’re cruel. Because if you lose it, it might not hurt as much.”
“That ‘Gray thing.’” He shook his head on another scoff, and for a minute I was certain he was going to push me away again, but then he looked over his shoulder, locking eyes. Voice too thick, eyes too raw, bleeding, cutting. “How do you know?”
Because maybe that’s what he does with me…
I chewed my lip, looking away.
“Just a guess,” I whispered.
For the rest of the trip home Gray didn’t look at me, nor I him.
Forty-Five
STORY
* * *
We weren’t even off the plane before Grayson was pulled in all directions. He was dragged from the steps by an army of people in suits as his mother orbited.
I slowly finished the descent alone. Grayson kept whipping his head from one person to the next. I wondered if his neck would ache.
Abigail Crowne had left Crowne Hall, left her fiancé, left her family. She’d chosen her love, but now she was excommunicated. It was like the universe knew I was starting to hope and dream, and they threw a meteor-sized reminder back at me.
Grayson Crowne was Atlas, and if he left, the world around him would shatter. The company would fall apart, people would lose their jobs, his family would crumble.
But for these few days it was nice to pretend.
Grayson lifted his head, rose gold hair silky and shimmering against the thundering sky, searching for something.
His eyes landed on me.
He pushed aside his mother and grandfather. Pushed through the small army of people. Until he was before me.
“What are you doing?”
He grabbed me by the waist, ripping me to him, planting a furious breath-and-mind stealing kiss.
“I’m telling her,” he said, breaking our kiss. I blinked, dazed. I’d fisted my hands in his shirt. “This doesn’t change shit, Snitch. Go visit Woodsy or something. But don’t go anywhere. Wait for me.”
He planted another kiss on my lips, then let me go—not before tossing me a bone-melting grin.
He regrouped with the army of suits, and then my eyes connected with Tansy, right before she turned and followed her son into Crowne Hall.
The route felt like an ancient one I hadn’t traveled in years. I ran my fingers along the intricate fleur-de-lis molding until it stopped—the servants’ quarters.
“Uncle?” I called out.