Forbidden Fate (Crowne Point 3)

I stared past the cold sand to the slowly darkening sky.

When I spoke next, my throat was like cotton. “I always wondered what it was like to be on Grayson Crowne’s private beach.”

He blinked, looking around. “I shouldn’t have brought you here.”

I tried to hide the sadness in my eyes, the way my face fell.

A second later he said, “It’s too cold.”

He slid out of his jacket, draping it over my shoulders.

“I’m already wearing a jacket,” I pointed out, voice barely a whisper.

It was only his jacket, so why did it feel so wrong, clandestine, dirty? The things those girls had shouted at us. I went to stop him, but his hand shot out, covering mine. My eyes met his, searching.

“Don’t fight me on this, Snitch. You’ll lose.” He tugged the jacket tighter, eyes pinched, then stepped away.

“You walked me miles home,” I said. Grayson looked out at the frosty ocean. “You could’ve just put me in a car.”

He shrugged. “I haven’t worked out today.”

“Is that really why?”

His head whipped away from the ocean, eyes colliding with mine so fast I swallowed my breath.

“You’re the mother of my child, Snitch. I’m not putting you in some car.” He looked so insulted I couldn’t speak.

Whoa.

Hearing him say it out loud drenched my body in goose bumps. Mother of his child.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” I blurted. “I don’t know if I can be a good mom.”

His hand came out as though he was going to push my hair from my face, but it froze, and then he lifted the locket from my neck.

“That’s impossible…You care too much.”

“Are you scared?” I wondered.

Hope flowered. Was he as uncertain as me? Did he feel it too? That jagged, crippling shard of fear.

The thing that made me bleed.

“Am I scared, Snitch?” He blinked, looked at me like I’d just asked him if I had two heads. Insecurity bled into me. Of course Grayson Crowne wasn’t scared.

“Every goddamn minute. I only have my dad and my grandfather as examples…and I don’t want to be anything like them.”

I was about to tell him, No, you won’t; you could never be, but he continued before I could.

“You’re the only person I ever cared about protecting, and I did a shit job of that.”

“You did a great job,” I whispered. Without him…where would I be?

In response he licked his thumb, then dragged it across my bottom lip. My heart stopped and restarted, shocked. All Grayson did was look at his thumb, at the blood he’d wiped away, and shake his head with a self-deprecating smile.

“That outfit doesn’t look like something West picked out.”

I tried to hide my smile. He’d noticed.