Forbidden Fate (Crowne Point 3)

“Or, at least, you used to.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I just stared at him, trying to get my heart to stop hammering.

“Even if you can’t open up to me…don’t be anyone else’s snitch. Just be mine. I want all your secrets.” His eyes flashed to mine, burning. “Promise me.”

I licked my lips. “I’ll give you mine if you give me yours, Grayson Crowne.”

He traced the glass bottle with his thumb, as if considering my proposal. “I have an answer for you.”

“An answer?”

“What I would be if I wasn’t CEO of Crowne Industries.”

“You do?”

He nodded slowly, carefully. “A hero for my sisters. A good man. A good father. I want to be that man. I’d like to be what you see in me.”

The way he spoke, it sounded like he knew it could never come true.

As Grayson unburied his heart, pieces of mine that I’d tucked in thorns broke free.

“I have a card from my uncle’s attorney,” I whispered. “I don’t want to go to his reading. Then it makes it real…but it will be read soon. Within a few months. He doesn’t have any property. I was going to give him money. I can’t imagine what he’d give.”

He

slowly lowered the drink from his lips, eyes on the window. “What if he has something to give you?”

“Then the bank will probably take it. That’s what happened with Mom…No, he doesn’t have anything for me. He said all he had for me was a coin. My uncle was losing his mind toward the end,” I whispered. “Talking about wishes and coins buried beneath poetry.”

He lifted his head, blue eyes locking on mine. “Coins?”

I nodded. We were silent for a moment, then Grayson reached into his pocket. Gold flashed in his palm. Coins.

“I don’t think he was losing his mind, Snitch.”

They weren’t like regular coins, they were etched with lace-like detail, and the lace patterns were all different.

I’m so fucking stupid. I should have known the minute my uncle spoke of a coin what he was referring to. I leaned off the bed, trying to get a better look.

“That looks like the coin West threw down when you gambled me.”

“I didn’t gamble you,” Grayson growled. “I’ve known everyone at that table since I was in fucking diapers, and they’re all shit at poker. Gambling addicts with the easiest tells.”

I tried to stop the way my heart grew at the confession. “What are those?”

He shoved them back into his pocket. “It’s hard to explain if you didn’t grow up like me, with archaic rituals and Victorian bullshit.”

“Try me.”

“There are only five of them. I have all but one—mine.” With his arms on his knees, the bottle in his hand, he stared out the window. “They’re a specific kind of currency in our world, tied to our bloodlines, and just about the only thing we honor. Families save them for years to force anything from marriages to mergers. That’s why it was so weird when West used one on you…but now I understand,” he growled the last words. “When you use a coin, the person has to obey or challenge.”

“That night, West asked if you wanted to challenge…”

“He was asking if I wanted to start a war.” He shot me a wry grin. “I considered it.”

There Grayson went again, making my heart beat without consent. I looked away, but despite my best efforts to tamp it down, hope sprung in my chest.

“Want to know something dumb? I’ve been saving them for so long because I have this hope I can use them to barter my way out of this world.”