Forbidden Fate (Crowne Point 3)

Her eyes clouded.

“Are you hoping I’ll admit I cheated on you?” she said darkly. “I’m sorry, but neither of us are that lucky.”

“I’m hoping I can help both of us.”

“He’s worse than you, Grayson. To him I’m only ever going to be Charlie, an annoying little girl…a mistake. A shame he wishes he could erase. A secret that would ruin him.”

Charlie?

“I won’t fight you on the divorce. I never thought I’d be pregnant and divorced, but anything is better than this.” She lifted her eyes, meeting mine. “But I know I’m not the only one who grew up with the stories they masked as fairy tales. We’re kings and queens, and kings don’t divorce queens. Not without war. Not without death,” she rasped. “Does she know how much you’re giving up?”

Fifty-Eight

STORY

* * *

“Well, if that was really your plan, you probably should have fucked me a few months ago, Angel. Made this a little bit more believable.”

I stared at him. “How long have you known?”

“Pretty much as long as we’ve been married. You’re shit at keeping secrets.”

I fell back against the wall. West gave me a sad, pitying look as he came to stand in front of me.

Behind him the night grew darker.

“Let me tell you what happens next. We get divorced. You won’t ask me for shit. You won’t take anything. If you go to the press with your story, or the cops, or who the fuck ever, no one will believe you. They might have before. What with…the way people are now, always canceling shit on Twitter.” He made an annoyed face. “But now? You were my wife. Why would you have married your rapist? And you took all those loving photos with me. Hell, you just fucked me.” He held up his phone and pressed play on a video.

I felt ill.

So ill.

“And you got pregnant.” He put his phone away and shook his head, smiling. “You don’t look very good right now, Story.”

I think I’m going to throw up. “Why?” was all I could manage.

“Did you think I was just going to let you get away with it?”

“Get away with it?” I balked. “With what?”

“You called me a fucking a rapist,” he yelled. “I’m about to take over my father’s company. I can’t have you trying to hashtag me and ruin that.”

The snow slammed against the window.

Always a cut away from bleeding out.

This is what my mother meant after all. I was bled out; there was nothing left of me to take. There was always a part of me that thought West must have some angle. I just couldn’t figure it out. It was staring me in the face.

It all made sense now, all those little things that never added up. Why West was so gung ho for me, why he took me to the court house instead of insisting on some giant wedding as those in his position always had, why he never faced any consequences.

They were all steps leading to this cliff.

It was just like the first time he stole into my heart. Every nice action, every sweet moment, was because he had something to prove, something to gain.

And just like the first time, I really didn’t believe that was the only reason.

“All of this?” I asked. “All the things you did and said, from the very beginning, were just to get back at me? Did you ever once love me?”