Forbidden Fate (Crowne Point 3)

Silence.

That was…insane.

To make this marriage and merger work, Grandfather placed majority shares of Crowne Industries in my name. Lottie received the same treatment. It was all for show. We were puppets. Puppets never think to cut the strings. That’s suicide.

But maybe it was a good idea.

My last leash wasn’t strong enough to keep me away from Story. Maybe it was time for iron bars. Fucking steel. Or maybe it was a recipe for disaster.

At my silence, Lottie mumbled, “That’s what I thought.”

“Lottie…I’m not saying no. Can we table it? Talk about it when things aren’t so…” Fucked.

“Before the wedding, my mom came to me to give me some wisdom…Do you want to know what her advice was?”

The lost, resigned look in her eyes told me it wasn’t some mother-daughter girl advice about how to please a man or some shit. It told m

e I didn’t want to know whatever Lynette du Lac had told Lottie. But when Lottie didn’t speak for a full minute, I gestured for her to continue.

She stopped rubbing her arm and lifted her eyes to mine. “Be whoever he needs you to be.”

STORY

* * *

I slept on the cold floor instead of my ashy bed, so when I woke, my shoulder blades ached. I had a brief, painful flashback to my first nights with Grayson. But this time there was no one sleeping above me to talk to. No one to slip a blanket on me in the night.

I woke alone and cold.

I knew I shouldn’t have, but I browsed the internet. I was supposed to be forgotten, right? Except I saw my face splashed on the front page of the internet, bent next to Westley du Lac, a dopey, wide-eyed look on my face. Like I’d been caught. And now I had a name.

Cinderella of Crowne Hall.

I exhaled, falling back to the frigid floor, phone to my chest. They didn’t know who I was, didn’t even know my name, but they acted as though they knew everything about me.

Gold digger. Whore. Mistress. User.

But others loved me.

Wanted to be me.

They’d managed to contain the papers and major news outlets online, but not everyone could be bought. With a sigh I stood up, getting dressed in the little clothing that hadn’t been destroyed.

Upstairs the servants were prepping for the day, and a tray of pastries and sandwiches was set out for us. When I entered, the conversation stopped dead. I knew if I had any friends left here, last night had obliterated them.

To them, the only reason Lottie wouldn’t kick me to the curb after what had happened was because I was fucking her husband.

I tried to ignore it, tried to ignore how everyone watched me, and went for a sandwich. The tray was yanked back. All the servants looked at me with cold eyes.

They didn’t snicker or laugh, and somehow that made it worse. These cruel acts weren’t like what I’d bore upstairs with Grayson’s rich peers. These weren’t done for amusement. The humiliation was calculated. They were trying to break me down and run me out.

Old Story would have swallowed her voice. Tried to hide. Blend in.

“Do you think I want this?” I whispered.

I was about to go upstairs and attend to the love of my life’s wife. I’d probably see him. If there was a hell, I couldn’t imagine anything worse than what I was currently in.

But the only way I could be free was if my uncle died.