Forbidden Fate (Crowne Point 3)

I lifted my head. “I can’t leave.”

Lottie’s lips parted like I’d slapped her. The air between us was toxic, even as the salty ocean breathed.

“You really have no shame,” she said softly.

I was filled with it. Consumed by it. Once my uncle died, I would leave this place and hide, try to exorcise the demons I’d summoned during my time in Crowne Point.

“Does Grayson know?” I said the insane thing. The wrong thing. The treacherous, ugly, fucked-up thing.

Lottie stood up, straightening her back. “Does my husband know what I’m asking my girl to do?”

I ground my teeth. Instinctively, before I could stop it, my eyes drifted above the glass wall to the lofted second floor, where his bedroom was.

“Go ahead and cry to him, Story. Who do you think he loves more? The girl he tossed millions at to try and get out of his life, or the girl he’s willing to lose it all for?”

Her eyes lingered on mine a moment longer.

“Asheville is warmer than Crowne Point. Pack light layers.”

Eight

GRAY

* * *

Lottie’s family lived in an estate in Asheville, North Carolina. It was built in 1895 by Victor Paul du Lac and had been in the du Lac family ever since. The entire du Lac estate originally covered more than one hundred thousand acres, but now it was down to a humble seven.

Spending the weekend with Lynette and Arthur du Lac after my sex tape had just rocked their daughter’s wedding had to be at the bottom of the things I wanted to do for our fucking honeymoon. But Asheville had been planned for as long as the engagement.

Lottie and I climbed out of the car first. Behind us, in her own car, Story did the same. Traveling with Story had been fucking hell. Every minute I saw her, I remembered coming into Lottie’s hand, picturing Snitch.

Snitch’s foot caught on the cobblestone, and without thought, I grabbed her elbow.

She clenched her jaw. “Thank you, Mr. Crowne.”

She bit out her safe word. I could see the words in her head. All the shit she wouldn’t say. I wanted it. I missed it like fucking air.

Call me on my shit.

She eyed the sucker in my mouth, and my grip tightened. I wondered how she was handling everything. While the du Lacs had stopped the video on traditional media, we were all over the internet. After my first scandal, I didn’t go online for a month. The only thing that got me through it was poetry.

She said I had a mask…Story was stone. I couldn’t fucking read her. It was driving me insane. I wanted to pull her aside. Demand she let me in.

Rip the pain from her perfect lips.

“There’s a servant entrance around back,” Lottie said, cutting through the moment like a knife. I quickly dropped her, swiping my hand across my pants.

“Follow them to my room and bring me back my house shoes.”

Snitch mumbled a “Yes, Mrs. Crowne” and followed two servants through the archway into the home. They weren’t dressed in a traditional maid uniform, as Mother would insist on, but in dusty gray-blue uniforms you might see the maids wear at hotels, complete with starched white collars.

“I thought you agreed you weren’t bringing her.”

Lottie didn’t look at me. “She said she wanted to come.”

I don’t want to believe my wife would lie to me. That I was corrupting sweet, pure Lottie.

But I can’t believe Snitch would willingly leave her uncle.