Maybe I misremembered that night with West…
I shook my head.
No.
No, I didn’t.
I dialed the number I hadn’t looked at in years, refusing to acknowledge why I hadn’t deleted it. As the dial tone met me, my eyes were locked on the princess-cut diamond refracting the light.
“Angel.” West picked up after the third ring, sounding way too fucking pleased that I’d called.
“Hi…”
“Not that I’m not happy, but why did you call?”
Grayson said I would hate him…and I do. I hate him for forcing me into this. I hate him for giving me no choice.
For making me feel so goddamn useless and powerless. Never have I felt so powerless as I do in this moment, forced to marry the man who raped me to escape being the mistress of the man I love.
Fuck.
Him.
I hate him.
I hate him so much.
I slid the ring on my left ring finger.
Story du Lac.
There was a time when this would have felt like a happily ever after.
I swallowed, then said, “Does your offer still stand?”
Seventeen
&n
bsp; GRAY
* * *
I rubbed the ridges of my broken nose as I came through the large wooden doors. After searching everywhere I thought I might find Story, I was forced to come back to the dark spires of Crowne Hall, empty-handed again.
Everyone thinks Crowne Hall is such a strange mixture of architecture to find in upper New York. Victorian and black but on the whitest sand on the East Coast.
The story goes the first Crowne built it for his wife, a keepsake from old Victorian England. In reality, Crowne Hall was built for the love of his life—a mistress. His wife hanged herself. We’ve been fucking our wives over for our mistresses since its inception.
Where did I get off even thinking I’d be a good father?
That Snitch wouldn’t be better off out of this world, away from everyone…especially me? In my head, when the girl I loved told me she was pregnant, I lifted her into my arms. I didn’t fucking threaten her.
I was such a piece of shit.
“Grayson?” Lottie’s soft voice called to me. “Grayson, where have you been?”
“I only came back to grab some cash.”