“We’re done talking about this, Abigail,” Mom said. “Why don’t you try following your sister’s example for once? She handles her engagement with grace.”
“And if I say no?” I tested.
My mother sipped her tea, my question not worth a response. Since Father’s death years ago, Crowne Industries had been untenable. Never mind what happened to our family—our father had been the glue holding an already dysfunctional unit together—the company was always the most important.
On the surface, we were billionaires w
ho had it all. Beneath that veneer, we were barely sustained by my ruthless grandfather Beryl Crowne and my narcissistic mother, Tansy. We stayed afloat, because we did what they said.
Whatever they said—anything so we didn’t lose the crown, or Crowne, I should say.
I knew what would happen if I disobeyed. I’d end up like my uncle, the cautionary tale in our family for what happened when you disobeyed: penniless and excommunicated.
Over mother’s back, Gray blew me a kiss.
I ground my teeth. “I won’t disappoint you, Mother.”
Mom didn’t even bother hiding her incredulous laugh. Without another word, she went back to her book. Our conversation was over.
Maybe if I was someone else, I would’ve told Mom to screw off. It didn’t go over my head that she hadn’t even bothered to tell me whom I was marrying.
I wish I didn’t want my mother’s approval, but it was the one thing I wanted most in the world, and there were days I would do anything to get it. On those days, I tended to disappoint her most.
I watched her a moment longer, playing the conversation I wished would happen in my head.
I’m sorry, Mom.
That’s okay, because I love you, Abigail. No matter what you do, I will always love you.
After I’d stood there too long, Mother waved a hand for me to go.
I stopped just before the huge portrait of my father, Charles Crowne. He’d had a hard, square jaw and arresting reddish-brown eyes, and in certain lights, they looked purple. His eyes were the only thing I received from him, the only hint I might be a Crowne. He’d been gone for so long this was how I remembered him, in paintings and pictures.
“God, that was so much more satisfying than I imagined,” Gemma said to my back. “I think I came.”
“Oh, eat a dick, Gemma.”
“I would, Abby, but you’ve already gotten to them all. You’re the Pac-Man of dicks.”
It doesn’t count if it happens in Crowne Hall.
I spun around and raised my hand to throw one of my heels at Gemma’s head, but my hand froze midair, captive in someone’s grasp. When I looked over my shoulder, my knees buckled, and I nearly fell.
Theo.
Theo held me up by my wrist, unperturbed by the sudden weakness in my legs. I had questions…a lot of questions. Almost five years had passed since I’d last seen him in person. I’d seen pictures of him, but only in tabloids, and always in the back behind my grandfather, out of focused or cropped. Grandpa rarely visited our town of Crowne Point—and even more rarely so our home, Crowne Hall—which meant I never saw Theo.
Never saw the boy I’d saved.
The boy I’d loved.
“What are you doing?” I tried to yank my hand out.
He wouldn’t look at me.
It was a rule all servants and bodyguards followed, but it had never been one Theo had obeyed. Not with me.
He’d grown into his features, his jaw now square and hardened. His cheekbones so sharp they were almost hollowed. Thick, silky, lustrous brown hair fell over hazel-green eyes so clear they were like gemstones.