she saw me, I nodded.
“Crowne Industries and Du Lac Enterprises becoming one,” Lynette said. “It’s what Arthur would have wanted.”
Lynette and my grandfather raised their crystal glasses. “To a new era—”
“That’s going to be a problem…” Lottie stood up. “Because you don’t have a company anymore, Beryl.”
STORY
“S-sweet pea?” Lynette sputtered at the sight of her daughter. “What’s happening?”
I wondered what had gone through Lynette’s mind all the time her daughter had been missing. She didn’t look happy to see her now…she looked distraught.
Lottie sighed. “You’re about to witness the hostile takeover of Crowne Industries and Du Lac Enterprises…Never in a million years did I think I would help my husband plan a mutiny of my family’s centuries-old business for his mistress. But…” She clutched her tummy. “But, I guess the real reason is we had no say in how this marriage began, but we can decide how it ends.”
“Antionette!” Beryl called for Tansy, finally spotting her resting leisurely against the fountain as swans flapped their wings, water falling off the feathered tips like glitter.
“Where the fuck is everyone, Antionette?”
She shrugged, and took a sip of the night’s specialty cocktail—a phosphorescent vodka that glowed like moon water. I had to admire her in that moment. Even as the world she knew burned down around her, she made sure the night’s menu was perfect.
“It seems everyone has…” She looked around, unconcerned. “Lost their way.”
His brows popped. “Lost their way?”
She shrugged again.
Beryl took a step to her, but someone else stepped in the way.
Grayson.
He hadn’t spoken yet, but I know his profile like the blood in my body. His ridged nose, his plump pink lips.
Oh, fuck.
My chest expanded like a balloon at the sight of him.
I took a step to him before I’d realized it—then dug my fingers into a tree beside me, physically restraining myself.
He thought I’d died. All this time, thinking I’d died? That we’d died. What had that done to him?
The urge to run to him was like the tide dragging me out to sea, but for just a little while longer, I had to stay hidden.
Be the girl behind the girl.
“You probably could have kept Mom under control,” Gray said. “But you did the one thing you shouldn’t have. You threatened her child.”
Dawning slowly spread on Beryl’s features, and he searched frantically around him—for his guards, that weren’t there.
For anyone.
The only people who’d been allowed to stay were a crowd that would turn on him, paparazzi that would descend like vultures.
And they watched eagerly.
“You can try calling security,” Grayson said. “Won’t do shit since they’re probably halfway to Mexico, and by the time you hire new guards, you’ll be in jail.”
When you look at a Crowne, they ruin your life.
When you cross a Crowne…they make sure you wish you’d never been born.
I was never more aware of that than now.
Beryl laughed. “You think it’s that simple? I spent decades—”
“Blackmailing. Threatening. Murdering,” Grayson interrupted. “There’s a whole slew of paparazzi out there, wondering about a poem that paints me as an adulterer.”
Something was building. With the glimmering water and swans and lights, with the smell of fresh night blossoms and salt air that had become ubiquitous with my love for Grayson.
It built and built.
Hope.
Real hope. Because we were almost there.
“And the video that proves it,” I said, lifting my mask.
GRAY
Story revealed herself, lifting the white feathered mask from her eyes. Her big, walnut eyes found mine.
The world faded away.
Safe.
She was fucking safe.
Neruda, she mouthed.
Maybe this was what all these months of silent torture had been working toward.
This moment.
So I could look my wife in the eyes and know she loved me, even as I had to restrain every throbbing muscle from running to her.
Because we were almost there.
“Charlotte du Lac will get everything,” I said, tearing my eyes from Story. “The entire company.”
Beryl laughed. “You mean I get everything? I’ve already absorbed Du Lac Enterprises.”
Lottie’s soft voice. “That’s too bad. Grayson had a postnup drawn up.”
“You taught me well, Grandpa. All those lessons in hostile takeovers I was forced to take instead of doing shit like, I don’t know, climbing trees.”
You could see the color slowly drain from his face as he realized what was happening.
“Your whole plan was to screw each other over—using us as puppets. Using my body. Using his. And now it has fucked you.” Lottie said it without emotion.
“Charlotte.” Mrs. du Lac gasped.
“No one really thought much of me,” she whispered. “But I’m giving it back. Well, to whatever company Grayson forms.”
“I will lead this generation