think at this point we all pretend we’re the Cinderella. It’s like a fairy tale to us.”
“This is my life. I’m not a fairy tale,” I whispered. “I’m a real person.”
“You said you weren’t her, miss.”
Our eyes met in the window.
“Where is the tiara?”
We both turned at the voice. West wore a simple black tux, but it fit him perfectly. His bow tie was the same glittery material as my dress, and I wanted to rip it from his neck.
She curtsied for West, then quickly left the room.
“It broke in transit,” I said.
His eyes narrowed. “It’s survived three revolutions and two world wars, but it couldn’t survive one afternoon with you?”
I shrugged. The muscle in his jaw ticked, like he was trying to suppress a smile. His eyes dragged down my body. Starting at my eyes, down my neck, lingering on my stomach.
He rubbed his jaw. “Do you know why people kiss on New Year’s?”
I didn’t, but my gut did that thing, that West thing, where I felt like I was about to step into a trap. So I stayed quiet.
He smiled, and held out his arm to me. “I’ll be sure to tell you later tonight.”
GRAY
Night had fallen on Crowne Hall, and I waited for Story to come down to the party. Yachts had docked off our private beach, each one filled with its own private debauchery. Later tonight, they’d go off into international waters, where laws wouldn’t apply to them.
Those yachts were fucking dangerous.
The triplets still hadn’t left. Across the ballroom, they watched me.
For the first time in over a decade, I had the strangest urge to go and talk to them. They would have to go back to school soon as they went to a similar boarding school as I had, and it was year-round. After the new year, they’d be gone.
My mother approached me, blocking my view of them. She was in a bright and glittering gold gown I’m sure she would say tastefully shone.
“Your sister is missing.” She waved a hand in the air on a sigh. “And your wife is looking for you.”
If she was talking about Lottie, I highly fucking doubt it.
“You’ll find her next to Lynette who, by some strange coincidence of fate I’m sure, is wearing a very similar dress to mine…”
I zoned out my mother’s passive-aggressive rant, which would take the next five to ten minutes.
I checked my Finsta for more secrets from Story, but only found photo after photo of tonight’s debauchery.
A princess from some small, little known European country doing a line of cocaine off a hockey player’s cock.
Two assholes lighting something on fire.
And my “missing” sister, clearly high on something, dancing on the bow of a yacht.
That was the New Year’s I knew. Bored rich kids trying to outdo each other. Not this, my mother’s parties, which were so rigid in their opulence, it was as if they were trying to make up for the darker world living directly parallel to it.
This time last year I was blitzed out of my fucking brain. Now I was almost too sober.
Too aware of my empty inbox.
I was getting impatient waiting for Snitch to tell me her secrets. Impatient and…fuck. I don’t know.
Eager.
I felt like a voyeur. A pervert in my own wife’s soul. I was addicted to the secrets, strung out on pieces of her soul. Maybe that was why I didn’t tell her, maybe it was entirely fucking selfish.
Lay claim to my mouth, because it’s yours.
Her words spun like a drug in my blood.
I don’t know what the fuck I’ll do if she keeps denying me access.
“Grayson?” My mother tapped my shoulder. “Did you hear me?”
“Yeah. Lynette stole your look.”
She laughed. “I wouldn’t say that. I wouldn’t not say that…but that isn’t what I meant. Your wife—”
Whatever my mother was saying completely faded into the background.
Story.
Hands down the most beautiful person in this room. Silver was her color.
Fuck.
All colors were her color.
She looked like a fucking princess.
Her eyes scanned the ballroom, searching, until she found me.
And then she stopped.
Smiled.
Melted.
Neruda she mouthed, before West dragged her off in a different direction.
I don’t know how I’m going to get her alone and give her the kiss she asked for, but if I had to start a fucking fire to clear the place, I would.
“Ah, there she is,” my mother said. She pointed toward the seven-foot Times Square ball drop re-creation that people had been taking selfies near all night. In script below the glowing ball it read: A New Crowne