Destroyed Destiny (Crowne Point #4) - Mary Catherine Gebhard Page 0,99

go again.

He gripped my wrist, tugging me back as I tried to leave.

I swiped at my eyes. “I wasn’t supposed to stay past ten.”

“I don’t give a shit.”

His gaze was frayed, his grip bruising. He was at the edge of his rope and so was I. I couldn’t keep living like this, in our stolen moments.

“If you go to his bed again, I will rip you out by the hair.”

“And I’ll let you,” I sighed, melting back into him. “Grayson, tomorrow is the baby shower. I am done. I’m having this baby in just weeks and we are no closer to that coin. Everywhere we look, it’s like someone already beat us to the punch.”

He looked away. “We still have plan B.”

“I don’t like plan B, Grayson. Plan B is you leaving me—oh! Oh my God! Grayson!” I grabbed both of his hands. “Lottie told me West’s password earlier.”

Grayson’s brows popped. “What? How?”

“It’s songbird—like from my poem. She said he uses it for everything. I feel dumb and…a little violated. I don’t know. Like, he’s using that piece of me.”

His grip tightened on my wrist, pulling me slightly closer to him. I let him, falling into his embrace. Forgetting the clock, just for a moment.

Grayson dragged me close to him. “Well, we’ll use that piece against him, little wife.”

“Let’s end this tomorrow.” I fell deeper into him. Into his warm, hard chest. “Do you trust me?”

Forty-Seven

STORY

“You have to let me go,” I said as Grayson pressed the thousandth kiss to my lips.

Instead, we lingered in his doorway. He’d given me a white shirt to wear. It was a soft, cotton thing that probably cost hundreds.

“It barely fits around my stomach.” I played with the buttery-soft material, trying to stretch it.

When I looked up, his eyes were on my stomach, jaw clenched so tight the muscle feathered. “I would walk you back if I didn’t think it would draw attention.”

“Tomorrow,” I said.

“Tomorrow.”

He let me go with a lingering touch to my hand, and I felt his eyes on me as I walked down his stairs, tiptoeing through the shadows of his wing.

The door to Lottie’s wing was open, yellow light drenching the floorboards. I heard the same sound I had upstairs with Grayson, but louder, clearly coming from inside.

I looked at the clock—now eleven-thirty. I knew I shouldn’t go to her, but I couldn’t help but feel no one was watching her. No one saw what was happening to her.

She was falling apart.

So I went to her.

Lottie was sitting on the floor of her bedroom, staring at a dress hanging against the gilded arched window. She didn’t even flinch when I spoke.

“Lottie?”

She barely looked at me. “If you’re worried that I gave up our secret, my mother found me sitting in the hall. I made up an excuse.” She eyed my T-shirt outfit. “Do you need something to wear?”

“Um…” I tugged on the shirt he gave me.

Honestly? Probably.

“This is supposedly centuries old,” she said, gaze turning back to the window. “You should be wearing this dress. The jewels.”

“It’s for the shower?”

She nodded. Lottie stared at the dress. It reminded me of a princess dress from the medieval era. An empire fit made of periwinkle silk with a slight silver shine. The christening jewels hung over the neck.

“I thought my mother was the only one who loved me. I thought…” she trailed off, exhaling.

“I understand.”

Lottie blinked, jerking her head to mine with a glare. It was like in the bathroom, a mask fell over her face and whatever glimpse I saw vanished.

“What could you possibly know about how I feel?” Suspicion was venom on her tongue.

“I used to think my mom loved me. I did anything for her, because she was my mother, and I was certain she would do anything for me. I did…” I took a breath.

Lottie’s brow furrowed.

“I did horrible things because she asked.”

Her eyes found mine, uncertain, untrustworthy. “What could you have possibly done?’

“I lied. I ruined lives. We blackmailed the men she conned into loving her, so she would have money for her vice of the month.”

Lottie didn’t look at me with disgust, but eager eyes. “How did you fix it? All those lives you ruined?”

“You can’t take back what you’ve done, you can only try every day not to become her.”

“It’s not just me this will ruin, it’s my entire family. They didn’t even think to ask when they put everything on me because…why would they? Lottie does everything she’s asked. But then I did what