Grayson stood straight, towering above me with folded arms like a god. “Million.”
Twenty-Seven
STORY
* * *
All the breath rushed out of me.
That kind of money would change my life, and he knew it.
“Why would you want to ruin everything we’ve been working toward?” I asked. “You’re getting married to her. I saw the way she looked at you on the dock.”
Unless…could he? Was he maybe feeling it too?
You’re starting to take up too much space inside me.
Words he’d whispered against my lips that had made hope sprout unwanted in my chest.
His eyes narrowed. “Don’t get butterflies in your stomach or hearts in your eyes. You’re an itch I need to scratch, Snitch. You’re mold on my soul, a growing infestation. I’m not going to end up like my father and grandfather, in a marriage with a mistress on the side.”
I blinked at the rare bit of honesty.
Mold. Infestation. An itch.
This is where I should tell the truth.
Tell him I’m not a virgin. Everything was built on a lie meant to save myself from another rich boy who only wanted to use me. Instead, I’d put myself back in the same fucking position.
West only ever wanted me because I was a virgin. He used me to get that part of me. I stared at Gray, wondering if he was the same.
“What if I wasn’t a virgin?” I tested. “Would you still want me?”
He arched a brow. “Think you’ll get out of it if you lie?” He laughed; then his face went dark, dangerous, and he leaned forward until I could taste the truth on his hot lips. “I don’t give a shit if you’ve had the entire New York Giants starting lineup in your cunt. I can’t be with her until I know what you feel like coming on my cock. I’ve been going about this wrong. I’m a Crowne. I take. I’m given. I’m owed. So name your price. I’ll pay it.”
Of everything Gray has said to me, those words hurt the most, because I’d always wanted to hear them. To West my virginity had been the only worthwhile thing about me, worth so much he’d betray me for bragging rights. I wanted to hear someone say my virginity was nothing, that the only thing that mattered was me, Story. So badly. In the end, I’d heard the words, but only because I didn’t matter.
Not at all.
He just wanted to use me to get another girl.
I swallowed the thickness in my throat and ducked under his arm, straightening my spine. “You could pay me a billion dollars and I won’t have sex with you.”
“I’ll turn you into a published poet,” he added. “A famous one. Shit, everyone will know the name Story Hale.”
I wasn’t sure what hurt more. The fact that he remembered my once biggest dream, or that he was now using it to try to make my nightmare a reality.
“I don’t want that,” I said, voice weak. “Not anymore.”
A crooked, knowing grin speared his cheek as he saw right through me. “Lottie du Lac’s family owns every publishing house on the East Coast, runs every major magazine.” They do? “When we’re married, one phone call and you can choose where you go. Do you want a Pulitzer? I’ll get you a Pulitzer.”
It was so, so tempting. But… “I don’t want to do it this way.”
He grinned, like he knew he had me on the line. “Snitch, this is the only way to do it.”
My poetry had once been how I was seen and heard. If I do it this wa
y, what kind of voice would I have? Would it even be mine?