“The contract—”
“Is that really all this is to you?” He dropped me and slammed his hands beside me in one motion. “A contract?” His blue gaze flitted left and right, searching mine.
No, I need you.
No, I love you.
My eyes landed on his collar, where the purple truth lay smudged on his white shirt. Marked, because Lottie could mark him. She could kiss him. She had the right. Me?
This dark closet was suddenly too fucking dark.
This was my right.
Darkness.
He’ll marry her, leave me behind. If I’m lucky, I get holidays.
“Yes,” I whispered.
Coldness swept his face and sucked away my breath like a winter wind. He stepped away, eyeing me with that Grayson Crowne apathy and disgust.
“Don’t leave this room, Snitch.”
He opened the door, slammed it, and left me in the dark.
I was alone for maybe ten minutes before I heard them. I had only fifteen seconds’ warning. Her soft giggles. His dark, cocky laughter. There was nowhere to run, so I had to hide, but a linen closet didn’t afford many places. I looked left and right, and dove behind a stack of unopened boxes as the door opened, two bodies falling through it.
“Grayson, stop, people could walk in,” Charlotte laughed. Light flooded the room, then snuffed out, slammed shut.
“Can’t wait to feel your pussy,” Grayson said, pushing her past the boxes, to me. Her back hit the wall beside me, and I crawled to hide, to not be seen. I shrank between two piles of linen, drawing one over my body, hoping to disappear.
Lottie laughed. “You’re dirty.”
I could see them through my flimsy sheet. They were fuzzy through cotton, but I saw him kiss her and saw her kiss him back. I couldn’t help but think of the one year I went trick-or-treating and my mom had just grabbed a sheet and cut holes in it.
I’d wanted to be some princess or something.
She’d made me a ghost. It was easier.
“This dress is too fucking big,” Grayson said.
Lottie turned around, bending over and hiking up her dress to give him easier access.
I lowered the sheet a few inches, exposing my eyes but covering my nose. I needed to see the crash, needed to see for certain the moment my heart cracked in two.
He ripped down her panties, then prowled over her, thrusting his fingers inside her.
I wished for numbness, but my wish wasn’t granted. I was an exposed nerve forced to feel everything.
“Do you like that, little nun?” Grayson groaned.
“Nun?” Lottie’s delirious voice questioned. He never answered her, but by the way she gasped, he did something to make her stop questioning.
Hot tears streamed down my cheeks, but I made sure to stay quiet.
Grayson’s eyes opened, locking with mine as he kissed her neck and made her moan against the wall where he’d just done the same to me.
While I was behind her.