He froze. “What?”
I shook my head, as if I could swallow the words, seal the hole I’d just punched in my heart.
He gripped my chin, trying to force my gaze to his. “Why, Snitch? Why are you lying?”
I exhaled, defeated. I was tired of lying, tired of pretending.
I met his eyes. “Because from that very first moment we kissed, I knew if I didn’t watch out, you could destroy me.”
His fingers turned bruising. “More.”
“Because I like you. I more than like you, but if I stop lying, if I tell you the truth, if I tell you everything—” I broke off. “But I don’t have any reason to stay. I don’t need your money.”
“I guess it’s a good thing I had you sign a fucking contract this time,” he growled.
“Is that what’s keeping me here?” I asked.
“Is it?” he demanded.
A moment passed like forever. Grayson still hadn’t told me he loved me. He hadn’t really given me anything. But someone had to be honest.
“No,” I confessed. “I lo—”
“Why is she with you?” Ms. Abigail’s trembling, out-of-control voice cut me off. It sliced through the moment like a guillotine, and I glanced to my left, finding her pointing at me. “She’s my girl.”
Gray curled his fist into the wall above me, jaw clenched tight, eyes burning. Why was Abigail even in Gemma’s wing? They hated each other.
He stared at me a moment longer, then pushed off the wall.
I wasn’t sure if I’d been saved.
“She’s my girl now,” he said, and stepped in front of me.
For a moment I couldn’t hear over the rushing of blood in my ears. It was different than the times before, the thorns lifted, letting me in, cocooning me in his dark, tender possession.
His girl…I really liked the sound of that.
Ms. Abigail reeled. “What? Why?”
“I don’t really think that’s any of your fucking business, Abby.”
Ms. Abigail ignored him, holding her hand out to me. “Do you want to come back?”
Gray’s neck muscles bunched, his upper back tense. This was the moment I could end it all. I’d been waiting for this, right? I could go back to her, back to where I should have been from the very beginning. No need for Scotland. It was a perfect out.
This twisted, savage, ruinous thing between us that never should have been—ended.
I rolled my lips, then shook my head. “No, Ms. Crowne.”
Gray moved to turn back to me, but Ms. Abigail grabbed him, pulling him back. She fell apart, yelling at him, screaming at him, words that clearly weren’t meant for him. It felt like it lasted forever, her cries filling the hallway like an omen.
When it was over, Gray blinked, then shook his head. “Yeah, I don’t think that was meant for me.”
Gray waved a hand over his shoulder, motioning for me to follow.
I gave Abigail one last look. Forgetting for a moment I was a servant and she was a Crowne. She was on the floor. All that had happened in the months I was away utterly ruined her. As my mistress, she’d been entitled and demanding, but no one deserved to have that much despair on their face.
Not being with her love, forced to marry someone else…