“Please, any other way. Please.”
He rubbed his sinful, plump bottom lip, pulling it out. It was like I was begging at the feet of the devil.
“Lottie needs a girl.”
My heart plummeted. “Even you aren’t that cruel.”
Lottie’s words echoed in my head, the ones she’d spoken when she’d discovered us. This is cruel, even for you.
So, so similar.
“Do you have any other option?” he asked, bored, lazy. “You need somewhere to work, right? I mean, it’s either work for her or keep working beside me. And that would raise questions, right?”
“Do you know what you’re asking me?” Tears had entirely blurred my vision. “You want me to be a mistress or work beside your wife?”
Hide forever. Keep it a dirty secret.
“You know what the girl has to do on the wedding night.”
His eyes flashed at my words.
The Crownes have wedding rituals dating back centuries, before they even came to America, and the thought of what I’d have to do…see…made me want to vomit.
“I know what you’re doing,” I whispered. “You’re doing the thing. The Grayson thing. You don’t think I’ll last a day as Lottie’s girl, let alone months. You’re hoping you can push me away. Push us away. That I’ll grow to hate you. And then it won’t hurt me when you have to marry her. It won’t work.”
I didn’t see him bend down until my chin was in his hand, grip vicious. “Oh, you see me so well, Snitch.” His words were cutting, mocking, cruel.
Then he tossed me back to the ground like trash. I threw out my hands to keep from hitting the floor.
“You think you’ve figured me out?”
“I see you, Grayson Crowne,” I said through tears. “I see you. Don’t let this ruin everything. You can’t rip us out. You can’t make it disappear. I love you. That doesn’t just go away because you want it to.”
The pause he took to speak was so long I thought he’d left.
“Me or Lottie, Snitch.”
I swallowed. “Lottie.”
“Then you’re welcome. Lottie only pays a little bit less than us.”
Fifty-One
GRAYSON
* * *
You wrapped your heart in thorns, and I buried mine in secrets.
By the time I made it back to my wing, Lottie was curled up on my couch, head on her knees, staring out at the ocean.
She must have heard me come in, because she said, “So this sucks.”
I laughed. “Yeah.”
Awkwardness swamped us. Lottie or my mother had opened the doors to the beach, and chilly fall air numbed the room. But it was better—better than lingering in the stale sadness.
“You never allowed anyone in here,” she said musingly, “but you let her in here, and even now I’m forced upon you. I think they’re hoping by forcing us in close proximity we’ll have no choice but to like each other.”