“I sleep in your bed one night and you’ll give me the password?”
He shook his head.
“Then how long?”
West shrugged a shoulder. “That part you don’t need to know.”
“That’s not really…” I couldn’t breathe. “That’s not a choice.”
West’s plush lips quirked. It was like a dark, twisted version of my night with Grayson, of the moment that started this all. Once again I was insurance for a plan I wasn’t sure I could pull off, but this time if I failed, our happily ever after would shatter at our fingertips.
Evil. West du Lac was evil.
He grinned like I’d caught him.
“I…” I whispered. “Can I have a few days to think about it?”
He turned my face back to the mirror and embraced me from behind, pulling my empire waist dress flush against my body, exposing my baby bump for the world to see. He pressed his lips to my neck and nausea swamped me at his silent threat to what would happen if I didn’t obey him. “You can have tonight.”
I bowed my head out of the town car, like Josephine had done only a few weeks earlier. It was hard to imagine just two weeks ago this place was raging with snow that had kept away the paparazzi and glitterati now swarming its front steps and gates.
I could already imagine the giant pine tree inside, gleaming satin-wrapped presents underneath.
“Mr. du Lac!” a paparazzo called, but who exactly was impossible to tell. The cameras were a thousand glittering fairies.
He ignored them, wrapping his arm around mine and leading me toward the steps. I looked one paparazzo dead in the eyes.
r /> Would they really forget me?
Just a few weeks ago I would have given anything to be forgotten by them…so why did my gut twist at the thought?
I could faintly hear the sound of Christmas bells, laughter, and music as we got closer to the doors. The Holidays—this time without any blizzard to stop it. Two servants were waiting to open the doors in the chilly, wet winter cold. Dressed in their finest holiday best of red and green, and sporting the little Santa hats that Tansy made everyone wear.
They always itched and had to be painfully bobby-pinned.
My eyes slashed to the side, to the shadows Grayson and I had slunk into when Josephine had made this very same entrance. Our bodies were a wispy memory in the snow, shimmering like a mirage.
My heart pounded loud in my chest, each thump whispering one name.
Grayson.
Two weeks without contact, two weeks to worry.
Grayson.
Two weeks to wonder if I had ruined everything.
Grayson.
We stopped just before the double doors, but this time they didn’t lead into a midnight Scotland castle. Instead, the golden-hued world of Crowne Hall awaited me.
And Grayson.
The longer I stared down the golden hall, the more it stretched and warped with the plastic smiles of the rich elite. My heart stood on a precipice, waiting for the one smile I’d missed like air.
West snatched my chin between his hands, dragging my eyes to his. “Ready, Angel?”
His brown eyes dug into mine.