“Grayson,” Tansy trilled in her soft bell-like voice. “Our guests are waiting.”
And the snow globe fell, shattered. I looked beyond us, to an empty ballroom that had only minutes ago been filled with Christmas Eve revelers. Now, it held Beryl Crowne, Tansy, and Arthur du Lac.
They stared at him.
At us.
My gaze drifted back to Grayson’s. His eyes were locked on my lips, and I could see the hunger in his eyes, like he was going to kiss me.
If he touches you, if you so much as kiss him, I get everything.
Even as I was held in a vice grip by the man who would destroy us with our kiss, I could see myself doing it. Could see myself throwing my arms around his neck and pouring my soul into his hunger.
I’d missed him so much.
His grandfather exhaled. “Give them time, Antionette. This looks like a touching reunion.”
Whatever I’d seen in Gray vanished. If I’d had a thousand words, I don’t think I could have described his gaze, as if he wanted to rip apart our two-week silence in a two-second look. All I knew was something was wrong, so very wrong.
Then the moment snapped in half.
Splinters lodged in my chest and fingers.
“You fucked up.” His voice sent chills down my spine, like he didn’t know if he should punish or eat me. “You lied.”
He turned, not bothering to look back over his shoulder.
Tansy called for the servants to continue the party, her bell-like voice raised to such an octave I knew she was trying to distract herself. Just like that, a zombie of partygoers flooded the room. I stared after Grayson long after the crowd had closed the hole. At the world around him, the watchful eyes that couldn’t help glue to his every movement.
I knew this day would come, when I’d have to answer for what I’d done.
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The lie I’d used to sell my soul and save us.
I knew the fantasies of my reunion with him were just that—a fantasy. Because I couldn’t run into his arms, and he couldn’t kiss me or bite me now, not without dire consequences—but at least in all of those reunions, he was happy to see me.
West spit blood from his mouth to the floor, then wiped the remainder with the back of the hand not holding me.
“Aw,” he whispered. “You think he doesn’t love you anymore?”
Twelve
STORY
I escaped into one of the many guest bathrooms to hide.
To breathe.
Rather, West allowed me to escape, and I tried to stop the stomach cramps whenever I remembered that.
This bathroom was hidden away, and not many used it. When people waxed poetic about women’s bathrooms, I always imagined this one with its marble vanities and velvet chaise lounges.
I lifted my red veil over the crown of pearls. The mirror was too clean. Not a single smudge, and nothing like the foggy antique glass of Scotland. It shone my lies back at me.
He’s angry with me.
Of course he was angry with me. He didn’t get a single one of my letters. None of the confessions I wrote him, the warnings of what would come. We were supposed to do this together, and—