He crushed his lips against mine, groaning into my mouth. “I’ll build a kingdom for you, little wife.”
“I’ll blow up the world for you, Atlas.”
He tangled his hands in my hair, pulling me ever so slightly into the morning sun rays. “Someday, I will kiss you in the sun.” He entangled his hand in mine. “Someday, we will walk down these halls hand in hand. Someday, you’ll wake up in my bed.” He growled the word my against my lips, and it sent shivers down my spine.
We kept our foreheads pressed together, until the sun grew hot on our backs. Until the sounds of the morning, of servants cleaning and prepping for the day reminded us that someday wasn’t today.
“What are they setting up for?” I asked.
A grim look shadowed the carved planes of Grayson’s face. “It’s a New Era of Crowne. Something to do with the baby, I’m sure…”
“They can’t still be doing that? Josephine just died.” Even as the words left my mouth, I knew the truth.
Nothing stopped a Crowne event.
Not Mother Nature.
Certainly not something as pedestrian as a death.
My eyes found his slowly, fear seizing my gut.
He gripped my cheeks. “Everything will be fine.”
Will it, though?
I don’t know what it meant that the two most powerful families in the world thought I had what they wanted. All I knew was that I was woefully underprepared.
“I guess…” I said quietly.
I think he read the disquiet in my eyes. “Every moment we can, we will meet in our room.” He let me go, voice gravel, as he trailed his nose along my neck. “When we can’t, you will write me your letters, and whenever I see your eyes, I’ll be able to speak to you. Let the world try to divide us. We’ll always be connected, Story. Because when you kissed me, you slid inside me.”
“Let’s have a code word for when everything gets scary and overwhelming. A code word for when I want you to hold me, to tell me you love me, but you can’t.”
His eyes softened. “What would our code word be?”
I think of the poem by Pablo Neruda, the one that I’d always felt connected to Grayson.
“What about…Neruda?”
He pressed a kiss to my lips. “Neruda, then, little wife.”
“When this is over, let’s still live in Crowne Point. Somewhere far enough away from their influence, but still close so you can visit your family.”
Some emotion clouded Gray’s eyes, something dark, and he pulled back.
“This will work, right?” I held him, forcing him to stay close. “We’ll both be free?”
He pressed his forehead to mine, but his eyes still ached. “Yes, little wife. We’ll be free—”
West’s laugh broke us apart. “Were you planning on fucking her while I slept in the other room?”
In an instant, Gray’s grip on me tightened to a bruise.
West leaned in the door, eyes traveling down my exposed thighs. Grayson yanked the material down and West’s eyes traveled back up.
Grayson slowly stood off the bed, arms folded, blocking my view of West and his of me.
“Still am,” he said with the trademark Grayson Crowne ice, the very tone that had shivers down my spine months ago.