“Grayson, you should probably get the fuck out unless you want everyone to know you spent the night here,” West said. “I just don’t know if the world is ready for our relationship—maybe go back to my sister. I wonder how she’s doing. Do you even know?”
West was clearly needling him. Any mention of Lottie, Grayson flinched like he was in serious pain.
Grayson rubbed a hand across the blond shadow on his jaw, dragging his bottom lip, eyes dark and jaw tense.
“Fuck off, West,” I gritted. I touched his arm and his eyes found mine. “I read somewhere you’re not supposed to break jaws before breakfast.”
His eyes softened on mine.
Still, I worried.
They don’t let me out of my wing unless it’s to take pictures or smile on command.
How often could Gray do this before getting caught? Before getting all of us caught?
“What’s going to happen when they realize you’re gone? I told you I didn’t want you getting hurt over me.”
I can do this. I can handle West.
And just like that the world dissolved—for about two seconds, then I felt a violent lurch in my stomach. I quickly bolted out of the room to the nearest bathroom, expelling everything from my stomach.
I wasn’t sure who grabbed my hair, or who handed me the handkerchief.
“You need to go, Crowne,” West said to my left—the handkerchief.
“I’m not leaving you alone with her,” Grayson gritted—my hair.
“Are you gonna walk down with us? Maybe you take one arm, and I take the other? Meanwhile Lottie is photographed alone and everyone lear
ns our dirty little secret.”
“Shut up!” I groaned.
And then silence, only the sound of terrible morning sickness. I had a flashback to two days ago, to Lottie in this exact position, head on her arm. Only she didn’t have her husband’s eyes to look into, another man handing her a handkerchief.
She had me.
Her worst fucking nightmare.
“Have you helped Lottie?” I croaked.
Grayson’s brow furrowed. “She hasn’t had morning sickness—”
“Oh no, is she sick?”
Soft as a feather, but cutting as a knife, all three of us collectively froze at Lynette du Lac’s voice. Grayson with his hands still holding my hair back, West with the handkerchief to my lips, and me, my head on my arm.
“Drank too much last night,” West said.
“I don’t remember seeing her drink…” Lynette stared at me, and I wondered what she was thinking, maybe it was the thoughts that had been going through my head.
How Lottie had been in this exact position, but all alone.
When I was a child, I was fascinated with the rose bushes that grew untamed outside my home. Their floral scent was stronger than the salt air, and I always tried to find the prettiest bloom to hold in my palm. One day, I found one deep in the bush, so I dove for it.
I cut myself up to my elbow on the thorns.
That was the tension—the threat—in this bathroom. Bloody, cutting, and hidden under a layer of perfume.