Lottie blinked at me. “What are you doing?”
For once, the terrace was all but empty—it was too cold. Would they even care if they knew a death had occurred the night before? They only came to these parties to gawk at us like elephants of old menageries, anyway.
“It’s fucking disgusting,” I snapped. “Josephine died yesterday. We’re in there giving an interview about pregnancy diets.”
Lottie looked at me like I’d grown two heads.
“What?”
“Why are you acting so surprised? This is our life. This has always been our life.”
“I was never okay with any of this.”
She scoffed and I raised my brows.
“You’re Grayson Crowne. You’re Playboy Gray. You were the fucking poster boy for all of this. If we had just followed the path they’d laid out for us, we never would have noticed the blood beneath the cobblestone.”
I took a step back.
Damn.
Bloody.
Raw.
Jagged.
Truth.
Lottie looked around. “You gave me an orchid out here once… I hate orchids.”
I quirked my head, shocked at that. “Aren’t they your favorite flower?”
“They’re supposed to be,” she said.
I looked around at the servants with downcast eyes. No matter how many times I said they could look me in the eye the past couple of weeks, my mother and my grandfather, still told them to keep their eyes down.
I looked at Horace, my sister’s fiancé since, fuck, age thirteen?
I never batted an eye at that.
None of us did.
Suddenly, my world was too bloody. The gold chocolate fountain streamed it. The walls oozed black.
“I need a fucking breath.”
“Stay.” L
ottie waved me off. “I’ll go and tell everyone you’re getting me lemons. I’ll pretend it’s a pregnancy craving, and no one will fucking notice, because I’m not allowed to talk about my allergy.”
She started to laugh.
“I…” My brow furrowed, not sure what to make of her help—or her descent into laughter. “Thanks, Lottie.”
She nodded in a wispy, not-quite-there way, then left.
For a few minutes, I was alone with my thoughts and the shivering, salty breeze. Then I saw her—Story. Leaning over the terrace and staring out at the cruel ocean. Sand and snow whispered around her, and she looked like a princess trapped in a snow globe.