Chapter 45
FORTY-FIVE
GEMMA
The sun was streaming when I woke, a high afternoon light and—oh God, what was that? I squirmed at something delicious between my thighs.
A moan slipped from my lips.
“Good fucking girl,” Grim growled.
I startled at the voice vibrating against my thighs. Grim was there, shoulders pushing my thighs apart, muscles coiled with the effort. I tried to sit up and he gripped my hips, keeping me pinned against his mouth.
His tongue slid inside me and oh fuck.
I melted into the mattress, letting it happen. He ate me slow, building it up until I couldn’t take it anymore. Until my hands found his hair and I pressed myself against him, forcing him to go faster and harder.
He rumbled in approval.
Seconds later I fell apart.
I was still panting, still seeing stars in the ceiling, when Grim crawled above me.
He smiled, lips glistening. “Good morning.”
Then he kissed me, thrusting his tongue in my mouth so I tasted myself. He knotted his hands in my hair, yanking my neck into an arch to get deeper.
This isn’t over.
They’re captive.
It’s because of you.
All the unanswered questions shot through me like lightning. Grayson, Zabby—everything.
“Wait—” Grim found my neck. Kissing and sucking the hollow beneath my ear in a deliriously distracting way. His cock pressed against me, and I spread my thighs on a groan—
No, fuck.
I pushed him off me and he pulled away—on his elbows, leaning over me in the most distracting way.
Hair messed. Lips glistening.
“We need to talk,” I said, words too breathy, chest rising and falling.
We didn’t do any talking last night. I couldn’t live in this pattern anymore. Where the things unsaid between us piled like shipwreck debris, cutting and heavy and blocking. Where we ignored it until we no longer saw each other.
“Someone told me you’re captive.”
Grim’s stare narrowed. “Who are you talkin’ to, Rich Girl?”
I went silent. I might have been a lot of things, but I was no snitch.
Grim was too smart—he figured it out in seconds. “Sabrina.”
He rolled to the edge of the bed, ink stark in the morning light. It slid like silk over his corded back muscles.
His debt.
“Is it true?” I asked. “Are you indebted? Were you close to getting out of debt?” Before me, left unsaid in the lingering air between us.
Grim gripped the mattress, knuckles white. “You don’t need to worry about that.”
“Who is it? Who owns your debt?”
Before I knew what I was doing, I reached out and feathered my touch along the ink. He tensed, before sinking into it.
Still, silence followed.
I pulled my hand back.
“Fine.” I stood up, walked over to where I’d found my book. I held up the weathered and beaten thing. “Will you tell me what this is, then?”
He stared at the book, jaw clenched with some inscrutable emotion. After what felt like an eternity, he spoke. “What does it look like?”
It looked like Grim had been pining. But that couldn’t be right.
He was Grim.
I set it down. “Is it true I’m the reason? That you were almost free, until me?”
He stood up, and for a moment I thought he would come to me, tell me everything, put a hatchet to the distance between us.
Instead he reached for his pants, sliding them over his hips.
“If you’d let me die, everything would be fine. Why?” I went to him, grabbing his arm. “Why did you—”
In a flash, Grim pinned me against the wall. “You really still asking that?” The little flecks of amber in his fathomless black-brown eyes flamed. He leaned close, close enough I could taste the words from his lips. “You know why.”
Before my heart had a chance to slam into my ribs, he stepped back.
“You need to change,” he said.
“What? No. What I need are answers.”
“You want to see your family, right?” he asked.
I jerked in surprise. “I didn’t— I never said—”
He cut me off with a too gentle touch to my cheek. “Go get dressed.”
A quick change, a trip downstairs, and a short car ride later, we sat outside Crowne Hall, the car idling on the cobblestone driveway.
I picked at the fabric of my skirt.
I did want to see them. I was worried. I didn’t know how Grim picked up on that. But…I didn’t want to go back.
Pick.
I don’t want this to be the end.
Pick.
Grim grabbed my jaw, pulling my gaze to his. “I’ll be back. Don’t make me drag you out.”
My heart skipped.
His thumbs dug gently into my flesh. My lips parted at the heat in his stare, at the soft way he spoke.
“You’re mine, Gemma,” he said. “I just bought you time.”
“You gave me a few pomegranate seeds,” I whispered.
A slight smile speared his lips. “Something like that.”
Grim didn’t leave until I was in the house. Even then, I saw him through the windows, lingering.
I turned and faced Crowne Hall. It was a few days before the anniversary party, so vendors were setting up. I walked past them. In their starchy, white uniforms I felt like I was walking through ghosts.
That was sort of what it felt like now, like going back in time, to a different world. I remember the parties, remember how just a month ago it all revolved around this.
Now?
It was like when I’d seen my mirage on the club floor. This was my life, but it felt like it belonged to someone else.
Every Crowne had their own wing of the house, and once upon a time, we stayed there. We didn’t visit.
I walked toward my brother’s wing, but paused at the sound of voices coming from my mother’s. The voices got clearer the closer I got.
“Mom,” Grayson pleaded. “Get out of the closet.”
“I don’t think I will,” she called back, or…slurred. “I rather like it in here. My dresses are the only members of this family that haven’t betrayed me.”
I entered my mother’s ivory-and-gold wing. Grayson held a finger to his forehead, standing outside the frosted doors of my mother’s closet. To his left, Story rubbed his back.
“Mom?” I called out.
“Gemma?” Grayson spun, features twisted in shock and…no, that couldn’t be right—relief? “Are you back?”
Tansy flung open the door, and all three of us stumbled away so we weren’t hit in the face. Her dress room illumined her in pale-white gold. She wore a wedding dress, a plush fur coat, and a furry ushanka on her head.
My mother was drunk.
Story and Gray looked stunned. For them, it was probably like seeing Bigfoot. You’d heard about it, but you dismissed it as myth.
“I seem to have run out of champagne,” Mom said. “And wine. And cognac. And wine.”
She glared at us like we were the problem. She walked toward the other side of the room, toward the wet bar, her foot-long ivory train trailing after her.
“Mom—” Grayson reached for the champagne in her hand, and she smacked him.
I stepped between them. “Mom.”
“You.” Tansy looked up at me reproachfully from beneath her lashes. “I don’t need help from you.” Gone was the stoic, regal woman of all the servants’ nightmares. In her place was someone I thought belonged only to midnight.
Broken.
Human.
“If someone tries to take my champagne again, you will see why everyone calls me Führer Tansy—you think I don’t know they call me that. I know you call me that.” She spun around the room, raising the bottle high. “I didn’t used to be this way.” Her eyes watered and she took a huge gulp.
From the bottle.
Then she looked at it, brow furrowing, realizing once again it was empty. Something on her dress caught her attention. She poked a small red stain on her white dress. Wine, most likely. “My dresses have betrayed me.”
“Mom, come on.” I pulled her to the bed and she fought me off. I shot Grayson a pleading look. A moment later he was behind her, gripping her elbow and pushing her toward the bed.
“Oh, how lovely, just like my wedding.” She threw her arms in the air. “Are you going to force me up the aisle like Daddy too?”
But my mom stopped fighting and climbed into bed.
“Thanks,” I said. “You can go now.”
Grayson blinked, bewildered. “Go?”
I crawled into bed, lying sideways to see her like always. Her cheek pushed into the satin.
“You left me,” my mom whispered.
I rubbed her arm, up and down, until her eyes closed. I wasn’t sure how long I stayed like that, but the light in the room changed, the shadows grew. Eventually my mother snored, and I sat up.
Grayson and Story were still there, and they stared.
I ignored the questions in their eyes and went to the bathroom. I yanked open drawers, emptied the wicker baskets that held towels.
“What are you doing?” Grayson asked. “What was that?”
I looked at the mess. No pills. Nothing.
But they had to be around here somewhere.
I dragged a hand through my hair, looking around the room. The mirror, the now empty drawers, the toilet, the ottoman—I paused, zeroing in on the soft white fabric.
“Seriously, Gemma—” My brother grabbed my arm, and I shoved him away.
I pulled the top off the ottoman and sighed.
Orange bottles littered the inside, piling one on top of another. I fisted as many as I could in my hands, and headed to the toilet.
“How did you know about these pills?” my brother continued. “Are you back? What’s going on?”
As the pills dissolve in the toilet water, a realization struck me. I was doing the same thing my mother had done to me. I was holding Grim hostage with the threat of death.
Fuck.
I flushed the toilet.
“Gemma, answer me.”
“What the fuck do you think that was, Grayson?” I screamed.
A moment later, a vicious, sticky sob clawed its way out of my throat. I fell to the ground, hands splayed on the marble.
Orange bottles littered the floor.
There were still bottles to empty. There would always be bottles to empty.
Another sob.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
STOP FUCKING CRYING.
I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t fucking stop. This was coming from somewhere too deep to see.
I was sick of being perfect so she’d be happy.
I was sick of it never being enough.
I was so fucking sick of it. Sick of hiding who I was so someone would love me.
My mother’s feet were visible on her bed through the bathroom door. Nothing I did would ever make this stop. Just like nothing Grim did could ever help me.
My sobs grew sharp. My breathing too fast. I clawed at the marble, trying to ground myself.
The room was blurring.
“We can help you,” Story said. “Whatever he has on you, we can help. You don’t have to stay there.”
I laughed through my sobbing. An insane, hiccuping sound.
Of course they thought this was about Grim.
A moment later, Grayson snapped. “What are you doing here?”
Black boots obscured my vision. A moment later, Grim bent down. With his knuckle he lifted my chin, eyes to his.
“Ready to go home, Rich Girl?” He smeared the tears away from my cheek.
I nodded.
Grim lifted me into his arms, and I melted into the warm heat of him. His chest sturdy against my cheek. His arms tight on my body.
Grayson stepped in front of him.
This time, when Grim spoke it wasn’t threatening or taunting. There was a sober, dark edge to his words. “You don’t know what this is,” he said. “You never did. You never paid attention to her. So step aside, Grayson.”
A moment later, Grim carried me out of Crowne Hall.