Chapters (66)
- Cover
- Dedication
- Keep Reading
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Forty-Four
- Forty-Five
- Forty-Six
- Forty-Seven
- Forty-Eight
- Forty-Nine
- Fifty
- Fifty-One
- Fifty-Two
- Fifty-Three
- Fifty-Four
- Fifty-Five
- Fifty-Six
- Fifty-Seven
- Fifty-Eight
- Fifty-Nine
- Sneak Peek
- Find Me
- Books by Mary Catherine Gebhard
- Acknowledgments
Watching a Crowne was like looking at an old, blurry Polaroid…you never saw the whole picture. Were never allowed to.
“No one sent me,” I said quickly.
He laughed caustically. “The Carmichaels? The Blacks? Maybe some rag looking for a good story?”
“It was no one, I swear! It was just me. It was an accident.”
I had a half second before I realized I was looking at him, when I saw he was smiling. He should’ve been angry at me, maybe even sad, but he just had that smile. The infamous Grayson Crowne smile, with the crooked petal lips that said nothing in the world could touch him, not even losing his chance at love.
Then it clicked why I could see those lips.
I quickly looked at the floor.
“No one…” He trailed off, a humorless bite to his words. “So interesting you found me at that exact moment, then. I guess it’s fate.” He practically drenched the last word in acid and chucked it at my face.
I knew he didn’t believe me, and I had no idea how to convince him, or what that meant for me.
He bent down, knees nearly touching my nose. I wasn’t sure if it was the sound of waves I heard or the blood rising in my ears.
“What are you going to do to me?” I whispered.
He grasped my chin and slowly lifted my head, until our gazes collided like a car crash.
“I’ll give you what you want then,” he said, lip hooked. “A night with Grayson Crowne.”
Three
STORY
A laugh bubbled and burst out of me while I waited for Grayson to drop the other shoe.
When Grayson stood up, saying nothing, silence spread like storm clouds. I kept waiting for him to talk, to tell me he was fucking with me.
Opposite me, out the window that rose two stories and cut across most of the room, iron-blue waves rippled molten white in the moonlight. One after the other, they dissolved into the black sea, like the humor inside me dissolving into dread.
“Wait, you’re serious?” I shook my head. “I won’t do it.”
“If no one sent you—”
“No one sent me,” I interrupted. “No one!”
“Well, if no one sent you,” he continued, boredom in his voice replaced with annoyance, “then how can the girl who watches me when I’m not looking”—he mocked my breathy voice—“not want my cock?”
Shame ran as if injected by a hot needle through my veins. Before this night, my crush was easy to ignore. Oh, Grayson Crowne is objectively handsome. Only a liar would say otherwise. That beating in my chest when he walks by? Anger. Anger at the way he treats me and my coworkers.