I was a dirty secret.

When I said nothing, Gray took her hand, leading her to the dance floor, her arm intertwined with his.

STORY

Off to the side of the ballroom, against the wall, I watched Grayson dance with Lottie. They looked good together. Right.

“Showing your shoulders. Sort of.”

My spine stiffened at the voice. West.

I didn’t bother acknowledging him, or even turning to face him.

“Nice dress,” West continued. “Must have cost a fortune.”

His obvious implication hung like a guillotine.

Lottie placed her head on Gray’s shoulder and smiled at something he said. Then Gray’s eyes met mine. My heart stopped, the room disappeared. He was once again saying something to me in a language I still hadn’t learned.

Then he looked back at her, smiling. She snuggled closer to him. My heart shriveled up.

“They look good together.”

I turned away from both him and the sight that was tearing my insides to ribbons, staring off into the crowd until they blurred into one glittery blob.

“Do you think he loves you?” I clenched my jaw and he laughed. “Holy shit, you do.”

“I don’t.”

I can see myself throwing everything away.

“He’s going to marry my sister. You could have the greatest fucking love story of all time, but he’s still going to marry her. You didn’t grow up in this world, Angel. That dopey look in your eyes means you’re on track for one thing, a broken heart.”

“I don’t love him,” I repeated, queasy.

“Want to know what I can offer you that he can’t? Kids and a place by my side.”

My lips parted at his offer, but no words came out.

“Crownes don’t have children with their mistresses. The bastards his father had saw to that. Us? Not so much. My father and grandfather have more bastards than I can count. Our mistresses are just as important to us as our wives. Some even more so.”

I felt like I was going to be sick.

Like mother, like daughter? Chasing other women’s men. Too busy loving someone she had no right to love to love her own daughter. The girl behind the girl, invisible and unloved forever.

I glared. How did I ever think I loved West? “Is that all I am to you?”

“That’s all you can ever be to any of us.” He shrugged like it was no big deal, picking out the cherry from his cocktail and tossing it to the floor.

I eyed it.

A servant would clean that up later.

Someone like me.

I gritted my teeth. “I’m not going to be anyone’s mistress.”

West laughed again. “You already are.”

It hit me like a gong to my chest. Is that what I’d become? Wearing the pretty dresses, sleeping in his bed. The in-between world where you’re given respect, but not respected, acknowledged, or seen.