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
“I know she was considering leaving him, leaving us, until tonight.”
Gemma kept walking, giving me no space to respond.
Give up everything. Not only disinherited but excommunicated. Could I do that? I wondered as I walked past my ever-present guards, into my lonely wing. Abigail was abandoning ship, but for me, it wouldn’t just be jumping overboard.
They counted on me to plug the leaks. To steer the ship. To hoist the sails. Without me, the boat would sink.
With an even messier head than when I’d left Lottie, I arrived at my room.
“Story, I’m—” I stopped completely, finding Story with a teetering mountain of items in her arms, like the first time she’d come to me. “Where are you going?”
“Back to Ms. Abigail. If she’ll still have me. If any of them will…”
She plopped the last cherry on top of her mountain, then attempted to walk past me. I grabbed her arm, spinning her until she faced my chest. Her mountain fell. Still, she refused to look at me.
“You think I’m done with you?”
She stared at my chest. I gripped her chin, forcing her stare, and she closed her eyes.
“You’re doing that again?” I gritted.
“This is who I am. Who we are.” She shoved me off. “You won. Let me out of my contract. She wants you. You’re kissing her. You’re doing…with…” She swallowed. “You’re getting married. Why am I here?”
If she would just fucking admit there was something between us. Give me something to grab on to before I jumped off the cliff. Before I destroyed everything. My family. My company. Everything I’d built.
“Because I own you until Christmas,” I said.
“In a few months you start your official engagement tour. Am I supposed to stay with you and your fiancée the entire time?”
“Why? Would that bother you, Snitch? Is there a reason you can’t do it?”
Just fucking say it.
“How is this going to work?” she yelled. “Why keep me around? How are you going to keep me around?” Her eyes found mine. “Or is it like father, like son?”
“What about you, like mother, like daughter?”
She shoved me again. “I didn’t ask for this. I just wanted to—”
“Disappear into nothing, hide away forever, hope no one ever saw you because if you don’t dream you can’t fail, if you don’t love your heart can’t break? You found me that night. You stole what didn’t belong to you. You started this. Finish it, Snitch.”
Her eyes found mine, locking. “You finish it.”
“Fine.”
I grabbed her by the waist, thrusting her against my chest, crashing my lips against hers.
Thirty-Eight
STORY
Bruising. Furious. Consuming.