Destroyed Destiny
Mary CATHERINE Gebhard
Copyright © 2020 by Mary Catherine Gebhard
All rights reserved
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
All rights reserved.
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the above copyright owner of this book.
Destroyed Destiny
ISBN-13: 978-1-952808-01-2
An Unglued Books Publication
www.MaryGebhard.com
For the girls who fought fate.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
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Acknowledgments
One
STORY
In fairy tales the roles are clearly drawn. The princess waits for the hero, the hero slays the villain, and happily ever after marks the end. But my love story with Grayson Crowne began when I stole his happily ever after, and as our four hearts crossed, all our roles corrupted.
Now I stared at my villain, the boy I once thought a prince.
“What is this place?” I asked.
It was already raining so hard I could barely see beyond the sparkling, black beads. The inky umbrella above our heads did nothing to stop the onslaught of water splashing against my ankles and wrists. We stood before the double doors of a castle, its stony towers vanishing into the black night.
Scotland.
My uncle always wanted me to come here. I have a feeling his vision was a little bit different.
West stared at the doors with a distant look. He’d been quiet during the plane ride and in the ensuing town car. It had been little less than eleven hours since I’d left Grayson, and I was exhausted.
I stayed awake the entire trip, refusing to let my guard down for a second around West, even when he fell asleep. I thought about Grayson constantly. If he’d gotten out of the cuffs. If I never should have put him in them, never should have left. All he had to do was yell and his guards would come. Or…Lottie, still sleeping in his wing.
Still his wife, legally.
I wondered if I’d made a mistake.
If what I was doing was the right thing.
I turned to West. “West, what is this—”
He snatched my chin between his thumb and forefinger. Gone was the distant look, the quiet sleeping boy from the plane.
In his place returned the man I’d first glimpsed in the town car.
I’m a jealous master, Angel, and I’m done sharing you.
“You should really practice speaking only when spoken to, Angel. I can’t protect you if you refuse to understand the rules.”
My heart thumped louder than the splashing rain.
The door beyond us opened, but West’s grip on my chin tightened, forcing me to hold his gaze. The way he spoke wasn’t cruel. In fact, the entire trip from Crowne Point to here…he’d been nice.
As if we were still husband and wife.
As if he hadn’t handed me already drawn-up divorce papers to turn me into the thing I dreaded most.
But I ground my teeth to hold in my words.
This was never about protection.
He clenched his jaw like he could see the words in my eyes, but released me.
“Grab your luggage,” he said, picking up his own black leather carrier and walking through the arched stone doorway.
Once again my heart rose to my throat. This castle was huge. The ride up to it took thirty minutes. We’d maneuvered through secret, sprawling green hills. Then, after dropping us off, the car disappeared back the way it came. No servant to gather our things or even hold the umbrella over our head.
That was wrong.
Just as it was wrong for West to hold his own luggage.
The door slammed shut behind us. The rain pounded against the window, only the refracting drops allowing slim, warped light as our shoes padded on stone down the hallway.
We walked past a room filled with shadows—so we weren’t alone in this massive castle.
I paused, looking into it, trying to glean some kind of information.
West gripped my elbow, yanking me down the hallway and up stone steps until we arrived at a room.
He shoved me inside and I stumbled over shiny, oak floorboards. Nervous, I rubbed my arm, looking around the room. There was only one bed, a queen with a silky, draping canopy—big enough for two, but too small.
“Do you know why I call you Angel?”
I lifted my head. West leaned against the wood doorframe, his features carved in shadow.
I shrugged. I figured it was a sweet nickname he adopted to poke me.
“So many think of angels as perfect, divine, beautiful. But really…” He took a step, and on instinct I took one back. “Angels will do anything for their god.” His eyes shifted from me, to the bed at my back. “Fight. Fall. Bleed.”
Pound. Pound. Pound.
I’m not sure if that was my heartbeat, or if every step he took was magnified in my ears. I took another step back, my knees hitting the mattress.
I stared at his chest, at the silky fibers stretching across the muscles.
Anywhere but his face, but him.
He placed his knuckles under my chin, lifting my gaze. “And I think you would do even more.”
My chest screamed at the gentle touch.
He stepped back, but I could still feel him, knuckles featherlight beneath my chin. My stomach squirmed so I took a breath, holding it tight, as if I could protect the little thing inside it from him.
From this place.
He glanced at my hand a half second, then held out his own. I eyed it.
“Your phone,” he said lazily.
“But—I—”
I promised Grayson I would write him. All I’d managed was to send him one message.
Dear Atlas, I’m in Scotland. I’m safe.
But my data cut out, a message popped up asking me to pay for the international plan, and then West woke. The message never sent.
I couldn’t break my promise.
I couldn’t.
West arched a brow. I don’t know why I bothered; in what universe was he going to let me keep my phone?
I handed it over.
“Can’t have you calling Prince Charming.” He shoved it in his pocket and my heart sank. He folded his arms. Every second was strung out, pulled apart and stretched by the prodding, poking way he watched me.
“You haven’t slept in over eleven hours. Get some sleep, Angel.”
“I—” I swallowed, breaking off. Sleep? Here? With him? “I’ll sleep on the floor.”
His brow knotted. “You’ll sleep in the bed.”
Before I could protest, he turned to leave.
“You’re going?” Was he really going to leave me alone?
He paused, slightly looking over his shoulder back at me. Shadows of raindrops slid down his profile, along his prominent cheekbones and the slight arch in his brow.
“Do you want me to stay?”
I said I would get closer to West, I would get everything he had on Grayson so we could be free…but I wasn’t quite ready to lie at that level yet.
My silence was amplified by the dying rain, the tick-tock of drops falling off the towers and turrets.
“You’re right…I should go to bed.”
His deep voice drifted through the low light. “Am I the villain in your fairy tale, Story?”
Yes.
No.
I don’t know.
I turned around and focused on the silky canopy draped over ancient-looking wood posts.
Maybe West was like all of us, and his role had been corrupted, but he is the villain.
He had to be.
I heard his footsteps behind me, and I regretted ever speaking. He’d been so close to leaving.
“I’ll be your villain, Angel,” he said softly, quietly. His breath warmed my neck. I stared hard at the sheets, as if he was a monster in my nightmares I could will away by simply wishing to wake up.
He spun me around violently as lingering lightning cracked across his feral gaze. I struggled against him and his grip turned bruising.
“The princess and the villain have a relationship too.” He dragged me closer until the heat of his lips burned mine. “Even if she hates it.”
Two
STORY
I don’t remember falling asleep, but I must have, because soft Scotland sun pressed on my eyes and the sweet trill of a songbird singing filled my ears. I rubbed my lids. The bed was strange, too soft, and smelled overpoweringly like lavender.
The princess has a relationship with the villain too.
Last night came back as if it were an old memory, his words stained and warped in sepia. I rolled over, drawing the sheets past my shoulder and up to my cheek.
As if they would protect me.
My mother named me Storybook because she loved fairy tales, but she never saw the irony in it while she stole happily ever afters. Because like the heroin that took her, she loved the rose-colored feeling, loved the idea of a prince whisking her away.
And like the heroin that took her, the reality was never as she hoped. In her fairy tale the princes were all taken, the fairy tale was always fractured.
Put on a show, Story.
I tugged the sheets tighter against my face, tight against the memories rushing through me. In the daylight, the room wasn’t so haunting. Directly in front of me, through a patchwork of ancient glass, an arched window showed a softened Scotland morning. Sun glimmered off the warped glass, and a strip of foggy morning sun peeked out beyond the green hills.
Put on a show, Story.
With an exhale, I rolled to my back and stared at the cracks in the ceiling.
Is this what you like, Story? Is this what will get you off? When he watches me fuck you?
There’s a briar forming in my chest, seeded two nights ago, and now it was twisting and creeping and scraping.
Why don’t you call him over? He can fuck your ass while I fuck you.
I can still feel him inside of me.
I sat up, throwing my sheets off the bed. Too hot. Too cramped.
Leaning off the bed, I pressed my hand to the cold window, staring out the rain-dappled glass into the dewy morning.
I could feel our child growing in me every day, moving so light it was almost like butterfly wings. I felt connected to Grayson.
What was he doing this very minute? Was he looking out at the salty, Crowne Point sky? I spread my palm along the glass, picturing him through the cracks between my fingers.
I wished I could be with him, helping him find the coin that would save us, but if I had stayed, he would have lost everything.
So I guess my path was here.
“Whatever our souls are made of…” I whispered. His and mine are the same, I finished the line from Wuthering Heights in my head.
“Story Hale.”
I scrambled back on the bed at the voice, banging my head against the dark oak headboard.
In my doorway stood a woman who looked about mid-forties, in a perfectly fitted gray suit. Behind her an older woman, dressed in the starched blue uniform of the du Lacs, came carrying a set of tea.
The first woman followed the tea into my room. She sat at a small table next to another arched window. Freshly cut wildflowers had already been placed in a skinny vase. As the tea was set out, the woman looked up at me expectantly.
I got out of bed, warily sitting opposite her. Our table groaned with any slight movement, cracks ran as branching veins in the porcelain tea cups. I don’t think anything here was newer than a century.
“I’m here to discuss your options.” She reached down into her briefcase and pulled out two folders.
“My what?” I asked.
“Your options,” she repeated, stressing the word as if I knew what the fuck it meant. “The du Lacs have a very nice mistress package.”
She lay out the three folders neatly beside the tea.
We have a very competitive mistress package.
Tansy’s words rang in my head, but I was still no more clear than I was that day on what she meant.
“After you complete training, you will have access to the du Lac mistress stipend.”
“Training?” I asked.
“Usually it takes months,” she continued. “You have two weeks. And usually mistresses accompany an engagement, which are worked out in the prenup. Your case is most unusual… Past employment?” She stared at me expectantly, pen in hand.
“I, uh…”
I dragged my bottom lip between my teeth.
I couldn’t see any visible reason not to tell her where I used to work. It was public knowledge, after all. I just had this sinking fee
ling in my gut.
Training. Options.
“Past employment?”
“I…worked at Crowne Hall.”
“A servant?” She did a double take. “Uh, well…” She blinked, shaking her head slightly. “Option one includes all the usual. Your house, your monthly allowance. There are no stock options, but your children will be acknowledged and written into the will.”
My head buzzed as she went over each page, what I was entitled to, and what I wasn’t. It was like we were discussing which college to attend.
“Option two includes everything. The house, the allowance, stock options—generous, but your children will not be written into the will. I assume we’ll be going with option one—”
“No!” I cut her off. “No children will be written into the du Lac will.”
It came out before I could stop it.
“I mean…” I rubbed my neck, looking for some excuse, and coming up empty.
Silence hung sour in the air.
“That’s unusual for a du Lac,” she said after a moment. “Most du Lac men write their children into their will and give them their last names.”