Cracked Kingdom

  “Of course he will. Won’t you?” East answers, his chin jutting out determinedly.

  “Yes, I will,” Callum replies. “I’ll call my lawyers and have them demand another meeting with your dad, and I’ll have Durand watch your sister. We’ll keep them apart for as long as possible. When this does become public, we’ll have your family moved to a safe environment.”

  It’s all that he offers, and while it’s not enough, at the same time I feel guilty about accepting any help. This isn’t my fault. My dad’s actions have nothing to do with me, but we’re connected all the same—by blood, by our name.

  “We need pictures of them together,” Ella speaks for the first time. “We can’t rely on just these messages and the audio. Without photographic proof, it’ll be too easy for that asshole to get away.”

  I don’t know if she’s referring to her dad or mine.

  Callum nods. “I’ll take of that, Ella.”

  I expect her to argue, but she just gives a terse nod and leaves. Easton pulls me to my feet. I feel dead inside. When I get to the apartment, I’m going to collapse on the first soft surface.

  “Come on,” he says, tugging me along behind him.

  “This isn’t the way to the front door,” I object.

  “I know. You’re about to fall over, so I’m taking you upstairs. You can sleep in my room and I’ll bunk in Reed’s.” He casts a glance toward Ella, as if to seek her permission, but her eyes are staring in zombie-like concentration ahead of her. She has a lot on her mind, and I again remind myself that none of this is my fault even though it makes me sick inside for what she’s going through.

  “I think I’ll just go home.”

  “No.” Ella’s voice rings out clearly in the hallway. She stops at the base of the stairs. “No,” she repeats. “Come upstairs. We need to plan.”

  “Plan?” I mouth to Easton.

  He shrugs in confusion but pushes me toward the stairs. Reluctantly, I climb the marble treads, my sneakers squeaking against the tile. We turn right at the top.

  “Dad’s rooms are down there,” Easton explains. Ella’s room is the first one down a wide, long hall.

  “Come in,” she says.

  Inside is a Barbie-pink bedroom. Pink walls, pink carpeting, pink upholstery, pink ruffled curtains. It’s a princess bedroom if the princess was younger than ten. And never in a hundred years would I guess that the cool blonde girl would have this sort of love for pink.

  “Dad decorated it,” East tells me, grabbing a pink chair and shoving it under my ass.

  “It’s horrible, isn’t it?” Ella says, climbing on her bed. She pats a space next to her, gesturing for Easton to sit down, but he doesn’t go.

  He places a hand on my shoulder. He’s picking sides and I don’t like it. This is his family. He shouldn’t have to choose between me and his family.

  I stand up. “I don’t want to sit,” I tell him, and then put a little distance between us. He looks hurt, but it’s the right thing to do. I fold my arms and nod my chin toward Ella. “What do you need?”

  “I don’t want to leave this to Callum. It’s not that I don’t trust him, but let’s say something happens and Callum’s guy doesn’t get the right picture. No one is going to be invested like you and me”—she flicks a finger between us—“so we should do it.”

  “Okay.”

  “No,” Easton says at the same time.

  “Why not?” I turn a frown on him.

  “Oh, I don’t know. Because it’s fucking dangerous?”

  “Winwood Park has a bunch of trees lining the parking lot,” Ella says. “We can hide there.”

  “Sounds good to me. Do you have a camera?”

  “Yes—”

  “Did you suffer brain damage, too, Ella? And what about you, Hart? I thought you just lost your memory, but it looks like you lost your mind, too,” Easton rants. He points to Ella. “Your dad uses guns.” He points to me. “And your dad may or may not have killed Mrs. Roquet to keep her quiet. We know he’s violent enough to have broken your wrist. Adding two plus two equals staying the hell out of it.”

  Ella stares at him, then turns to me. “Yes, I have a camera, but no night vision on it. I’ll go to the store to get one in the morning.”

  “Sounds like a plan. I don’t have a car, but there’s a bus that stops about three blocks away if you don’t mind walking a bit.”

  “Are either of you listening to me?” Easton bellows.

  Ella and I both shut up.

  “Could you keep it down?” grouses a voice from the door. “I’m trying to fucking sleep. I just got out of the hospital.”

  We all spin to see Sebastian standing in Ella’s doorway, blinking owlishly at us. His dark brown hair is sticking up on one side and he’s wearing adorable blue satin pajamas with brown monkeys stitched on them.

  “Sorry,” Ella says, rising from the bed.

  When his gaze swings to me, he rears back in surprise. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “I, ah—” I grimace. I don’t know what to say and seek Easton’s help. Should I tell him the truth or do Easton and Ella want to keep it on the down low?

  “She’s here to help us make sure that Steve goes to prison,” Easton answers. “And don’t swear at Hartley.”

  “I’ll swear at whoever the hell I want,” retorts his brother. “Especially this piece of trash who nearly killed me.”

  “Seb, that’s not nice,” Ella protests. “You know it was an accident.”

  “Screw nice. I drove that curve a million times and never had an accident until this bitch came along.”

  Easton lunges forward. I grab his arm.

  Ella runs to get in between the brothers. “That’s enough,” she scolds. She pushes Sebastian out of the doorway and says over her shoulder, “You two go to bed.”

  A muscle in Easton’s jaw jumps but he gives a sharp nod. “Come on,” he says, and flips our grips so that he’s holding my arm instead of me hanging onto his.

  He marches out, down the hall, flings a door open and shoves me inside. The door slams shut behind him, but not before I hear Sebastian say, “I can’t believe you’re letting this bitch sleep in our house.”

  I don’t know what Ella’s response is.

  “I’m sorry,” Easton says and stomps across to a set of closet doors. He disappears inside.

  “Don’t be. Your brother has every right to feel the way he does.” Anxiousness gnaws at my stomach. How can Easton and I ever be together when his family is so opposed to it? Loneliness is a terrible feeling, and I don’t want Easton to experience that. It’s awful not being welcomed by your family. It’s a vile mixture of humiliation and abandonment. It’s every birthday party that was held that you didn’t get invited to, every game you were picked last at, every rejection you received multiplied by a million. It’s standing alone in a big vast desert and thirsting for one single drop, not of water, but of affection, attention…love.

  “Easton, I don’t think I should be here.”

  He comes out, blankets in his arms. “I’m going to sleep on the couch. You can have the bed.”

  I don’t move. “Did you hear me?”

  “Yeah, but I’m not going to let you go, so you might as well get ready for bed. There’s an extra toothbrush here.” He tosses something at me and I reflexively catch it. “Do you want, like, pajamas? I can lend you a T-shirt or Ella might have real girl ones.”

  He stands there, his hands on his hips, his feet braced and his body tense as if he thinks I’m going to make a break for the door and he’s going to have to tackle me to stop it. As always, whenever I’m with him, all my doubts dissolve and the cold is replaced by a bone-deep warmth. Easton is my sun, I realize.

  “Are we going to have to wrestle about this?” he says. “Because if so, let’s get naked and on the bed. It’s the only wrestling I allow in here.”

  I glance over my shoulder at the big boat-sized bed. My cheeks heat up at the thought of the two of us rolling
around on that bed. Kissing each other…touching each other. I want to kiss him again so badly, but I’m too chickenshit to make the first move. So I respond with sarcasm. “I bet you’ve had a ton of wrestling matches in this room. More than I could count, probably.”

  He offers an innocent smile. “Nope. I have not had wrestling matches in here before. I’m a virgin.”

  My jaw drops open. “Really?”

  He nods in earnest. “Yes. Since you don’t have any memories, yes, I am a virgin. Now go change so we can go to sleep.”

  I start toward the attached en suite and stop at the door. “Since you’re a virgin, I’ll remember to be gentle with you our first time.”

  I take an immense amount of pleasure in closing the door on his shocked face. Nothing about these past few days has been particularly funny, but Easton’s expression puts a smile on my own face. I might not be great at flirting, but that parting remark was pretty hot. Go me.

  I brush my teeth, wash my face with a bar of soap that smells like cedar and orange spice, and throw Easton’s shirt over my head. It goes down almost to my knees.

  The lights are off when I open the bathroom door.

  “You done?” comes his gravelly voice.

  Suddenly shy, I scamper over to the huge bed and climb under the covers. It’s large enough that all five Royal brothers could probably fit on here. Hearing the sounds of Easton getting ready is strange. I’m used to silence, I think, which would make sense because I lived by myself in that apartment, and from the lack of social media pictures it appears I didn’t have many friends.

  It’s pleasant. No, pleasant is a mild, meaningless word. It’s…wonderful and I don’t want to go back to the time in my life when there were no sounds but the ones I made. I think that’s why, when my very own personal sun steps out of the bathroom rubbing a towel over his hair, I say, “The bed’s big enough for a family.”

  He stills. “It’s a king.”

  I sit up, reach over to the other side and flip the covers down. “Get in.”

  “Why, Hartley Wright, are you going to deflower me?” he gasps in mock dismay. Or maybe it’s mock eagerness. Who knows?

  “Not tonight. I know it’s your first time, so I want to ease you into this. We’ll start by sharing the bed.”

  East throws the towel behind him, hits the lights, and dives onto the mattress, landing half on top of me and half on top of the bed. “I don’t trust you,” he teases.

  “I can tell,” I say dryly as I push one of his heavy limbs off me. “You’re the very picture of a scared virgin.”

  “I know, right?”

  I throw a pillow at his head. “Get under the covers.”

  He takes the pillow, bunches it under his head and repositions himself so that he’s lying next to me.

  “Aren’t you cold?” I ask, trying not to stare at his nearly naked body. Easton Royal doesn’t wear pajamas and I’m pretty sure that if he were alone, he wouldn’t be wearing anything to bed, not even his black boxer briefs.

  “Like I said, there’s a trust issue here.” There’s a level of self-deprecation that makes me believe that it’s not me he’s worried about, but his own ability to keep his hands to himself—the hands he has tucked under his head.

  “We can pretend like we’re Puritans and use the pillows as a bundling board,” I suggest.

  “What the hell is a bundling board?”

  “Like a log or sack you stick between two people before they get married. That way they can get used to sleeping with each other without giving up their precious V-cards.”

  “You remember the weirdest things, Hart.”

  My own heart skips a beat, as it does whenever he calls me by that nickname. Like I’m his heart. Like I belong with him. I force my gaze to the ceiling.

  “I’m going to memorize a bunch of random facts so that my head’s full of them. Maybe being Jeopardy champion should be my life’s goal. I’ll skip college, spend all my time memorizing trivia books, and win a million dollars on a game show.”

  “Okay,” he says simply, as if my idea isn’t the strangest thing.

  “I think you’d say okay even if I said my plan was to learn how to swing on the trapeze and join the circus.”

  I feel him roll onto his side. I twist my head to see him smiling at me.

  “First, swinging on a trapeze is sexy. Second, the circus is dope. Third,” he reaches out and trails a hand over my hair. “Third, I love you, Hart. So yeah, if you want to join the circus or sell magazines door to door or work as a clerk at the mall, then I’m all for it. Whatever makes you happy.”

  He loves me?

  Oh my God. He says the most unexpected things at times. My heart flips over, the butterfly house in my stomach feels like it just got shaken by a hurricane wind, and tears prick my eyes. I blink furiously to keep them back.

  “You’re just saying that so I invite you to be my partner in the circus act.”

  His thumb flicks under my eye to wipe away a stupid tear that escaped. “For sure. I need to be there if you’re going to be swinging around in a leotard looking impossibly hot. I can’t let the bearded lady or the lion tamer steal my girl.”

  Because he’s Easton Royal and I have zero self-control, because my sore heart needs all the sun it can get, because I love him back, I throw myself into his arms and kiss him.

  I meant it to only be a kiss, a quick peck even, but I can’t stop. I kiss him and kiss him and suddenly my hands are finding the button on his jeans. My fingers are pulling down his zipper. My mouth is skipping across his jaw to taste his earlobe and then his salty neck.

  He lets me do all of these things until he lies beneath me, naked except for a pair of black boxer briefs.

  “You done?” he asks when even those are off.

  “Not yet.” My cheeks heat up as I admire him. All of him. He’s beautiful in a way that I didn’t expect him to be. I’m not a big fan of guy’s dicks. Generally, I find them unattractive. I spend zero time online searching them up, but Easton? I can’t stop staring at him—from his silky brown hair to his abnormally good-looking toes, Easton Royal is pure perfection. His chest is lightly muscled, his abdomen is ridged. His thighs are strong and his legs are long. Every inch of him looks powerful.

  His hand drifts down to clasp himself and he squeezes so hard, his knuckles turn white. “You’re making me crazy, Hart. I’m going to last all of two seconds unless you stop looking at me.”

  “I can’t help it.”

  He responds with an explosion of activity, flinging my shirt over my head, lifting me off the mattress enough to pull my pants off. There’s the faint sound of fabric tearing, a curse, and then, a satisfied, “Finally.”

  He slows when I’m down to my underwear. His hands smooth over my hips in long, sweeping strokes. He maps my curves, my stomach, the arch of my back. His mouth moves from my lips to my jaw, down my neck and across my collarbone. He kisses the curve of my breast, the tip, and the valley between.

  He reaches between us to roll on a condom. “You okay with this?” His eyes are hot and his color is high. His lips are swollen from my teeth and tongue.

  I have never been so ready in my entire life. “Yes,” I say with embarrassing eagerness.

  He rolls over and positions me over him.

  “Remember, go easy on me. It’s my first time,” he whispers before I lower myself.

  I don’t know if it’s my first time or my fiftieth, but it doesn’t matter because it’s our first. He grits his teeth and sweat forms on his forehead. His fingers tighten on my hips and his entire body is tense beneath me. The cords of his neck straining as he grapples with his control.

  “Hart,” he gasps.

  “East,” I sigh.

  Our nicknames for each other have corny meanings we can’t ever give voice to because the cheesiness would ruin it. But here, in this moment, we can think them. We can explain them with our bodies. How he’s my sun, my warmth, my guiding star. My East.

  How I’m
his soul, his purpose, his love. His Hart.

  We take each other’s breath and give it back until we’re one unit, one heart, one body. It’s erotic and intoxicating—a high that I never want to come down from. But he catches me as I spiral out of control. He clasps me against his broad chest, his warm arms gathering me close, whispering that he’ll never let me go, never stop loving me, never, never, never, never.

  Chapter 30

  Hartley

  After the most thrilling night of my life, I thought I’d be on cloud nine the next morning. But breakfast is kind of a gloomy affair. Everyone meets in the kitchen, eating various protein shakes, oatmeal and cereals prepared by their cook, Sandra. The lady is in her mid-fifties and is back after an extended vacation caring for her newly born grandchild. Ella and I set the table while the boys stagger down in stages. Sebastian is first. He takes one look at me, curses, grabs a smoothie and disappears. Sawyer is next. I expect him to follow his brother’s path, but he takes a serving of oatmeal from the housekeeper and sits down at the breakfast table that overlooks the massive back lawn, pool, and ocean beyond.

  With only about five minutes before we leave, Easton arrives.

  “He’s perpetually late,” Ella murmurs.

  We join Sawyer at the table. “He’s cute, so I guess he can get away with it.”

  “He’s right here,” Easton grouses, dropping his hot self into the chair next to mine.

  “He’s not a morning person, huh?” I ask Ella.

  “Not really. When I first moved in, I thought he’d make a good vampire since he stays up all night and sleeps during the day.”

  “If you want to know the truth,” I lower my voice, “I haven’t seen his chest in the sunlight so it’s possible.”

  “Seriously. Right. Fucking. Here.”

  “I have,” Ella declares. She points her spoon toward the pool. “And I’m sad to report there is no glitter going on.”

  “That could change. I’ve got this badass eyeshadow called Glitter Bomb and we could brush it on his pecs.”

  “Ohh, when it gets warmer, let’s try that.”