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One

STORY

My love story began when it ended With a savage kiss and a confession whispered in the dark that wasn’t meant for me

I alking the corridors of Crowne Hall when I was grabbed, pulled into a dark room Moail Crowne’s “ silver tray with a crash and shatter

The smell of salt air floated in the darkness, white cloth draped over one-of-a-kind furniture, and gold franated for only select, trusted servants This place, though shoved away and forgotten in the no-, held millions’ worth of treasures

The antique room

The door sla to find the shadow of a tall man only inches from me

“Excuse me—” I started, but then the mystery man seized hts leftyet soft So soft Searching and co

I wasn’t ever one to kiss strangers in dark rooms

I wasn’t ever one to kiss, period I’d come close…once, but in the end that boy

This hat people talked about in fairy tales It was the pop It was fire So I didn’t know existed, a tether in my soul, came loose, and latched on to hi to the floor, and I grasped ive hi for

He sla in my spirally, curly hair He tasted like lollipops and whiskey

Who was he? A guard? A cook? No one ever gave me a second look, save West, but his attention proved worse than none

I dressed conservatively, not even showing h I could look other servant staff in the eye, I never raisedabout me, because then they would ask questions, like why I was here, why I didn’t have any family, why I dressed so conservatively

Questions opened up doors to the past, and taking one look backinto a darkness so black it consumed me

My hed into hi questions vanish

We broke on a breath, his forehead pressed tosunset sparkled on the iron-blue ocean between us My eyes had adjusted to the dark and I could alular features