I nod, frowning. Relaxing doesn’t exactly seem like a viable option right now. My pulse is thundering through my thighs, and I can’t make any sense of the thoughts swirling around my head.
I watch the nurse close the door, and my cell phone chimes in my bag. Grunting through my labored movements, I drag the purse over to my bed and dig through it until I find my phone.
There are dozens of notifications. Georgie left me a message saying she left the hospital to go close up the bakery, and she and Giselle will be back later. I sigh, leaning back in my bed.
Then, my phone chimes again. I have an alert set up, so whenever Spoonful of Sugar shows up in a news story or is tagged in something online, I get notified.
For the past month, getting those emails has been a source of joy.
Not today.
Dozens Ill. Spoonful of Sugar to Blame?
My eyes widen. My hand is trembling so hard I can hardly read the screen, and it takes me three tries to tap the news story to read it. When it finally pops up, I have to blink half a dozen times to clear the haze from my vision.
The headline comes into focus, and a chill courses through my body. My breaths become shorter and shorter as I read the news story. Panic laces my blood. Another headline screams at me.
Spoonful of E. coli: New Bakery Might Be Cause of Outbreak
Over twenty-five people have been hospitalized after eating at the bakery today. They’re saying it’s caused by a dangerous strain of E. coli bacteria.
I feel like I’m going to throw up. Or maybe poo my pants.
In fact, I know I’m going to throw up—and that’s exactly what I do.
All over the hospital room floor.
A nurse bursts through the door at the sound of my retching. I wipe my lips as tears sting my eyes.
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay, honey,” she says, laying some paper sheets on the floor. She presses a button on the wall and hands me a glass of water.
I lay back in my bed as tears fall from my eyes, trying to process everything that’s going on. A hospital worker shuffles in and starts cleaning up my mess.
It’s too much. My heart starts beating faster, and my hand begins to tremble. The water sloshes all over my hand as I try to bring it up to my mouth.
Swallowing doesn’t work, so I cough all over myself, spilling water down my front. It hurts to inhale. It feels like a giant hand is squeezing my ribcage, and my lungs might collapse.
Pregnant.
E. coli.
Pregnant.
E. coli.
Margot. Hunter. Luca.
Pregnant.
My heart is a runaway train. I can’t stop shaking. The nurse is saying something, but it sounds like she’s speaking to me underwater. I can’t make out the words. I frown as my vision goes blurry. An alarm goes off, and another nurse comes in.
They inject something into my IV, and I slip into sweet, blank oblivion.
36
Luca
“I need to go.”
“Sit. Down,” Theo spits.
“Ivy needs me.”
I’ve read the news reports on the E. coli outbreak, and I have to get back there. I haven’t heard from her at all, and even from thousands of miles away, I know she’s in trouble.
The King slams his hand on my shoulder and pushes me back into my chair. Pain scatters across my ribcage where mottled bruising is already starting to appear.
Groaning, I lean back.
“What the fuck is going on?” Theo’s eyes are blazing. I’ve never seen him this angry.
“Beckett tried to poison me, that’s what’s going on.”
Theo pinches the bridge of his nose. “You’ve been back one day, Luca. One day.”
“Are you blaming me for this?”
“Why is it that trouble seems to follow you around?”
I stare at my brother, fuming. A part of me agrees with him. Everywhere I go, things seem to fall apart. Isn’t Ivy in trouble, too? Deep down, I think that might be because of me.
Shaking my head, I let out a huff. “I haven’t done anything wrong, Theo. You know that.”
Theo sinks down onto a chair. He lifts his gaze up to mine, and he lets out a heavy sigh. “I know. I’m sorry.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m not sure. I can’t go public with this. If the media catch wind of Beckett’s attempts, it’ll throw everything we’ve worked for out the window. All the trade agreements we’ve just spent the last six months forging will be in jeopardy. Argyle’s image is just starting to recover. If the rest of the world finds out that Beckett has done this…”
Theo’s voice trails off, and I let out a sigh.
“I won’t talk.”
“Thank you.”
I lean back in my chair, feeling my pocket for my phone. I want to call Ivy to make sure she’s okay. She must be dealing with a shit storm of epic proportions with the bacterial outbreak at her bakery. The timing is awful.
Theo clears his throat. “Luca, I…” He keeps his gaze on the floor between us and takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry.”
When my brother lifts his eyes up to mine, I know that he means it.
He continues: “I’m sorry about Cara. I never meant for it to happen. It wasn’t malicious. We just… We just fell in love.”
A couple of months ago, those words would have sent me in a tailspin of prescription drug abuse and depression. It would have sent me searching for a high that I’d never come back down from.
Now?
Now, I get it. You can’t help who you fall in love with, even if it’s the most inconvenient, unexpected person in the world. I stand up and extend my hand toward my brother.
Instead of taking it, he wraps me in a hug and holds me tight.
When I leave my brother, I take my phone out and call Ivy right away.
“Hey, Your Highness,” she answers. I flinch at the formal title.
“Hi, babe. I heard about the E. coli thing. What happened?”
Ivy lets out a sigh. “I don’t know what’s going on. I follow all the health and safety guidelines. You’ve seen the bakery. It’s clean.”
“Did you ever think…” I pause, glancing over my shoulder to make sure I’m alone. I drop my voice. “Do you think maybe someone did it maliciously?”
“What?”
“I don’t know the details, but there’s been some shit going on here. Beckett…” I pause, not wanting to go into details. “I just think that maybe someone could be trying to hurt you to get to me.”
Ivy’s quiet for a while, and the silence tortures me.
“I’ll be on a plane in the morning and be at your side by the afternoon, Ivy,” I promise.
I think she sobs, but the noise is so quiet that I can’t be sure. “Luca, I think it might be best if you stay away for a little bit.”
My chest feels hollow. “What?”
“Well, if someone is trying to get back at you, isn’t it best if we figure it out? If you come back here, it’ll only cause more trouble.”
“But Ivy…” I choke on her name. Does she not want to see me?
The distance between us grows, and I can almost see the walls she’s building around herself. She’s lost her sister, her bakery, her life as she knew it. Does she want to get rid of me, too?
She takes a shuddering breath. “Don’t you think it’s best if we let the dust settle?”
“I think it’s best if we’re together, Ivy. If we let this tear us apart…” I stop, listening to Ivy breathing.
“Isn’t it us being together that started this whole mess in the first place?” Ivy sniffles, and the pain in her voice shatters through my chest.
“Us being together is a good thing, Ivy.”
“It doesn’t feel like a good thing right now.”
She doesn’t mean it. She’s just talking through her pain and letting it speak for her. She’s not saying what I think she’s saying.
“Poison…”
/>
“That’s an accurate nickname, don’t you think? I’m just poison. Everywhere I go, things die around me. Margot, the business, my customers…”
“No.” My voice is stronger. “Ivy, come on. Where are you right now?”
There’s a pause, and then Ivy takes a deep breath. “I’m at home. I mean, at the twins’ house.”
The way she says it makes me frown. It sounds like a lie. I chew the inside of my cheek and take a deep breath. “Don’t worry, Ivy, it’ll all work out.”
“Will it, though? You keep saying that, but it just keeps getting worse.”
I frown, leaning against the wall in the hallway. Where is this coming from?
“Did anything else happen?”
Ivy pauses long enough for me to know she’s choosing her words very carefully.
Finally, she answers. “No.”
“I’m coming back.”
“Don’t.” Her voice is strangled, and she lets a sob slip through her lips. “Please, Luca, just let me deal with this on my own. Having you here just brings more media, and it’ll make Margot hate me even more.”
My chest feels hollow. I run my fingers through my hair, squeezing my eyes shut. “You don’t want to see me?”
Ivy’s breath is shaking, and the thudding of my blood is starting to grow louder. The edges of my vision are going fuzzy.
This can’t be happening. Ivy is everything to me, but she’s pushing me away. What am I supposed to do without her?
“Goodbye, Luca,” she whispers. The dead air that follows sounds louder than any noise I’ve ever heard. I stare at the screen, not understanding.
The thudding of boots on the floor makes me turn my head. Three palace guards are rushing toward me. I hold up my hand to stop them.
“What’s going on?”
“It’s Prince Beckett, sir,” the leader says. “He’s disappeared.”
37
Ivy
“You should have told him,” Georgina says when I stare at the phone.
“I can’t, Georgie. If he comes back here, his reputation will be tainted. I’ve seen the articles talking about his return to Argyle—that’s where he belongs. Being with me will only bring him down.”
“Being with you is where he wants to be, Ivy.” Her eyebrows draw together.
My heart squeezes so hard I feel like I can’t breathe. Tears sting my eyes, but I blink them away. I shake my head. “He thinks he wants that. I’ll just be a footnote in his autobiography.”
“You are the stupidest smart person I know. Did you know that?” Georgie huffs.
I try to laugh, but it just comes out as a bark. I lean back against the hospital pillows and stare at the ceiling tiles. There’s a water stain on the one right above the bed, its jagged edges looking as broken as my heart.
“I need to do one good thing, Georgie. You know? If he comes back here, he’ll be dragged into this whole E. coli mess, into the mess with Margot, into my pregnancy. It’ll be a scandal of epic proportions. He doesn’t deserve that.”
“Don’t you think he should decide that? Why are you pushing him away?”
I can’t answer that question out loud, so I just turn my head away. I’m pushing him away because I love him more than anything else in the world, and I don’t want to drag him down into my mess. I’ve seen the pictures of him in Argyle, smiling at his cheering subjects. I’ve seen the way his face looks when he’s surrounded by his family in his home country.
He looks happy.
Who am I to drag him away from that?
Georgie lets out a sigh. “You didn’t even tell him you were in the hospital, Ivy. Don’t you think he has a right to know?”
“He said that people might be trying to get back at him, and that’s why the bacterial outbreak at my bakery happened.” I stare at Georgie, my eyebrows drawing together. “I could lose Spoonful of Sugar.”
“You could lose him.”
My heart thumps.
I don’t know what to think. I’ve closed the bakery for the rest of the week. I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck.
A soft knock on the door is followed by Irving’s bearded face poking through. “Hey, Ivy,” the twins’ eldest brother says with a sad smile. “How are you feeling?”
He comes in, followed by the other six siblings. All seven of them surround my bed, looking at me with sad looks on their face.
Irving lifts a big, meaty hand to reveal a bouquet of flowers. I smile, nodding to the side table in my room. He places the flowers down and squeezes Georgie’s shoulder. Glancing at his sister, they exchange a loaded look.
“What?” I ask, looking between Georgie and Irving.
Irving takes a deep breath. “The boys and I cleared out the bakery today. We got rid of all the pastries—both baked and prepped, and threw out any food that might be contaminated. Everything besides salt, basically.”
I nod.
Irving clears his throat, staring at his hands. “We noticed the lock on the back door had been tampered with. There were scratches all over it, and the key doesn’t fit in it straight.”
My heart takes off running, and a machine next to me starts to beep.
“So, Luca was right?” I whisper, glancing at Georgina. “This was malicious?”
Her eyes are wide. She stares from me to her brother, who bites his lip. The five brothers shift their weight, and Georgie and Giselle take one of my hands each.
“I don’t know, Ivy. I don’t have any evidence of that. But…”
The word hangs between us.
My stomach twists uncomfortably. I move my arm, and the IV tube sticking out of it jabs me uncomfortably. Huffing, I readjust my position and try over and over to get comfortable in the tiny hospital bed.
I feel completely powerless.
“Well, if the E. coli bacteria was someone being malicious, at least that means you know the bakery wasn’t unsanitary,” Georgie says, arching her brows.
I snort. “Yeah, that makes it so much better.” Shaking my head, I sigh. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Just take a few days to figure things out, Ivy.” Giselle smiles sadly at me. “It’ll work out.”
I nod, not sure if I believe her. How is everything going to work out?
My sister won’t talk to me, my boyfriend is better off in his own country, my business has fallen apart. I don’t want to wallow in self-pity, but what else is there to do? Unless I know who contaminated my pastries, how can I stop it from happening again?
“I don’t want anyone to get sick by eating my stuff,” I say, shaking my head. “What if the delivery to the castle had been contaminated? What if I’d inadvertently poisoned the King?”
Tears sting my eyes as frustration and hopelessness bubble up inside me. I let my hand drift over my stomach, staring at my abdomen.
Through it all, as my entire world falls apart around me, I have to come to terms with the fact that there’s a baby growing inside me.
I love the love that the twins and their brothers are showering on me. I love having their support. But right now, I just want to suffer in peace. Their presence is stifling, and I feel like I can’t think with so many people in the room.
Georgina motions for her siblings to leave the room. She can read my mind. Irving clears his throat and stands up. We say our goodbyes, and I somehow manage to keep it together until everyone but me and the twins are gone.
As soon as the door closes, though, I burst into tears.
“What am I going to do, Georgie?”
“Well, right now, you’re going to get yourself better. The doctor said that they’ll keep you here until you’re clear of the bacterial infection, so you’ll stay here until they release you. Then, you’ll call that Prince and tell him he’s going to be a father. Then, you’ll go to your sister and tell her to stop being such a selfish asshole. Finally, you’ll go back to that bakery, make some cupcakes, and open the doors.”
Giselle squeezes my hand, nodding at me. “She’s r
ight.”
“Okay?” Georgie asks, tilting her head. Her hair color is fading now, leaving pale blue streaks at the ends.
I gulp. “Okay.”
When my friends leave, I lay back on the pillows and let out a sigh. It sounded so easy when Georgie said it, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to do any of what she said.
How am I supposed to open the bakery back up when I don’t know who tried to poison me? It’s not just me that they hurt. It’s my customers.
It’s my baby.
I curl onto my side and let my tears soak into the pillow. It feels good to cry, but when I wipe my face and pull myself together, nothing has changed.
Closing my eyes, I think of the life that’s growing inside me.
If I set aside Margot, and the bakery, and even my love for the Prince, all that’s left is my unborn child. No matter what, I need to do what’s right for my baby.
I wrap my arms around myself and hang onto that thought. Before, I was adrift in a sea of misery. I was lost.
Now, I’ve found an anchor.
My child.
I sit up in the bed and bring my knees up to my chest. I lean my chin on my knees and sway softly from side to side.
Doing right by this baby will be the one guiding factor that leads me through this mess. What happens with the bakery is irrelevant. What happens with Margot doesn’t matter.
Even if she never speaks to me again, and even if the bakery falls apart, I still have to take care of this child. My child.
With a sigh, I let go of the panic that’s been gripping my heart. I turn a corner, finding strength inside me that I never knew existed.
I still don’t know what I’ll do. I still don’t know how I’ll tell Luca, or what will happen with my sister.
The only thing I do know is that I’ll be the best mother I can be.
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