by Laura Kenyon
“No, the name.” Her mind was still fighting to stay awake, but her body was hoisting an enormous white flag. “Short for Ryan but spelled like the bread. Pumpernickel made me think of it. I mean, it might be more poetic to call him Phoenix or Ember under the circumstances, but…”
She heard a small breath of amusement. “I like Ryan. I think it actually means little king. But you should sleep on it. Decide when you don’t think your pillows are actually clouds.”
Belle nodded—or at least she nodded internally—and asked Kirsten if she would tuck in her baby as well. She was acting like a toddler, unwilling to be left alone in the dark for fear of monsters.
“I will,” Kirsten assured her, flipping off the final overhead light. “I’ll swaddle him, actually. It’s even better. But only if you fall asleep in the next five minutes.”
“Okay,” Belle murmured as her eyelids fell one last time and her head hit the bottom of the quicksand. “I just want him to be happy. And safe. That’s the most important thing.”
“He will be,” she said as a slice of light poured in from the hallway, then faded away. “You’ll make sure of that.”
Chapter Two
RAPUNZEL
Rapunzel leapt onto the concrete and slammed her door so hard, it triggered the alarm three cars over. She felt the metal and fiberglass frame shudder behind her, and wished it would collapse right on the spot. She could picture it now: a thousand shiny little pieces of Ethan’s second favorite thing littering the floor, turning the Taaffeite Towers parking garage into a skating rink and knocking down her perfume-laden neighbors and their teensy weensy purse dogs. At least that would be amusing.
“Babe!” Ethan called as she hustled toward the stairs. She bit the inside of her cheeks but didn’t turn to look. He was lucky she hadn’t swiped his keys and left him stranded at the hospital … or the Phoenix . . . or the bottom of the West River with weights strapped to his ankles. But there was no way that liar was getting a conversation out of her; he wasn’t that lucky.
“Babe, I’m begging here,” she heard again as he jogged up from behind. “I’m an ocker. A wanker. I deserve to spend the rest of the year on my hands and knees.” Her heels clopped harder. A few months ago, she couldn’t imagine being this mad at someone from Stularia—not with that loose, bouncy accent, which made even self-degradation sound sunny. “Come on,” he begged, his words spraying out in all directions, glancing each corner of the garage and shooting right back at her: a 360 degree assault. “You can’t stay mad at me forever. She told me if I broke my promise—”
“I know.” Rapunzel gritted her teeth and pulled ahead of him again, shoulder-checking a young couple struggling to walk and kiss at the same time. The female was wearing stilettos, a tiny over-the-shoulder purse, and raccoon eyes. She’d probably met the guy a few hours earlier at a club downtown, and was bringing him home to uncover the few parts of her that weren’t already on display. Rapunzel grunted an automatic apology but kept walking—away from a world they had no idea was on the verge of collapse.
All she wanted to do right now was crawl into bed—alone—and sleep until the past few days became nothing more than a faded memory. She wanted to forget the hours she’d spent pacing the hospital floors praying for Belle to wake up—not to mention the afternoon of mental and emotional counseling that followed.
Perhaps she should have left it at that. Perhaps she should have gone home when the hospital staff kicked her out, rather than sticking around to plan with Snow, Ruby, and Dr. Frolick … or schlepping over to the Phoenix because she needed to see the damage for herself and she wanted to make sure Gray didn’t kill himself digging through a still smoldering crime scene for Belle’s rings.
But what’s done was done. She would have been exhausted—mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausted—either way. At least the extra exploits had helped keep her mind off of Ethan’s betrayal. Now, however, as the night sky began to lighten and a young woman puking near the vestibule reminded her that it was still the weekend, all that distraction was gone.
She held her breath as she passed the woman and three of her eleven sisters (all of whom lived two floors below Rapunzel with a father who howled at them every weekend for breaking curfew) and pounded the vestibule door open with her palm. She smirked as it crashed shut behind her—nicking Ethan somewhere on the way.
“Thanks for that,” he grumbled a few seconds later as he lurched into the elevator. She hadn’t pressed the button to close the doors faster, but she had no plans to hold them for him either.
Aware that nothing exiting her mouth right now could be good, Rapunzel bit her lip and panned the granite floor, the bamboo panels, and the glass ceiling with the frosted tile inlay. Then she yanked out her keycard and rammed it into the control panel. Penthouse A. Prime real estate with a rooftop veranda and unbeatable view of Carpale Castle. She’d fought tooth and nail to snag it a few years ago, but would trade it for a cardboard box today if it meant Cinderella, Belle’s baby, and the rest of Marestam would be safe.
As the elevator ascended, she saw Ethan rubbing his elbow and tried to tune out his repeating apology. A few words might have changed since it started almost twenty-four hours ago in Belle’s hospital room, but the song was generally the same.
I know where to find one, he’d said when Ruby put out a call for three pureblood fairies. Her name’s Grethel. And she’ll help if Rapunzel asks her to.
Rapunzel had taken some time to process this. She remembered feeling suddenly heavy and tilted. She’d felt the words go through one layer at a time. Land mines coated in silk before the inevitable explosion. She remembered telling herself that there was no way Ethan could know where to find Grethel. They’d been over it a million times. They’d had screaming matches on that very subject. He’d asked her to trust him. She had. No. It had been an extraordinarily long day. She must have heard him wrong.
But as she waited for translation, she felt a strong hand slide over her shoulder and squeeze. She heard Ethan whisper something about having no choice, about Grethel swearing him to secrecy. At that moment, the queen of lightning-fast wit and high-speed love affairs started moving in slow motion.
It wasn’t until she saw Belle’s face—clenched and ashen with her brown eyes twitching—that the silk finally pulled away and Ethan’s words caught fire. Her emotions splintered off and ricocheted in a thousand different directions. She wanted to grab his collar and throttle until the buttons popped off. She wanted to curl up in the tiny linoleum bathroom and cry. She wanted someone to stroke her hair, lie with all the good intentions in the world, and tell her everything was going to be okay.
But her face betrayed none of that. She’d kept her cool until they all worked out a plan to save the people they loved and the strangers they lived beside. She’d kept her cool then because Marestam General Hospital, on the worst night of Belle’s already tortured life, during what could quickly become the final days of the entire royal system, was neither the time nor the place for a lover’s quarrel.
Her apartment, however, was a different story.
“I wanted to tell you,” Ethan repeated as the elevator climbed to the forty-first floor. “I had no choice.”
Rapunzel scoffed out loud without intending to. There was always a choice. And before Ethan, picking the wrong one meant a one-way immediate ticket out of her love life. Just being in his presence now broke every rule she had. Getting into his car after she knew he’d lied to her? Absurd. Allowing him back into her apartment? Blasphemy. It was amazing how quickly things could change.
But she needed Ethan to take her to Grethel. And to up their chances of breaking Donner’s curse. And to set every private investigator in Ellada on the top-secret search for Cinderella. Just mentally listing all of those things made her feel guilty for wasting any time on her own screwed up dilemmas.
Barely two days ago, she was with her best friend on the front porch of the Phoenix, having just driven her home from the hospital—ho
spital stay number one, as it turned out. Belle was still processing the news that her estranged husband’s curse was returning and spreading to his unborn offspring. She’d decided to break things off with Gray, whose love for her was as pure as Donner’s was selfish and who had an extraordinary ability to make Belle forget that the world was crashing down around her. Belle had decided to go back to a miserable marriage because Ruby believed that doing so would stop the curse for good. Rapunzel had been against that decision completely. She could still picture the defeat in those massive, innocent eyes. But she’d had no better solution. So for once, she’d shut her mouth and accepted that, sometimes, the right choice was a terrible one.
That’s what Ethan was trying to tell her now. He wanted her to see that sometimes, the right choice went against everything for which a person stood. He wanted her to believe that keeping Grethel a secret, despite all the times she’d begged for him to “think harder,” was the honorable thing to do.
But had Rapunzel rejected that entire notion two days ago—had she stayed to change Belle’s mind rather than rushing off the moment Ethan broke down on the Midtown Expressway—perhaps she would have been there to see the warning signs when Donner arrived. If she hadn’t chosen a man over her best friend, perhaps Belle’s baby would still be in her stomach. Perhaps the Phoenix would still be standing, Kiarra Kane would still be conscious, and Angus would have no legitimate reason to take over his second of five Marestam thrones.
But she couldn’t waste time thinking about that now. It wasn’t going to help anyone.
“Move the heck on, Rapunzel,” she muttered as the elevator jerked to a stop and the doors peeled open.
“What?” Ethan shoved a firm hand through his hair. Each salt and pepper piece flattened and then bounced back up again. His eyes were both wide and wrinkled at the same time. “What are you saying?”
Rapunzel bit her lip and drank in his terrified look in her peripheral vision. Everything about him was tight—from his balled fists to his clenched shoulders to the deep, crinkled space between the eyes she refused to catch. The words hadn’t been directed at him, but why should she clarify that? He deserved to dangle for a little while.
“Never mind,” she said, stomping off the elevator and landing directly on her polished cherry floors. She was just wishing she had a front door to kick open, when a deafening howl stopped her cold and a monstrous, furry freight train came barreling around the corner. Caught more off guard than if she’d seen Angus Kane standing there with an Uzi, Rapunzel jumped behind Ethan and glued her hands to his shoulders.
She yelped and dug her fingers into his collarbone. Her heart was racing. In all the commotion, she’d completely forgotten that Nathan, the inn’s now unemployed concierge, had dropped Beast off early yesterday morning. He was the Phoenix’s only four-legged refugee. “Beast!” she shrieked, in a tone no one should ever use with a hyperactive canine. “Beast, you scared the— No! Ahh!”
Rapunzel screamed as the giant dog reared up in excitement and knocked his former roommate flat on her back.
“Beast! No!” She shoved both elbows over her face, struggling to deflect the barrage of hot, leathery dog kisses. “Beast, I said no!”
Rapunzel was seconds away from losing it, when she heard something hit the floor a few feet away. The dog immediately lunged for it, then returned to drop a snot-covered rubber bone on her chest. She cursed in disgust and scrambled to her feet, going out of her way to avoid taking Ethan’s outstretched hand.
“Hey!” she hollered, shoving the hair from her face and throwing her arms out as if to create an invisible bubble around herself. “Everybody just needs to back the heck off and give me a minute to breathe!”
She regretted her tone almost immediately, but couldn’t say it wasn’t effective. Both man and animal obeyed instantly—one shrinking away like a scolded puppy, the other impersonating a statue but sweeping the floor with his long, silver tail. At first, Rapunzel didn’t know whether to scream or laugh. Then, for some reason only the universe could possibly understand, she spotted Beast’s empty bowls in the kitchen and wanted to burst into tears. All she could think about was Belle lying in that hospital bed. Belle having to give away her baby. Belle’s beloved rescue dog wasting away in her selfish friend’s apartment.
She swallowed hard but couldn’t shake the massive pressure building behind her eyes. Then she took off for the kitchen, where she could obscure her face behind open cabinets and hanging pots.
“He needs to eat,” she commanded, brandishing her pointer finger like a baton. “Knowing Nathan, he probably just tossed a biscuit off the elevator and closed the gate. Poor thing’s already traumatized. Then we forget all about him and come home arguing with each other?”
She shook her head while Ethan stood back, mystified by this sudden change. Then she dropped to her knees and unearthed a bag of kibble from behind some pasta boxes.
“Come here, buddy,” she cooed. “Your mama left this here when you guys moved to the Phoenix. It might be a little stale but…” She shrugged. “Well, I’ve seen you eat poop.”
She dropped three scoops of the tiny brown circles into an aluminum bowl, set it down by his paws, and then filled another one up with water. The dog wagged his tail as she looked around the kitchen and frowned. Unless he’d washed, dried, and put the bowls away (highly unlikely on all counts), Nathan hadn’t fed the poor thing at all.
“Go ahead, bud,” she said when Beast continued to stand there, staring at her. “Eat up,” she said again, motioning toward the food. When he still didn’t lunge for it, she started moving her arms like a traffic cop in the direction of the kibble. “Eat. Up.” She waited, then bit her lip. He should be starving.
“Come on,” she half-whined, crouching down to his level. “This was perfectly good for you a couple months ago. Are you mad at me or something? Look. I’m sorry we left you alone for so long, but the hospital doesn’t allow dogs and then we had to—”
“Tough audience,” Ethan piped up behind her. The amusement in his voice reignited the urge she’d had in the hospital to strangle him. But acting on that fantasy would probably lead to a very different sort of physical altercation—one floor up in her bedroom.
Instead, Rapunzel rolled her eyes and gave Beast a few quick pats on the head. The tops of his eyes arched up, turning them into lopsided triangles. “Then we had to go by the inn and see how bad it is.”
Beast’s head rocked side to side, in time with every other word. She knelt all the way down and scratched the side of his neck.
“It’s pretty awful.”
His head cocked again and let out a barely audible whine.
“Yeah, I guess you already knew that. You watched it happen firsthand. You must have been terrified.”
Beast repositioned his feet and licked his chops.
Rapunzel leaned in so that her cheek rested against the side of his head—which felt surprisingly silky. “She’s fine, by the way,” she whispered, wondering whether she should mention the baby. “I guess I should have mentioned that first. Belle’s going to be just fine.”
At the sound of her name, Beast’s head immediately jerked towards the elevator and his front paw swung onto Rapunzel’s knee. Maybe he did understand. Maybe Belle wasn’t completely insane to think a dog could distinguish one two-legged caretaker from another.
But half a second after this life-altering thought crossed her mind, Ethan sauntered over, gave the dog two quick pats, and said, in a deep, commanding voice, “OKAY.”
On cue, Beast lunged forward, sending the kibble, the bowl, and Rapunzel scattering across the floor.
“Hey, what gives?” she yelled. “Beast, I thought we were having a moment!”
She leered at the dog while mindlessly allowing Ethan to help her up. Then she pulled violently away and shot him the angriest look she could muster. She’d completely forgotten that Belle had trained him not to eat until she gave a command word, as if that was really where the gargantuan
jumping bean needed discipline.
“A little warning would have been nice,” she snarled at Ethan while grabbing a martini glass. Then she swung open another cabinet, studied a jumble of half-empty liquor bottles, and paused. Was it wrong to start drinking before sunrise? Even if she had been up for twenty-six hours straight? Even if she added a little orange juice? She stifled a yawn and closed the doors. “I need sleep,” she decided.
Ethan yawned and stretched toward the ceiling. The hem of his shirt rose a few inches above his belt, exposing what Rapunzel knew to be an excellent set of abdominals. “Now that’s a spectacular idea,” he said, slipping his hands around her hips. He was wearing the same cologne he’d worn the day she met him, after the sculpting class she’d taken with Cindy. That was the day her friend revealed—mistakenly, thank goodness—that she believed her husband was cheating on her. Rapunzel knew deep down that Aaron would never do something like that. Just as she knew Ethan would never deliberately hurt her. But deliberate or not, he had hurt her.
“We’re both knackered and it’s turning our heads to mush,” he murmured into her ear. “What we need are a few decent hours of shuteye and after that, everything will look—”
“Glad you agree,” she said, repelling his advance with a flat palm. “So I’ll see you in a few hours. You can take the guest room.”
Ethan’s smirk tumbled, followed by his eyebrows. “You mean … Are you serious?”
Rapunzel stared back as if he had ancient symbols tattooed on his forehead. He removed his hands, gave a tiny nod, and backed away.
“Okay, you’re serious.”
“I am,” she said. “And in the morning you should probably pack.”
He stumbled. “Pack?”
Rapunzel braced for an explosion. But instead, Ethan’s voice seemed to collapse inward, the word trickling off his lips while his face showed the perfect mixture of pain, fear, and desperation. She swallowed the urge to comfort him.