by Laura Kenyon
“Perdiem?”
Davin smiled and brushed a swath of red hair behind Dawn’s ear. “Perdemi-Divan. It was much smaller then. But when my head started clearing and I found out you were marrying a king, I knew I didn’t stand a chance the way I was.”
“That’s not true at all.” If anything, that had been their window.
“I did it all for you,” he continued, as if she hadn’t said a thing. “I became Liam Devereaux for you. Dawn, I want to live with you, marry you. I’ll give you everything a king can give and more—true love. And that’s forever. I know you thought I was dead but—” He pulled her chin up so she was swimming in his eyes, and him in hers. “You won’t have to pretend with me.”
“Pretend?” Her voice trailed off into a whisper. He held his breath. Eleven years spent pining and building and struggling, and here he stood at the moment of truth. “You really did all this for me?”
He nodded, clenching his hands around hers.
A feeling of euphoria crept up her spine, one vertebrae at a time until it radiated through her entire body. “You did all this for me,” she repeated softly, then dropped his hands. All color immediately drained from his face. “Do you know how long it took for me to finally let you go? How long I waited for you before convincing myself you’d died? I thought I killed you. I thought, if you’d lived, you would have come stampeding in during that wedding and stolen me away.”
Davin edged back. “You’re right. I’m sorry.” He shook his head. “Hunter’s a king and you said yes. I was a fool to thi—”
Dawn’s body crashed forward, led entirely by her lips. They pressed hard into his as her fingers hooked through his hair. Every drop of blood in her sizzled as if she’d been plugged into an electric socket.
For all the money in the world, she couldn’t say who propelled whom. It was a rush of passion and adrenaline and a burning, crazed need like she’d never felt in her entire life.
They melted into each other for what felt like hours—struggling to make up for every lost year, every missed kiss.
When the sky began to lighten, Dawn lay beside Davin and felt their hearts thump to the same beat. She almost felt comfortable enough to fall asleep for the first time in a decade, but now she didn’t want to. She couldn’t miss a single second of this.
“I never answered my own question earlier,” she said, her palm resting on his chest. She watched it, rising and falling, as if it was the most fascinating thing she’d ever seen—as if it belonged to someone who’d come back from the dead. “The answer is I never did let you go. I tried. I can’t tell you how hard I tried. I needed to for my sanity, but I never could let myself mourn you. Not really. A part of me always wanted to believe you were alive. But then, if you were alive, that would also mean you didn’t come for me.”
“I told you. I was miles away by the time I realized—”
“I know,” she said. “But you should have known you were always worthy. You didn’t have to make billions to prove that.”
Davin brushed her hair from her cheek and kissed her again. Then he gazed, unhappily, towards the window. If she didn’t leave soon, Hunter would wake up and worry … or worse.
“Do you know what I found in this room?” she asked, wishing she could prolong the night. She hopped out of bed, scampered over to her keepsake box, and returned with the chunk of turquoise. She laid it atop his chest. “Remember this?”
Davin smiled and reached behind his neck. With one quick tug, he broke the black leather cord and slid off its contents: a smooth, matching slab of polished turquoise.
“Remember?” he repeated as Dawn eyed the writing on the back: D2. “I’ve been carrying it around for centuries.”
Dawn grabbed it and greedily pushed it against hers, reuniting the fragments that had been parted years ago. She frowned. Time had smoothed the once jagged edges, leaving visible spaces between them. Nevertheless, she flipped her lips into a smile and proclaimed, “Perfect fit.”
Davin wrapped his arms around her as the birds began to chirp outside. “Always have been.”
THE MARESTAM MIRROR
Diamond Ropes and Velvet Cake
By Perrin Hildebrand, King of Gossip
BAD LUCK abounds for Tantalise Queen Snow White and her hubby, whose peace-loving, cloistered lifestyle has been flipped fully on its side in just a few days.
After skewering them throughout the headlines and demanding their crowns, the newly-formed Monarchy Morality Coalition has taken aim at something new: the couple’s pending adoption. And they’ve actually made it on the board.
According to Mildred Pierce, official mouthpiece of Home Sweet Home, the agency is exercising its right to place the Whites’ application under additional review. “Home Sweet Home has a responsibility to provide our youngsters with loving homes and exemplary life guides. When something like this happens, we are obligated to step back and make sure we didn’t miss anything when we issued our initial approval. It’s simply standard protocol.”
What’s more, word is that Parliament has been working on a decree that would establish a supreme set of “lifestyle standards” for all sitting monarchs. Among the discussed requirements: A no tolerance policy for all mind-altering drugs, limits on public consumption of alcohol, and monthly surprise home inspections by the Prime Minister himself.
SOMETHING tells me it’s no coincidence that UKM Polls chose this week to release its annual state of the realm survey—and confidence in the monarchies has plummeted.
According to the report, forty-one percent of citizens would consider switching from a constitutional polymonarchy to a Parliamentary republic—eighteen more percentage points than four years ago!
Still, it’s worth noting that the survey was conducted from May 1 to June 30 of this year, when Marestam was coming to terms with King Donner’s affair and the possibility of watching ruling royals divorce for the first time in decades. (A topic on which, I must confess, information has been almost nonexistent. Neither party has filed, and their attorneys are more taped up than Queen Letitia’s bosom in a party dress.)*
WHICH brings me to my final order of business.
When Letitia married Sir Walter Hughes thirty-eight years ago, journalists drooled for months over the extravagance. There were roses covering every corner, doves unleashed by the hundreds, and twenty different rooms decorated in twenty different themes by color, music, and libation. But if you expected Riverfell’s Queen of Opulence to tone things down the second time around, you thought wrong.
For her upcoming wedding to sprightly William Wilkins, Earl of Grafton in the distant realm of Stularia, the regal diva was overheard spouting orders to a bevy of attendants at Kingfeld’s on Fifth Avenue. On the menu this time: Martinis with diamond-crusted rims, old-fashioned horse-and-carriage rides, and possibly a destination cocktail hour for the bridal party at a to-be-determined locale. Festivities will take place in December, not long after Letitia drags accompanies her eldest son Carter (who was spotted lunching with Kiarra Kane TWICE this week!) to the throne for his coronation.
* Note: If I wind up face down with an empty bottle of pills tomorrow morning, it was probably this comment—and a Riverfell guard—that did me in. Of course, as my true identity is a secret, it may take a few missing columns for anyone to notice. Eyes peeled, loyal readers. Eyes peeled.
Chapter Fourteen
PENELOPEA
“Not that I ever wanted a royal title anyway,” Rapunzel said, jiggling her wine glass back and forth and shaking her head, “but if this morality doctrine goes through, forget about it. You could offer me a diamond the size of this apartment and I’d still say no.” In one fluid action, she snatched up her copy of the Mirror, smacked it against the air, and plopped it down between the smoked salmon and cashews. “Limits on public consumption of alcohol,” she read, her voice dripping with scorn. “When did Marestam become a dictatorship?”
Penny smirked and broke a cracker in half. All five of them were gathered
on Rapunzel’s rooftop terrace, perched high over the upper west bank of Carpale, for the first time in what seemed like ages. In light of Belle’s dilemma, Letitia’s bossiness, and the inexcusable attack against Snow, cocktails and girl talk were in high demand. Even Snow had accepted a raspberry martini before her usual eco-approved wine.
“Well if that’s how you feel,” Penny said, dipping the cracker into something green that Snow brought over, “I guess we should tell Ethan to buy a whole diamond mine if he plans on making you an honest woman. He is royalty, you know.”
Snow, Belle, and Dawn all nodded at their host, who waved her finger in the air and swallowed an entire mouthful of merlot.
“For one thing,” she argued, “he’s a foreign viscount—not a sitting monarch. Big difference.” She flicked a crumb off the table with her bright orange fingernail. “And anyway, Ethan knows I have no intention of ever getting married. He’s good with it. Neither of us needs a contract to validate our feelings.”
Belle sighed and pressed both elbows into the table—no easy task with the small pumpkin that was bursting from her midsection. “Amen to that.”
“Well, however you decide to do it,” Snow practically sang, “I’m glad to see you so happy with someone.”
Rapunzel, who usually mocked Snow for her impossibly rosy attitude, met her remark with a smile.
“Thank you,” she cooed, her tone one of pure validation as she downed the rest of her wine. She immediately reached for the bottle. “And between you and me, all these Moral Morality kooks are just … well, kooks. You have every right to live your life however you damn well please. You’re not hurting anyone. Well—” She glanced at Belle, who immediately shook her head violently. “Yeah, you’re not hurting anyone. So who cares what you do in privacy behind your own doors?”
Snow smiled, waiting for Rapunzel’s tipsy ramble to fully translate, and then looked around the table. Worried faces stared back. “I’m fine,” she said, making a point to look each of her friends in the eye. “Honestly, Griffin and I are both fine. I feel awful about what happened, and these people are just reacting because they care about Belle. I can’t blame them for that.”
Penny pressed her lips together and scooped up the other half of her cracker—skipping the green stuff this time. As usual, Snow’s saintliness flew in the face of all logic. Here she was, turning the other cheek and forgiving her tormentors while they attacked her for being “immoral.” Penny felt like the world’s biggest ingrate in comparison. And then she felt annoyed for having to feel that way—which under normal circumstances would be fully justified.
But right now, everyone’s heart was breaking for their friend. Right now, they had no choice but to sit there and listen to her speech about tolerance and acceptance and how all the negativity would blow over in the end. They knew how badly Snow wanted to be a mother, and how much misery she’d survived trying to get there. For that to be plucked from her grasp now—because of some stupid mistake that should have never become public knowledge to begin with—was devastating.
“Well there’s no harm done as far as I am concerned,” Belle assured everyone. She leaned back to rub her belly—which seemed to have gotten bigger just in the last ten minutes. “Baby too. So they really should back off.” She flinched, stopped rubbing for a second, smiled, and then continued.
Something about this action tore Dawn out of the trance she’d been in since the moment she’d arrived. “You’re getting kicks that strong already?” Her bright red hair blended in with the sunset behind her. “Goodness, I didn’t start reacting like that until the last month. And I was carrying two. Does Dr. Frolick know?”
Belle shrugged and responded that kicks are a good thing. And she planned on telling Dr. Frolick at her twenty-two-week appointment on Thursday. “I think this little one’s just extra eager to grow up,” she said with a laugh. Then she snapped her fingers in the air as if she’d just remembered something. “Actually, Dawn, do you remember when your milk started coming in?”
Infamously squeamish about such topics, Rapunzel jumped to her feet with the transparent excuse that she needed “to go grab something.” Her hair was chopped and angular today, with a slow transition from copper to white that shimmered as she dashed inside. Her friends probably considered it ridiculous, but Penny was mesmerized.
“My milk?” Dawn squinted out at the surrounding towers and the West River forty stories below. “I don’t think it came in until after. Maybe a bit at the very end. Why?”
Belle shot a sheepish smile into her orange juice. “Guess I had an early leak.”
“Really?” Dawn shrugged. “Well, I’ve only been pregnant once and everyone’s different. I had horrible nausea with Morning and Day, for example—couldn’t even stand the sight of meat—whereas Cindy was feasting on steak dinners and doing yoga till thirty-six weeks. I wouldn’t worry. Actually, speaking of Cindy, has anyone talked to her? How’s her trip going?”
Belle was only halfway through responding that she’d heard their friend was having a great time, when Rapunzel bellowed from inside and came sprinting back out.
“You’ve talked to Cindy?” She threw her hands in the air. “I knew it! She is mad at me for not saying goodbye before she left, isn’t she? Gah, what a little tart. After all I’ve done—”
“I didn’t talk to her,” Belle clarified.
Rapunzel’s rant clipped off as her energy level plummeted. “Huh? But you just said—”
“Apparently Grace talked to her when they checked in on the kids,” Belle said. “At least that’s what Angus told me last weekend.”
Rapunzel crossed her arms and sat back down with a “humph.”
“I highly doubt she’s mad at you,” Penny piped up. “Heck knows if my honeymoon got cut short for a decade, I wouldn’t even let Letitia ruin it. Not even if she followed us to the hotel.” She could actually picture that: her mother-in-law showing up with her cheetah-print luggage set, dragging Logan’s brother in her wake, because she couldn’t bear to be without both her sons for that long.
“All right, I’ll give her a few more days. But after that I’m calling the hotel.” She squinted. “As soon as I find out exactly where they’re staying.”
Snow laughed. The martini had done at least part of its job. “Gosh, for someone who spent all those years locked in a tower, you still haven’t learned that patience is a virtue, have you?”
“Well, I’m glad someone finally said it!” The cheery male voice startled everyone as Ethan bounced onto the terrace. He was wearing athletic shorts and a t-shirt drenched with sweat. “Goodness knows I can’t.”
Rapunzel lit up as he bent down to kiss her—but quickly stiffened the moment she caught everyone staring at them with googly eyes. Then she declared the terrace a penis-free zone for the next few hours.
“What?” she asked after Ethan returned inside. “This is girls’ time. And I gave him a key, not breasts.”
A chorus of boos struck up as Rapunzel tried to act like her old, unfettered self, and everyone but Belle loaded up on wine.
Two hours later, Dawn had gone home for some business dinner with her husband, Snow was meditating in the corner, Rapunzel was fading in and out of coherency, and Belle looked like she was doing everything in her power to not appear miserable.
It occurred to Penny that now would be the perfect time to announce she’d found a sure-fire loophole in Donner’s pre-nup. She wanted so badly to take a huge pair of scissors and cut all the strings that he—and Ruby—had Belle hanging by. Only she hadn’t found any. How could she? When Letitia was sending her on wild goose chases every two seconds—for an aisle runner the exact color of Riverfell’s flag, for flowers that don’t actually exist in nature, and for undergarments that would give her buxom mother-in-law the body of a college cheerleader?
On the ride over to Rapunzel’s, however, she had found something that possibly looked promising. It was a fifty-year-old law that (ironically with the current state of events)
attempted to put morality restrictions on marriages. It probably hadn’t been enforced in ages, but if it was technically still on the books, Donner’s infidelity would nullify his own pre-nup.
She couldn’t wait to get home and start doing more research. It had lit a fire in her that she feared fizzled out years ago. But she couldn’t bear getting Belle’s hopes up without being one hundred percent sure. She saw several all-nighters in her future, but it would be worth it. It would be worth it to help an innocent woman in—
“What?!”
The shriek ripped across the terrace like a thousand needles, jerking Penny (and half the realm, most likely) to attention.
She looked up to see Snow—at least, what looked like Snow—puffed up like a warrior and clutching her phone with both hands. Rather than meditating, or smiling, or staring lovingly up at the stars, she was shaking. She was red in the face. And her shoulders looked absolutely enormous.
“They said we’re WHAT?!”
Chapter Fifteen
DAWN
Davin’s sports car sailed up the castle drive at exactly six thirty on Sunday evening, not long after Dawn returned from calming her nerves at Rapunzel’s. Hunter hadn’t wasted a moment arranging his precious dinner with billionaire tycoon Liam Devereaux. As usual, when he smelled a potential investment, he didn’t skip a beat.
Dawn’s heart, on the other hand, was skipping thousands. This dinner couldn’t have come at a worse time. Only three suns had risen since the venerated bachelor yanked off his disguise and reignited a flame she thought extinguished years ago. She’d begged him not to accept her husband’s invitation. It was hard enough being around both of them at Snow’s party—and that was before she knew who he was. How in the world could she survive that now? She was good at wearing masks, but not like this—not around the husband she blamed for ruining her life, and the soul mate she’d once expected to marry.