Damsels in Distress: Book Two: Desperately Ever After Trilogy

by Laura Kenyon

  But Davin (or Liam—she’d have to be extremely cautious not to slip up there) had said declining would seem suspicious. “He’ll just keep asking,” he told her as they parted a few hours before sunrise that very morning. He’d been repeating the same line for days. “So we might as well hide right out in the open.”

  When zero hour finally came, the guest of honor arrived with a bouquet of electric blue roses for Dawn, a box of cigars for Hunter, and chocolate-covered yo-yos for Morning and Day. For a half hour, the three adults chatted in the drawing room while the kids prepared for bed. When it came time for dinner, the secret lovers sat on opposite sides of a twelve-foot table while Hunter kept watch at the head.

  On the outside, Dawn was her usual, obliging self. She smiled at her husband’s jokes, let his hand rest on the small of her back, and even asked questions that would make Tirion Enterprises look good. She didn’t know whether to take pride in her ability to stare life in the eyes and lie, or fear what it said about her innocence. It was almost a comfort to know her insides were trembling like a wet dog. It meant she still had a few real emotions left.

  Following her husband’s toast, Dawn positioned her fork and crossed her legs, brushing what she thought was the table. When the table brushed back, however, she caught Davin shooting her a covert glance. Hunter, absolutely none the wiser, continued blathering about his billion-dollar behemoth.

  With a thrill of subterfuge cascading up her back, Dawn feigned a yawn and peered down to measure the length of the tablecloth with her eyes. The scarlet panel cloaked all but one inch above the floor. Suddenly, the evening of terror was lined with adventure.

  Prodding her gnocchi with her fork, she slipped her foot out of its satin pump, wiggled her toes in their stocking, and stroked them playfully against Davin’s leg. When she assumed he’d be looking, she raised her eyes toward the ceiling and gave an aloof smirk. Then she hooked the whole arch of her foot over his calf … up his thighs … and between his—fingers?

  A shrill laugh exploded from beneath the table. “You’re silly, Mommy!” a voice proclaimed, causing Dawn’s throat to shut on her pasta. Her cough unleashed an instant stream of tears as she tried, unsuccessfully, to force it out. Hunter leapt to his feet.

  “Day!” he roared while racing toward his wife. Dawn shook her hands to wave him off, but he was having none of it. In what seemed to her one lightning fast movement, her feet launched off the ground, a mutilated piece of gnocchi flew across the room, and a glass of water appeared in her hand. “Drink this,” he commanded before slamming his fist on the table. “Day, come out from there right now!”

  Dawn watched in fuzzy horror as both her son and daughter scrambled over each other, dragging the tablecloth for protection, and lined up like soldiers beside her chair. They each wore oversize pajamas, mangled hair, and quivering bottom lips. All at once, Dawn wanted to scream at them for misbehaving, cross-examine them on what they saw, and gather them both into her arms while promising to love them no matter what. Hunter did not appear to share this sentiment.

  Clearing his throat, he curled both his hands into fists, shoved them against his sides, and glared from one child to the other.

  “Please don’t fire us, Daddy,” Morning squeaked, pulling her orange curls so hard her head tilted sideways.

  Day rocked back and forth at her side. “We were just playing.”

  “We thought it was a game.”

  “A game?” Hunter repeated. Dawn’s heartbeat doubled. “You thought what was a game?”

  “Under the table. Mommy—”

  “They just wanted to be with us, dear,” Dawn interrupted, tugging her children by the shoulders and ushering them into their own chairs. She was practically yelling, having to talk over the blood rushing through her ears. “We should be happy about that while it lasts. And we did send them to bed unusually early. Let’s not be too angry, okay?”

  Dawn didn’t let Davin so much as graze her peripheral vision while Hunter weighed his options. On the one hand, letting his kids get away with this showed weakness. But berating them in front of company could look a tad tyrannical. Finally, his hands unclenched and he returned to his lookout point. His napkin received the brunt of his clogged up anger.

  Thus, the triumphant twins ended their evening feasting with the adults, digging through hot fudge sundaes, asking incessant questions no one could answer, and offering brilliant bits of investment advice such as, “You can buy two ponies for that.”

  Dawn half expected for Hunter to leap up from his chair at any moment and order them both to bed. After all, he’d called this dinner to seduce Perdemi-Divan—not to watch Day beat its owner at “I Spy.” But their kids were mini-professionals at wearing him down. Somehow, they knew how to take the ice king and turn him into a laughing pile of mush.

  Davin, on the other hand, never laughed so much as chortled and sent uneasy looks toward Dawn, who dared not return a single one. Unaccustomed to dealing with children, he met their incessant queries with jokes that flew miles over their heads and explanations that sent their eyelids plummeting. In all honesty, she was surprised how bad he was with them. After all, to her, Davin Lima had only been an adult for a few days. He’d been frozen in adolescence for the better part of 300 years, and she’d always thought he was loads of fun back then. All the girls had.

  “What’s a cozener?” Morning asked when Davin accused Day of cheating at thumb wars (which he was, but that was entirely beside the point). She smudged her itchy forehead with a glob of ice cream. “Is that like what Daddy wears to my tea parties?”

  Hunter gagged on his beer. Dawn stifled a laugh. As if Hunter’s plan hadn’t gotten far enough away from him. Now their daughter had to reveal that—on the rare chance that he had time—Regian’s royal leader hung out with dolls in a pink waistcoat Morning dubbed his “cozy suit.”

  “No, sweetie. Cozener’s an old-fashioned term.” She chastised Davin with her eyes while cleaning Morning’s forehead with her napkin. “It means someone who doesn’t always play by the rules.”

  Morning gasped as her nose scrunched up like a frightened caterpillar. She glanced from her mother to her father to her brother, and then stuck her chin out toward their guest. “Are you calling my brother a cheat?”

  Hunter pushed his chair back from the table and grabbed his drink. “Haha, well now,” he said with an uneasy laugh. "I think you two have had plenty of adult time, okay?”

  He paused as one of the attendants came over and whispered a few white-gloved words into his ear. Hunter balled up his fist and nodded.

  “I’m sorry about this,” he said. “But I’ve been waiting a very long time for this phone call. Dawn darling, would you mind sending the kids up to bed and taking Mr. Devereaux for a tour of the grounds? I’ll join you as soon as I can.” He gave a half-salute to their guest with his chin. “This shouldn’t take long.”

  Dawn dutifully nodded and led the way, careful to keep at least two feet between her and Davin until they disappeared behind the hedge outside. She waited until the glow from the castle finally faded from their path and then—

  “Oh, I can’t stand this!” The words burst from her mouth like sample sale shoppers at the starting bell. “How are you holding up? This is just awful! I can’t believe he asked you here. I told you not to come!”

  Davin shrugged. “What do you mean? It’s not that bad.”

  “Are you kidding?” Suddenly aware of her volume, she grabbed his elbow and sped up. She needed to get them away from the castle. “I almost had a heart attack when Day grabbed my foot. I was sure Hunter was going to figure us out.”

  “So what if he did?”

  She stopped so abruptly that Davin didn’t even notice for three more steps. “What if he did?” she repeated. Are you crazy?”

  He shrugged again and shoved his hands in his pockets. He’d opted to wear a very Hunter-esque sports coat tonight. She wasn’t a fan. “Well, yes. What if he did? He’s going to find out eventually.�
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  The look on her face had the same effect as a punch to Davin’s gut. He furrowed his brow and came towards her. “I love you, Dawn. But I didn’t come back so we could spend the next sixty years sneaking around. My heart can’t take that.”

  His voice stopped here, but in his eyes she saw the follow-up question clear as day: Could hers?

  She gave a meek smile and nudged him on. “Come on. There’s something I want to show you.”

  But as they walked, she thought. Davin had barely been back in her life for three days. The time when he was Liam didn’t count. Liam had been something else. He’d been a friend she could flirt with, and fantasize about, and leave—still faithfully married—at the end of the night. She could have even loved him, but never without at least two layers of clothing between their skin.

  But all of that changed the moment his mask came off. And while she wasn’t an idiot, she hadn’t let herself wonder what it actually meant going forward. What it meant for the life she’d grown so disjointedly into. The life that had Morning and Day.

  “What are we doing?” Davin asked as they passed a marble fountain and a line of rosebushes that looked dull as ash compared to his.

  “I told you. I want to show you something.” She palmed the back of her neck and began to rub. “And then I suppose we’ll have a nightcap while you nod your way through whatever Hunter plans on pitching, and I’ll meet you around midnight in the woods.”

  She turned left beneath an out-of-bloom lilac tree. The trail grew denser as they neared the edge of the gardens, and Dawn felt increasingly comfortable that they were alone.

  “That’s not what I meant.” His voice failed to hide his frustration. “What’s your plan for us? For the future? Don’t you finally want to—”

  “It’s not much farther,” she interrupted, pointing to a faint glow up ahead. “I want to show you what I do with the roses you give me every night. I can’t tell you how much I adore them.”

  Davin loosened his collar. Dawn continued to blather about the flowers and her long walks home and how her days were just the ellipses between her nights with him.

  “But that won’t be forever,” he tried again. “Right? Now that we’re finally in the same place again and—”

  Dawn turned to him and twirled her fingers between his. “Come,” she ordered, pulling him into the middle of a clearing. Suddenly they were cocooned in a circle of light—a ring of bushes aglow in purple, red, orange, and blue. She slipped her elbow through his limp arm.

  He barely glanced at it. “Dawn—”

  “I stick the flowers in these bushes and they don’t even seem to fade,” she said, her breath tickling his ear. “It’s sort of my shrine to us.”

  Davin smiled, but his face looked unusually pale.

  He stepped back, shedding her touch. “I need to know this isn’t our whole future, Dawn. I didn’t come back for this.”

  “I have children, Davin!” Her smile plummeted as she finally let reality in. She’d wanted him to stop pushing her—to not turn the fantasy into something else. “I can’t just abandon them.”

  He let out a grunt and rolled his eyes toward the sky. When they focused on her again, she saw something haughty that she didn’t like. He cupped his hand against her cheek.

  “You can’t abandon them, but you can abandon me?” The scorn in his eyes faded. Dawn felt sharp fury mixed with guilt. Hadn’t he abandoned her first? “They’re older than I was when my mother died. They’ll—”

  “Shh!” Dawn broke away from him abruptly.

  She’d heard rustling. A moment later, Hunter slashed through the bushes, knocking half a dozen roses to the dirt.

  “There you are!” he exclaimed. Davin clapped his mouth shut mid-sentence. “Geez, when you show someone the grounds you don’t mess around, do you sweetheart? I was about ready to send the guards after you.”

  Taking his wife’s hand, Hunter put all his weight into his lips and pressed them hard against her cheek. Dawn blushed. Davin looked away.

  “That was a fast phone call,” she said, trying to sound chipper. It was her worst performance yet.

  Hunter stared uneasily into her eyes. It took all her strength not to look away. “Are you all right, dear?” he asked. “You sound out of breath.” He looked around, panning from the roses, to the pathway, to Davin. “Well, what a beautiful spot this is!” Davin jolted but remained silent. “Say, these look a lot like the flowers you brought over. Don’t they, Devereaux? I had no idea we grew them too.” Dawn felt her stomach curl into a knot. “Fascinating. We really should plant some closer to the castle—not hide them all the way back here. Don’t you think, darling?”

  Dawn mumbled in agreement.

  “Now how about we all head inside for that nightcap? There’s something I’d like to hash out with our guest.”

  The last thing Dawn wanted to do was leave the two of them alone together. But as soon as they reached the drawing room and Hunter poured three full glasses of cognac, she simply had to duck out for a moment. She had to take a deep breath, give her reflection a hushed pep talk, and wrestle with more thoughts than should possibly be able to fit into one brain. The evening had been a disaster—but for more reasons than she’d expected. She’d expected discomfort. She’d expected fear of being exposed. But she hadn’t expected starting to wonder about Davin.

  She was only gone for a few minutes, and half anticipated hearing screaming as she scuttled back. But as she rushed down the hall there was nothing. Silence. Emptiness. Faint echoes of her shoes tapping on the marble. Had they murdered each other?

  A slice of light cut across the floor where the drawing room doors peeked open. She heard the clinking of glass, something else being poured, and an extremely deep sigh.

  “She really is exhausting.” It was Hunter’s voice. “You’re a champ to take some of the responsibility off my hands.”

  “It’s my pleasure,” she heard Davin say. “I’ve actually been eying her for some time.”

  Dawn’s head spun. What? Were they talking about her?

  “I think it’s a fantastic arrangement. Just bear in mind, it won’t be easy. Sleep comes second. Well, maybe third. After sex.”

  Her knee gave out and she fell forward into the door. By some miracle, she steadied herself just in time to waltz through, right into the open, with an exasperated smile painted across her face.

  “Sorry about that,” she said, suspiciously out of breath. “I hope I didn’t miss anything important.”

  “Actually,” Hunter said, making a motion to rise but pausing mid-heave. He looked at Davin. “Well, why don’t you do the honors, Devereaux?”

  Dawn shifted toward Davin … or Liam … or whoever he was supposed to be at the moment … and raised her eyebrows. Her mind was in full disaster mode—jammed with warning sirens, screaming children, shattered windows, and gas explosions stretching across the horizon. But he was extraordinarily calm.

  What happened next played out in a foggy, slow motion, out-of-body haze. Davin and Hunter both rose—two mechanical creatures from phases of her life that should have been light years apart—and stood side by side. Davin smiled, called her “Your Majesty,” said something about “the corporate partnership of the century,” and enthusiastically shook her husband’s hand. Perdemi-Divan and Tirion Enterprises had agreed to merge.

  “Isn’t that wonderful, dear?” Dawn shook herself sober as the room began to tilt. Hunter appeared at her side. Something pushed hard against her cheek. His lips. “Now, I hope you two got to know each other this evening, because Mr. Devereaux will be here quite a lot while we iron out the details. I fear we may be pulling many long hours, but it’s the best thing for all of us.”

  * * *

  “Do you like that man more than Daddy?” Morning asked through the sheets as Dawn slipped in to make sure she was sleeping. She’d been mid-step when the words hit, so when her foot landed askew, she smacked face-first into a unicorn blanket.

  “I’m okay
,” she panted, answering the one question her daughter hadn’t asked. “Did you have fun tonight?”

  Morning was under the blanket, leaving nothing visible but a head of copper frizz and one frightened green eye.

  “You love Daddy, right?” her tiny voice squeaked again.

  Dawn traced her daughter’s forehead with the tips of her fingers. “Of course I love your father, sweetheart. Why would you ask such a question? Did something happen at school today?” That’s right, play dumb. She’s a child for goodness sake.

  Morning lowered the sheet far enough to reveal a frown.

  “What is it sweet pea?”

  The girl took a deep breath and released it in a whisper. “I don’t want Daddy to hear.”

  This was going to take forever, Dawn lamented, eager to get to Davin and find out how her five-minute absence had resulted in a husband-lover partnership.

  “Hear what?” she asked, her pulse beginning to quicken. “Did Daddy say something to you?”

  Morning shook her head violently.

  “Then what? You can tell me.”

  “Day said you love that man that came for dinner. He said you were going to run away with him and leave us forever.”

  Had it not been for Morning’s innocent face staring up at her, waiting for the comfort only a mother could give, Dawn would have erupted. Everything seemed to swell up like a room full of water balloons. She felt as if some sort of microscopic monster had stowed away in her pasta and was now clenching her heart in its claws.

  “Well,” she said, more a self-standing statement than the start of one. “I’ll have to talk with him. Your brother knows better than to spread rumors—especially such dangerous ones.” Morning squinted. Would a child understand why that was dangerous? If not, Dawn certainly didn’t want her trying. “It’s silly for you to worry about such things. Sweetheart, you will always have Daddy and me. Promise.”

  Morning burst from the sheets so quickly she nearly tossed Dawn backwards off the bed. “I knew he was wrong!” she exclaimed triumphantly, throwing her tiny arms around her mother’s neck. “I told him so. Boys are so stupid.”