by Laura Kenyon
Letitia paused to clear her throat.
“Some say we’re only allowed one great love per lifetime.” Logan’s hand twitched in Penny’s. This was an odd lead-in. “When my darling Howard died, I had to accept that. But I am overjoyed now to report that isn’t always the case. And when the second one comes along, you really don’t have a choice.”
Penny sucked her cheeks in and bit down. She zeroed in on the stage. All she saw was fuzz and Letitia. All she felt was a dull, persistent pain throbbing in her head. All she heard were these words: “William Wilkins,” “Stularian earl,” and “wedding of the century.”
From one end of the party to the other, the night exploded with the whacking of hands, the clattering of dishes, and the tumbling of chairs as the audience leapt to its feet.
“What?” Penny hollered, yanking a stunned Logan up by his arm. “What?”
He jerked forward, then rounded back, and then began spinning in place. “I don’t … What do I … I don’t know what to do!”
“Thanks … umm … please, please sit.” A short man with white hair had taken the microphone. His free hand rested flat upon a gut that his tuxedo couldn’t hide. “Sorry I … I’m not nearly as eloquent as your Queen. But I love this woman and will do so until I die.”
That might be soon, Penny thought as the applause died down.
“Oh, and also. Our families knew nothing about this.” Letitia gave a coy shrug behind him. Penny wanted to smack her. “Carter. Logan. Penelopea. I look forward to becoming a part of your lives and trust you’ll welcome my son as well. Now where are you, Ethan?” William panned the crowd. “Ethan?”
The occupants of every table began craning their necks, trying to get a glimpse of Marestam’s newest most eligible bachelor.
“Don’t be shy, my boy,” William continued. “I know you’re here tonight, so—Ah!” he cried in triumph, drawing his arm up and pointing to a table in the far corner. “There he is. My first and only son, Ethan Wilkins, Viscount Marshall of Grafton in the great realm of Stularia.”
As if in slow motion, the crowd opened and Penny had a clear view of Rapunzel’s table. Her friend was seated, her mouth wide open and staring at Ethan—her Ethan—who was shrugged over and giving a flimsy wave to the rest of his table.
“Ethan? Marshall?” Belle shrieked. “No fucking way!” The words echoed what Penny was thinking, but Belle sounded less shocked than downright livid. Everything seemed to freeze until Carter grabbed the microphone, Belle tore away, and all hell broke loose.
* * *
Before she knew it, Penny was standing at the tree line—far away from the rest of the guests—as Belle, Donner, Rapunzel, Ethan, and all of her in-laws ripped into each other for reasons that became more confusing by the second.
Questions and accusations flew back and forth like flaming arrows in some medieval battle.
Belle berated Rapunzel for sneaking around with Donner, which sent Donner into an indignant tirade and turned Rapunzel into a pleading child.
Ethan kept trying to tell Belle about some “investigation,” while simultaneously begging Rapunzel to let him explain.
Carter bit into his mother for what he somehow deemed betrayal, and then ran off with Letitia hollering at his heels.
And through it all, a frenzied William Wilkins bounced back and forth, struggling to keep the peace with his son and a group of people he knew absolutely nothing about.
“She has nothing to do with the job!” Ethan hollered while tugging at Belle’s arm and trying to fend off Donner.
“Job? What job? I’m a job?” Rapunzel shrieked, her voice sharp with repressed tears. “That’s why you wouldn’t tell me anything about who you are?”
“Who you are?” William repeated, struggling to get his head around all the yelling. “Who does she think you are, son?”
“Where to start?” Rapunzel groaned. “A spy! A liar! A prince pretending to be a pauper because I’d never ever fall in love with such a—”
“Now, now. Prince is a bit of an overstatement,” William tried to assure her while Ethan came rushing to her side.
“Did you just say you love me?”
Belle wailed. “He’s a detective! And a real shitty one at that. I hired him to find everyone Donner was sleeping around with, but now I see he just wanted to screw them too!”
Rapunzel stared back in shock.
“You did what?” Donner bellowed, then reeled himself in a bit. “Belle … babe … that was in the past. We need to put that behind us now that—”
“Now that what?” Belle whipped around. Her eyes glowed in a way that was barely human. “Now that I’m having your child?” Her finger stabbed the air between them as Donner inched backwards, his jaw wide open. “Now that I have valuable cargo, and you realize the public likes me, and they can’t stand the sight of you?”
“Belle, you don’t know what you’re saying. Let’s just—”
“I was an idiot to think I could forget everything you did just so our kid could be raised the way she deserves.”
“She?” he cut in. “Belle, do you know it’s a gi—”
“Shut up!” she screamed. “You were cheating with my sister and my best friend. My best friend who I thought was protecting me!”
Donner stared back at her as if he’d just been slammed in the face with a tire iron.
Rapunzel stumbled forward. Blue tears ran all over her cheeks in the moonlight. “Belle I would never do that to you.”
“I saw the ring!” she cried, grabbing her chest and folding over. Rapunzel was the first to her side; her reward was a swift elbow to the jaw.
“Please,” Rapunzel pled, clutching her chin with one hand and reaching out for Belle with the other. “You’ve got it wrong. Donner didn’t give me that ring. I found it.”
“You found it? Ha! Where did you find it?”
“Me and—” Rapunzel stopped and looked nervously at Ethan, then back towards the tables where they’d left Cindy and Snow.
“I knew it! You’re lying too!” Belle roared. “You can’t even think of an excuse. I should have known. Two giant sluts, you and Donner. You guys belong together! You—”
“I gave Rapunzel the ring.” Ethan’s words silenced everyone as he stepped between them. Penny’s head swirled. Ring? What ring? What the heck was going on? “I took it from one of the women I was tracking. I was going to tell you when I had all the details.” He took a deep breath and knelt down beside Belle, who might as well have been another one of the trees. “Rapunzel found it in my pocket last night and thought it was for her. I didn’t know how to tell her it wasn’t.” Rapunzel stared at him, a mixture of disgust and awe painted all over her face. “I was going to get it back. When you called me, I was totally blindsided. I should have told you then, but then Rapunzel would know who I am and what we … Anyway, I screwed up. I’m so sorry. Blame me. Fire me. But please don’t blame Rapunzel. She didn’t know.”
A few feet away, Penny reached for Logan’s hand and inched forward—just in case her friends needed help with what was turning into one gigantic incomprehensible mess.
Belle turned delicately toward Rapunzel, then pulled back almost as quickly. “Wait,” she said, her head visibly spinning. “You knew what my ring looked like, and you were the one who told me how Donner could be using them.” She recoiled. “Why didn’t you tell me the instant Ethan gave it to you? Weren’t you suspicious? Or was everything he just said another lie to protect you?”
Rapunzel opened her mouth to explain, but Donner shoved her aside and clamped his hands over Belle’s shoulders. “Who cares about all this?” he snapped. “You came back to me. We’re good now. No magic rings or Juliannes or any of that matters anymore! Who cares about the rest of them? All that matters is us, and you’re mine again. I—”
Without warning, Penny grabbed off her heel and cracked it over the back of Donner’s head. Everyone’s jaws dropped.
“Fuck!” he roared. “What the fuck?”
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br /> “She doesn’t belong to anyone, you pig!” Penny stood her ground as Donner leapt forward. Logan flew in to shield his wife, but Ethan got there first and took the blow.
“Stop!” Belle ordered, climbing to her feet. Her dress was covered in dirt and twigs. “All of you stop right now!”
Penny uncoiled and watched Belle walk cautiously up to Donner. With hunched shoulders and a bowed head, he looked like an entirely different man. He looked like the man Belle always described falling in love with years ago. Defeated. Lost. A man in desperate need of great love.
Belle said his name and took his hands in hers. “Ever since I left. No, ever since my mother left, I’ve had this idea in my head of the perfect family. I fixated on it, as if every crappy thing that happened to me wouldn’t have if I’d had two happy parents and siblings who loved me. I promised my own kids would have that someday.”
“And they will,” he said, kneading her hands in his. “I meant what I promised.”
Belle shook her head. “I was looking at it wrong, the whole time. I thought if I lost you, I’d never get that chance. But now I realize … the family I wanted was never something you could give.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“It isn’t something anyone can give. It’s an illusion. It’s not two happy parents and two-point-five kids. At least not always. It’s a group of friends who drop everything as soon as one of them is in trouble. It’s a woman who finds purpose in a rescued dog. It’s a mom who gives up all her dreams to be there for her kids. I’m not sure if you changed after the curse broke, if I changed, or if things just went along as they were meant to, but raising a baby with you isn’t going to magically fix all the ways in which I’ve been unhappy. And I want our child to be around people who are happy.”
“You’ve been happy.” Donner tugged to free his hands, but Belle held tight. “You’ve just been with Rapunzel too long. A few weeks at home and things will fall into place again. You’ll start acting normal again.”
“Normal?” Belle let out a sharp laugh. “I think you mean tranquilized. These dresses aren’t the only things I hate about that life. I hate not being allowed to cook meals in my own home. I hate having to sit in the back seat when Nick chauffeurs me places, and I hate being chauffeured as it is. I think Braddax Castle is a musty old dungeon that needs to be ripped apart and shot full of windows. I don’t like being left when you go out at night, and sleeping alone when I know that you’re back. I am getting a dog; picking him up Monday. His name is Beast. I know. I didn’t pick it, but I’m not going to change it just because it suits me better. I do believe I loved you once, but it was a love for another time. A time when I thought happiness came in a rich, handsome box and had nothing to do with myself at all.”
Speechless, Penny watched as the King of Braddax, the roughest, most arrogant man she’d ever had the displeasure of knowing, crumpled to his knees and begged his wife not to leave him. “I’m not the man I want to be without you,” he repeated, muttering about how weak he was for slipping back into his old ways, how he’d let himself forget, and how she’d changed him from the inside, too. Penny almost pitied him. She almost thought this was more painful than if Belle had never broken the curse at all.
Finally, mercifully, Belle leaned over and guided him up from the ground. She placed a flat palm against his cheek, met his eyes, and swallowed.
“I will help you find that man again,” she said. “But as your friend, not your wife.” Donner flinched, but she held on. “Our love was what we needed under the circumstances, but the circumstances have changed.” She glanced at her friends, waiting on her every word. “It’s like Rapunzel told me once. She was locked in a tower for all those years with no one, no hope for a future, and nowhere to go. What if someone had come along, promising freedom and talking about love? Would she have held back and waited until her right match came along?” Belle shook her head. “No. She would have latched on instantly without knowing any better. It’s the same with you and me. I was the escape you needed at the time, but that’s all. That’s why you kept looking for someone else, and why I had to censor myself to fit you. We aren’t made for the long haul, Donner. We never were.”
Belle’s words faded as everyone waited for Donner to react. Penny braced for an explosion, but it never came. Seconds passed like hours. Then, when the air seemed ready to burst from the tension, Donner cupped both of his wife’s hands in his, bowed his head, and backed away.
When Belle said his name again, he stopped and lifted his head, but all signs of hope were gone. “Were you ever with Rapunzel?”
Please don’t lie, Penny repeated in her head. Don’t lie just to hurt her.
As the orchestra in the distance struck up its last set of the evening, Donner gave a slow, tiny shake of his head. Then he continued walking, letting the night swallow him whole.
* * *
When the last car roared down the drive and away from Riverfell Palace, Penny and her in-laws shared a nightcap on the porch. Rapunzel and Belle had ridden home together, both still sobbing and hanging onto each other like long lost sisters. Ethan must have slipped away sometime during Belle’s speech—a well-meaning man in a hopeless situation. The rest of the guests, oblivious to all the fighting, had left with smiles and praise for one of the most well-executed parties they’d ever attended.
“Well, here’s to a memorable evening,” said Letitia, lifting her drink in a toast to all the people who came out to celebrate her.
“Penny did a great job,” Logan added, squeezing her knee.
Letitia nodded and tipped her glass a tad higher. “Yes, it was charming. I’m very lucky to have a daughter-in-law who can make something out of nothing.”
Penny smiled. “Well, I only finished what the other planners started.”
“Don’t be modest. You’re a very resourceful young woman,” said Letitia. “But then, I’ve known that since the first night we met.”
Penny leaned further into Logan, who cleared his throat and pointed to his mother’s wrist. “New bracelet?”
Pleased, Letitia raised her arm into the air and shook a thick, polished bangle. “A gift from the Prime Minister. I think he has a bit of a crush on me.”
Penny looked away to roll her eyes. The only thing Angus Kane wanted from Letitia was allegiance—and maybe her crown. “Well then, I guess you broke his heart tonight,” she joked. “Your announcement certainly took us by surprise.”
“That’s because I know how to keep a secret, dear. But now, boys.” Logan and Carter instantly looked up. “I don’t want you thinking William is a replacement for your father. He was the love of my life and nothing will ever change that.”
Both men looked down again. Logan, for one, thought his father had hung the moon in the sky. His brother just didn’t like change; he’d barely warmed up to Penny.
“So, what?” Carter grunted. “This guy’s gonna live with us now?”
Letitia smiled and reached her arm around her brooding firstborn. “That was actually the second part of my announcement,” she said. “You know, the one I was planning to give before you ripped the microphone from my hands.”
Penny tensed up and impulsively squeezed Logan’s hand. Letitia cleared her throat. There was another announcement?
“I’ve ruled Riverfell for a long time,” she began. “I think it’s about time I move on. In the fall, I want Carter to take the throne.”
Logan’s hand went limp, but he smiled and rose to give his older bother hug. Carter accepted it robotically. His mother might as well have told him he had three months left to live.
Penny took a moment to process this development. Traditionally, yes, the eldest was first in line for the throne, but Carter had said a million times that he didn’t want to be King. Even he knew Logan was the better option. Her heart sank for Logan even as it soared for herself. With the throne out of the picture, their future was wide open. Finally, they could buy a house by the bay. She could put her law degree to
work. They could create mini Logans and Penelopeas.
“I know you’re anxious,” Letitia said, turning to Carter. “But your brother will be right here, helping every step of the way. Won’t you, Logan?”
Penny’s nails dug into his thigh.
“Oh, I’ll definitely help—”
“Wonderful,” Letitia cut him off. “You’ll be the perfect team. And I’ll be here as well—at least two-thirds of the year. William would like to spend some time in Stularia as well.” She sighed. “So I’ll have to sacrifice.”
Penny wilted. She would never have her husband to herself.
“Congratulations,” she told Carter with a forced smile.
“Thanks,” he mumbled, crossing his arms and curling into a pretzel.
“Aren’t you a sweetheart,” Letitia said, staring Penny down with an exaggerated smile. “I know I can be difficult sometimes, but since it’s a special day … you should know I really am glad you were rude enough to speak your mind about the comfort of my mattresses.”
Penny didn’t know what to say. The evening had been so chaotic that for once she’d actually forgotten about her monumental lie for a few hours. It felt good. Almost good enough to finally let it all out.
“Actually, Letitia,” she peeped, unsure her voice would even carry ten inches. “I tried to get the peas tonight but they seem to be lost.” Her mother-in-law showed no reaction. “And … well … I’ve been thinking about that night and there’s something I want to tell you.”
Letitia’s bangle clanked against her chair. “Let me guess,” she said. “You want to tell me that you never felt any magical peas to begin with.”
Penny froze. Well, that was half of it. But was she joking? Did she know?
“Oh you poor thing.” Letitia let out a low sigh that strengthened into a laugh. “While I’m confessing things, I might as well unload everything.” Penny squeezed Logan’s hand so hard he winced and yanked it away. “There were never any magic peas, honey.”