The little girl smiled with womanly knowledge.
My stomach clenched. Could it truly be? I snatched the sketchpad from the floor, staring at the drawing in front of me. A picture I should’ve seen days ago. “Damn you,” I whispered, seeing the truth for the very first time.
Similar features.
The same crooked grin.
Lollie’s smile on Beauty’s face.
Chapter 51
Throwing on a pair of trousers, I grabbed the damning sketchbook and silently made my way down the staircase, broken pile of Handsome all but forgotten upstairs.
The scent of strawberry shampoo and ink floated up the stairwell. I hated the smell. Hated the way Lollie’s laughter sent a rush of pleasure through me. Hated the fact that even though she’d betrayed me again and again, I still wanted her.
Taking a deep breath, I pushed open the kitchen door. “Hello, Lollipop.” I licked my dry lips, lips that only an hour ago had kissed her treacherous mouth. “Or should I call you Spindle?”
Lollie spun around, dropping the wineglass in her hand. It crashed to the floor, shattering on impact. Dark liquid pooled around us, filling the physical void between us. Wincing, Lollie raised her eyes from the mess on the floor to the mess she’d created of me. “What are you talking about?”
“No more leapfrog, Lollie. I’m done playing games with you.” Everything we’d had was a lie. From the moment we’d met, she’d played me, and I’d chased after her like the dish after the spoon. Well, I was done being her frog prince on a string.
“Kermit, wait.” Lollie grabbed my arm. I shook her off, too angry to listen to another lie fall from her succulent lips. Been there, done that, quite a bit actually. My stomach gurgled with rage and hunger. I hadn’t eaten since the rehearsal dinner, and even then I found it hard to choke down something called Frog Eye Salad. An aphrodisiac, the king assured me with a wink.
“Wait for what?” I grunted. “You to think up yet another lie? No thanks.” I shoved the sketchpad at her. The pages fluttered as if they too wanted to hide from the truth. “Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me Sleeping Beauty’s not your sister.”
“Sister?” Her brow wrinkled. “Give me a minute and I can explain.”
My eyes narrowed on the sketchpad and the sketch of Sleeping Beauty. I should’ve seen the resemblance days ago. Sisters. Hell, maybe even twins. Perhaps I hadn’t wanted to see the truth. “Explain?” I snickered, a bitter, harsh sound. “What’s there to explain? Explain why you’ve been lying to me since the day we met? I’m pretty sure I already know the answer.”
“Kermit—”
“Beauty didn’t want to marry me.” I swallowed, hating the hurt and need in my tone. I didn’t want to care. Not about her or her demented sister. Not now. “But the king insisted, so Beauty went running to you, her sister. And you promised to take care of everything.”
“It’s true,” her eyes gave me a slow once-over, “Beauty didn’t want to marry you. Not at first.”
“So you did everything in your power to get rid of me, even going so far as to make up an assassin. How sisterly of you,” I said, rage licking at my every word. I pictured the sisters huddled together while they plotted to ruin my life.
“Hold on a second. Spindle was your idea.” Her lip curled into a snarl. “Not mine.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The day after we met, you came into my shop and accused me of protecting my assassin lover.” She laughed, not a pretty sound. “You even gave him a name. No matter how many times I told you differently, you persisted in your delusion. So, after a while, I agreed. Why not?” She pulled from my grip and slowly sat down on the kitchen chair. “Besides, none of this was supposed to happen.”
“Isn’t that nice.”
Her eyes flashed, and she abruptly stood, jamming her index finger into my sternum. “Why couldn’t you be a shallow, self-absorbed jerk and walk away? Things would be much easier.”
“Whoa,” I said, grabbing her hand before she could do any lasting damage. “For your information, I am very shallow and self-absorbed.”
She shoved me away. “But you didn’t leave.” The fight suddenly left her, and Lollie again sank into her kitchen chair. “At first I thought, maybe you weren’t the one. . . .”
My eyes narrowed. “The one? What one?” Was I missing something? Was Lollie cursed too? Was that what drew me to her? Like calling to like and all that?
“It doesn’t matter.” She reached for my hand, but I stepped away. “I was wrong. I’m sorry. I never wanted you to get hurt.”
I snorted. “No, that was all Beauty’s idea, wasn’t it?”
Lollie’s brow wrinkled. “What are you talking about?”
“Oh, let’s start with,” I stuck my index finger in the air, “trying to run me down. Twice. Not to mention blowing the Rose sky high.”
“That wasn’t Beauty.”
“Then who was it, Lollipop?” My eyes narrowed. “You? The imaginary assassin Spindle?” I took a step closer to her. “Come on, face it. Your sister is a killer.”
“You’re wrong, Kermit.” She took a deep breath. “Not that it matters one way or another. What’s to be is meant to be. We can’t stop fate.” Lollie slowly rose from her chair like an old man who’d just rolled home after a long night of giving a bone. She walked to the bay window. In the shiny surface of the glass, her dark gaze met mine.
“Bullshit.”
“No, it’s true.” Her voice quivered with emotion. “Tomorrow you will marry the girl from the pond, the only one who can save you. Beauty.”
“And you, Lollipop?” I reached out to comfort her, but my hand dropped before it touched her shoulder. “What happens to you? Do you live happily ever after?”
“Perhaps,” she said, a small tremor entering her voice.
“So what?” Anger and fear swelled inside me, boiling over into my words. “We see each other at family dinners, and I’m supposed to smile politely and forget the things you allowed me to do to your body?”
She swallowed, hard.
“And what about Beauty?” I closed my eyes, picturing the woman I was to marry in a few hours. “Does she know that her beloved sister’s been frogging her fiancé mindless for the last couple of days?”
“Kermit, you can’t tell anyone about me. About us.” She grabbed my arm, her nails digging into my skin. “Please, promise me you won’t say a word. The danger is too great.”
I hesitated; a rush of loneliness so deep it stole my breath filled me. Lollie smiled softly, as if she shared my pain. “Promise me.”
I gave her a curt nod.
Licking her lips, Lollie nodded to the cat-faced clock on the wall. “It’s almost time.”
I nodded again.
“Good-bye, Kermit.” Lollie brushed her lips against my mouth and quickly backed away. “I hope you find happily-ever-after. I really do.” With one last shaky smile, she spun on her heel and ran up the stairs as the grandfather clock in the living room gonged midnight.
Chapter 52
Almost twenty-two hours later, back at the Vaniteuse palace, yet another grandfather clock gave a mournful bong, but I might’ve been projecting. Yeah, I was definitely projecting. My mind, heart, and body felt raw after leaving Lollie’s; exhaustion plagued my every step. “You’ve tripled the guards, right?” I asked Marvin for the third time in the last hour.
“Yes, sir.” He nodded toward Beauty’s bedroom at the end of the hallway. “There are three guards at her door, two below the window and another two in the passageway. Princess Beauty is safe as snow.” And even more importantly, she wouldn’t be pulling another runaway bride anytime soon. I’d wasted enough time and energy on the Vaniteuse sisters. It was time to marry Beauty and settle into my “happily-ever-after.” Lollie be damned.
“Add two more guards at the front door,” I ordered, my eyes drifting to the room next to Beauty’s. The one with the fancy sewing machine. Was that Lollie’s old room, long forgotten like
the black sheep sister? My dislike of the king increased tenfold.
“As you wish, sir,” Marvin said as he opened the door to another bedroom a few doors down from Beauty’s. “If you’ll come with me.” He motioned inside the ornate room. “Your tuxedo is in the closet, and per your request, the king’s finest scotch is on the nightstand. Can I get you anything else?”
A plane ticket to Never Never Island? One last taste of Lollie’s lips? “No, I’m good,” I told Marvin. “Thanks anyway.”
But a part of me, a larger part than I cared to admit, couldn’t stop thinking about Lollie Bliss. Everywhere I looked, every memory, reminded me of her. Hell, I couldn’t even look at the most recent painting of the Vaniteuse family sans their black sheep tattooed relative hanging on the wall in front of me without seeing the ghost of Lollie reflected in Sleeping Beauty’s lollipop-colored eyes like some damn omen. I sat on the bed, staring at the painting until my vision blurred.
The bedroom door swung open suddenly. In the archway stood a man dressed in black, his bearing regal and a bit pudgy. His face beamed with self-satisfaction. Like a king who ate the canary, or in his case, would marry off his demented canary in just over an hour.
I should’ve locked the damn door.
“King Vaniteuse,” I said, turning to the mirror on the wall to adjust the sleeve of my wedding tux. The green cummerbund, courtesy of my bride, brought a grim grin to my lips. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
Without a word, the king closed the door behind him and moved across the room. Our eyes locked in the reflection of the mirror. “Second thoughts, son?” he asked.
I dropped my gaze and reached for the scotch bottle on the bedside table. Pouring a healthy amount, I downed the drink. My fourth in the last twenty minutes. “Of course not,” I said over the rim of the glass. “Why do you ask?” Did I look like a groom with frozen feet? Good thing I’d packed—or rather Karl had packed—wool socks made in Scotland from terrified sheep.
“No reason.” The king shifted uncomfortably on what were likely three-thousand-dollar shoes. “No reason at all. It’s just . . .”
“What?”
“No exchanges. No refunds, son. You break it, you buy it.”
“What?”
The king cleared his throat. “That came out wrong. I . . . like my stepdaughter. Hell, I . . . care about all my children.” Even Lollie? I wanted to ask, but stayed silent. She’d begged me to keep our relationship a secret, and I’d agreed like a smitten fool, when what I really wanted to do was smash the king in the face for all the pain he’d caused. What kind of man forced a sixteen-year-old girl to live on the streets? Or forced his demented stepdaughter to marry the first idiot prince who lived long enough to say “I do”? I swallowed my rage and tried to focus on what the king was saying.
“Beauty, like her mother, God rest her soul . . . well . . . she has flaws, son . . . But I only want what’s best for her.” His eyes flickered over my silk shirt and tie with disgust, as if I was wearing knockoff Armani. “And maybe that’s not you.”
“Why do you say that?” Days ago, the king begged me to marry Beauty, and now he looked at me like Rapunzel after a lice outbreak. I wondered at his sudden change of heart. Unless he’d learned about my father’s recent visit.... “I’m not broke,” I said. “Far from it, in fact.”
“Oh.” A few seconds later, his face split into a wide grin. “In that case, welcome to the family!” He spread his arms and pulled me into an awkward, one-sided hug.
“Thanks for your compassion in my hour of need.” I pulled away, nearly stumbling over my loafer. “If you’ll excuse me, I have a wedding to prepare for.”
He nodded. “Of course, son. Good luck to you.”
Right now I needed only one thing, and it wasn’t luck. Lollie’s ink-covered body and bent smile flashed through my mind, but I shook the image away and poured another drink.
Once the king left and I was alone again, I stared into the mirror as I twisted the silk fabric in my hands into a perfect Windsor knot. “The rabbit goes around the loop, and in his hole . . . and viola,” I sang. T-minus thirty minutes until the wedding march chimed. I swallowed, hard, trying to calm the rapid beat of my heart. Had I lost my mind? I was about to marry a woman who didn’t want to marry me and in fact had tried, repeatedly, to kill me. Not to mention, a woman whose sister I’d recently played with naked, all around her mulberry bush.
The bedroom door flew open again. This time Pretty, looking fetching in a pink satin gown, stood in the entryway. What was wrong with these people? Didn’t anyone knock anymore? “I see that you and your father are very alike in manners,” I said, a thin smile plastered on my lips.
Rather than comment on her rudeness, her eyes slid over me in an appraisal illegal in thirty-three kingdoms. “Don’t you look handsome,” she purred.
God, I hoped not. I motioned inside the room. “Make yourself comfortable. I’ll just be a minute.” I ducked into the bathroom to throw up, which I followed up with half a bottle of mouthwash, fairymint flavor. Stomach empty, teeth brushed to a pearly white, I stared into the bathroom mirror. My face looked a ghastly color green, at odds with the frog green of my tie. It was happening. I was slowly turning back into a frog. By midnight the transformation would be complete unless I married a chick who didn’t want to marry me.
Frog!
With a sigh, followed by a minty hiccup, I stumbled back to the bedroom. I stopped, rubbed my eyes, and then quickly turned and ran back to the bathroom, slamming the door behind me. I considered the sight I’d just witnessed. Pretty was beyond beautiful, as well as stacked, not to mention buck-naked and sprawled on the bed like a Fairyboy model. The thought Pretty and her other half sister Lollie share some very similar attributes flashed through my pickled brain.
“Bad idea. Bad idea. Bad idea,” I said, mostly as a reminder to my penis of our upcoming nuptials, not to mention the very real possibility Lollie would neuter me. Once the retina-burning vision of Pretty naked against satin sheets faded from my brain, I once again opened the door, keeping my eyes tightly closed. “So . . . ,” I said, quite the frog prince with the ladies.
“Why don’t you come sit down?” The whack of hand against bed resonated through the room. “I promise I won’t bite. Unless you like that sort of thing.”
Eyes still tightly closed, I swallowed back waves of intoxicated lust. “As nice an offer as that is, I can’t.”
“It’s Beauty, isn’t it?” Pretty’s voice rose, no longer sultry, but much more dangerous. “It’s always Beauty, Beauty, Beauty. What does she have that I don’t?”
“Sanity” popped to mind, but I quickly discarded the notion. Nobody in the Vaniteuse family appeared quite stable.
“Well, it was . . . great to see you. . . .” I trailed a hand along the wall, guiding me to the doorway. With a flick of the wrist, I popped the door wide and gestured for her to leave. “Thanks for dropping by. See you, fully dressed, at the wedding,” I added for good measure.
A gasp from the hallway grabbed my attention. My eyes shot open. In the doorway, Sleeping Beauty stood, her violet eyes filled with violence.
“It’s not—” I began.
Her fist caught me upside the head, sending me flying back against the plaster wall. The drywall crumbled under the assault, leaving a prince-shaped hole. I waved away a cloud of plaster dust obscuring my vision in time to see Beauty running down the hallway to her bedroom, her white gown swirling around her ankles. She paused at her bedroom door, shot me a cold glare, and then slammed the bedroom door with enough force that my teeth rattled.
Pretty’s laughter followed.
I closed my eyes again and sank to the floor.
Chapter 53
My naked brush with Pretty sobered me up considerably. Good thing too, since I now had less than twenty minutes until the wedding procession began, if the wedding procession began. The look of hurt in Sleeping Beauty’s eyes would haunt me for a lifetime. The pain in her gaze went beyon
d the typical betrayal.
She looked . . . devastated.
Frog! I staggered to my feet, thankful Pretty had dressed and vacated the room minutes ago. Her nakedness was a distraction I didn’t need. Not right now. Hell, not ever. In fact, out of all three Vaniteuse sisters, Pretty terrified me the most. Probably had something to do with the blatant greed in her cold, green eyes.
Callous eyes unlike the passionate inferno burning in Beauty’s gaze only minutes ago. I grabbed the Windsor knot around my neck and yanked the forest green tie off. How could I not have seen it earlier? Sleeping Beauty was in love with me. It was so obvious. She’d tried to fight it, and even enlisted Lollie’s help to end our engagement, but in the end, like all the others before her, she’d succumbed.
And really, who could blame her?
Guilt pooled in my intestines.
Beauty probably thought that I loved her back too. She wasn’t the first woman to fall under the frog prince spell. Why did I have to be so damn charming?
Not to mention handsome beyond compare.
And rich, even without my father’s money.
A sudden thought occurred to me. How jealous was Beauty? Jealous enough to kill her own sister? I pictured the Rose as it exploded into a fireball with Lollie locked inside.
The farther I stayed from Lollie, the safer she would be. The thought sent a sharp pain through my heart. Either that or the leftover Frog Eye Salad I’d eaten for breakfast was taking its revenge on my organs.
I needed to set things straight with Beauty. If only to protect Lollie. I headed for the door, acid swirling in my gut. I had to convince Beauty that loving your significant other was no way to start a marriage.
I reached for the doorknob, rehearsing exactly what I would say to my demented bride. “I’m sorry for sleeping with your one sister, but I swear I didn’t do your other sister” didn’t seem quite right. My fingers started to twist the knob when the door flew open and smashed me in the face. I staggered back, purple pansies filling my eyes as tiny princesses circled my damaged noggin. A few seconds later, my world went from emerald to black.
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