“My mother died when I was young,” she says softly. “And when I was nine, my father decided to remarry. He moved us to London to live with my new stepmother and her daughters. But we weren’t there for long at all when he died too.”
“How?” I ask.
“We were robbed while we waited for the train.” She lowers her lashes, avoiding my gaze. “He was trying to protect me. They wanted all of our jewelry, and we’d given them everything except for the necklace I was wearing. It was my mother’s, and I know he was just trying to keep it for me. But the men attacked him, and one of them stabbed him. He died so fast… there was nothing we could do.”
When I swallow, it feels like there are nails in my throat. The image of a young Ella watching helplessly as her father dies of such violence before her is almost unfathomable. Except I know that it isn’t. Evil is everywhere in this world. You merely have to open your eyes to see it.
“Did they hurt you too?” I croak.
“No.” She shakes her head. “They ran. The police found them eventually, and they were charged, but it didn’t change the facts. My father was gone, and I was left with a woman who hated me.”
“Your stepmother?”
She nods. “She’s always blamed me for that day, and if I’m being honest, I blame me too. They’ve spent my entire life punishing me for it, and I just let them because I thought it’s what I probably deserved.”
Her confession is so raw it leaves me speechless. How could she ever think so little of herself? And how could fate be so cruel as to take away everything from her at such a young age?
“Anyway, over the years, there have been incidents,” she continues. “Mostly with my stepmother. But my stepsisters too. One of them is worse than the other. She’s spoiled rotten, and when things don’t go her way, she lashes out. That’s what happened one night when I refused to do her homework. She pushed me into the fire and then told her mother I fell. I never said otherwise because I had a feeling she would just do something even worse.”
She finishes her story with a deafening silence, and I don’t know what to say. There have never been words to comfort me, and I suppose in that way, I am emotionally crippled. I have no words for Ella, either. But in my own fucked-up way, I want her to know I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what she’s been through already, and I’m sorry that she ever crossed my path. Because more than anything, she needs someone to save her, and that isn’t me.
I brush the wet hair back over her shoulders and cup the back of her skull, kissing her with a brutality that betrays the things I keep saying I don’t want. She accepts them. Every messy second of my unspoken lies and pretty words. And when I’m done promising her things in my head that I can never say out loud, I towel her off and carry her naked body back to my bed.
23
Ella
I’m not exactly sure what time it is when Thorsen leaves me. I only know that it’s late when he returns, the bed dipping as he sits on the other side, examining something in his hand. In the glow of the lamplight, I can make out a blue bottle. It’s like the bottle I found stashed in his bathroom drawer.
“What is that?” I ask sleepily.
He straightens his spine, turning to study me. “It’s a sleeping elixir.”
“Is that what you gave me? At the sanctuary?”
He screws the lid back on and shakes his head, setting the bottle onto the nightstand. The muscles in his body seem restless, and I’m beginning to understand that he doesn’t get a lot of sleep. But I wish he trusted me enough to tell me what keeps him up at night.
He kicks off his shoes and lies back on the opposite side of the bed, not bothering to remove the rest of his clothes. We’re an arm’s length apart, but it may as well be separate continents, and I’m not willing to accept that.
When he leans over and turns off the light, I scoot closer, inch by inch, until the side of my body bumps against his. He stiffens, and I don’t dare breathe until, eventually, he starts to relax again. We don’t say another word to each other. But when I close my eyes, feeling his warmth against me, I am content.
Something stirs me from my sleep, and when I open my eyes, I find Thorsen trying to extricate himself from my body. Somehow, during the night, we ended up with our arms and legs tangled together while my face found a home on his chest.
When our gazes collide, I’m sure I’ve never seen him so flustered. He’s confused and only slightly annoyed. But he pauses for a second, and then shakes off his thoughts, whatever they are, before removing his body from mine.
The bed is cold without him, and I feel a strange sense of loss as he turns and walks toward the bathroom. I’m not really sure what to do with myself, so I wait there while he showers, enjoying the luxuries of his bed and the faint ghost of his scent that still lingers.
When he reappears again, he’s freshly shaved and dressed and back to his typical unyielding self.
“Lisbet will make you a vegetarian breakfast this morning,” he says. “I have to go out.”
“Okay.”
He heads for the door, but I call out to him, and he turns back around.
“Can I have my phone?”
“Why?” His eyebrows pinch together. This is an issue for him. He still doesn’t trust that I won’t go to the media and tell them all wild stories about their not so beloved prince.
“I want to call Charlotte,” I say. “And Olivia too. I want to see how the animals are doing.”
He hesitates, and I’m fairly certain he’s just going to say no. But he surprises me when he nods stiffly. The resignation in his eyes tells me he fully expects I’m going to betray him somehow. Now I’m even more eager to prove that I won’t.
“I’ll leave it on the kitchen table for you,” he says.
“Thank you.” I smile at him, and he shifts uncomfortably.
“There are clothes waiting for you in your bedroom,” he tells me. “Should you want them.”
I don’t get a chance to thank him because as soon as he utters the words, he disappears around the corner, his footsteps echoing down the corridor.
Clothes and a phone? Is it possible that I’m actually getting somewhere with Thorsen? I don’t want to get my hopes up, so I try not to think too much about it as I roll off the edge of the bed and force myself upright.
On the nightstand, Thorsen’s glass bottle remains, and out of curiosity, I pick it up to examine it. It’s identical to the other bottle, except this one has a different label. It’s a sleep elixir.
When I open the nightstand drawer on his side of the bed, there are several more just like it tucked away in there. Determined to find out exactly what they are, I grab the bottle from the top and then head to his bathroom, rummaging around to remove the other one stashed there too. With both of them in my hand, I make my way back to my room and seek out a space to hide them.
That’s when I notice the closet door propped open, and just as Thorsen said, there are clothes hanging from the racks. I peek inside, and an overwhelming tide of anxiety washes over me when I realize just how many there are. Not only does it look like he bought half the city’s clothing supply but expensive labels at that. It’s way too much, and that isn’t even the worst of it. There are shoes and handbags too, which seems odd because it’s not like we’re going anywhere together, right?