Bella bleeped the locks to her Rover, yanked open the door angrily and climbed inside.
Then she whispered, “No. I’m going to take care of this once and for all.”
Bella! Fiona shouted but Bella shook her head.
“No,” she kept whispering, “no one interferes with my happily ever after but they really don’t interfere with Prentice’s or the kids’.”
Fiona closed her eyes.
Bella switched on the ignition.
Bloody hell! Fiona yelled, glaring at Bella’s stubborn profile.
Then she made a mistake.
She dematerialized and materialized at Prentice’s office to try her hand at yelling at him in order to get through.
Leaving Bella alone.
She should never have left Bella alone.
Prentice
Prentice was at his drafting board at the office, sifting through phone messages Alice had left for him, thinking he’d need to have a look at the building where his offices were housed because, that afternoon, a chill had slid through them so arctic, it was uncomfortable. He’d never felt it before and they were experiencing a severe cold snap so he reckoned the heating wasn’t up to the task.
However, strangely, the chill subsided as suddenly as it came. Prentice still made a mental note to look into it.
These thoughts were in his head when his mobile rang.
He looked down at it, seeing a number come up on the display rather than a name. His head tilted to the side, he picked it up, engaged and put it to his ear.
“Cameron,” he greeted.
“Prentice?” a female’s voice asked.
“Aye,” he answered.
“Hello, this is Lydia, Jason’s guitar teacher.”
Prentice’s body started to tighten as his mind went alert, wondering why she’d be calling him considering Elle dealt with the children’s instructors. Elle found them, she checked their references and she hired them. Except for telling Prentice about them and him meeting them briefly, since their lessons happened while he was at the office, he had little to do with them.
“Yes?” he prompted.
“Well, I’ve been calling Bella but she isn’t answering and she hasn’t picked up Jason from his lesson. She’s over a half an hour late and she’s never late. I’ve got another student coming in soon and I was wondering if wires were crossed? Perhaps you were supposed to pick up Jason?”
Prentice gut tightened along with his body but it did it harder, sharper, making him feel instantly sick.
“No, I –” he started to say but his phone vibrated in his hand, he took it from his ear quickly, glanced at it, saw he had an incoming call and he put it back to his ear and said, “Just a minute, another call is coming through. Maybe that’s Elle. I’ll be right back.” Then he took the phone from his ear again, hit the button to engage and put it back. “Cameron.”
“Hi, Prentice, this is Gemma, Sally’s ballet instructor. Listen, the lesson just ended but all the other kids are gone and Bella isn’t here as usual to pick up –”
Prentice was no longer listening. He was out of his chair and moving to the hook and his coat.
“Someone will be there soon,” he told Gemma then didn’t wait for a response, he went back to Lydia, told her the same thing then disconnected from her too.
Then he grabbed his coat and shrugged it on at the same time calling his mother to ask her to pick up the kids and he swiftly walked out of his offices without a word to Alice or anyone.
Then he got in his Rover and drove just as swiftly home.
Elle
“That’s what I get,” Nigel Fennick muttered. “That’s all I get, day and night, day and bloody, fucking night.”
Elle’s head lolled on the backseat of Nigel Fennick’s car, blinking away the fuzzy feeling in her head as she felt cold sting, sharp and piercing, at her wrists.
Something, or it felt like someone, an invisible someone, was picking at the ropes binding her wrists.
That was bizarre, impossible but she couldn’t think of that. She had to focus on clearing her head after she’d knocked boldly and imperiously on Nigel and Hattie Fennick’s front door, Nigel opened it and she’d furiously demanded a word with Hattie. Nigel stared at her a moment, sighed deeply, invited her in and she walked into the living room only to stop, watch Nigel turn to her and then watch his face studying her. Then, as she watched, it twisted with something ugly and unbelievably frightening. She tensed in preparation for flight but before she could react, he’d picked up a vase and conked her on the side of the head with it.
Yes, conked her on the side of the head!
She’d blacked out instantly and woke up in the backseat of his car, wrists and ankles bound and a gag tied around her mouth, something or someone working at her bounds and Nigel ranting from behind the wheel as he was driving.
“Prentice this. Bella that. Sally and Jason this, that and the other. My God! She has a husband! She has a son! Does she pay a mind to us? No!” he ended on a shout and Elle closed her eyes, her heart beating wildly, fear saturating her entire body.
He’d gone mad.
Or Hattie had driven him to it.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. At the end of the fairytale, the heroine gets to live in her castle and enjoy her happily ever after.
Okay, so Elle could put up with trolls making an appearance every now and then. And the handsome hero could be annoying but he was always beautiful and loving even when he was being annoying.
The heroine wasn’t supposed to end up in the backseat of a car, bound, her head pounding, terrified and the wicked witch actually being a wicked construction worker at the end of his rope with his catty, awful, miserable wife and taking it out on the heroine!
Elle had enough wicked in her life. It was now her happily ever after.
Didn’t he know?
“She makes money from those photos and we need a new boiler,” Nigel raged on. “Does she buy a boiler? No… she… does… not. She goes to Edinburgh and gets her hair done and it cost two hundred bloody pounds! She buys a membership to the gym, pays some bloke to work with her and she goes there every evening. She doesn’t make dinner for her family; she gets in her car and goes to the bloody gym!”
Elle hadn’t noticed Hattie got her hair done or that she’d lost any weight.
Then again, she tried not to notice Hattie at all.
“And I know why,” Nigel seethed, bringing Elle’s attention back to him. “She thinks she can catch his eye. She lies in bed beside me and pretends he’s there lying beside her. Do you know? Do you know how it feels to lie beside your wife every night for over a decade and know she doesn’t want you at her side? Do you know how that feels? Do you know?” he ended on a screech and Elle winced.
Elle didn’t know and she didn’t think that would feel very good but it wasn’t worth conking someone on the head, binding them and throwing them in the backseat to drive around while ranting.
“Well, I’m done,” he raved. “I am bloody, fucking done. She wants Prentice Cameron; I’ll give her a clear shot.”
The cold at her wrists vanished but Elle barely noticed as her body went rock-solid with terror at his words.
“But for Prentice Cameron, he’ll experience again what it’s like no’ to have the woman he loves at his side,” Nigel maniacally vowed and Elle started panting behind her gag just as the icy feeling came back to her wrists. “The body’s there for me but it isn’t. He’ll know that feeling, I’ll bloody well make it so, he’ll know. He’ll bloody fucking know what it’s like to be alone.”