I can’t let this go. After everything we’ve been through, I won’t allow Rupert to do this to us.
My hand stops halfway around a pair of shoes. I know what to do.
thirty-two
. . .
rupert
I’m in agony as I lope on all fours back to my room. I take the side passage and then go up the stairs, every step as laden and heavy as the one before it.
Peony doubts how I feel about her. She believes I would do this lightly, when it’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.
I sag against the door, then shake my head as I open it. Maybe it’s for the best. Maybe sheshouldthink I’m a monster. Then she wouldn’t look back as she drove out of my life.
Hopefully not in that old ramshackle buggy of hers.
I collapse on the couch the moment I’m inside and wipe my eyes frantically. Fuck it all. Peony. My little flower. My perfect woman. The one I was put here to find and to love, and I’m not allowed to have her.
I lie unmoving for some time, simply ruing the day I evercame to New York City. I want to call Giancarlo right now and cuss him out until I’m blue in the face.
“Rupert!”
The sound of Peony’s heated shout makes me leap to my feet. Is she in trouble? Something must have happened.
I shoot like a blasted bullet to the door, and then her voice echoes again.
“Rupert!” When I peer out into the hall, Peony crests the stairs. But she is not hurt; she is angry. “Rupert, listen to me right this second.”
“Peony…?” I ask, but she shoves me, hard, so I’m forced to stumble backward. She pushes past me into my quarters and sits herself down on my settee, looking like I just pissed on her rug.
“We are going to find him,” she says, her tone unyielding. “It was your friend Giancarlo who put you in touch with that man, right? The one who cursed you?”
I nod uneasily.
“Call Giancarlo,” she snaps. “Right now.”
I stare at her, baffled, but she only narrows her eyes at me.
“Call him!”
Reflexively I obey, grabbing my mobile and pulling him up on my contacts list. “Why…?”
“We are going to track down this asshole who changed you. I am going to have a word with him. We are going to resolve this once and for all.”
Her expression is pure, flaming determination. She will brook no objection, and I have to do what she asks.
With a sigh, I press DIAL and hold the device up to my ear. I squint when Giancarlo answers the phone.
“Ah, my friend! To what do I owe the pleasure?”
I clear my throat. “Giancarlo, I need a favor.”
Twenty minutes later, and after many attempts to reason with him—which turned into begging as Peony’s eyes dug like daggers into my flesh—Giancarlo has gone and rummaged around his office until he found the ancient, scrawled address and number belonging to the man who once cursed me. It’s hard for him to make out the handwriting, and he keeps interrupting himself to tell me what a bad idea this is.
“Don’t go kicking the hornet’s nest,” he says. “You don’t know what else he’s capable of.”
“Let me talk to Giancarlo,” Peony growls, snatching the mobile away. And then she goes on the attack, much like a guard dog, until I can hear my friend whimpering on the other end.
