“All right. I’ll try.”
“Good. I’m glad. I really am. But…you know this is going to be hard, right?”
I open the door, pausing in the doorway. “So far nothing in my life has been easy, Pippa. I’d be really fucking surprised if the universe decided to give me a break now.”
I wake up to the smell of eggs. The other side of the bed I find myself in is woefully empty. My heart sinks a little, which is stupid, I know, but sometimes a girl likes to be surprised. In a good way, and not by the barrel of a gun or something equally as horrific. As I’m thinking this, a small yelp breaks the silence of the room and my heart jumps into my throat. I sit upright to find a pair of warm brown eyes staring back at me. Ernie the Schnauzer, stretched out across my feet at the end of the bed. He makes a disgruntled sound—oww!—as he licks his chops, clearly unhappy at being disturbed by my waking, and then rests his head on his paws.
“Oh. You,” I tell him. He glances at me out of the corner of his eye, his long grey whiskers twitching as he gives me a quiet uffff, which I’m assuming is only half a woof. He continues to grumble as I jimmy my feet out from underneath him and clamber out of bed. My body is sore in a way that makes me smile secretly to myself. Zeth-sore. I’m a fan of being Zeth-sore.
I didn’t see much of the apartment last night. I peek my nose into rooms as I make my way toward the smell of cooking eggs—one, two, three bedrooms, what looks like an office, which seems a little weird, and what I can only describe as a wet room. A miniature pool sits in the center of the last room on the right-hand side before I reach the kitchen, perhaps only ten-foot square, but I can tell by the dark aqua hue to the water that the thing is deep.
“Good morning,” a voice says behind me. Michael. I spin around and there he is in an exquisite black suit, complete with black shirt and black tie.
“Good morning,” I reply. “Why do you look like you’re going to a funeral?”
He cocks an eyebrow at me. “Because we are going to a funeral. Zeth didn’t tell you?”
“No.”
“The Duchess.” Michael gives me a sage nod. “Charlie posted an obituary in The Seattle Times. He’ll be there, which means—”
“Lacey probably will, too.”
Again, another nod. “I have a dress ready for you. It’s hanging in the kitchen.”
Sure enough, when I make my way through to the kitchen, a white garment bag is hooked through a handle of one of the head-height cabinets, and Zeth Mayfair is standing at the cook top, stirring a pot of what can only be eggs. He glances over his shoulder, sees me, and stops what he’s doing. I can’t help but notice he looks tired. “Did that little shit wake you up?” he asks me.
“Who? Michael?”
“No. Ernie.” He points behind me—at the rumpled-looking Schnauzer standing right behind me. His fur is all curly and sticking up. Doggy bed head.
“I woke him up, actually,” I tell Zeth. “He wasn’t too happy about it.”
Zeth grunts, masking a small smile. “He could clearly give a shit about being away from Lowell. Poor bastard’s probably never gonna forgive us when we give him back.”
Ernie cocks his head to one side, his strange little Schnauzer eyebrows seeming to pull together into a comical frown.
“I think you may be right.”
Zeth turns back to his half-forgotten task and takes the pan off the heat, serving up spoonfuls of scrambled eggs onto pre-buttered slices of toast. Three plates for the three of us. He hands one to Michael, one to me, and slides cutlery toward us across the kitchen countertop.
I have to say I’m a little shocked when I eat some of the food and it actually tastes like scrambled egg. If anything, I would have expected it to taste faintly carcinogenic—a little burned, or at least way too salty. As it turns out, my man can at least cook the simple things. Michael salutes Zeth with his fork and carries his breakfast out of the kitchen to eat elsewhere.
“You didn’t tell me about the funeral,” I say between mouthfuls. Zeth leans across the countertop, the bulk of his considerable frame suddenly very much up in my personal space.
“I was a little too pleased to see you were still alive.”
“Were you now?”
He nods. “Plus…” an awkward grimace forms on his face, “this whole thing with Lace—”
“I know. She might not want to come back with us.”
Cold, sharp steel flashes in Zeth’s eyes. “I don’t plan on giving her a choice.”
Honestly, taking Lacey might be for the best. Removing her from the situation altogether. But all I’m imagining right now is a showdown at a graveside and a handful of very scandalized people who are trying to grieve, and I can’t see it ending well. I can’t think of anything productive to say, so I keep my mouth shut. Zeth heads off to locate Michael, saying something about a plan of action.