Three Reckless Words: Chapter 5

Once, I ripped off a nail.

We’re talking my entire nail, gone just like that, all thanks to catching my finger in a door.

It hurt like Hades, the worst pain I’ve ever experienced. I went to the hospital, only for them to tell me there was nothing they could do except hand out antibiotics to keep it from getting infected.

Eventually, a new nail grew back.

For a while, it was just this ugly bruised nail bed that throbbed every time I moved my hand.

I vowed I’d never do something so stupid again, and so far, I haven’t.

But right now, I swear to God, I would rather rip off every single one of my fingernails than take my phone out of airplane mode.

I gnaw at a hangnail as bad habit takes over, staring at the stupid black screen, considering my options. Which are basically zilch, not after Dad forced my hand by calling Archer’s company, demanding answers.

I grit my teeth, swallowing thickly as I stare at my reflection.

Okay, let’s do this.

I tap the icon to resume service and let ten thousand notifications appear, pinging like a choir.

My knees waver and I sit down abruptly, thankful for the stool behind me. That could’ve been messy.

Winnie Emberly, daughter of the Attorney General, found dead from having split her head open on the floor after panicking over her phone.

Though maybe sudden death would be better.

This is physically, emotionally, and spiritually painful.

As my phone reconnects and the messages fly in like bullets, I genuinely consider tossing it into the nearby woods and tuning out the world again.

Maybe I’ll find some pliers.

Pay my penance that way.

Give the universe its pound of flesh if that’s the cost of a little freedom.

Instead of looking at the texts and nonstop app messages my phone keeps launching at my face, I pull up Instagram. Yes, it has plenty of its notifications flooding in, too, threatening to drown me.

Gobs of people have tagged me, laughing about the oh-so-hilarious fact I fled my own wedding and left my young, handsome groom stranded like a very rich beached seal.

Yes, it’s all true.

But when you consider the fact that I never wanted to get married, and that on the morning of the big day, Holden messaged me about dropping my tiara—the only part of the wedding I liked—you can hardly blame me.

I rest my forehead on my arms, hunched over, as if making myself smaller might encourage the universe to stop flinging crap my way.

The tiara was beautiful.

My grandmother gave it to me and it was this gorgeous silver thing, elegant and lovely with a large gleaming bee in the center. Not obnoxious, just pure class, but Holden decided he didn’t want any bees in his wedding.

Let that sink in.

His wedding.

Not ours.

Never mind the fact that the tiara was the only thing about the stupid wedding that actually mattered to me.

Ironically, it wound up being the shot to the face I needed to remember he never cared about me in the slightest.

This was an arranged marriage, and nothing more. Definitely not the wacky rom-com kind with a happy waiting at the end.

Ugh.

My eyes pinch shut, but I can feel the tears coming.

Bad memories rush back, burning my mind.

The way Mom tried to stop me, practically clinging to me as I headed for the door, even if she didn’t know where I was going.

That first hit of sweet relief when I was free, followed by the chest-crushing panic that still hasn’t stopped choking me.

I’d stopped at a gas station on the outskirts of Springfield to book this place, last-minute, and drove the rest of the way like crazy.

How Dad even found me is a mystery.

No one knew where I was going, considering I came up with Kansas City as my destination on the fly. Not even Lyssie, my bestie.

He shouldn’t have been able to find me so quickly. I don’t care if his lofty connections could outshine a bloodhound in tracking.

I lift my head and see my face the way it looked the morning of my wedding.

All artificially primed and pruned, every stray hair on my body obliterated, my eyebrows and lashes and lips more overdone than an Egyptian mummy mask.

My nose tingles when I touch it, still sore from removing every blackhead it’ll ever have.

My cheekbones feel like they’ve moved to a different zip code.

I think the whirlwind treatments from those stylists Mom brought in ruined me.

I still don’t look completely normal.

When I see my face, I don’t see Winnie.

I see a porcelain doll, everything they wanted me to be.

Oh, Mom was delighted, though.

She touched my back so softly that morning and crooned in my ear, Winnie, you look radiant! You’re going to make him so happy. But can’t you smile a little?

No, Mom.

Hell no.

You’d have a better chance of getting a girl to grin when she’s on death row.

Shaking my head, I look at the black bag holding the torn remains of my dress. I still haven’t dragged it outside to the trash where it belongs.

Guilt is weirdly powerful.

That gawdy thing cost over ten thousand dollars—yes, my stomach churns just thinking about it—and maybe I shouldn’t have cut it up like a paper snowflake. If it was intact, I could’ve donated it, at least.

But aside from it being the most uncomfortable dress I’ve ever worn, it really was a prison suit in white.

Desperate times.

Desperate measures for erasing a cruel symbol of what they almost forced me to do, and I can’t feel too bad about tearing through the beautiful silk. Why not when I just cut the rest of my life to ribbons?

And because I must hate myself and I want to rub salt into a fresh wound, I read through some of the Twitter posts about my ‘big day disaster.’

DCToiletScrubber: The look on the senator’s face with his noodle of a son stranded at the altar #WeddingFail #EmberlyPatilla

Lilmeatballgirl84: OMG. OMG still cannot believe she left him on their WEDDING DAY??? Is she on drugs? #WeddingFail

Tungstentastesgoodsometimes: Holy f_king wedding fail. Winnie Emberly does NOT know good dick. I would DIE for a ride on that stallion.

The last inane post just had to include a photo of Holden with his million-dollar grin, looking all handsome in a navy suit, his dark-blond hair combed back.

His sharp face beams its ‘I’m better than you’ energy at the camera.

His favorite expression I’ve seen a thousand times.

Several people comment with fire gifs and a large dog drooling.

At least the hashtags haven’t hit the main trending lists. Yet.

I mean, it’s not like Dad or Senator Corban are A-list celebrities.

Sure, Dad was elected to his second term and he acts like everyone in Missouri knows who he is, but that’s not actually the case. He can walk down the street without being mobbed. You ask the average person about Carroll Emberly, and they’ll give you a puzzled look unless they’re a huge election dork or a high-powered lawyer.

But this wedding was his thing. His baby.

Dad and Holden’s father cooked up the arrangement because they smelled opportunity if their political dynasties could merge. Never mind what works best for the kids getting married, because we apparently live in the seventeenth century.

Holden, though, he has a little more of a cult following. Mostly on Instagram, where he draws women who worship the young and rich and sickeningly spoiled like frogs on a pond.

One night, he spent half the evening in his DMs, just laughing.

I couldn’t decide if I was more icked out by his rudeness, mocking his fans, or scared he’d hooked up with a few of them.

My skin crawls just thinking about it now.

Another red flag I ignored.

And the idea that I had the nerve to detonate my life and dodge a screaming bullet feels surreal.

This can’t be me.

This can’t be the girl who was called into Dad’s office last year when he suggested an engagement and agreed with a nervous smile and not a single word of protest.

Although, to be fair, this situation feels more like a direct hit than a near miss.

Maybe the bullet wasn’t Holden after all—it was running away and becoming estranged from the entire world I used to know.

Figures.

Honestly, I feel bad about my big promises to Archer, everything I said about recommending his cabins to people in high places.

I mean, I was desperate. I would’ve promised him the moon just to keep my pretty hideout place for a few more days.

There’s something about this place that makes me feel like I belong in a stupid, entirely irrational way. An oasis in the steaming crater carved from my life.

But after what I pulled, I’ll be lucky if anyone in the old DC crowd ever says more than two words to me. And those two words will probably be “the fuck?”

Which would be justified, I suppose. In their world, it isn’t about pissing off people personally.

It’s about pissing off the wrong people with the right connections. Once you’ve angered the petty cannibal gods of American royalty, you become radioactive to anyone who fears their wrath.

My old friends and coworkers would never understand conscience. Or turning down the perfect paper marriage for the silly dream of having a husband someday I might actually want.

Honestly, they don’t think about marriage much at all when they’re so focused on money and careers. In DC, you either move up fast or get buried. Random hookups in hotels with people who are probably clean are as romantic as it gets.

Because, you know, that’s less of a career risk than marrying the wrong person.

But if they did think about marriage, the kind of political marriage I could’ve had with Holden probably feels like a dream come true.

Disgusted, I push my phone away, ignoring all the DMs from friends to news outlets wanting interviews.

I’ve seen what a loveless marriage looks like. Maybe Mom loved Dad back when they were young, but he’s been so laser-focused on his career that everything else was pushed to the sidelines.

And maybe he loved her once in an abstract sense, but he’s forgotten now. She’s just there to smile at the cameras like a pretty prop made to support him. I was there, too, playing the perfect daughter.

Until now.

Guess that’s what happens when you push the line until something snaps.

You shove a girl too far, and she’ll blow her wedding to smithereens and run off to a glam little cottage with bees and no big scary obligations around to ruin her fairy tale.

Speaking of bees…

I hop off my seat, leaving my phone, and head outside to check on them.

The sun feels like a warm bath on my skin. The sweet scent of the flowers hangs so thick in the air I inhale happily, feeling the misery leaving my soul.

It’s liberating, being able to turn my back on my phone and my responsibilities and my old rotten life.

Here, life feels good.

As long as it lasts, I’m going to make the most of paradise.

Making the most of paradise today involves investigating the bees at the very edge of the garden. There are more than I thought, six sets of boxes total, all parked pretty close together. But there’s one more set a little closer to the forest, I notice.

Langstroth boxes, they’re called. A classic hive for the traditional beekeeper and my personal favorite.

There’s something important to me about the bees feeling protected and not needing to rebuild too much every time their honey gets harvested.

Of course, this is also the most efficient method for doing that. Not necessarily the best for the bees, but I’ve always been a honey lover, and we only harvest a little.

I wonder if Archer would mind if I had a closer look?

I haven’t seen any beekeepers around, which feels like an oversight. Bees are perfectly capable of looking after themselves, but this is a manmade nest. Whoever set it up should be making the rounds near daily to keep the bees safe and comfortable.

Luckily, I’m here now, and I can do the job just fine. I want to do it.

I take my time studying the environment, pondering my next move.

The bees are happy on their own without human interference, doing normal bee things. It’s crazy relaxing just being around them.

But I want to do more than watch them from a distance. I want to investigate the honey and make sure the hives are healthy.

So I walk forward, every movement measured and calm.

Bees aren’t like wasps. Sure, they’ll defend their nest if they think it’s in danger, but as long as I don’t look like a threat, they won’t attack.

A few curious scouts land on me as I approach. I smile as they rest for a second before flying off. People have this terrible fear of bugs with stingers, but most bees aren’t naturally aggressive.

Bees are predictable.

Definitely easier to deal with than people, only lashing out when it’s life or death.

If only the world could figure it out, then maybe they’d lay off the insecticides and poisons and give bees a little more space to coexist.

I don’t care how crunchy and naïve that sounds, it’s totally true.

And when I think about it for too long, my throat tightens until I push the thought aside.

These are pretty bees.

Slim brownish gold honeybees with gently striped bodies, happy by all appearances.

I reach the first box and look it over critically. The wood looks like it’s been treated, which is good. There are plenty of holes for the bees to exit and reenter the box.

Moving slowly, I remove the lid from the shorter box to check out the extra honey stored inside. More bees buzz up around me, but I don’t freak out.

One even lands on my nose for a second and then flutters away.

“That’s right, guys. I’m a friend,” I murmur, gently pulling the lid off and setting it on the ground.

Loud buzzing fills my ears, but that’s not what grabs my attention. There’s something purple between the panels.

It can’t be.

I hold my breath, icy calm so I don’t agitate them.

I’ve done this plenty of times before without the full suit, but that doesn’t mean I’m impervious to getting stung if I slip up, if I move too fast or shake too much.

I lift the first of the ten frames carefully. Small bees cling to the honeycomb and more swarm around me to investigate as soon as they’re disturbed.

I almost drop the frame right there because my eyes weren’t lying.

It’s flipping purple.

Look, I know honey can get colorful, but there’s no mistaking this. I stare down in disbelief, drinking in this bright, royal-violet gold, rare and delicious.

“Sorry, honeys,” I whisper as I swipe the tiniest dab on my index finger and slide the frame back into place.

Once it’s secure and the bees are safe, I close my eyes in bliss and try it.

Holy nectar.

Okay, forget The Sugar Bowl. That place might have some of the best sweets I’ve ever devoured—but it has nothing on this honey.

It’s a shot of pure sugar to the soul.

Rich. Magnificently sweet. Faintly floral like wine.

I’ve never tasted anything like it.

“Easy, easy. Don’t freak out,” I tell myself like the bee crazy spaz I am.

Trembling, I back away from the hive slowly until there’s plenty of space between me and the bees.

Then I squeal.

I start dancing on the spot.

This is insane!

A surprise miracle that feels like it was planted here just for me to find.

I throw my fist up and whoop, listening to the way my voice echoes back from the forest.

So maybe I have issues.

But I also need to investigate. If this is what I think it is—

No. No, I need to check first. Don’t get too excited.

I can’t go popping off, making big claims without hard facts. If there’s anything Dad taught me, it’s that.

I don’t even bother getting my phone before I go vaulting over the fence at the edge of the garden and head straight to the woods, looking for—well, I don’t know what. Something out of the ordinary.

Something the bees have been using to craft this magic honey.

I rush forward, holding my hands out to the dappled sunlight making its way through the trees. The whole runaway bride thing feels like a bad dream now.

Who cares what’s happening back home—this is why I’m here.

Bees. Honey. Something important that doesn’t mean pleasing everybody else.

Go ahead and call it stupid, but I haven’t been this thrilled in ages.

But these aren’t technically my bees. I have no earthly right to get this attached.

For all I know, I might be breaking some rule in the fine print that will have Mr. Gruff Stuff throwing me out tomorrow.

Still, less than an hour later, I’m dirty and smiling deliriously as I stagger back inside the house.

First things first—water.

I guzzle down a full glass to rehydrate after being in the hot sun and then start on one more. I’m pretty sure I’ve burned myself despite the sunscreen I slathered on this morning, but there’s no helping that.

I don’t even care.

I’m bouncing on the balls of my feet when I grab my phone, swiping past all the notifications—how can they just keep coming?—and find Archer’s number.

I can’t sit on this, consequences be damned.

This man has a right to know he’s sitting on bee-made gold.