Chapter 15
fifteen
LAILA
The storm that’s been brewing for a week is finally here. Two of them, actually. One tied to Ella and Luke. The other to everything I thought I knew.
It’s a gross kind of irony that I’m standing in a literal fairytale reception area overlooking the Jackson’s pumpkin patch while my world tilts dangerously off kilter.
We pulled off something that felt impossible—a wedding in the middle of the bicentennial of Ever After Farm’s fall festival—and Ella is nowhere to be found.
“Does anyone have eyes on Ella?” I panic-whisper into my mouthpiece.
“We’re looking,” Luke answers, his voice cracking on the last syllable. “I think your mom has her somewhere.”
That sentence steals air from my lungs.
For a second, all I hear is the wind rustling leaves on the trees and Holly and Cade exchanging vows from a few hundred yards away.
“She what?”
“I’ll check the old barn,” Sam says. “It’s out of the way.”
“Luke,” I say this time a little more forcefully. “Why would my mother have Ella somewhere?”
Luke sighs. “That’s a long, complicated answer.”
“Try a short one,” I snap.
I know Luke is worried sick about Ella, but I can’t manage the situation when I don’t have all the facts.
“Your mom said this wedding had to go off without a hitch, or Ella would lose her parents’ farm.”
“That doesn’t make sense.” I press my fingers to my eyes. “Ella was done with Mom. She fulfilled her last contract. Mom hates it here, Luke. What on earth could she have to gain by doing that?”
“Laila,” he says quietly. “She doesn’t just hate Enchanted Hollow—she hates Ella. She always has. This was leverage.”
My stomach twists. Of course, it was. Everything with my mother is leverage.
My phone vibrates in the pocket of my dress.
Bridget
Go to our channel.
I breathe out a sigh of relief. Maybe she doesn’t know Ella is missing. She sometimes switches off her headset temporarily so she can enjoy the ceremony. We usually run such a tight ship that it never matters, because Ella and I compensate.
But there’s nothing normal about this wedding.
I change the channel on my pack and test the waters.
“Everything okay?” I ask.
She pauses. “Call it twintuition, but something feels off.”
“Just a minor snag with the reception,” I say.
The words come out with a wince, because I hate lying. But there’s no sense in everyone panicking about Ella or whatever stunt my mother is pulling.
“Tell me what you need,” Bridget says. As usual, she’s the stoic one when chaos is literally erupting around us. “Holly and Cade are enjoying a moment of wedded bliss before we kick off the rest of this party.”
Thank goodness.
Whatever our mother has done or is doing didn’t affect their actual wedding vows, and I could literally weep with relief. We just have to keep working behind the scenes to keep it all running smoothly.
I’m torn in two directions, painfully opposite ones. And somehow I know this will get worse before it gets better. I straighten my shoulders and steel myself for what’s coming, and do what I always do: I prepare to step in and protect all of them.
“Just keep up what you’re doing. We’re dealing with—”
I sigh because I’m not sure how to finish that sentence. I’m not sure what we’re dealing with other than our mother doing things she shouldn’t.
“We’re dealing with a problem. But the good news is it’s in the process of being handled. We’ll meet you at the reception.”
“I’ll see you there,” she says.
I switch back over to the main channel, desperate for news. But it’s silent.
A stronger sense of foreboding settles over me.
Voices sound from the edge of the pumpkin patch, safely away from the direct reception site. I tear myself away from the soft light of the battery-powered candles and soft bulbs strung through the trees and plunge into the shadows.
Figures come into focus, and my chest tightens as Luke and my mother come into focus, nose to nose. Tension rolls across the ground.
My mother is here. Not hiding in Colorado this time. Whatever she’s done, she wanted to witness for herself.
The Jackson brothers hover close behind him, like an army of men at the ready. Ella is tucked into his side, possibly a little worse for wear. It’s hard to tell in the darkness.
Panic and relief chase each other, rolling through me in waves.
Then I see Sebastian Gold, and the relief I felt disappears in a snap. He’s not exactly dangerous, but he’s someone who always leaves behind more questions than answers. I suppose most people in power have a way of doing that.
But if he’s here, it’s not for a slice of cake.
Words cut through the air, something about a breach and fine print. I can’t make sense of what they’re talking about, only that Ella’s pale, Luke’s furious, and my mother looks—smug.
Whatever this is, it’s bigger than Holly and Cade’s wedding.
Bigger than me.
And in this moment, I realize just how much my mother is capable of.
It hit me then—this wasn’t about Ella’s wedding. It was about the farm. About Ever After’s magic. About the kind of love she’ll never understand but refuses to let survive.
My mother never sent me here to keep Ella in line.
All my efforts to “trick” my mother into believing this wedding was bigger than it was—a direct effort to take the heat off Ella’s immaculate planning—were a complete waste.
None of it ever mattered.
She knew. She knew how happy we were back here.
Maybe she knows about Holden, maybe she doesn’t. The only thing that matters is that she’s fully stepped into the adage of misery loves company.
She dangled the only thing that’s ever mattered to me, knowing she could use it to make me do what she wants.
Holden would tell me this isn’t my fault. I might almost believe him.
The world around me comes rushing back all at once.
Sebastian’s voice cuts through the quiet like a blade. “I wonder who tipped off the press then.”
There’s no hesitation in the next words that leave my mouth. “It was my mother.”
It’s clear as day, standing here and watching everything I helped build collapse in real time. My mother doesn’t just destroy what she can’t control—she uses the people she loves to do it for her.
A chill creeps up my arms despite the warm air. It’s not fear. It’s understanding. Every story she’s told me about power, about love as a transaction—trying to teach me to stay emotionally disconnected and focused on business—this is what she wanted me to learn.
This is what she wanted me to learn.
If I hadn’t come back, maybe she would’ve left Ella alone. Maybe happiness only tempts her when she can’t have it.
I glance toward the reception area where fairy lights glimmer in the distance, soft and sure in the dark. Holden’s out there, probably checking the dessert table, laughing, completely unaware of the fault line forming under us.
The thought of her reaching for Holden’s world—for something so good and pure—makes me sick. He’d never see it coming.
When I close my eyes, I can see The Magic Crumb in the early morning, light spilling through the front windows. It’s a view I’ve seen a hundred times from the street—Holden with his sleeves rolled up, hands working dough. That quiet world has survived generations of love and labor.
But my mother would see it as currency.
I press a hand to my stomach, as if I can hold down the dread rising inside me.
I won’t let her touch him.
I can’t.
If she thinks there’s nothing between us, maybe she’ll forget him. Maybe he’ll get to keep the peace I keep breaking.
“You deserve better than this,” I whisper to no one. I’m not sure if I mean Ella or Holden… or both. Maybe all of us.
The reception is in full swing now—music and laughter carrying across the farm. I can almost pretend none of this is happening. That if I close my eyes, I’ll open them in a world where love can’t be used against you.
I wish I didn’t know what I have to do.
But I do.
And knowing is the cruelest part.