I looked over my shoulder, finding my grandfather facing the beach, surrounded by a legion of guards and swans.
I narrowed my eyes back on Theo. “I thought you wanted to take everything from me?” Wouldn’t he want to keep me from my most valued tradition?
“Maybe it’s a thank-you.” He lifted the ice cream with a soft smile.
I chewed my lip, unsure what to do with a Theo who took ice cream and seemed to care.
“Probably shouldn’t bring this to the sand, though, unless we want to re-create the swan riot.”
The memory blasted through me. One year we’d been forced to run down the beach, chased down by a horde of angry swans gunning for our ice cream. Theo had held my hand, dragging me down the sand as the tide nipped at our feet.
I rubbed my thumb and forefinger together, trying to banish the feel of his hand.
“That was your fault,” I said on instinct.
Neither of us wanted to take the blame.
“Your ice cream,” he said.
“Your idea.”
I laughed as we walked to the beach but quickly swallowed it. Not hours ago, Theo had made it clear how much he hated me.
To my shock, he laughed too. Theo’s laugh was an unassuming soft sound, so quiet you could miss it easily, but once you heard it, it never left you.
Like him.
I’d missed it so much.
I eyed him warily, but he only licked the purple ice cream.
Still, a small part of me hoped.
“Papa,” I called when we got to the sand. “I’m ready!”
His wall of guards parted, and Papa turned around. My gut dropped. Grandpa had the frown reserved for mergers that fell through, the dark, stormy eyes used when he learned someone had dared say something bad about Beryl Crowne. Now that frown was directed at me.
I tugged on my gauzy pink summer dress. “Papa?”
“When I really get your thanks, you won’t be smiling, Reject.” Theo’s lips grazed my ear, his whisper harsh and bitter.
I tore my gaze from Grandpa, just in time to see Theo turn the peace-treaty ice cream cone on its head. The purple-black globe of ice cream landed with a splat on the boardwalk. He then dropped the cone to the ground and smashed the waffle beneath his shoe into a hundred crispy pieces.
My mouth fell open, but I barely had a second to be stunned or angry before my grandfather’s harsh shout brought me back.
“Abigail!” he yelled.
A few of the swans around him fluttered their feathery, white-and-tawny wings nervously.
“Papa, you’re scaring the swans—”
He raised a hand. When Beryl Crowne raised his hand, you shut up.
“Theo had a very hard time telling me this.” Theo and Grandpa shared some kind of look I couldn’t decipher. The rock in my gut sank deeper. “I practically had to dig it out of him. When I did, I almost didn’t believe him.” Grandpa rubbed the wrinkle between his dark, red-brown eyes.
Enough time passed for me to brave a response.
“Dig what out of him?” I glanced at Theo. He had his bodyguard mask on now. A stoic, hard jaw. Eyes forward on potential threats. Legs spread and ready to move, arms behind his back but ready to attack.