Page 39 of Reign

Daphne was oddly unsurprised when Ethan turned onto the campus of Forsythe Academy, the private school he and Jefferson had both attended. She should have known he would bring them back here, to where it all began.

“Interesting choice of venue,” she observed, once he had pulled up to the elementary school playground and killed the engine.

Ethan shrugged. “I figured we’ll see anyone coming a mile away.”

Daphne studied the playground the way a general might assess the terrain before battle. She had to admit, Ethan was right. The playground’s open spaces meant that no one could hide and eavesdrop, and it was only accessible by bike paths. No paparazzi cars could drive by with a long-range lens.

As she glanced around, Daphne felt something in her soften. This playground was a little kid’s dreamland, with multiple slides and three different jungle gyms and an enormous painted elephant with a saddle on top. A wooden ladder led up its tail.

“Jeff and I used to climb that elephant all the time,” Ethan remarked, following her gaze. He pointed to a spot on the ground a couple of yards away. “There used to be a tree here, but they cut it down because of Jeff.”

“What?”

“He climbed from the elephant into the branches of the tree, then jumped from the tree onto the roof, where he rescued generations’ worth of lost baseballs. Seriously, I thinkhe tossed down thirty of them.” Ethan smiled at the memory. “His protection officer was livid, but Jeff didn’t care. From that point on, his second-grade street cred was astronomical.”

“That sounds like Jefferson.” Daphne couldn’t help thinking that it was easy to be fearless when, for your entire life, someone had held out a safety net to protect you from falling.

She crossed her arms over her chest, trying to get things back on track. “Okay, Ethan. What’s going on?”

“I was hoping you could explain this.”

He clicked over to his email app and held out his phone.

Daphne’s stomach twisted as she saw the message in his inbox, so similar to hers. The same anonymous email address, the same empty subject line. Almost the same message, though it had been tweaked for him:Ethan, I know what you and Daphne did. You need to break up the royal wedding or I’ll tell the world about you.

She read the words once, twice, a third time. A chill danced over her skin, and she thrust the phone toward Ethan as if it were a live grenade.

“Are you suggesting Isentthat email?” she asked, incredulous. “Why would I threaten you and demand that you break up my wedding?”

Ethan threw his hands up. “I don’t know! To undermine me? To make Jeff think I betrayed him, and draw him closer to you? I don’t pretend to understand how your demonically brilliant mind works.”

If she didn’t know better, Daphne might have thought that last sentence was a compliment.

“I didn’t send it. In fact…” Before Daphne could think better of it, she’d pulled out her phone, then scrolled to her own cryptic email. “I got basically the same message.”

Ethan’s expression darkened as he read it. “So, whoever is behind this is blackmailing us both.”

“Apparently so.” Daphne snatched her phone back and stuffed it in her bag, face reddening.

“What should we do?”

“Weare not doing anything, because there is nowe.”

Ethan’s brows drew together. “You’re just going to ignore this?”

“Absolutely not. I’m going to handle it.”

“On your own.”

“Yes, on my own! It’s how I do most things.”

“And how’s that working out for you?”

“Just fine until you came back!”

Ethan made a disbelieving sound in the back of his throat. “Look, Daphne, I don’t like this any more than you do, but we both have too much at stake. This person knows what we did to Himari.”

His words gave her pause. “Is that how you read it?”