Chapter 2

2: 2

2

By the time I'd nailed down the wedding venue and got home, I found out the caretaker had spent the entire day trying to talk her down.

But Sabrina flat-out refused to go back in the water. She was dead set on being the lady of this house.

To stake her claim, she'd smashed every wedding photo in the place.

The frame styles, the exact angles they were set at, all of it was something Nathaniel had designed piece by piece.

The moment she saw me back, she jabbed a finger at my face and started screaming.

"You're doing this on purpose to force me back into the water, aren't you?"

"You're scared Nathaniel will fall hopelessly in love with the me I am now, aren't you?"

I sighed and reached out to rub her fish head.

"Little seafood, listen to me, hurry back into the water."

"If Nathaniel finds out you're the one who wrecked the wedding photos, he really won't let it go."

I wasn't just trying to scare her.

If she'd only behaved, then after we pulled the scales and took the pearl, I'd still have talked Nathaniel into releasing her back into the ocean to live as one happy little seafood.

But no, she had to come ashore and be human for Nathaniel's sake, and the disasters just kept piling up one after another.

I already had my hands full with the wedding falling apart on me. I honestly had no energy left to clean up after her.

The caretaker was frantic, pacing in circles, begging her.

"Fish lady, I'm begging you! I'm just a lousy hired worker, and you cost twenty million."

"You've ruined all your scales yourself. What am I supposed to pay that back with?"

"Get back in the water before Mr. Henson returns. There's still time to grow new scales."

"Once tonight passes, your scales will never grow back again!"

Sabrina flung the caretaker's hand off and would rather die than get back in the tank.

I sighed.

"If the soft way won't work, then we do it the hard way."

The caretaker, who a second ago had been pleading his heart out, pulled a stun baton from his pocket the next and knocked Sabrina out cold without missing a beat.

By the time she came to, the fish tank had become a water prison.

She was on the other side of a pane of tempered glass, looking like she wanted to lunge through it and tear me apart.

"The caretaker said you can only grow new scales in the water. That's the only way you'll survive."

"Also, I don't want your scales or your pearl anymore. Once you're healed, I'll send you back to the ocean."

Hearing that I meant to send her back to the ocean, Sabrina fought it even harder.

Her hands slammed against the glass over and over until her knuckles split and bled.

"Nathaniel brought me here. You have no right to drive me away!"

The caretaker stamped his feet in a panic.

"Quit while you're ahead. Fish that get hauled up out of the sea never get a chance to go back."

"You should be thanking Miss Summers. She's handing you a way to live!"

But she wouldn't take in a word of it, choking up as she went on about how good Nathaniel had been to her.

"Nathaniel gave me my name, so I'm his fish!"

That name almost made me laugh out of sheer frustration.

Ever since Nathaniel named this fish Sabrina.

This dumb fish's eyes had gone softer and more lovestruck by the day.

But it was all thanks to Nathaniel's smart mouth.

He'd teased her that it meant she was as lovely as a goddess.

Only I knew just how twisted Nathaniel's naming really was.

The name he'd actually been saying wasn't Sabrina at all. It was "Serving," as in his freaking little serving of seafood.

I couldn't bring myself to shatter a fish's girlish little heart, so I kept quiet.

But she just got more worked up.

"And if Nathaniel didn't care about me, why would he come tell me stories every single night?"

I rubbed at my temple, feeling the migraine start to flare up again.

Still, to knock some sense into her, I laid Nathaniel's true face bare.

"Sabrina, haven't you noticed every story Nathaniel tells you ends in tragedy?"

"It's because the two of us made a bet. He bet that a fish's tears could turn into pearls."

"That's why he came around day after day, tirelessly making up stories to trick you into crying."

Sabrina froze for a moment, then quickly shot back, unwilling to give in.

"Impossible. You're just jealous that Nathaniel likes spending time with me more."

"He comes to drink with me every day. It's obviously because being with you is so suffocating that he comes here to drown his sorrows."

At that, I turned to the caretaker, dubious.

"Drink? Can fish even drink?"

The caretaker gave a bitter little smile and leaned close to my ear, dropping his voice.

"That's Mr. Henson's own homemade way of getting the fishy smell out."

"What he's actually been giving her is... cooking wine."

Now it was my turn to be stunned.

I sat with it for two seconds, then couldn't help blurting out:

"Damn! Is Nathaniel even human, or is he a dog?"

Hearing that, Sabrina slammed her own head against the glass and knocked herself out again.

Right before she passed out, she was still muttering under her breath:

"Don't you dare insult my Nathaniel. He clearly loves me to death..."