Page 48 of Beau and the Beast

"I'll read these," Beau said, stepping back, "but I'm not giving up on this project and I'mnotjust rehashing what some stupid biz journals have already written about you."

He held up a magazine that had Wolfram's old face on the cover.

"Like it or not, you are not this person anymore, Wolfram," Beau said.

Wolfram snorted. "Oh, I'm well aware."

"I don't mean the curse. I mean you've changed—you're kind."

"You don't know the first thing about me," Wolfram said, raising an eyebrow.

"Because you won't let me."

"Get. Out," Wolfram repeated.

Beau puffed a slow breath out of his nose, clearly only barely restraining his anger.

"I'll see you in the morning," he said, retrieving the magazines from Wolfram's desk and spinning on his heel. He stopped by the door, stooping to gather up the rest of the magazines.

"Beau?" Wolfram called. The man's posture straightened up and he turned back to face Wolfram.

"If youdoinsist on seeing me tomorrow, be sure you put on fresh clothes," he said. "You stink and I can't stand the smell of you."

Beau's face fell. He nodded once and exited.

Wolfram had expected him to snap back but instead, Beau shrank. Wolfram was met with the slap of regret.

Why did he have to layer cruelty over denial?

* * *

Beau spentthe day in his new sitting room, reading through the magazines and taking notes.

They weren't the kind of notes, though, that Wolfram was probably expecting.

Instead, Beau found himself with questions that were better than the ones that appeared on the pages of the magazines. He kept track of the things that he wanted to revisit with Wolfram. He kept track of the statements Wolfram had made in the interviews that Beau suspected were lies.

Maybe Wolfram thought he'd win by butting heads with Beau.

But Beau knew that in a battle of wills, though, he rarely lost.

He would keep cheerfully doing the job that he'd been assigned—until the book was done or until Wolfram had enough of him and tore him to shreds like the room across the hall.

Beau would lift the curse for them—if not for Wolfram's sake then for the sake of the other five people who were relying on Beau, who wanted to see their families and resume their lives instead of remaining in the penthouse, frozen like dollhouse figurines stuck in amber.

Beau couldn't imagine the way they must feel, working for someone as capricious as Wolfram, existing suspended up in the air, just a few feet of space to explore outside, a seasonless, sunless experience.

He could ignore the doubts of Wolfram, Geoffrey, Alfie, and Song. At least James and Violet seemed to think that Beau had the ability to free them.

And he wasn't willing to let them down without the fight of his life.

Still, Wolfram's words stung him.

That must have been why Geoffrey advised him to simply write down whatever Wolfram said, not to disagree with him.

But if he did that, Wolfram was liable to paint the same picture of himself that was already presented in the stacks of magazines that Beau had hauled back to his room.

Isidore Wolfram, Jr., had been a billionaire playboy, his portrait painted time and time again on the pages of the magazines with broad, ugly brushstrokes by second-rate journalists who were only there to fill up a word count. Isidore Wolfram, Jr., dined at the best restaurants, surrounded by the most beautiful men and women, people he posed with as if he owned them.

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