'I can't believe he'd do that to me,' Celeste wept into her pillow in between body-shaking sobs. Tears stained the flimsy fabric, but she didn't care, not when pain wracked her with every breath. She couldn't — she had no caring left to give. 'He humiliated me in front of the whole school. I'm a laughingstock.'

'He's a jerk, that's why. I know it feels like your world is caving in, but he isn't worth it.' Her best friend, Sarah, rubbed her back in soothing circles. But she didn't refute the fact that people were laughing at her, and she hadn't been there to hear the things he said; she'd heard it from someone else, who'd heard it from one of the onlookers, and that was the crux of the issue. Celeste was now the subject of vicious gossip. She could never step foot in that school again.

Never.

'When Greg cheated on me,' Sarah continued, 'I couldn't imagine leaving the house again. But it really does get better. It just takes time and a few large helpings of revenge.'

For Sarah, maybe. Greg at least had kept his indiscretions private, giving Sarah the chance to process it all free of the weight of watchful eyes. Marcus had betrayed Celeste in front of everyone, demolishing not only her trust but her dignity as well. That was what hit her hardest. She'd been surrounded by untrustworthy people all her life, so that was nothing new, but at least the rest of them left her dignity intact.

'He'll regret it; you'll see,' Sarah promised. 'Besides, you know what they say. To find a prince, you have to kiss a lot of frogs.'

'Frogs, I can deal with.' Bad kissers, flaky dates, self-obsessed fools and horrid bores were par for the course in Neptune. 'Snakes, I'm not so sure about.'

-x-

When she first met Jake Kane, she thought she'd finally found the elusive prince. He was clever, earnest and respectful, and he never gave her cause to worry about her dignity or her trust. If kissing frogs led to this, she thought, the slime was worth it.

Then Jake struck the jackpot with one of his inventions, and they became filthy rich overnight. Before long, his crown cracked and he turned right back into his true form like the rest of them, slipping into other women's beds when he thought she wouldn't notice. Because no matter what his bank balance said, Jake was far from a prince. He had less warts than the men she'd dated over the years, and he valued status and reputation almost as much as she did. But nothing changed the fact that a frog was a frog was a frog.

He was just an amphibian she could live with. Even as each niggling suspicion twisted her inside out, they never went beyond gut instinct and womanly intuition. And as long as nothing became public, she could cope.

What hurt the most was the ruined dreams. She didn't want Lilly building her own hopes up only to watch them crash down brick by brick, falling faster than she could catch them. Better to never hope at all than to be crushed by the debris.

So the first time Lilly came home crying over a boy, eleven years old and convinced it was the end of the world, Celeste perched herself on the edge of her bed and said prosaically, 'In life, you have to kiss a lot of frogs.'

'Then one of them will turn into a handsome prince and we'll live happily ever after, right?' Lilly shot back, voice thick with bitterness. 'I've heard the fairytale.'

Celeste waved her off. 'No. Fairytales are for children. People don't change, and princes are few and far between; all you can do is make the best of things and kiss a lot of frogs.'

Lilly raised her head from the pillow, curiosity sharpening her gaze into a knifepoint. Celeste winced, knowing what was coming before the first word even left her lips. 'Daddy's a prince, though, isn't he? He's your prince.'

'Sometimes,' Celeste said, refusing to lie about something so important. Hurt feelings now might save Lilly from far worse pain later.

'And Duncan is.'

Celeste smiled fondly. Yes, her caring, gentlemanly son was the closest thing to a prince she'd seen. 'He is, but Jackson isn't, so he isn't worth your tears.'

Lilly let out a laugh. Despite being weak and watery, it was a start. 'He really isn't.'

-x-

Over the years, Celeste watched Lilly play with boys' heartstrings like a concert violinist performing a show stopping solo. The whole world was her stage, and with the spotlight trained on her, nobody could look away.

Although she was rarely malicious, she knew what she wanted and chased it with youthful, lively abandon, high on power and attention. She'd taken Celeste's words to heart, seemingly trying to kiss every good-looking boy she could find. Whether she wanted to prove Celeste wrong or make the most of a bad situation, Celeste didn't know.

At times, Celeste regretted giving her that advice. It had helped her get over unrequited crush on Jackson, but instead of teaching her to disconnect from relationships, it encouraged her to dive headfirst into them at a rate unbecoming of a lady. But no matter how many times Celeste told her that, Lilly refused to listen. She had to kiss a lot of frogs, and come hell or high water, she would do precisely that.

-x-

When she found Duncan cradling Lilly's corpse in his arms, her blood painting his hands red, Celeste's whole world shattered. Her son must have killed her daughter during one of his medical episodes.

How could she forgive him for snuffing out Lilly's light?

How could she blame her only surviving child?

Months later, the real murderer was discovered, and it was a relief and a gut punch rolled into one. Knowing Duncan was innocent, knowing the one man on Earth that she fully trusted hadn't broken that trust in the worst way, took a good chunk of weight off her shoulders. At the same time, knowing who it was, knowing how it went down, knowing Celeste had cried with him and he'd comforted her and told her he'd feel the same way if Trina or Logan died…

She could never move on from that.

-x-

The first time Aaron's mugshot flashed up on TV, Celeste's stomach rolled and her mind shot back to that exchange. Perhaps, blinded by his movie star fame and careless good looks, Lilly had thought he was the elusive prince. Or perhaps she'd known better but threw herself at him anyway, figuring that if kissing frogs was all there was, she should make the most of it. Expecting warts and flaws might have desensitised her to just how damaging some flaws could be.

Either way, it was Celeste's fault. If she hadn't been so pessimistic, if she had told Lilly that boys weren't so bad instead of teaching her to accept bad behaviour, maybe she wouldn't have fallen prey to an older man. Maybe she wouldn't have been so confident in her own charm and power that she underestimated him — and died for it.

Blinking back tears, Celeste grabbed the TV remote and frantically turned it off. For the first time in a long time, she let herself cry openly.

One day, Aaron would pay for his role in Lilly's death.

She was already paying for hers.