Cavenaugh Tower (A Rapunzel Remix)

Chapter 5

The high-rise apartment Daxton lived in was in the east section of the city. It also was the most expensive apartment complex in all of Sarias. He'd convinced himself that this had to do with the location of the building. It bordered the wealthy neighborhoods at the edge of the city, and the royal palace was about a mile down the road. If he had more of an interest in government, he could walk right to it.

His father owned this apartment complex. It had been the only time David Cavenaugh delved into any type of real estate—besides buying Cavenaugh Tower.

The apartment Daxton stayed in was on the top floor and had been designed as if two apartments connected to one. Two kitchens, two living rooms, four bathrooms, and a whopping six bedrooms. All for one person. Out of all the rooms, he only used the master bedroom, one kitchen, two of the bathrooms, and the main living room. The other half, the second floor, had never been touched. Because really, what was the point?

Right as his foot hit the living room—which was nothing more than an L-shaped couch, a glass coffee table, and a 72 inch flat screen TV—his landline rang. Only three people in the entire kingdom had the number to his landline. Two of them he called mom and dad. The third was his fiancée.

Fiancée.

The word still felt awkward and pointless to him. But, speak of the devil, when he picked up the cordless phone to peer at the caller ID it read CAROLYN, MIRAM.

Apparently, she'd decided to save him the trouble of calling her back. "Hello?" Daxton toed off his shoes, placing the phone in the crook of his shoulder.

"Daxton, darling. I've been trying to get a hold of you for the last day and a half."

"Really?" He played innocent. "I'm sorry, Carrie. I've been busy."

"So busy you can't call your fiancée?"

"Again, I'm sorry," he said instead of lying.

A gentle, exasperated sigh came over the phone. "Well, I supposed you can always make it up to me with a nice dinner."

Is that what he was going to do? Probably. He ached for the days when the only person he had to make happy was himself.

Although there was one girl he would kill to get a smile or a laugh from, and her name sure as hell wasn't Carrie.

"Have you decided on a date yet?"

"Carrie, you know how I feel about this marriage."

A loaded sigh came over the phone. "Daxton, you promised me you'd try to make this work. For both of us."

He remembered making that promise. But that had been almost a year ago. Before Kamree.

"Carrie." If she stood in front of him, he would've raised his eyebrows in warning.

The two-story glass windows echoed the inside of the room back to him. Instead of being able to see the lights of the passing cars from the street, he stared only at the reflection of himself with the phone crushed between his shoulder and ear. It was like a mirror, pushing his own face back at him. He had no choice but to stare at his own frustrated expression.

And then, all at once, Carrie's switch flipped. "I discussed this with your mother, Daxton. And she feels—"

"Why is it that every time I avoid your calls, you bring my mother into this?"

"I just want you to be honest with me." Carrie's voice took on that annoyingly whinny tone he despised.

Daxton ran a hand over his face. At what point did his life get to be such an unrecognizable mass of stress and frustration?