Winning Snow White

by Maggie Dallen

  Winning Snow White

  Barely a Fairy Tale #2

  Maggie Dallen

  Copyright © 2019 by Maggie Dallen

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Image © DepositPhotos – jarih

  Cover Design © Designed with Grace

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Epilogue

  Saving Rose Red

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Jenna Knight bit into her pork dumpling and tried not to gag at the sight before her. “You guys are truly nauseating, you know that right?”

  Mackenzie, her former stepsister, had the good grace to pull away from her fiancé and end the messy, open-mouthed kiss. “Sorry, sis.”

  Jacob flashed her that ridiculously charming grin of his—the one that had made all the girls swoon back in their high school days. “Yeah, sorry, Jenna. I can’t help myself, Cinderella here is just too tempting.”

  The Cinderella in question smiled up at him with a gaze so uncharacteristically moony, Jenna groaned in disgust. “Seriously, you both need to cut it out with the Cinderella and Prince Charming crap. I mean, it was kind of funny back in high school when you hated each other. But now?” She grabbed the container of chow mein from Jacob’s hands. “Now it’s just gross.”

  Mackenzie turned to Jacob. “Don’t mind my wicked stepsister, she’s just feeling left out.”

  Jenna let out a snort of amusement. “Yeah, right.” Mack knew better than anyone that she was not a contender in the dating game. That wasn’t to say she didn’t go out with men—she was a human with basic needs, after all. But she had no delusions about true love or happily-ever-afters.

  While she was glad that her stepsister had found happiness, it was fitting that they called themselves Cinderella and Prince Charming. Love, like dragons and wicked witches, belonged in fairy tales.

  “No offense, but if I ever look at anyone the way you look at each other—put me out of my misery,” she said, pointing at the two of them with the ends of her wooden chopsticks.

  Mack rolled her eyes. “That’s not what I’m talking about.” With a wicked grin, she turned to Jacob. “Jenna here is feeling left out because she doesn’t have a nickname.”

  “Aww,” Jacob said. “That’s a shame. Maybe we should give her one.”

  As Jenna opened her mouth to protest, Mack cut in. “Snow White!”

  Jacob nodded solemnly. “Definitely Snow White.”

  Jenna couldn’t help but laugh. “And what on earth do I have in common with Snow White? Wasn’t she all virginal and sweet?”

  “You’re sweet,” Jacob said.

  She and Mack stared at him with matching looks of disbelief.

  “In your own way,” he added quickly, before shoving a bite of food in his mouth.

  Mackenzie patted his knee as she turned to Jenna. “What my kind, but clearly delusional boyfriend means is that you look the part.” She waved a hand in Jenna’s general direction. “I mean, look at you. You’ve got the whole black hair, fair skin, and red lips thing going on. What other character would you be?”

  “Queen of the damned?” she offered.

  “It does kind of sound like you’re describing a vampire,” Jacob added.

  Mackenzie sighed. “Whatever. You’re both idiots with no imaginations.”

  Jacob shot her a lopsided grin. “She means that in the nicest way possible.”

  Jenna laughed. “Yeah, she’s really mellowed since high school, hasn’t she? She’s all sweetness and light these days.”

  Mackenzie ignored their teasing—she’d be the first to admit that she’d been a brat back in high school. But she and Jenna had despised each other back then. Not surprising considering the guerilla-warfare way her dad and Mack’s mom had thrown them together, joining their families overnight with their whirlwind marriage. In their incredibly brief honeymoon period the parents had decided it would be a fantastic idea to tear Mack away from her friends in Queens and ship her off to an uber-preppy boarding school with Jenna.

  Mackenzie did not adjust well. And to be fair, Jenna, Jacob, and their friends hadn’t exactly gone out of their way to make Mackenzie feel welcome at her new school. In return, Mack had outright despised the so-called “cool kids.” Which made her stepsister’s next statement all the more surprising.

  “Speaking of high school. Jacob and I are going to the ten-year reunion next week. Are you in?”

  Jenna stared at her openmouthed for a moment. “Seriously? You are voluntarily going to an East Harbor event?” She narrowed her eyes at her sister. “You’re not going to bring pig’s blood and pull a Carrie or something, are you?”

  Mack just laughed, which didn’t make her feel a whole lot better. Jacob didn’t seem to mind; he turned to her with wide, hopeful eyes. “Come on, Jenna, you’ve got to go. Everyone will be there.”

  “Everyone meaning…”

  “All of Satan’s spawn,” Mackenzie said.

  “I don’t know, you guys…” Jenna tried to imagine how this would go down. Seeing all those old friends—most of them had gotten married and several of them had already started having kids. It wasn’t like she was doing badly—after a short stint at the district attorney’s office she’d joined a high-profile family law office where she’d made a name for herself as a ruthless divorce attorney. Her career was going well…ish.

  She didn’t hate what she did and it was a critical step on the path to her true career goal. But even though she was satisfied with her love life—or lack thereof—the thought of going solo and having to answer the question “So, are you seeing anyone?” was just plain depressing. Not that she minded being alone but somehow she just knew her old classmates would pity her.

  She could not do pity.

  Mack seemed to know what she was thinking. “Come on, you could come with us. We’ll have fun, I promise.”

  “Thanks, but I already feel like enough of a third wheel crashing your date tonight.”

  Her stepsister looked outraged. “What are you talking about? Weekly Chinese takeout is our thing. If anyone is the third wheel here, it’s Jacob.”

  “Thanks,” Jacob said, but they both ignored him.

  Setting her plate to the side, she reached for her purse. “Our thing or not, I’m afraid I have to get going. Your former stepfather is waiting.”

  Mackenzie frowned. “You have to go see your dad?”

  The confusion in Mackenzie’s voice was testament to how close she and her father were not. She had to admit, even she had been shocked to get a text from him asking her to come by his Upper East Side apartment that night.

  “What am I missing?” Jacob asked. “Why is that so bad?”

  She and Mackenzie exchanged an amused look. “It’s not bad,” she started.

  “Just surprising,” Mackenzie finished. “I mean, Donald Knight is nowhere near as bad as your dad, but he’s not exactly warm and fuzzy.”

  Jenna rolled her eyes. That was putting it mildly. “All right, kids, I better be off. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

  Jacob called out to her as she headed toward Mack’s front door. “Think about the reunion, Sn
ow White. We’d love to see you there.”

  She gave a little wave over her shoulder as she slipped out the door.

  An expensive taxi ride from Brooklyn to the Upper East Side had her standing in her father’s lobby a half hour later as she waited for the stoic doorman to announce her arrival.

  He replaced the phone. “You can go on up, Ms. Knight.”

  She rode the quiet elevator up to the penthouse, exhaustion making her slump back against the wall and close her eyes for a heartbeat. In and out, she promised herself. She’d hear whatever her father had to say and then she’d head home, take a nice long bath, and get up bright and early to do it all again tomorrow.

  The doors slid open and she walked silently down the hallway, the plush carpeting dampening the sound of her footsteps. The quiet was disconcerting. Her father’s apartment building was a silent, opulent oasis in the middle of the concrete jungle.

  She tapped once and the door was opened by an unfamiliar middle-aged woman who wore scrubs and had her hair pulled back in a severe bun. Cleaning woman? The woman’s sharp gaze met hers and she eyed Jenna as though she was examining a specimen in the lab. “Your father is in his bedroom.”

  Okaaay. And who are you? But Jenna didn’t bother to ask. What did it matter? In and out. In and out. She repeated the mantra as she made her way through the foyer, hallway, and living area to the back of the spacious apartment where the master suite was located.

  “Dad?” she called out as she drew near.

  “Come in,” he called.

  The door was slightly ajar and she pushed it open, coming to a stop just inside the doorway. She froze, actually. Fear paralyzed her and turned her stomach to a churning pit of acid.

  This wasn’t her father. The man in the bed was pale, frail, thin…nothing at all like the larger-than-life man who’d paid for her nannies and boarding schools. The smell of antiseptic had bile rising in her throat. She’d never been any good in sickrooms. Though only a small child when her mother died, she’d been old enough to form memories and the sights and smells of hospitals was always enough to bring them back in full force.

  This may not have been a hospital but it was close enough. Her father was hooked up to an IV with wires attached to his chest. His strong features looked weak thanks to his pale skin and watery eyes.

  “What happened?” It came out shaky and she forced herself to try again. “Are you sick?”

  Stupid question. Of course he was sick. But her father showed restraint in not pointing out the idiocy of her statement. Instead he nodded toward a chair beside his bed. “Have a seat.”

  She did as she was told, suddenly and annoyingly feeling like a small child again. She blamed it on the crippling memories of her mother’s deathbed. That was the only reason she was acting like the dutiful daughter.

  In terse, unemotional language he spelled out the details of his heart attack, along with the doctors’ instructions that he keep to his bed for the foreseeable future.

  When he was done, Jenna’s jaw was slack. Questions bombarded her brain and it took every ounce of willpower to restrain herself from getting emotional. Her father wouldn’t want that. Instead she swallowed down the childish tears and forced herself to think logically.

  “What can I do to help?” Because, obviously, that was why he’d called her. He hadn’t phoned from the hospital so reaching out wasn’t some odd show of emotion. No, this had to be about business. That was the one thing father and daughter had in common. The law.

  She tried not to overanalyze why she’d pursued a law degree, but had an unsettling feeling there were some daddy issues behind the decision. Nevertheless she’d made it her own and had shocked them both by turning down his offer to have her join the firm after she passed the bar. Instead she’d done a brief stint at the district attorney’s office before turning her focus to family law.

  Her decision to go her own way rather than follow in his footsteps was one he’d accepted but never quite understood. Which was probably why his request didn’t surprise her nearly as much as it could have.

  “I’d like you to come work for Knight & Knight.” The firm was named after him, obviously, and his ex-wife Margaret Knight, who’d kept the name but not the husband. They’d married shortly after her mother passed away but their relationship went back much further. To hear Margaret tell it, she and her father fell madly in love in law school and they’d been off and on ever since. The Ross and Rachel of lawyers.

  She and Margaret had never gotten along, which was one of many reasons she’d avoided working with her father straight out of law school and why she dreaded the thought of it now.

  No. She resisted the urge to deny him outright. Maybe if he hadn’t been quite so pale… “Why?” she said instead.

  Her father frowned and the grim expression was just as terrifying as ever, despite his pallor. “Someone in the firm is out to get me.”

  Jenna pressed her lips together. Hard. She had to so she wouldn’t laugh out loud.

  “I’m serious,” he snapped.

  “Mmhmm.” She leaned forward and lowered her voice. “Did your doctors put you on pain meds, by any chance?”

  His eyes narrowed. “This is not a laughing matter, Jenna.”

  “It sounds a bit dire, doesn’t it?” She lowered her voice to mimic his, “They’re out to get me.”

  He watched her with a look of disapproval as she laughed at her own joke. “I’m so glad you find this amusing.”

  Resisting the urge to roll her eyes at her father’s paranoia, she leaned back in her chair and gave in to the inevitable. There was no getting out of there until he had his say—the sooner they got the conversation over with the sooner she could leave that awful room. “I’m listening.”

  “It’s Margaret, I’d bet my life on it.”

  Oh, here we go. Margaret was one of four former stepmothers. While the other wives had come and gone, never to be heard from except on the odd occasion when an alimony check was late, Margaret was always in the picture, thanks to their working arrangement. Always. She supposed her father and Margaret had thought opening a firm of their own together had sounded like a splendid idea when they were happily married. Now? The firm had become a battleground. Neither wanted to give up his or her role as name partner, but they were forever bickering and battling over clients.

  Jenna thought of Margaret as the female version of her father—cold, ruthless, and a raging workaholic. They were too similar to be in the same room together for too long, let alone share an office… or a bedroom. It was no wonder their marriage hadn’t worked. The fact that the firm was still thriving with both of them at the helm was a bit of a mystery.

  They had been fierce competitors prior to starting up a firm together. By joining forces they became an unstoppable force in the world of corporate law. From Jenna’s monthly duty-bound dinners with her father she knew that they were paying the price. Yes, they were now a mega-firm with loads of major clients… but with great power came great power struggles.

  Which was why Jenna wasn’t surprised by his announcement that Margaret was out to get him. She sighed wearily as she asked, “What did she do this time?”

  “She’s trying to take advantage of my weakened state, but it won’t work.” Her father was glaring off into the distance, most likely plotting retaliation for whatever it was she’d supposedly done to wrong him.

  “Could you be a tad more specific?”

  The glare turned to her but he didn’t comment on her rude tone. It had been years since her father tried to get her to speak to him with the respect he thought he deserved. For her part, she believed that respect needed to be earned and in her father’s case, he hadn’t even hit the bare minimum of fatherly duties, let alone done anything to merit her good opinion.

  Participating in the act of conception hardly merited a medal, as far as she was concerned.

  “Your stepmother—”

  “Former stepmother,” she reminded him.

  “Your s
tepmother broke into my office and has been digging around.”

  Jenna blinked at him. Well, that was not what she’d expected to hear. The thought of her ex-stepmother doing anything as undignified as breaking and entering was difficult to believe.

  At her silence, he added, “Or perhaps she hired someone to do it.”

  Yes, now that was far more likely. Probable even. “And?”

  His eyes narrowed on her. “Using my illness against me to stage a coup? The woman has no shame.”

  She bit back a sigh. “It’s hardly worse than you using her absence to try and steal her biggest client.”

  “That was different,” he snapped. “She wasn’t sick.”

  “No, she was just at her mother’s funeral. My mistake.”

  “This is serious, Jenna. The woman will steal my firm out from under me given half a chance.”

  When Jenna continued to stare at him nonplussed, he added, “Your birthright.”

  She gave a snort of amusement at that Hail Mary. “Right,” she drawled. “How many times have I told you that I’m not joining your firm. I want nothing to do with this feud.”

  His nostrils flared as his eyes narrowed and Jenna got a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. Her father was up to something. “Fine. You don’t want to join the firm. But there must be something you do want.”

  The bad feeling was replaced by a flicker of excitement but she kept her expression neutral. It would do no good to let her father know that he had the upper hand. No, this was her chance—the opportunity she’d been waiting for. She finally had leverage and her dream could be a reality in the near future rather than decades off, as it would be with her current plan.

  She let out another weary sigh and ignored his question. “Just get to the point, Donald. What do you want?”

  He hated when she called him by his first name and the move had the desired effect. That wheedling look was gone, replaced by annoyance. Upper hand, regained.