Happily Ever After: (A Cinder & Ella Novel)
Page 32
“No, we still need Brian,” Nash said. “Having you two as a couple in the photos with the others will only make everything that much more powerful. The powerful fey prince claiming his princess, only she’s not the one the world would choose upon first sight.”
A huge smile bloomed on my face. “I hoped you would say that. My cosplay-loving boyfriend really would have been devastated to be left out of this photo shoot.”
Juliette and Ana burst into laughter. They loved that Brian, of all people, was, at heart, a huge geek.
Nash and I grinned at each other, and he kissed my face again before sitting back down. He was speechless for an entire minute before he looked around the table. “Will you do it?” he asked my family.
There was excitement and even desperation in his plea. He would beg, if he had to. Which was a good thing, considering he was going to have to convince my father to dress up like a faerie, bare-chested and in tights, and allow his daughters to be photographed in what I assumed would be some pretty skimpy faerie outfits showing a hefty amount of skin. Begging was definitely going to be necessary.
Jennifer shook as she asked, “You really want us to join Ella’s photo shoot?”
“Mrs. Coleman.” He shook his head, shooting her a smile that made her blush. “I would love nothing more. You have a beautiful family, and together with Ella, you complete a picture so breathtaking it will mesmerize the entire world.”
Tears formed in Jennifer’s eyes. Even if she wasn’t the main focus of the pictures, being photographed by Nash Wilson was a dream come true for her, and having those pictures in her portfolio would open a world of new opportunities. The twins, if they wanted to follow in the footsteps of her modeling career, which I was pretty sure Ana did—would be set.
Jennifer shook her head in disbelief and then laughed a startled laugh that was mixed with a tiny sob. “We would be honored. Wouldn’t we?”
She looked to the others. Juliette and Anastasia nodded immediately, heads bobbing like bobbleheads and eyes as wide as anime characters. “I can’t believe this,” Ana whispered. “We’re going to get to do a Nash Wilson photo shoot.”
All eyes turned to my dad, seeking final approval. He frowned at me with eyes so wary it was hard not to laugh. “Hold on now; you said something about faeries in an enchanted forest. Just what kind of family pictures are you thinking of taking?”
I let Nash explain, and as he spoke, Juliette’s, Ana’s, and Jennifer’s expressions got dreamier and dreamier, while Dad’s slowly became so horrified I worried he was going to have a stroke.
He wanted to say no. I could see it in his eyes. A little of his hesitancy was because of his daughters, but mostly it was for his own dignity. Brian may have had no problem dressing up in skintight leggings and pretending to be a faerie for the world, but Richard Coleman, power-lawyer who ate criminals for breakfast? Not likely.
“Dad,” I whispered when he opened his mouth to say no, “I can do this on my own. I can take these pictures myself, and with Brian—I’ll do that no matter what you decide—but it would mean a lot to me if you all did this with me.”
Dad’s mouth shut, and he turned a very conflicted set of eyes on me.
“I know I’m asking a lot,” I whispered. “But the thing is…I’m doing this as a way to heal. Deciding to show myself to the world is something I need to do to accept myself. But I need to accept my family as well.”
“Ella…” My dad shook his head as his voice trailed off. He didn’t know what to say. That was all right, because I’d sort of prepared this speech ahead of time.
“I called my agent this morning after I agreed to meet with Nash. We had a long conversation about what this photo shoot would mean for me and what I would want to get out of it. Ultimately, I’m looking for closure. I think I’m going to try and write my autobiography. I want to share my story. I think if I just face my fears and lay it all out there, I’ll find the acceptance over everything awful that’s happened to me. I need that acceptance with you and your family just as much as I need to accept my body.”
I lifted my gaze away from Dad and met the eyes of my stepmother and sisters. “I have never truly felt like I belonged with you. From the moment I arrived in California, I was one giant, imperfect mess trying to mold myself into your beautiful picture-perfect world. I wasn’t surprised that my father had left me for you. Why would he want me, when he had such a better offer?”
“Ella—” My dad choked on the name and reached out to me.
I surprised him when I took his hand. “I’m sorry. I know that sounds awful, but it’s the truth. I’ve been so intimidated and scared of your perfect life that I haven’t been able to let myself be a part of it. I need this. I need to feel like I can be every bit as worthy to be a Coleman as the rest of you. I need to face the insecurities I have where you, Jennifer, and the twins are concerned if I’m ever going to conquer them. So even though it’s going to make you uncomfortable, I’m still asking. Please do this for me, Dad.”
My dad looked at me for a moment before his face crumpled, and he let out a heavy sigh. “Honey, from the moment I brought you home, all I’ve wanted was for you to feel welcomed into my family.”
“Then do this with me, Dad. Let’s be a family, for once. All of us. Together. I’m about to do the most terrifying thing I could possibly ever do. I may have decided to do it, but it is going to be hard for me.” I took a breath to stave off tears that were suddenly stinging my eyes. “I could really use the extra support.”
Dad’s shoulders slumped, and resignation washed over him. “Okay.” He met my eyes with the same big bright blue ones he’d passed on to me. “If you really need this—if you really think it will help you feel like you belong in this family, then we’ll do it. I’ll do it.”
Jennifer, Juliette, Ana, and Nash all broke out into cheers, while my father and I just looked at one another. I couldn’t believe he’d agreed. Yeah, I’d totally played an underhanded card there, but I still hadn’t thought it would work. It had been the truth, though, every single bit of it. I needed this with them. And now that he’d agreed, my chest burned with as much excitement and anticipation as it did with nerves.
I’d tried so hard to stay dry-eyed, but I finally lost that battle, and my eyes welled up with tears. I threw my arms around my father and sniffled as I hugged him. “Thank you, Dad.”
“I love you, sweetheart.”
My throat closed up even tighter, and I couldn’t let him go. He didn’t seem to be in any hurry to end the hug, either. “I love you, too,” I whispered.
When I pulled back, I wiped my eyes with my napkin and blushed as I looked around the table. When my eyes met Ana’s, she smirked her classic dry smirk. “You’ve always been a Coleman, stupid.”
Stupid was a term of endearment this time, because her lips twitched. Juliette laughed and added, “Glad you’re finally ready to own it.”
I rolled my eyes at the twins as they both giggled, and then met Jennifer’s watery gaze. She smiled brightly and chuckled a little as she said, “Welcome to the family, sweetheart.”
For the first time since coming to California, the invitation felt sincere, and I was finally ready to accept it. “Thanks. It’s nice to have one again.”
FOUR MONTHS LATER
I bounced with nervous energy as Brian and I drove up to the beautiful two-story brick home with white colonial pillars. This was my first time visiting Brian’s mom and stepdad, but it wasn’t hard to pick out which house on the street was theirs, considering it was the only one decked out in full Christmas attire.
Garland was twined around the front porch railing and the pillars, a gorgeous wreath hung on the front door, and glowing white reindeer stood proudly in the front yard. Liz and Doug had even gone so far as to cover the sprawling green lawn with a layer of puffy white fluff to masquerade as snow. The lights on the house were just becoming visible as twilight hit the lovely city of Green Bay, Wisconsin. I’d timed my travel plans just right. I
t was perfect.
As we pulled into the driveway of Brian’s mother’s home, he gaped up at the decorations as if he thought his mother had lost her mind. I couldn’t blame him. It was almost August, after all. “What in the world…?
“That’s so strange,” I agreed.
Brian glanced at me, suspicion shining through his narrowed eyes. I wasn’t the actor in this relationship, that was for sure. I was hard-pressed to keep the grin off my face as I opened the door and got out of the rental car. “Let’s go find out what’s going on.”
Brian didn’t believe my innocence for a second, but he got out of the car without demanding answers and walked arm in arm with me up the driveway. Brian’s mom and stepfather were waiting on the front porch before I got all the way up the front steps. “You’re here!” Liz squealed.
She quickly hugged Brian and then pushed him aside to squeeze the life out of me. Not that she loved me more than Brian, of course; she was just excited because she knew what I’d planned.
After a quick, warm hug from Doug, they ushered us into the house. The inside was as beautifully decorated as the outside was. The Christmas tree was massive, reaching easily twelve feet high in the vaulted living room, and sure enough, there were a small pile of presents lying beneath it, waiting to be unwrapped. There were even soft carols playing and a fire roaring in the fireplace. It may as well have been Christmas Eve instead of July 25.
“You’re right on time,” Liz gushed. “I just put dinner on the table. Roast beef and mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, homemade rolls, and pumpkin pie. I’ve been cooking all day, so I hope you’re both hungry.”
“Starving,” I admitted. “It smells fantastic.”
“It smells great,” Brian agreed. “But Mom…what is going on? It’s July.”
He got no reply, because Liz had already disappeared into the formal dining room. A beautiful feast sat laid out around a lovely Christmas centerpiece, and she’d pulled out the china and the silver for the occasion. I’d never sat at a table so fancy before. “This looks wonderful, Liz.” My throat tightened at all the effort she’d put into this evening. All I’d asked her to do was set up a small Christmas tree. This was above and beyond. “Thank you for going to so much trouble.”
Liz waved us off. “No trouble at all. Come in and sit down. Let’s eat before it gets cold.”
“Mom…?” Brian tried again.
He got a stern look in response that made me giggle and had him shaking his head as he pulled out a chair for me. Yup. He definitely thought his mother had lost all of her marbles.
Once we were all seated, Doug gave a blessing, and then the plates began to fill. When I complimented Liz on her excellent Christmas dinner, Brian finally couldn’t stand it anymore. “Okay, seriously. It’s July. Mom, have you gone mental?”
Liz frowned, fork halfway to her mouth and huffed, affronted. “No, I have not gone mental, son. What I have done is gone to a lot of trouble to help your extremely thoughtful girlfriend recreate the good Lord’s birthday.”
Brian turned his you’re insane stare on me. I answered it with a patronizing smile. “Haven’t you ever heard of Christmas in July? When I realized we’d scheduled this trip on July 25, I thought it might be fun to try a do-over since our first Christmas together was, in a word, awful.”
Brian’s face immediately went from skeptical to adoring. “Last Christmas was pretty bad, wasn’t it?”
After Brian’s father had ambushed us at the movie theater and mine had cast us out of his life, yeah, I’d say it was pretty horrible. “It was,” I said. “And the one before it I was coming in and out of a coma and had just lost my mother. I want a good Christmas, and I want it before the next one, just in case I’m actually cursed or something and have to break the cycle.”
Laughing, Brian leaned over and kissed my cheek. “The only thing you are cursed with is a high-maintenance boyfriend, Cinderella.”
“Very true,” I agreed.
I laughed to myself when Brian rolled his eyes at my easy agreement and finally dug into the food on his plate. People always joked that I had Brian whipped, but in reality, I was just slightly more stubborn. We argued now as much as we ever had as Internet buddies, except now we did it vocally instead of via e-mail. Brian was a man very used to being adored by everyone and always getting his way. He would forever make demands and expect people to cater to him.
The last seven months that we’d been a couple had been a learning process for me. The trick was figuring out when I needed to stroke that fragile ego of his and when I needed to knock it down a peg. The fact that I was as stubborn as a mule and, okay, maybe a little self-righteous, was, oddly enough, one of the reasons we worked so well as a couple. He needed someone who would push back instead of just rolling over to his demands like everyone else. I never had a problem pushing back. I was always pretty quick to apologize or forgive, too, which may have been my saving grace.
“So, how was Boston?” Doug asked.
I couldn’t help the grin that escaped me. Things got so crazy so fast for me that I never did end up getting Brian a gift for Christmas. It had been Valentine’s Day when he finally pulled out his gifts to me and demanded I take them. One of them had been a trip back East. He said he wanted to be properly introduced to Mama, Abuela, and Papa. We’d had to wait until filming was wrapped on The Scarlet Pimpernel, but in June we finally managed to go back home. “It was amazing,” I admitted. “I didn’t realize how much I missed the East Coast. It was nice to go back home. We even got in touch with a few of my old friends from high school. It felt a little like visiting a dream, but I got to say good-bye. The closure was good for me.”
“Plus, the Red Sox won the game we went to, so Ellamara was a happy camper the whole trip, and when she was back there, her accent came back really heavy. It was adorable.”
I stuck my tongue out at him. His infatuation with my Boston accent was laughable. He’d spent most of the trip giggling and making me say different words.
“And how’s the autobiography coming along?” Liz asked.
I nodded my head as I cleared my mouth of food. “Really good. I’ve been working with a non-fiction writer who’s done several celebrity biographies. I’ve learned a lot from him, and Dr. Parish has helped me, too. Putting all my experiences down on paper has made a lot of headway in my therapy sessions. I bring Dr. Parish each new chapter as I write it, she overanalyzes every single sentence, I use up a whole box of tissue, and somehow I feel just a little bit better after each session. By the time the book is done, I might just be a fully-functioning, well-adjusted, mentally stable woman.”
Liz and Doug both stopped eating to blink at me, but Brian snorted, not surprised in the least that I was joking about my therapy and my mental health. The thing is, I’d found that humor is the best medicine, and while I had a lot of things to work through, it was easier to deal with them if I could joke about it. Besides, I really had made a lot of progress with Dr. Parish. Things weren’t so touchy for me anymore. Even my relationship with my father was getting pretty solid.
“No one with your temper could ever be called well-adjusted,” Brian said.
It was my turn to roll my eyes at him, even if he did have a point. A small one.
After dinner, we all decided we were way too full and needed to take a break before eating pie, so we headed into the living room to relax. Brian and I sat down on the loveseat, while Doug sat on the sofa, and Liz headed to the Christmas tree to grab the gifts and hand them out. She flashed Brian the biggest smile when she handed him the small square box with his name on it. He read the To: Cinder From: Ella on the tag and chuckled. “You really did go all out for this, didn’t you?” he asked me.
I shrugged, and he pulled me to him for a kiss.
“I’m surprised you managed to find something for me,” he teased. “Have you been looking this entire time? Because you know there’s only five months until next Christmas, and my birthday is only three weeks away.”
He laughed again and started to open it, but I stopped him. “Wait. Let your mom and Doug open theirs first.”
They each had large poster-size frames that I’d gift wrapped and sent ahead of time. Liz said Doug had been going crazy with curiosity for weeks, but I had their word that neither of them had peeked. Doug wasted no time tearing the paper off his gift. His lifted eyebrows and slack jaw when he saw the framed Green Bay Packers jersey signed by the entire team made me grin. “Is this the whole team?”
I nodded proudly. “From last season, yeah.”
Doug blinked at me in shock, and Brian shot to his feet to go get a better look at Doug’s gift. “What? You thought of something this awesome for Doug and couldn’t even think of a single thing for me? Dude. I want one of these.”
Liz and I shared a look as we both laughed. Men and their sports. I loved my Red Sox on principle and enjoyed a game here or there, but the obsession that guys seemed to have with sports had always escaped me. Liz didn’t really understand it, either, but she found the men’s giddy excitement over the prized jersey as endearing as I did.
“This is incredible, Ella,” Doug said. “Thank you so much. How did you get this?”
“And why didn’t you get me one, too?” Brian said, pouting at the small box in his hand that clearly didn’t hold a signed football jersey.
Rolling my eyes at Brian, I shrugged. “Well, I tried to get season tickets first, but apparently there’s been a waitlist for those since like 1960 or something, and no amount money or celebrity status could get them to put you on the top of the list. Believe me. I called and asked about it.”
Doug blinked again, and Brian laughed. “And you call me a diva.”
“I was not a diva about it. I simply asked if there was anything they could do to help me out, and when they said no, I said thanks and asked about getting something signed instead. They were happy to send this after I asked if The Adventures of Cinder & Ella could come visit them during pre-season camp and highlight them on our web series.”