Wickedly Charming

by Kristine Grayson

  “He is,” Mellie said.

  “Let me get you some cash,” Groton said. “That way we still pay for your dinner—”

  “No,” Mellie said. “I can afford it.”

  “I know,” Groton said, “but that’s not the point. This trip is all on us.”

  “Then I’ll give you the receipt and you can reimburse me,” Mellie said.

  Groton smiled. “Deal.”

  Mellie sighed, feeling more tired than she had in days, maybe weeks. The stress of the tour finally hit her. “Am I done for the day?”

  “You are,” Groton said, “but remember, we need you at 6 a.m. sharp. You’re diving in with both feet. Howard Stern in the morning. And he won’t be easy on you.”

  “He wouldn’t have been easy on me even if there had been no scandal,” Mellie said.

  “Exactly,” Groton said. “So be rested.”

  Mellie nodded. She thanked Groton and said she could find her own way out. Which was easier said than done. Every corridor looked the same.

  Finally, she had to ask a woman in one of the cubicles how to get to reception. The woman gave detailed instructions, as if Mellie were about to embark on a trip into the wilderness, and then set her free.

  Eventually, Mellie found that steel door she had come through in what felt like days ago. As she touched the door, she smiled. Going from the reception to the real world of publishing felt like going from a Grimms’ Fairy Tale to the real world of the Kingdoms. The Kingdoms had some elements of Grimm, but it wasn’t truly magical and it wasn’t pretty and it certainly wasn’t what you expected.

  Mellie pushed the door open and stepped into the brightly lit reception area. Charming hadn’t arrived yet. The receptionist smiled at Mellie from the desk. Mellie crossed to one of the couches. As she sat down, she realized that two other people were in the room.

  They sat on the couch which was on the same wall as the door she had just come through, which was why she hadn’t seen them. She recognized them instantly.

  Charming’s daughters.

  They were much more beautiful in person. They had the same glamour that most people from the Kingdoms had, a bit of something extra that made them seem more alive than the average person in the Greater World.

  The youngest, Grace, sat with her feet tucked underneath her, leaning against the arm of the couch, a book in her hand. She wasn’t reading, even though she pretended to be. She looked at Mellie over the top of the book.

  Mellie smiled at her.

  Grace looked down at the page, pretending not to see her.

  The other daughter, Imperia, was much more formidable. She had the reedy thinness girls got just before they headed into puberty. She would be tall and glamorous. She had pale blond hair and her father’s bright blue eyes. She was stunning—or she would be if she smiled.

  Mellie had a sense that Imperia didn’t smile much at all.

  The girl seemed desperately unhappy.

  “You’re the woman who was in our hotel room last night,” Imperia said.

  Mellie wasn’t going to lie to her. “Yes.”

  The receptionist gave them all a sympathetic look, then grabbed a pile of papers, and excused herself for a moment. She went through a door behind the desk that Mellie hadn’t noticed before. The door was the same color as the wall, apparently designed to be unnoticed.

  Mellie frowned. It seemed as though the receptionist was trying to give them privacy.

  “You know who my dad is, right?” Imperia said.

  “Yes, I do,” Mellie said.

  “You know what they call him.” Imperia’s spine was straight. She had perfect princess posture. Grace looked over at her with an expression bordering on fear.

  But fear for whom? Mellie? Or Imperia? Or just fear of a scene?

  “They call him many things,” Mellie said.

  “He’s Prince Charming,” Imperia said. “He’s the handsome prince.”

  “I know,” Mellie said. She would not let herself smile. She didn’t want Imperia to think Mellie was patronizing her. Because Mellie wasn’t. She wanted to hear what Imperia had to say.

  “And you know what a handsome prince’s job is, right?” Imperia asked.

  To live happily ever after? Mellie almost said, but stopped herself in time. Right now, from Imperia’s point of view, her father had no happily ever after. He had just divorced their mother.

  “His job,” Imperia said before Mellie could come up with a second answer, “is to rescue damsels in distress.”

  “Oh,” Mellie said, and felt her heart sink. Of course, Imperia was right. Saving damsels in distress was as natural to Charming as, well, his charm.

  “You’re not the first one he’s rescued,” Imperia said.

  “Imp,” Grace whispered, as if she didn’t want to be part of the conversation.

  But Imperia didn’t look at her.

  “He makes them all feel safe and special and oh, so important, but they’re not. They’re just damsels, and he’s just doing his job.” Imperia spoke with great force. She didn’t have her father’s charm, but she had something stronger. She had certainty.

  Mellie’s gaze met hers.

  “You’re just the latest damsel,” Imperia said. “There will be another.”

  And that was the sentence that made Mellie take a deep breath. Suddenly she recognized this emotion. Imperia was only twelve. She was terrified. Her father was divorced, and now he had spent a night with another woman. Even if Imperia didn’t know that they had made love, she knew that Mellie had been in the room with him.

  Imperia knew that they were more than friends.

  And she felt threatened.

  Mellie felt her own shoulders relax.

  “I know that’s what he does,” Mellie said. “And I can’t tell you how grateful I am that he helped me.”

  Imperia’s eyes narrowed. She had clearly hoped to upset Mellie—and she had nearly succeeded.

  “What were you doing in our room?” Imperia asked.

  “Trying to figure out how to solve a problem with my book,” Mellie said. “We had to have a meeting on it today, and last night was the only time.”

  “He kissed you,” Imperia said.

  Mellie nodded. “I kissed him back.”

  “Do you love him?” Imperia asked.

  Mellie looked at the girl. Mellie didn’t want to lie to her, but she also didn’t want to tell her the truth. In Imperia’s life, she had probably seen dozens of women fall for Prince Charming. This Prince Charming.

  The real Prince Charming.

  Her father.

  Mellie leaned back, trying to think of the best way to answer.

  Chapter 45

  Charming had just left his interview with the New York Times reporter when he saw the receptionist scurry by him. His heart started pounding.

  Why had she left her post?

  Why had she left the girls alone?

  He pushed his way past the cubicles, not stopping in the publisher’s office like he’d been asked to do. They had already let him know what they wanted: they wanted him to write a book under his own name—

  Anything you want, Phillips said, so long as it’s fiction. You’re a spectacular writer.

  I told you, Charming said, it’s Mellie’s words.

  And your ability to make them clear, Phillips said. Not to mention your ability to tell a story.

  Charming didn’t want to think about that right now, just like he didn’t want to think about the reporter he saw. At least he’d been able to sway her. Charm had worked beautifully, helped by the fact that she had no respect at all for ghost writers. She was perfectly willing to believe that it was Mellie, and Mellie only, who made Evil work.

  Her news story—“An Interview with a Ghost,” she said she’d call it—would go a long way to repairing the damage done by Cindy Jordan. Besides, the Times reporter told Charming, Cindy Jordan had been fired from two stations for embellishing her research. I wondered, when this story broke, if she
had embellished here.

  And she made it seem like she would check. He would let her. Everything would work out. The tension in the publishing house had eased. Now he just had to tell Mellie, and gather up his girls.

  If, indeed, they were okay. The threat from Ella had ended, but that didn’t mean his girls should be left alone in the reception area.

  He opened the double steel doors to see Mellie, sitting on the couch, looking a bit bemused. Across from her, Imperia had gone into full imperial mode.

  Charming eased the door closed quietly. No one noticed him except Grace. She started to say something, but he put a finger to his lips. Her eyes smiled at him, clearly liking the fact that they had a momentary secret.

  “He makes them all feel safe and special and oh, so important, but they’re not,” Imperia was saying. She sounded angry. “They’re just damsels, and he’s just doing his job.”

  His poor daughter. He had no doubt these words had come directly from Ella’s mouth, more than once. He had so much work ahead to repair the damage that Ella had done.

  “You’re just the latest damsel,” Imperia said bitterly. “There will be another.”

  He looked at Mellie. She took a deep breath. His breath caught too. He didn’t know what he would do if she believed this nonsense. She already had troubles because of who he was. She felt herself unworthy, as if he was something special.

  He was a divorced dad who owned a bookstore. Nothing more. At least, nothing more in the Greater World. In the Kingdoms, he was even more of a failure. Everyone knew he would never be King, not with his dad hanging on forever.

  Mellie tilted her head slightly as if she were assessing Imperia.

  “I know that’s what he does,” Mellie said. “And I can’t tell you how grateful I am that he helped me.”

  Charming let out that small breath he’d been holding. He hadn’t expected that answer from Mellie. Neither, he noted, had Imperia.

  Imperia’s eyes narrowed. He privately called that her “incoming” look. It meant she was going to let something nasty fly.

  “What were you doing in our room?” she asked.

  “Trying to figure out how to solve a problem with my book,” Mellie said. “We had to have a meeting on it today, and last night was the only time.”

  God, Mellie was good. In fact, she was spectacular. She wasn’t letting Imperia get to her. Mellie seemed to know exactly what to do.

  So, of course, Imperia ratchetted up the tension.

  “He kissed you,” Imperia said.

  Mellie smiled. The smile was warm and a bit personal, as if she had remembered the moment. He remembered it. He loved kissing her.

  Mellie nodded. “I kissed him back.”

  Imperia’s frown grew. She was getting angry because she couldn’t control Mellie.

  “Do you love him?” Imperia asked.

  Good question, he thought. He finally was beginning to understand what Mellie had said about Snow White. Snow had been slightly older when Mellie had married into the family. And Snow was grieving the loss of her mother.

  Snow had challenged her, just like Imperia was doing.

  This must have felt very familiar to Mellie.

  He wanted to hear the answer, but he knew that any answer—yes, no, maybe—would only make Imp angrier. He wanted Mellie in his life. And that meant teaching his girls how to get along with her.

  So he spoke up.

  Chapter 46

  “That’s really none of your business now, is it, Imp?” Charming was standing near the steel doors. For the first time in their entire acquaintance, Mellie hadn’t noticed when he entered the room.

  Imperia glared at him. Charming seemed unfazed. He just looked at her, calmly. His daughter’s moods didn’t seem to upset him.

  And that was a good thing.

  “I happen to care about Mellie,” Charming said.

  Mellie’s breath caught. She hadn’t expected him to say that, particularly to his daughters. She heard the warmth in his voice.

  He did care for her.

  And that meant more than she could say.

  “Are you going to marry her?” Grace asked, sounding scared.

  Mellie winced. She didn’t want to threaten these girls in any way. She had been shoved into a family before. She didn’t ever want that to happen again.

  “We haven’t discussed it,” Charming said, his gaze meeting Mellie’s. His eyes smiled at her—yet another version of that smile!—and she could sense the tenderness. “So that means the answer, at the moment, is that we have no plans to marry.”

  Perfect answer. It didn’t bother her at all, not the way his answer in the meeting had bothered her. This answer kept the door open—wide open, actually—to some kind of future.

  And Imperia caught that.

  “That doesn’t mean anything,” Imperia said. “You could make plans.”

  “Do you want us to?” Charming looked at his oldest daughter with great amusement. He knew she wouldn’t want that, but he also didn’t seem to mind teasing her.

  Of course, Imperia didn’t seem to know she was being teased.

  “No, I don’t want that,” Imperia said, giving Mellie a sullen glance.

  Mellie said nothing. She didn’t dare. She was going to have to be gentle with those girls, help them accept her slowly, not quickly.

  Charming grinned at Imperia, then looked at Mellie. “So I see you’ve met my girls.”

  The amusement in his voice made her want to smile. But she didn’t dare. She needed to do this introduction correctly.

  “We haven’t met formally, no,” Mellie said.

  “In the Greater World,” he said, “the Charming family does nothing formally.”

  Grace clutched her book to her chest, blue eyes wide as they looked at Mellie.

  “But we’re formal in the Kingdoms,” Grace said. “Grandfather insists.”

  So she wanted formality. Mellie noted that.

  “But your grandfather’s not here,” Charming said, “so we don’t have to do things his way.”

  Grace took a deep breath. Clearly she had grown up with her grandfather as the ultimate authority. A frightening authority. Something more to work on.

  Something Mellie didn’t dare tackle in this reception room. Instead, she would discuss it with Charming later.

  In fact, all of this would be better discussed later, over that dinner the publisher was going to pay for, maybe. Or in Charming’s room after the girls had fallen asleep.

  Mellie looked at Charming.

  “Did the interview go all right?” Mellie asked.

  Charming shrugged. “I hope so because I’m not doing another.”

  Mellie stood. It felt good to be on her feet. Imperia leapt to hers, but Grace stayed down as if she didn’t want to be noticed.

  “I have the evening off,” Mellie said.

  “Goodie for you,” Imperia said.

  “Imp,” Charming said, a warning in his voice.

  “It’s all right,” Mellie said. “I worry her.”

  “You do not,” Imperia said.

  Mellie smiled at Charming. He smiled back.

  “She should worry,” he said softly.

  “Why?” Grace asked, that fear still in her voice.

  “Because there might be a stepmother in our future,” Imperia snapped.

  Charming nodded, then raised his eyebrows, as if he had just caught himself agreeing with Imperia.

  “Imperia reminded me,” Mellie said, “that you are Prince Charming. There are a million distressed damsels in need of your services.”

  Imperia made a noise that sounded like strangled words. If Mellie had to guess, what Imperia had strangled was the urge to tell Mellie to shut up, and not let her father know what she had said.

  “Are you a damsel in distress?” Charming asked Mellie, using that tone he’d had the night before.

  When they were alone.

  “Not anymore,” Mellie said.

  “Then I should fee
l no compunction to be with you,” he said. “And yet I do.”

  Her heart rose. She wanted to go to him, but she didn’t. Not in front of his daughters.

  “You realize this isn’t how the fairy tale ends,” Mellie said softly.

  “I’ve had the fairy tale,” Charming said. “The fairy tale sucks.”

  “Da-ad!” Imperia said. Grace looked up, obviously shocked.

  Charming didn’t look at them. He was looking at Mellie.

  “I prefer the Greater World,” he said, “with its hard-edged reality.”

  “And its books,” Mellie said with a smile.

  “Oh, yeah,” Charming said. “I used to think the books were the best part.”

  “What’s best now?” Grace asked.

  “My girls,” Charming said, still not looking at her. “All three of my girls.”

  Then Charming slowly and deliberately walked across that reception area, stopped in front of Mellie, and took her chin in his hand. He gazed in her eyes.

  The intimacy of the movement surprised her. She thought he’d wait until later to touch her. Maybe wait a few weeks before letting the girls know exactly how he felt.

  But apparently, he didn’t feel like waiting.

  “I don’t believe in happily-ever-afters,” he said to Mellie.

  Neither did Mellie. His words made her smile. “Happily-ever-afters are too easy,” she said.

  “I think relationships take work,” he said.

  “All the time,” she said.

  He bent his head toward hers. His lips hovered near hers. He was almost—almost—kissing her. If she moved just a little, their lips would touch.

  But she didn’t want to make the first move in front of his daughters.

  “Dad,” Imperia said. “She’s the evil stepmother.”

  “She’s no more evil than the rest of us,” Charming said without looking at his daughter. “In fact, once you get to know her, she’s an amazing woman.”

  Then his lips brushed hers. His hands slipped down to her shoulders, then along her arms, putting them around him. He pulled her close, and kissed her, really kissed her.

  Mellie melted into him. To hell with his daughters. Mellie wanted to enjoy this kiss, and she was going to.