Broken Fairytales Series Box Set (Broken Fairytales, Buried Castles, Shattered Crowns)

by Monica Alexander

  I looked up to see Emily and Jonathan enter the room. She was talking animatedly with him, and he was leaning in close, listening intently – truthfully, he was a little too close for my comfort, but she wasn’t pushing him away. Then he said something, and she smacked his chest playfully and laughed as if they were old friends, and I wanted to punch him.

  I turned back to Erin who was watching me expectantly, waiting for an answer.

  “Sorry, but I’m actually interested in someone else.”

  I figured that was the easiest way to say it without completely contradicting what I’d said on-air just four days earlier. I realized I’d seem like a complete jackass if I did that. I’d have to ease into how I let people know I was engaged.

  She nodded, and her gaze drifted to Emily. “She’s your publicist, right?”

  I followed her gaze. “Yeah, she is.”

  “Is she the girl who broke up with you? The one you wrote Without You for and the one you asked to marry you?”

  Jesus. Had this girl memorized the entire interview?

  “Something like that,” I murmured, not really wanting to discuss the semantics of my ‘love life’ with a fangirl. Besides, my mind was fully honed in on Jonathan and Emily who were sitting on the couch looking at something on Emily’s iPad with their heads together.

  Erin must have finally picked up on the fact that I didn’t want to talk so she ushered me into the huge bathroom and into a chair she’d set up in there. Without a word she got to work on my hair and make-up, which I’d never worn before, but I knew it was necessary to enhance the photos. It was just one more thing I supposed I’d have to get used to if I wanted this life.

  After ten minutes of relative silence, outside of The Killers album that was playing from Erin’s iPod, she finally spoke up again.

  “Your daughter is adorable.”

  “Thank you.”

  “She told me that she wanted to look like a princess. I hope it was okay to put a little make-up on her. Close your eyes.”

  I closed my eyes and felt her dust something on them. My face felt incredibly weighted down already, and she wasn’t even close to being done. I wondered if she’d put guyliner on me. I really wasn’t that type of guy.

  “It’s fine. Lily loves girly stuff. She plays dress-up a lot, and her mom will put some blush on her from time to time.”

  “Is the girl, um, your publicist, is she Lily’s mom?”

  Well that was a little forward.

  “No, she’s not. Lily’s from a previous relationship. Emily and I don’t have any kids.”

  “What happened? You can open your eyes.”

  I opened them to see that I was in fact wearing guyliner. Awesome.

  “What do you mean?”

  “With you and Emily. You said that you proposed but that you weren’t together anymore. I’m assuming she said yes but then changed her mind?”

  Yeah, that’s not even remotely close to the truth.

  I looked up and met Erin’s gaze. “You can’t believe everything you hear,” I told her, aiming for playful since I didn’t want to get into the reasons why I hadn’t been honest.

  Erin smiled. “I can when it comes out of the mouth of the guy it happened to.”

  “Touché,” I said, and she grinned.

  “We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. I know those sorts of things can be personal.”

  Uh, yeah, completely personal – or untrue.

  “Yeah, I don’t want to talk about our relationship,” I told her, hoping I didn’t sound like a dick.

  “It’s fine. Maybe you can tell me about your new album. I heard you guys are in town recording.”

  “Sure,” I said, relaxing a little as we moved on to an easier topic.

  Twenty minutes later, Erin had styled my hair, put more make-up on me than I’m sure Emily ever wore, and told me I was good to go.

  “I’m sorry if I was forward when I first introduced myself,” she said as I got up from the chair.

  “It’s fine.”

  “No, I feel like a jerk. I’m not usually that forward with guys, but I figured I’d take a chance. You probably don’t remember, but we met a few years ago after one of your shows. I was too shy to make a move back then, so I figured it was now or never.”

  Yeah, I had no recollection of meeting this girl before. But I’d met lots of girls, and I wasn’t always completely sober a few years back when I’d been meeting them. Drugs and alcohol had been my friend for a while, and there were nights that I had only vague recollections of what I did after our shows.

  “Don’t feel like a jerk,” I told her, because what else was I going to say? I don’t remember who you are because I was probably coked out of my mind or high on X the night we met? No, that wouldn’t go over well.

  “It’s just too bad you’re not available. My friend hooked up with you, and she said it was the best sex of her life.”

  Ho-ly shit. What the fuck was this girl doing? She did not need to be bringing things like that up. I did not want Emily hearing her say that I’d fucked her friend. Sure, she knew about my past, and I probably had slept with Erin’s friend, but I wasn’t going to shove it down my very good, very innocent fiancée’s throat.

  “That’s good to know, I guess,” I said, aiming for disinterested.

  Erin smiled. “Okay, I’ll shut up now. Can you send Leo in?”

  “Leo’s engaged,” I told her, simply because I didn’t want him getting the same treatment as me.

  “I know,” she said, winking at me. “But I’m not interested in him. If you ever decide to quit being hung up on a girl who’s not into you, you can always give me a call.”

  She reached forward and slipped something into the pocket of my jeans. I knew without looking that it was her number.

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” I told her, hoping I never had to see her again.

  “Zack, we’re ready for you,” Rachel called out, so I followed her out of the room, barely looking at Emily who was still talking to Jonathan as she fed Lily a snack.

  “Bye Daddy,” Lily called out, grinning and waving at me.

  Emily looked up and caught my eye. “Where are you going?”

  I jerked my thumb toward Rachel. “With Rachel. It’s time for my close-up, apparently.”

  I figured a well-time joke might soften the look on her face. Maybe not so much.

  “I want to come with you,” she said tersely. “Give me a minute.”

  I watched her say something to Jonathan who nodded, and then she grabbed up Lily’s things and took her hand.

  “Were you going to tell me you were leaving?” she hissed when she reached me.

  I shrugged. “You were too engrossed in your conversation with Jonathan. I didn’t want to interrupt.”

  “Zack, what the hell? Are you pissed that I was talking to him? It’s kind of my job, you know.”

  “I’m not anything, okay? I just want to get this over with so I can go home and take a nap. I’m exhausted.”

  “And crabby,” she commented. “Isn’t he crabby, Lily?”

  Lily nodded. “Daddy’s cwabby.”

  I smiled, not able to hold back. I reached for my daughter and picked her up. “Oh yeah,” I said, tickling her tummy as we followed Rachel into the elevator.

  When Lily stopped giggling, she reached out and touched my cheek. “Daddy looks pwetty like a pwincess.”

  I raised an eyebrow and shifted my gaze to the mirrored doors of the elevator. “I look like a transvestite,” I commented.

  “It won’t show in the pictures,” Rachel assured me.

  “It’d better not. I want to look badass, not girly.”

  I fingered my eyebrow ring. I’d swapped out the hoop I’d been wearing for a few weeks for a silver barbell. Lily reached up and touched it, and I smiled.

  “You’ll look badass, baby, don’t worry,” Emily assured me, taking my free hand in hers.

  I decided not to get into the whole Jonath
an thing with her then. Maybe I was just overreacting. She did have to work with him. I probably needed to cut her some slack.

  We rode the elevator all the way to the rooftop where the pool was, but there were no guests present. The whole area had been blocked off for our shoot.

  Lily gasped excitedly. “Poowl! Swimming, Daddy! Swimming!”

  “No, baby, we can’t go swimming today. You’re going to hang out with Emily while Daddy takes pictures, okay?”

  “No! Swimming!” she insisted, her voice rising, and I shook my head.

  “Lily,” I warned in my most fatherly tone, and her eyes got wide.

  I was not going to let her throw a tantrum. She was usually good, but she was also two, and there had been a few times lately where she’d thrown herself down on the floor when she didn’t get her way. That was not happening today.

  “If you’re good, maybe we can go swimming at Grandpa’s house later, but you have to be a good girl for Emily, okay?”

  “Of course she’s going to be a good girl, aren’t you Lily Lou?”

  Lily’s bottom lip poked out, and I wondered if she was going to start wailing. “I want juice,” she said instead, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Crisis averted.

  “Okay, come sit over here, and we’ll get you some juice.”

  While Rachel went to talk to the photographer, Emily and I walked over to a corner where a few lounge chairs were set up. I laid out a blanket for Lily and set her down with two of her dolls and a sippy cup of apple juice.

  Then I leaned over and kissed Emily. “Thanks for watching her.”

  She slid her arm around my waist and looked up at me. “You don’t have to thank me. I’m not her babysitter. This is just what we do.”

  She was right. We were in this together. We’d both known that when she’d said yes to my proposal. Lily and I were a packaged deal, but Emily had never once questioned that. She treated Lily like her own daughter. I just had a hard time not feeling guilty for asking her to step in. I’d have to work on readjusting my thought process.

  “However,” Emily continued, lowering her voice and leaning up so her lips were right by my ear, “when we get home later, and Lily goes down for a nap, I wouldn’t mind a little thanks if you want to give it to me.” She was teasing me, and I loved it. “Because after a day of watching you look all hot, I’m not going to be able to keep my hands off of you.”

  Yeah, now I really couldn’t be mad at her for playing nice with Jonathan.

  “Is that a promise?”

  “Did you even notice what I was wearing today?”

  I looked down to see her dressed in a fitted white t-shirt, but what I hadn’t taken the time to see before was that she was sporting the black leather skirt that she’d worn the summer before to tease me one night. She knew it was my weakness, and I couldn’t believe that in all the craziness of the night before and the morning, I hadn’t even realized she had it on. And she’d paired it with her cherry red Doc Martens, making it a completely lethal combination.

  Suddenly, all I could think about was setting her on my bathroom counter and having my way with her while she wrapped her legs around my waist and dug those rocker boots into the backs of my thighs.

  Damn. It was going to be a long-ass day with that visual in my head.

  “You really know how to tease a guy, princess,” I whispered to her.

  When I pulled back, she just smiled. “Yeah, well, there are a lot of girls around here who would do anything to take you from me, so I’m just trying to protect what’s mine.”

  I raised an eyebrow at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  She shrugged. “Nothing, it’s just that I noticed how the girl who did your hair and make-up was eyeballing you. She can’t have you.”

  Well, then you probably shouldn’t have told me to go on a national radio show and tell people I was single, because it leads them to believe that they have a chance.

  “You don’t have to worry about that. I told you. You’re mine, and that’s not going to change.”

  “I know,” she said simply. “I just think it’s funny – annoying in some ways – but funny that you get hit on everywhere we go.”

  I shook my head. “It’s the rock star thing.”

  She shook her head back at me and grinned. “No, it’s a Zack Easton thing. I don’t think you understand how hot you are.”

  “I don’t spend much time thinking about that,” I told her, because it was true. “I only care what you think and that when you look at me all you want to do is strip me naked and do really dirty things to me.”

  Then, just because I knew it would drive her wild, I stuck my tongue out just enough to run the stud over my teeth. I’d only pierced it a few months earlier after Emily asked me to do it. For being a good girl, she kind of loved tattoos and piercings, and we’d gotten into a conversation one night about body art. I told her how I’d always thought about getting my tongue pierced, and after hearing that she’d begged me to do it.

  So I’d waited until we had a break in touring, and I’d done it. I couldn’t sing for a few days since my tongue had been swollen, and after that I’d had to take it out for a few shows since I wasn’t used to singing with it in, but after two months, it didn’t even faze me.

  “Damn, Zack, don’t tease me like that,” she begged, and just her begging had me extremely distracted very quickly.

  “Oh princess,” I said, my lips brushing her earlobe. “My goal is to tease you all day, so by the time we get home, you won’t be able to keep your hands off of me.”

  “Zack!” Rachel called from across the roof. I turned around to look at her. “We’re ready for you.”

  “Be right there.”

  I clicked my tongue ring once more and smirked at Emily as I started to walk away. “Think about what I said, princess.”

  She stepped toward me and grabbed my hand. “I already am. When this one goes down for her nap, I’m going to be on you in three seconds flat. Think about that while you try to look sexy for the camera.”

  I groaned. “Shit, I’m not going to think about anything else.”

  She shrugged. “I know.” Then she turned back to Lily. “Lily, what are we playing?” she asked.

  Lily grinned at her. “Dowllies.”

  Emily looked up and caught my gaze once more, and I felt a twist in my stomach. I couldn’t wait to be alone with her later.

  Chapter Eleven

  Andrew

  “What exactly were you thinking last night?” I called into the bathroom where Derrick was showering.

  I’d followed him up to his room because I knew he was pissed that Jonathan had yelled at him. Derrick wasn’t a huge fan of people telling him what to do, but I also knew he was upset that he’d been arrested, and Jonathan laying into him hadn’t helped matters. Derrick never set out to get caught doing what he did, but for some reason, he always got in trouble, because he made bad decisions.

  A few years back, he and Zack had gotten into a horrific car accident that had landed both of them in the hospital. Derrick had been high. He never should have driven, but Zack had been too wrecked to stop him. Derrick had almost killed them both, and he’d lost his license for a year. A few weeks later, he was out partying it up again. He never learned, just like he wouldn’t learn from this mistake.

  “What?” he asked over the sound of rushing water.

  “I asked what the hell you were thinking,” I said, as I leaned against the door frame.

  “Nothing, man. I was drunk, and I had to take a piss. What were you thinking?”

  “About what?”

  “About leaving my sister high and dry this weekend. What was that all about?”

  I hadn’t expected him to turn the tables on me like that.

  “I’m just dealing with some stuff right now, and I needed to be alone.”

  “That’s bullshit. You’ve been alone for months.”

  “No, I haven’t. I’ve been with you assholes twenty-four seve
n.”

  “No, you’ve been pulling away from us assholes, and it’s pissing me off. What’s up with you?”

  “Nothing,” I mumbled.

  Then I went and sat on the bed and put my head in my hands. My cell phone buzzed in my back pocket. I’d finally texted Cole back when I got home from the bar the night before, because I’d had enough liquid courage rushing through my veins to take that leap, and we’d ended up texting until two in the morning.

  Then around eight, he’d texted again, and we’d been engaging in a semi-flirtatious text conversation ever since. I knew it blurred the lines of what we were doing, but I couldn’t help myself. Every time his name popped up on my screen I got giddy.

  And even though I had a dark cloud looming over me because I knew I had to talk to Jen later, I felt lighter than I had in months. I wished I could feel that way without hurting her, but I also knew that wasn’t possible.

  Send me a pic of you as a model. I need a visual.

  I smiled at his latest text.

  How am I supposed to do that? I’m the one modeling. I need to focus on looking like a tough, sexy rock star. I can’t be bothered with taking a selflie. I shook my head as I hit send.

  Yeah, no focus needed – trust me. Have someone else take the pic and send it to me. Seriously.

  I laughed out loud, glad that Derrick couldn’t hear me.

  Okay, I’ll see what I can do.

  Thx. Speaking of pics, did I tell you I’ve become quite the fan of LiarsEdge.com?

  I heard the water shut off in the bathroom as I typed out a response.

  Oh yeah?

  Hell yeah. There are a million pictures of you looking all hot on stage. I can’t get enough.

  That made me blush.

  “Who are you texting?” Derrick asked warily as he stood in front of me wearing just a towel, his blond hair dripping water all over his tattooed chest.

  “No one,” I said, shoving my phone back into my pocket as I willed the redness in my cheeks to disappear.