Modern Fairy Tale

by Proby, Kristen

  I search all my memories of President Luther, all of the stories I’ve heard from Grandpa. “I don’t remember Luther having any children though.”

  “No children that he claimed.” There’s a fleeting look of sadness in Merlin’s eyes. “The woman, she died in childbirth. It’s rare in this day and age, but it happened. An amniotic embolism. At the time of her death, she and her husband were in the middle of divorce proceedings and the husband knew the child wasn’t his. Luther, for all his public peccadillos, knew it would be politically dicey to claim the baby as his when the child’s conception was shrouded in a cloud of adultery and unseemliness. So the baby was absorbed into the system and put into foster care. Her husband kept their little girl—still a toddler—and Luther went on living his life, although I’ve heard he was never quite the same after her death.”

  I think of that woman, perishing before she could hold her own child. Was she alone? Was there anyone to comfort her as she labored, to hold her as she died? “This is awful.”

  “Greer, can you think of anyone you know who was raised in the foster care system? Any famous orphans that you know of?”

  It takes a second for his words to tumble over in my mind, to find purchase in what I already know. “You can’t mean…”

  “I do mean. Maxen Colchester is Penley Luther’s son. Abandoned at birth to be raised by strangers for the sake of political expediency.”

  I think of that picture in Ash’s dressing room, arms wrapped around Kay and his foster mother. “Maybe it was for the best,” I say slowly.

  “That he was raised by the Colchesters? Happy and safe, instead of growing up in the public eye? Yes, I think it was for the best. Some might even say it was meant to be. His destiny.”

  I look up at him. “Why are you telling me all of this?”

  Merlin returns my gaze, kind and direct. “Because you deserve to know where Ash came from. You deserve to know his history, because it’s about to become his future.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Merlin sighs. “It means a lot of things, I’m afraid, because Luther’s lust has sown a lot of seeds that cannot be unsown, but right now, it means that someone has gotten a hold of this story, at least according to my sources, whom I trust. It may be a week before it breaks or it may be a year, but when it does break, it will be incredibly disruptive. And now that you are with Maxen, you must expect to be disrupted too.”

  I don’t ask how he knows I’m with Ash. Whether Ash told him or whether he knows it because he seems to know everything, I always knew, deep down, that Merlin learning about us was unavoidable. I do ask another question though. “When did Ash learn about it himself?”

  There’s a flash of anger in his eyes, real anger, but I recognize it’s not meant for me. “At Jennifer’s funeral. Of all the places.”

  God. Imagine not knowing anything about your birth parents until you’re thirty-five. Long after you’ve given up hope of knowing your real origins. To have your origins be so sordid and so miserable. And then to learn it in the middle of your own personal tragedy…

  “Who told him?” I ask.

  The anger settles into a hard glitter in Merlin’s dark eyes. “His half-sister.”

  “So she knew.”

  “Oh yes. Her father made sure of that. Made sure to impress upon her how their lives were ruined by Luther, and how her mother was essentially murdered by Luther’s lust. Her father nurtured a deep bitterness inside her, the way you might nurture a hothouse flower. With lots of care and attention. Who knows when she finally found the baby that killed her mother, who knows how long she bided her time to confront him about the sins of his father, but she timed her blow with killing accuracy. She couldn’t have found a more vulnerable time to tell him.”

  Jenny’s funeral was towards the end of the campaign, only a month or two before the election. “Maybe this sister of his didn’t want him to get to the White House?” And then I have another thought. “Is she the one who leaked the story now?”

  “I believe so, yes.”

  “Oh,” I say suddenly, sitting up. “My cousin Abilene, she said something to me today. ‘You don’t get to be that powerful that young without some big skeletons in your closet…’ She said there were rumors about Ash—rumors that I might not be able to handle. She must have heard about this somehow. This must be what she meant.” Shows how well she knows me, I think irritably, if she thinks something like this would make me feel differently about Ash.

  But Merlin glances away from me when I say this, and an uncomfortable shiver works its way down my spine.

  “Merlin?”

  “There are…other…things about Maxen that I’m sure will come to light, when it’s the right time.” Merlin’s voice is unreadable, his face is a walled garden of secrecy. “And yes. I imagine they will be difficult to hear.”

  “Like what? I don’t like the idea of everyone knowing things about the man I love that I don’t.”

  At the word love, Merlin’s face softens. “I know. I’m not trying to be deliberately evasive, Ms. Galloway. If I could, I would tell you right now, because I believe that you do love Maxen. I believe that you have a right to know. But these things…well, they aren’t my secrets. They aren’t my stories to tell.”

  I run a hand over my eyes. Between Abilene and Merlin, today has been filled with too much information, too much emotion. I just want to be back with Ash again, under his body or sitting at his feet, where things feel right.

  Or with Embry…a voice whispers in my head.

  I ignore it.

  “One more thing before I go,” Merlin says, standing up and smoothing down his suit jacket. “I owe you an apology.”

  I stand up to join him, but I don’t move to stop him or encourage him, and he continues.

  “There are times that I know I must have seemed cruel or dismissive to you. Times that I was cruel and dismissive. That was unkind to you, and I’m sorry. I only ever had Maxen’s wellbeing as a priority, and for a long time, I was concerned that you would hurt him.”

  I’m dumbfounded by this. “Me hurt him?” I ask, thinking of all those nights I spent longing for him, my heartbreak in Chicago.

  “You see yourself and your potential much differently than the rest of us do, I assure you.”

  “Now you sound like Embry,” I mutter, and maybe that was a mistake, because it sends a frown pulling at Merlin’s mouth.

  “Indeed. Well, it’s not so irrational to believe that you had the power to hurt Maxen—one look at his face that night in London, and I knew he was lost to you. And that’s why I introduced him to Jennifer Gonzalez, and did everything I could to make sure they married.”

  “You set him up with Jenny to keep him away from me?” I have no idea how to think about this, even though I know exactly how to feel. A slow anger creeps up my body. “You wanted me away from him badly enough that you made him marry someone else?”

  “I didn’t make him do anything,” Merlin says mildly. “I introduced him to Jennifer and encouraged their affection as much as possible, but in the end, the choice was his. He chose her.”

  Why this still stings, I have no idea, but it does. I wrap my arms around my body. “I never understood,” I murmur, “why you disliked me so much.”

  “I told you,” he says, walking towards the door, “I worried you would hurt Maxen. I still worry about this, but it’s out of my hands now. Perhaps this too is destiny. All of our destinies.”

  “I won’t hurt him,” I say, following him to the door.

  “You won’t mean to. Not the way his sister wants to hurt him. But you will hurt him much worse than she ever could. My only hope is the knowledge that you’ll bring him more joy than pain.”

  “You can’t know any of that,” I say, and I hate how petulant my voice sounds. “You’re not actually a wizard.” Then I add, for the sake of the seven-year-old Greer, “Are you?”

  Merlin laughs again, the same room-warming laugh, and despite myself, my an
ger abates a little. “Goodbye, Ms. Galloway. I am sure we will see each other again soon.”

  I hold open the door as he walks out, and when he steps onto the front stoop, something occurs to me. “You said you wouldn’t tell me those rumors about Ash because they weren’t your stories to tell. But then why did you feel like you could tell me about Ash’s birth parents?”

  Merlin turns and smiles. He seems oblivious to the brutal November wind. “Haven’t you guessed it yet? That story is my story too.”

  It’s obvious now that he’s said it, and I can’t believe I didn’t guess before. “You were the boy, weren’t you? The boy on the estate who showed Luther the way into her room?”

  “After Maxen’s sister told him the truth, he came to tell me. I’d had no idea, but as soon as I heard the whole tale, I knew. I’d never forgotten that night, the night I met the President. I’d never forgotten how sad he looked, how…gutted…he was with loving someone. But after Maxen told me the story and I put it all together, I realized I should have known he was Luther’s son long before then. Because that gutted look? Maxen had been wearing it for years whenever he thought about you.”

  And with that, Merlin leaves, and my anger leaves with him. Confusion remains, frustration remains, but the anger vanishes, leaving an empty hole in its place. I watch him get into a waiting car and drive off, and then I close the door, my body abuzz with too many different emotions. It’s time for the coffee and bourbon I promised myself earlier, except maybe I’ll skip the coffee and go right for the bourbon.

  And it’s as I’m pouring myself a steep glass of Blanton’s that I realize Merlin never actually answered my question about being a wizard. I sit back in my kitchen chair, staring at the whiskey, thinking back to the first time I met Merlin. Thinking back to my first kiss with Ash, my night with Embry and everything that’s happened since. I think about Ash’s sister and the brightness in Abilene’s eyes and the upcoming State Dinner and the rumors swirling around the man I love, rumors so dark that everyone seems afraid to speak them out loud.

  Lastly, I think about Embry, about the way my heart still aches for him. About the way I still secretly want his heart to ache for me.

  I drink the whiskey in four long swallows without coming up for air, and then I pour myself another. Ash and I getting together should have been the end of the story, the happily ever after to our fairy tale. But somehow I have the feeling it’s just the beginning.

  I throw back the whiskey and pour myself a third glass.

  The Queen

  Chapter Seventeen

  The egg-blue gown rustles prettily as I walk up the stairs to the second floor of the Residence, the silk of the tiered skirt just loud enough to be heard over the gentle strains of music coming from below. The dinner is set to start soon—there’s a string quartet playing Chopin while the guests chatter over cocktails and hors d’oeuvres—and while I’ll be by Ash’s side for most of the evening, I want to find him before the dinner starts. Share a moment that’s only the two of us before the cameras start flashing and the gossip kicks in. Before the hungry wolves realize they’ve just found their next dinner.

  I think I hear a sound coming from the living room, and I slip through the open door saying, “Belvedere said I could find you up here—oh.”

  Ash isn’t alone.

  Looking like a prince or a movie star in his crisp black tuxedo, he’s sitting on the sofa, leaning forward, long legs bent, power coiled in his body. And Embry—also in a tuxedo—is in front of Ash, sitting on the carpet. It’s clear that both of them were engaged in a serious conversation—there’s a furrow in Ash’s brow and a cast of unhappiness to Embry’s shoulders—but that’s not what stops me in my tracks. Because Embry isn’t just sitting in front of Ash, he’s kneeling. Kneeling in front of Ash the same way I would—between his outstretched legs, caged in by the shiny black dress shoes planted on the floor. Kneeling in front of Ash as if it’s the most natural place in the world to be. And Ash isn’t only leaning forward, he’s got a hand fisted in the shoulder of Embry’s tuxedo jacket, as if they’re getting ready to fight or to kiss.

  A bolt of unthinking desire sizzles straight to my core, and my chest tightens with an unfamiliar excitement.

  Both men both freeze at my entrance, looking over at me with expressions I can’t read right away. Guilt, maybe, or maybe just guilty surprise, or maybe it’s something more complicated, like relief laced with anger…or anger laced with relief. And I don’t know what my own face betrays because I don’t even know what I’m feeling myself. They’re just talking, they’re best friends, they’re the President and the Vice President, it’s natural that they would talk together.

  But like this? And I can’t help it, I feel a stab of jealousy at their closeness, at their shared history. How many years has Embry been able to be close to Ash, how many years has Ash been able to stare into Embry’s ice blue eyes, while I was denied both of them? How often do they get to touch each other and talk together, how many evenings have started this way, when all of my evenings have started with loneliness?

  They both unfreeze at the same time. Ash drops his hand from Embry’s shoulder, and Embry eases himself back so he’s lying on his side on the carpet, propped up on one elbow, all casual elegance and ease. It looks almost illegally decadent of him, especially in that tuxedo.

  “Greer,” Ash says, and the only thing I hear in his voice is affection. Happiness that I’m here. I must have imagined the guilt and the anger, I must have been mistaken in thinking that Embry kneeling in front of Ash means something. And I’m certainly imagining the strange tugs of feeling in my chest at the sight of these two men so serious and intimate with each other. I’m imagining the near painful pull of heat in my belly at the sight of Embry on his knees between Ash’s legs.

  “You look like a princess,” Embry says as I walk over to the couch. His voice and face are teasing and friendly, but his eyes tell a different story. His eyes tell me that he remembers what I look like underneath the dress, that he remembers what I taste like and feel like. Being denied orgasms all this week has made me painfully responsive, my arousal on a hair trigger, and I have to remind myself to breathe normally.

  I’m not here with Embry. I’m not here for him. I’m here for Ash. Ash, Ash, Ash.

  Oh, but why does Embry have to look so good right now? Lounging on his side like a tiger, blue eyes like the inside of glaciers? It’s too much to be around him even at the best of times, but now, when I’m so starved for pleasure that I could come from a single touch, it’s murder.

  I sit next to Ash on the sofa, the motion deliberate and precise. Ash watches me carefully, taking me in, the thoughtful furrow in his brow growing slightly deeper.

  “This is a very beautiful dress,” he says, reaching out to run a finger along the neckline. It’s not scandalously low, but the corseted bodice pushes the swells of my breasts over the top and his finger follows the sloping curves. I let out a shuddering breath, almost a moan, and then I hear Embry scramble to his feet.

  “I should leave you two alone,” he says, making for the door.

  “Embry,” Ash calls after him.

  But Embry doesn’t look back, just tosses a half-wave in Ash’s direction. “I’ll see you downstairs,” he says, and then he’s gone.

  Ash’s profile is thoughtful when I turn back to look at him. And I think I should tell him now, explain about Chicago and Embry and all about that night, but I don’t know how to start. And I don’t know how to finish either, because if I tell that story to Ash, he’ll be able to see in an instant that Embry still affects me. That my feelings for him aren’t over with. And there would be no way to verbalize that my feelings for Embry don’t at all cancel out my feelings for Ash. They are related and intertwined, they are layered on top of one another, they are both and together and all at the same time.

  Even I don’t understand how there’s room for both inside me—how could I expect Ash to?

  There’s another momen
t of silence, and then Ash reaches for me. He easily pulls me onto him, until I’m a ball of embroidered silk perched on his lap, and he lays a light kiss on the exposed nape of my neck. One hand is splayed against my stomach, holding me close against him, and the other one is digging in my skirts, skating up past my legs to my thighs.

  I part for him with a happy sigh, and I feel the wide pads of his fingers probing my pussy through my lace thong.

  He hooks it with one finger so he can investigate further. “Wet,” he confirms in a rasp. “You’re already wet. Is it for me?”

  “Yes,” I moan, shivering as his fingers graze my clit. “It’s for you.”

  “Because this pussy is mine. Only mine. It gets wet only for me, is that right?”

  It’s not a lie when I breathe, “Yes, yes. It’s your pussy. It’s wet for you.” And it’s the truth, somehow, because even when I crave Embry, even when my body keens for him, it’s bound up with Ash. Even when I gave my virginity to Embry, it was because of Ash. My body can’t separate wanting the two.

  There’s a nip at my neck and a playful smack on my cunt. “Keep yourself wet for me,” Ash orders as he withdraws his hand from under my skirt. “And then, after the dinner, I’m going to spend the rest of the night taking care of my pussy. How does that sound?”

  I sigh. “Like dinner is going to take too long.”

  * * *

  The dinner goes much as I expected. Ash and I walk down to the dining room together, and there’s a frenzy of cameras and questions, a buzz of interest running through the guests. I feel a little like Cinderella in the blue silk gown, with my thin crystal headband nestled into my updo. Abilene tried to coax me into something a little more daring, saying I needed to maximize my entrance onto the political scene, but once I saw this ball gown, I knew it was the one. And the way Ash steals glances over at me, I know I chose correctly.

  After the staircase, Ash presses a kiss to my cheek—to the delight of the crowd—and goes to formally greet the Polish president. I join the other guests, hoping to melt anonymously into the crowd without the President by my side to draw attention.