Fairytale Come Alive (32 page)

“Because…” She stopped and her gaze slid to the side.

He pushed closer. Her gaze snapped back.

“Sally’s fine,” she answered. “She’s going to be okay. And this isn’t my home, this isn’t my life. I have a home and a life in Chicago. I need to get back.”

He stared at her.

When she spoke again, it was softer and the hostility was gone. “They shouldn’t get used to me.”

“Too late,” Prentice returned, watched as her eyes closed and felt his already heightened anger rising even further. “So this is it?” he asked. “This is what you’re going to do now?”

Her eyes opened again and he saw confusion.

“Pardon?”

“Slide into their lives, light up their worlds, slide out, leave me to deal with their disappointment while you send boxes filled with expensive presents from wherever you are, making certain they’ll be thinking of you even though they’ll never be certain they can have you?”

Her face filled with shock and her mouth opened to speak but she didn’t when his anger boiled over.

He let her go and took a step away.

“All right, Elle, if I can guide them through losing their mother, I can guide them through losing you,
repeatedly
. At least I have practice with
that
.”

He regretted his words again when her face assumed an expression like she’d just been struck.

But he was angry enough that he didn’t take them back. Furthermore, they were the fucking truth.

He watched as she rearranged her features but she couldn’t quite hide the hurt.

Then she whispered, “What do you want me to do?”

“Don’t leave,” he replied instantly.

Her eyes grew wide.

“You want me to… to… to
move
here?”

Christ, how had
this
come about?

But he knew. This came about because this was Elle and every situation with Elle deteriorated to something out of his control.

He glared at her for a long moment before he answered, “No. I don’t want you to move here. But I want you to stay until Sally’s fit again. Until there’s a good time to explain the situation so they know what you are to them and what they can expect.”

“What am I to them?” she asked him, now
sounding
confused.

He simply stared at her.

She definitely was mad.

When she continued to gaze at him in that baffled way, he enquired with disbelief, “You’re serious?”

“I –”

He tried to gentle his tone when he said, “Think about it, Elle. You lose your mother and, a year later, a glamorous woman who understands your loss floats in the front door baking cakes and telling stories about your Mum and varnishing your fingernails. You lost your Mum, Elle. If you had a woman like that come into your life, what would she be to you?”

Her eyes skittered to the floor; she examined it for awhile before she sighed.

Then she murmured in a voice so soft, he barely heard her, “I really messed this up, didn’t I?”

For some reason her words disturbed him so much his anger immediately evaporated. They were uttered in a way that made it seem she took sole responsibility for everything that befell her, Prentice and his children when practically none of it (but her leaving him the second time) had been in her control.

Before he could stop himself, his hand came to cup her jaw and his thumb stroked her cheek.

At his touch, her gaze went back to him.

“You didn’t mess anything up, Elle,” he replied quietly. “This is bloody life. Life is always messy. Now, we just need to sort it out.”

She nodded, the soft skin of her face moving against his hand, her eyes still confused and tired but they’d grown warm.

Before he did what very much he wanted to do, slide his thumb along her lower lip then put his lips where his thumb had been, he dropped his hand.

“Go to bed and get some sleep. We’ll talk when you’re less tired.”

She nodded, pulled in a breath and with a heavy tone, she whispered, “Prentice, I’m so sorry about the magazine.”

There was more weight to those words than was required. She hadn’t sold the fucking photo to the magazine.

“It isn’t your fault,” he pointed out the obvious.

“I’m the reason –”

His hand came back to her jaw and she stopped speaking.

“It isn’t your fault, Elle,” Prentice repeated firmly.

“Okay,” she replied quickly but not very convincingly and before he could say another word, she said, “Goodnight.”

He watched her whirl, open the door and then disappear.

Prentice stared at the door, feeling a vague sense of unease about that entire scene and
not
for the obvious reasons one would be uneasy about that scene.

His eyes on the door, he tried to call up what troubled him.

When he failed, he strode back to his glass, grabbed it, went to the cupboard, tagged the bottle of whisky by the neck and took the whole fucking bottle up to his balcony.

* * * * *

Fiona

You should read her journals,
Fiona told her husband as she floated with her arse close to the railing of the balcony where he was standing.

She was floating as if she was sitting there, her ghostly elbows to her ghostly knees, her ghostly eyes on his brooding face.

He didn’t respond because he didn’t hear her.

Nevertheless, she kept talking.

You’d understand if you read her journals.

Prentice kept his eyes to the sea as he took a sip from his glass (the third glass, Fiona was counting).

She sighed a ghostly sigh.

Then she said,
I don’t know why the powers that be did this to me and I hate it. But I love you enough to want you to have the world and she’s been your world for twenty years. If I wasn’t already dead, that would kill me. But even I can see that you two were meant to be. Why can’t YOU see? Why don’t you FIGHT for her?

Prentice continued to stare at the sea.

You don’t want her to leave,
Fiona told him.

He didn’t respond.

Quietly, with all the feeling a dead woman could feel for the live woman who made the words true, Fiona stated,
She’d lay down her life for our children.

“Aye,” Prentice said softly to the sea.

Fiona melted through the railing.

Swiftly, she bolted back.

Did you hear me?

No response.

Prentice!
Fiona shouted,
Did you hear me?

He threw back the remainder of his whisky but didn’t give any indication he heard her.

Fiona didn’t give up.

Read her journals! Look at her palms! TRY to understand her, Prentice!
She shouted.
Don’t let her go again. She needs you to fight for her! Fight for your happiness, for her happiness, for our children’s happiness! Fight so Bella can be free. Fight for ME to be free!

Prentice set his glass next to the three that were sitting on the railing.

Naturally, he took the bottle inside and put it on the bureau before he changed and went to bed.

Fiona glared at her husband as he lay in bed for a long time, arms crossed behind his head, head on his hands, eyes to the ceiling, sleep eluding him.

You’re an idiot!
she snapped.

“Aye,” he murmured, rolled to his side and fell asleep.

Fiona considered throwing something at him which she could do.

Instead she dematerialized and materialized in Bella’s room.

Bella was lying on her back, arms crossed on her belly, eyes to the ceiling, sleep eluding her (again!).

You two are doing my head in! I wish you’d found some other dead woman’s husband to fall in love with!
Fiona shouted.

“I do too,” Bella whispered, rolled to her side and fell asleep.

Fiona glared at her.

Then she spent the rest of the night with Sally.

You Can Call Her Elle

Isabella

It was the blood.

It was always the blood.

It wasn’t her nudity, her open, lifeless eyes, her blue, bloodless skin.

It was the glaring red against the clean, stark white of the tub.

All she saw was
all that blood
.

Isabella screamed.

“
Elle!
”

When she heard her name, she jolted awake.

Prentice was crouched before her beside the couch, his hand on her arm shaking her, his face a mask of alarm.

She jumped to her feet, nearly knocking Prentice off his.

She wasn’t thinking. Her mind was in turmoil as it always was after those dreams.

He surged up and caught her on the run. His arm curving around her waist, he pulled her in front of him, his arms locking tight around her.

She struggled violently. His arms grew tighter.

“Jesus, Elle, what the fuck?”

Suddenly, she felt his warmth, his strength, his arms holding her captive against his solid, strong body.

Feeling all that was Prentice, Isabella collapsed in his arms.

Grabbing fistfuls of his shirt, she buried her face in his chest and burst into body-wracking, silent sobs.

She felt one arm leave her waist then the ponytail holder was pulled gently from her hair; her hair tumbled into his hand and he ran his fingers through its length.

“Baby,” he said softly.

At his sweet endearment, she could take no more.

She’d been holding it in for years, the grief, holding it in so her father wouldn’t see. Keeping it secret. Keeping it silent. Keeping it inside so her father wouldn’t judge, wouldn’t get angry.

She
had
to get it out.

“I hate it! I
hate
it when I have those dreams!
Hate
it!” she cried into his chest through her sobs. She tilted her head back to look at him and continued, “Dad hated it too. Said I was weak. Said I should
get over it
. He didn’t find her! He didn’t find her dead in…
that
…
fucking… tub!
”

Vaguely, she felt Prentice’s body go solid against hers but she was too far gone to process it.

She buried her face in his chest again and sobbed, “I’m so tired of those dreams, Pren. So tired. So damn tired.” She tipped her head back and cried fiercely, “Why can’t I stop having those dreams?”

His hand cupped the back of her head, carefully twisting it so he could press her cheek to his chest as he replied gently, “I don’t know, baby.”

“I’m…” She hiccoughed through her tears. “I’m so tired.” She clutched his shirt tighter. “So, so tired.”

His thumb was drawing soothing circles against her temple, his fingers curled into her hair. She held onto him, arms wrapped around him tight, weeping.

He felt so good. Tall and solid and strong. Warm. Safe. His arms so tight.

He felt so… very… good.

He pulled her head from his chest and dipped his chin to look at her.

She looked back. His handsome face was full of concern.

And he
was
handsome.

So… very… handsome.

It made her heart skip.

His thumb rubbed along her cheek, trailing through the tears but his beautiful every-colored eyes never left hers.

“We need to get you to bed,” he murmured. “You need sleep.”

It came to her in a flash.

Isabella didn’t need sleep. She was tired but she didn’t need sleep.

She needed
him
.

Before her turbulent mind settled enough to stop her insane actions, she took her hands from his shirt and curled them at his neck.

She put pressure there, coming up on her toes.

His body grew solid again. “Elle –”

It was good he said her name because his mouth was open when she kissed him.

Since she wasn’t thinking, she didn’t think forward to what he would do when she kissed him.

He could have rejected her.

If she
had
been thinking, that would have been her guess.

He didn’t reject her.

His head slanted, his tongue tangled with hers and then overpowered it when he took over the kiss.

It was beautiful.

She melted into him and her fingers, which had itched to do it for over a week, slid into his hair.

The kiss was hard and it was wild and it left Isabella wild.