Wickedly Charming (10 page)

That wasn't how he meant to say it. He had meant to say something innocuous like
I have my daughters with me right now
or
My living situation had changed
or
I'm going to be a single parent for a while
.

Not
My wife abandoned my daughters
.

“What?” Mellie asked. She looked shocked.

So did the doughy guy the next table over, who had been watching them all along. Charming glared at him and the man bent his head and started typing on his laptop again.

“I mean,” Charming said, trying to repair the verbal damage a little, “she's not my wife anymore, but—”

“Are they all right?” Mellie asked. There was concern in her voice and in her eyes. She meant it, and that made his breath catch.

She actually cared about his daughters, whom she hadn't met.

No one had asked that before, at least not as the first question. They always asked about him—how was he doing?—not about his girls.

“Ella didn't hurt them or anything,” he said. “I mean, she didn't literally abandon them, leaving them alone at the house or anything. She dropped them with my parents, and then told me that she didn't want them anymore.”

Again, blunter than he had planned. Blunt in a way he never was. He didn't use the diplomatic phrase. He had told the truth.

What was it about this woman that made him want to tell the truth?

“Did she tell the girls that?” Mellie asked with concern.

He nodded and glared at the doughy man who was still watching them. Charming wanted to slam the doughy man's laptop down on his fingers. Charming was angry. Good heavens, he hadn't realized how angry he truly was until this very moment.

How dare Ella tell his girls that they were unwanted?

“How old are they?” Mellie asked.

Charming looked at her, saw fury in her green eyes. If Ella came in here right now, Mellie would go after her, yelling with that passion he had seen at the book fair.

She was angry—not for him, but for his girls.

And she didn't even know them.

“Twelve and eight,” he said.

“That's the worst time for girls,” Mellie said. “Twelve, not eight. Your twelve-year-old needs her mother right now. She needs to learn how to be a woman. Your ex isn't giving her a good example right now.”

Then Mellie clapped her hand over her mouth.

“I'm sorry. I'm so sorry,” she said through her fingers. “It's none of my business. I shouldn't have said that. I'm sorry.”

He reached over and hooked his fingers through hers, bringing her hand down. He thought he remembered how soft her skin was. But he had forgotten. He had forgotten how wonderful it was to touch her.

“It's okay,” he said. “You're the only person who has said what I've been thinking.”

“I mean, how selfish can a woman get?” Mellie said, then looked like she wanted to clamp her hand over her mouth all over again.

He twined his fingers through hers. He should let go of her hand. That would be best, letting go of her hand. But he couldn't bring himself to do it. That simple touch was holding him up, calming him.

And she wasn't pulling away.

“I suppose they're still with your parents?” she asked.

“Good heavens,
no
,” he said. “That would be worse than leaving them alone.”

Again, honesty. He never would have said such a thing about his parents—at least not in the Kingdoms.

“I brought my daughters here,” he said.

He tried not to look at their clasped hands, but he couldn't help himself. Her fingers were long and slender, the nails coated with a red polish that matched her lips.

Even her hands were lovely.

He wanted to put his other hand over hers, but he didn't let himself.

He didn't want to scare her off.

“Your daughters are here? In the Greater World?” she asked.

He nodded. “I brought them here a few weeks ago. We've been trying to get settled. But it's not working.”

“I should say not,” Mellie said. “Not only do they have to deal with their mother's perfidy, they have to deal with a new life in a new culture.”

“I've brought them here to visit before,” he said, feeling worried. “Did I do something wrong?”

He shouldn't have asked that. He
never
asked that. Princes weren't allowed to ask that. Royalty was always right.

If his father had heard that question, he'd be screaming right now.

Charming suppressed a shudder. His father would think all of this terrible—the coffee shop, the school, Charming's hand holding the hand of a woman who was an actual adult, and not some nubile eighteen-year-old suitable for breeding.

“Under the circumstances, you didn't do anything wrong,” Mellie said. “It's probably better for your daughters here. They don't have to deal with the whole inheritance thing, and I assume the whole family is back in the Kingdoms…?”

He nodded.

“That's probably for the best too.”

Had she met his family? Probably. People went between Kingdoms all the time.

Her hand held his, her fingers wrapped loosely around his, her thumb rubbing gently against his forefinger. That simple movement made his heart beat faster.

What was wrong with him? Was he so lonely that he found a soft and compassionate touch erotic?

He made himself concentrate on the conversation.

“I enrolled the girls in the best school,” he said, “and already people are picking on Grace.”

“That's the oldest?” Mellie asked.

“The youngest.” His voice broke, just a little.

“Your favorite,” Mellie said.

“You're not supposed to have favorites,” he said, and realized that was honest too. He had just said yes in the only way he could.

Poor Imperia. Her mother had abandoned her, her father loved her sister better, and she was about to hit puberty in a strange world.

“I don't know what to do,” he said. “I've never raised children before.”

“I have,” Mellie said.

He must have given her a startled look because she added, rather defensively, “I don't just mean Snow and her brother. I had my own children with my first husband and you never hear about them. They're doing just fine and they gave me grandchildren, and they're here in the Greater World and are quite successful. Snow was nearly grown when I met her. And I didn't do everything right there. But I do know children and I like them and I like to spend time with them.”

He stared at her. She seemed nervous suddenly. Her thumb had stopped moving, and he missed that. Her fingers had tensed. Her entire body had tensed.

Did she expect him to judge her? To hate her for having a life?

Had she thought he believed all that crap about her history with Snow White?

“Look,” Mellie said with a bit of a sigh. “I can't write, right?”

He opened his mouth, not sure what to say, because he was in a truthful mode, and the truth would be really painful.

“You don't have to answer that,” she said. “It's all over your face. I can't write, and I need to because your idea about the books is a great one. I did all the research and I think you're right. I think your idea is the way to go.”

His mouth was still open. He started to speak when she added, “But I know children. I know how to build a household. I have references even here in the Greater World. I've helped some of the PETA folk when they came over, baby-sitting the children while the adults looked for work. I even started a day care center for a while, although I sold it. But what I'm saying is this. I would be happy to help you. And you don't have to help me. Maybe you can teach me how to read for enjoyment or something. I mean, I'm not in any hurry on my quest, but your daughters grow a little bit every day. So you teach me how to read for pleasure, and I'll help you ease your girls into their new life. If-if-if you want me to.”

And she looked at him expectantly, as if she expected him to make a decision right then and there.

She had startled him. He didn't do well when he was startled.

She startled him a lot, and he froze, and that was bad. He had to somehow overcome that reaction because he didn't want her to think he wasn't interested, and he didn't want her to think he was a doofus, even though he acted like one.

“I can't teach you how to love reading,” he said. “The theory is that once you read one book, you like reading and you'll continue to do it. But that doesn't seem to be true for you, so I wouldn't know what to do…”

She nodded, as if she expected that. He could tell, just from her body language that she now expected him to blow her off, tell her he wasn't interested in her at all.

But he was interested. In her, in her advice, even in her damn book. He had only one problem: He wasn't sure how deeply he could let another woman into his life right now. His girls had been badly hurt. They needed some time to heal, and introducing them to a new woman, particularly one who might not stay, would be a bad idea.

“It's okay,” she said into his silence. “You don't have to teach me how to like reading. It's not a big deal.”

“It is a big deal,” he said. “It's important to you.”

Her gaze met his, her green eyes filled with compassion. The compassion almost undid him.

“Your daughters are important to you,” she said softly.

He nodded.

“And you don't want me to meet them,” she said. There was so much meaning in that sentence. She thought he didn't want her to meet them because of her reputation.

“It's not that,” he said. “It's that their mother left them, and they're so lost, and I'm afraid they won't know how to react to someone new.”

“You're afraid they'll attach to someone, and then she'll leave, and they'll be hurt again,” Mellie said.

“Yes,” he whispered, half expecting her to say she would never do that.

Instead, she said, “That's really wise,” and took his breath away.

No one had called him wise before.

“I'd… um… still like your advice,” he said. “I think I need it. Can we meet here for coffee tomorrow? I'll find out what kind of stories you like and you can tell me how to handle my daughters.”

“Right here?” she said, clearly stunned.

He nodded. “My treat.”

“Um, sure, yeah,” she said. “That would be great.”

It would be good for him, too. It would be better than good. It would be spectacular.

He brought her hand forward, bent over, and kissed it. He wanted to nibble his way up her arm and nuzzle her neck, and—

He stopped himself before he embarrassed himself. He had just told her that he wanted some distance because of his daughters, and then he starts kissing her.

He kissed her hand again, then gently let it go. She held it up for a moment, as if she wasn't sure what to do with it. She looked surprised, and a little confused.

He stood. He couldn't stay any longer, not and have a rational conversation, one good for her and good for the girls.

“I'll see you tomorrow, then,” he said, and hurried out the door.

Mellie watched him go. She was always watching this man coming and going. She couldn't keep her eyes off him.

Even if he had just bolted. He grabbed her twenty pages, and hurried out of the coffee shop as if she was going to chase him. All the other women in the place watched him go—they couldn't keep their eyes off him either.

And they hadn't just been kissed.

Not that it was a real kiss. It was a buss on the hand. A little more than a buss, actually. A kiss on the hand. The back of the hand. Something he had been trained to do from childhood, a way of honoring women.

There was no flirting in that kiss. Mellie had had men kiss her hand and flirt with her at the same time. They looked up at her over their clasped hands, and kept eye contact as they kissed her.

But Charming had just kissed her hand, ever so politely. She liked to imagine that he had lingered for just a moment, but he hadn't. He had kissed her hand properly, then let go, and left her, clearly a bit embarrassed that he had revealed so much of his life.

Poor man. His wife sounded horrible. His
ex
-wife. Cinderella.

Imagine if Mellie had tried to tell all those little girls who believed in the glass slippers, the gowns, the fairy tale, what Ella was really like.

Mellie would have been run out of town.

She shut off her laptop, and tucked it into the bag she used to tote it all over town. Then she left the coffee shop.

She was unsettled. She hadn't expected the meeting to go the way it had. But she would see him again.

And that was a small victory. Maybe then he would have an idea about what she should do with her own writing project—her own image problems.

But she also needed some advice from an outsider, someone who knew the Kingdoms, and someone who understood her.

That left only one option. That left Selda.

***

Selda spent her days managing the Archetype Place in Anaheim. Anaheim was a heck of a drive from the coffee shop, but Mellie made it in record time.

The Archetype Place had been Mellie's idea. She had founded it decades ago, when this part of Anaheim was an absolute wasteland.

Disney had started hiring people from the Kingdoms (unbeknownst to him) for his new theme park, Disneyland, which was considered revolutionary nearly sixty years ago. Mellie had found a building not too far from the theme park and bought it for a song. She expanded over the years, so now the Archetype Place took up an entire city block.

The Archetype Place brought the Kingdoms folk together. It provided day care for both magical and non-magical youngsters, counseling for those who had trouble making the transition from the Kingdoms to the Greater World, and helped the less fortunate in the group find homes and jobs.

One small wing of the super large building housed PETA. It had started one night (about the time Mellie opened the Archetype Place) when a discussion turned into a bitch session about fairy tales, the Greater World's misunderstanding of magic and magical beings, and of, course, the great Walt Disney himself.

Initially, Mellie had tried to have meetings with Disney. In fact, her first attempt had been before the Disney
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
came out. She talked to Disney about doing fairy tales right, about making sure that he jettisoned those horrible Grimm brothers and told the truth.

All she had gotten for her pains was a caricature in the movie, and an image of an evil queen/stepmother who looked enough like Mellie to make all of her friends cringe.

Still, over the years, she had tried to talk to him, and he hadn't ever taken another meeting. One of his underlings later told her that he was afraid she would ask for a piece of the film because her image was in it.

But she wasn't going to make money off that drivel. She just wanted to be heard.

She had turned to picketing in the years before Disney's death, inspired by the protest movements of the 1960s. She occasionally tried to have meetings with the Disney brass, but no one ever took her calls.

Eventually, she stopped picketing the studios and went to the source materials. The books. She figured if the books changed, the movies would change.

Or at least, she had hoped that would happen.

So far, none of her dreams had come true. Maybe she should have wished upon a star.

She had her own parking space in the lot behind The Archetype Place. No one had taken her spot, even though she hadn't been there in almost a month. Driving from Malibu to Anaheim took hours, especially in bad traffic, and she hadn't seen the need before today.

All she had done was put the protests on hold, telling everyone she had another plan.

The building looked like one giant warehouse, with the front decorated brightly, to look like a series of fake storefronts à la Disney. The rest of the building was painted white and had no windows on the sides and back, so that the folk could be themselves. Magic happened inside—not Disney magic, but real magic. Not a lot of it, and none of it evil.

In fact, the only rule Mellie initially had for the Archetype Place was No Evil Allowed. Sometimes that meant banning folk, and sometimes it just meant banning their behavior.

The main doors were made of magic-reinforced smoked glass. No one from outside could see inside. In fact, if you stopped in front of the glass, you couldn't even see your own reflection—something she relished, because for years, anytime she stopped anywhere near a mirror, someone would mutter,
Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?
, pissing her off.

This morning, the Frog Prince manned the front desk. He was in his frog form. His beloved wife had died some years ago, and ever since, he seemed to prefer his frog form. He once told Mellie that his princely form reminded him how the woman he loved had helped him regain it. Now that she was dead, he had no one to look beautiful for.

He certainly did not look beautiful now. His skin was mottled and dry. He needed to either change back into human form or get into some water for a while. He sat on top of a lily pad that served as a desk blotter, and peered at her out of the corner of one bulging eye.

“Well, you finally decided to grace us with your presence,” he said.

“No need to be snide,” she said. “I've been busy.”

“Drinking coffee and surfing the net, I hear.”

She frowned at him. “Have you been spying on me?”

He shook his broad froggy head. “I haven't left this place in a week. But you've been seen everywhere but here.”

“I was trying something,” she said.

“Trying to snare a prince?”

She glared at him. “Are you jealous?”

“No,” he said and hopped off the lily pad. He put one long toe on the intercom, and said into it, “Guess what the cat dragged in.”

“I'm assuming that was Selda you spoke to,” Mellie said. “I take it she's in?”

“What else does she have to do?” the Frog Prince said. Then he hopped to the front of the desk. “Say, when are you bringing your prince in here? I hear he's been wandering the Greater World without any idea that we exist.”

She ignored the question and went through the double blond doors leading into the back. She hadn't told Charming about this place, despite ample opportunity. Before she met him, she had no idea he was wandering the Greater World without any help. She hadn't said anything at the book fair, mostly because she felt like Charming didn't need any help transitioning into the Greater World—he was doing better than anyone else at The Archetype Place except maybe Selda.

But today, today Mellie should have told him, if only to give him some help with his daughters.

She walked down the hall, past her office, which was locked tight. It looked abandoned and forlorn. She wasn't used to seeing it dark. But she hadn't wanted to come here, not while she was trying to write, not while she was trying something new.

She rounded the corner. The door to Griselda's office was open. Mellie felt relieved. Selda had completely adapted to life in the Greater World. She didn't look like any of the stereotyped wicked stepmothers. She wasn't angularly beautiful like Mellie nor did she dress like a middle-aged fashion model. She didn't exude malevolent intelligence either.

Instead, if she had to fit any stereotype at all, it was that of Earth Mother. She had been the model for several 1970s drawings in alternative publications of women who had gone back to nature, women who no longer cared about what was then called Madison Avenue and its opinions of how women should behave.

She was the first of Mellie's friends to let her hair go natural, the first to stop wearing any make-up at all, and the first to wear sweats in public.

Selda had decorated her office in the Archetype Place in brown tones, accented with bright orange and green, and instead of looking dated, the office felt warm and comfortable. Selda had placed overstuffed chairs in the corners, and let stuffed animals and pillows litter the floor.

Which meant at any given moment, there was usually a cat or two sleeping on one of the pillows, a child or two cuddling one of the toys, and a dog or two snoring on a chair.

The office smelled of pet dander and coffee, which Mellie also found soothing. She stepped inside. Selda was at her desk, almost impossible to see behind the potted palms on the floor around it, and the spider plants hanging from the ceiling above.

“When Froggy told me you were coming,” Selda said, “I didn't believe it. How's the famous author?”

She had put on weight in the last month. Selda gained twenty pounds and then lost them with startling regularity, never ever regaining the thin form she'd had in her Hansel and Gretel days.

“Unable to get words onto the page,” Mellie said. She sank into a nearby chair. A puff of cat hair (or was it dog hair?) rose in the air around her, and then settled like snow on a windless day.

“I never thought of you as a writer,” Selda said.

“Oh, jeez,” Mellie said. “Not you too.”

“Well, if not me, then who?” Selda asked. “I'm the one who always gets to correct your signs.”

Mellie frowned. “Correct my signs?”

“You can't spell, dear,” Selda said. “Haven't I told you that?”

“You keep harping on the difference between ‘it is' and ‘its' possessive,” Mellie said, “but you've never said anything about spelling.”

“What do you think that is?” Selda said.

“A detail,” Mellie said.

“So your handsome charming prince told you that you can't write,” Selda said.

Mellie's eyes narrowed. “Have you been spying on me?”

“No, it's just that you told me you'd meet with him in a month or so after that book fair. It's been a month or so, and you're here, looking very sad.”

Mellie shrugged. “He didn't say anything bad. But he didn't have to. I only got twenty pages in a month.”

“I'm sure you wrote more than that.”

Mellie smiled at her good friend. Selda knew her well.

“All right,” Mellie said, “I wrote more than twenty pages. But twenty pages were the only thing resembling some kind of story. Everything else I wrote was a rant.”

“And that surprises you how?” Selda asked.

Mellie shook her head. “I don't know. I just figured I could do this.”

“Mel, dear,” Selda said. “Your entire life is a rant. You're one of the great crusaders against injustice wherever you find it. And you make a difference. You're just not a very reflective personality.”

“So?” Mellie asked.

“So writing really isn't your thing,” Selda said.

“Tell me about it.” Mellie flicked a big wad of dog hair (or was it cat hair?) off the arm of the chair. “Still, I think the idea is a good one.”

“It is,” Selda said. “So why don't you just hire someone to do it?”

Mellie sank farther into the chair. “Like you?”

“I can't write,” Selda said.

“You just said you corrected my writing,” Mellie said.

“I corrected your
grammar
and your
spelling
,” Selda said. “That's not writing.”

“But—”

“No buts,” Selda said. “I hate writing. I'm one of the few of us who went to college here—”

In the 1970s, which was when she first went all Earth Mothery. Mellie remembered how traumatic that change had been.

“—and I hated writing even then. I once paid a guy to write one of my papers, and it was the only paper I got an A on.”

Mellie wasn't sure what an A was, but obviously an A was desirable.

“Well, I assume your guy's from the Greater World,” Mellie said, “and I can't hire him. Charming already introduced me to some of those ghosty people, and they're all grounded firmly in this world. They wouldn't like or believe anything I say.”

“So hire one of us,” Selda said.

“None of us can write,” Mellie said.

“What about your prince?”

Mellie's eyes narrowed. “He's not
my
prince.”

“He's bookish,” Selda said.

Mellie sat up. “You know him?”

Selda leaned back in her chair and put her Birkenstock-covered feet on top of her messy desk. “I've met him a few times. He's much too introverted for my tastes.”

Mellie rather liked how quiet and thoughtful he was. So different from the other Charmings that she'd met.

“He doesn't have time to help me,” Mellie said. “He's dealing with his daughters.”

“His daughters?”

Mellie nodded. “He has full custody now, and he just brought them to the Greater World.”

“Well, that's no surprise,” Selda said, folding her hands across her ample belly.

“That he brought them here?” Mellie asked.

“That he got full custody. Ella was never suited to parenthood.”

Mellie raised her eyebrows. “You seem to know a lot about this family.”