by Eva Luxe
“Ella, your step mother does not have the power over you that you think she does,” Sharon says, like she’s told me many times in the past.
“Yeah,” Aunt Ashley chimes in. “What right does she have to tell you that you have to do these invoices and those spreadsheets?”
“Well, they do need to go out today since it’s the end of the month,” I reply. “And she told me she was either going to do them or have the assistant do them but that was obviously a lie. So even though she can’t technically make me do them, if I don’t do them, they won’t get done and Dad’s business— his whole legacy— will fall apart.”
Aunt Ashley crinkles her forehead as she looks at me, her blue eyes glinting as her eyebrows get closer together and she ponders what I just said.
“How do you know that any of the stuff she’s been telling you is even true?” she asks. “I can’t imagine your dad wanting to give half of the company to her and her daughters when he knew you’re one smart cookie who knows how to take care of the family business.”
“Well, she was his wife,” I say. “I guess people do crazy things for love. Plus, I saw his Will.”
I can’t help but let a flashback into my mind even though I try to block it out. When my step mother sat me down at the kitchen table to tell me that my dad had died, it was just like what had happened with my mom except even worse. Because I didn’t have anyone there who truly loved and comforted me, like my dad did when my mom died.
I still remember my step mom drumming her red manicured fingernails on the kitchen table. As if this news was just an inconvenience she had to tell me, a bother she had to get over with quickly, in between her manicure and her massage appointments.
“Ella, I really hate to tell you this but I just got a call from the hospital and your father has suffered a heart attack and passed away,” she said, in a string of words strung together so quickly I could barely make them out.
“What?” I had exploded, standing up out of the chair and wanting to run away from this house forever.
But she produced a Will that my father had signed, giving us equal share interest in the company and saying it would be both of ours for as long as we could get along and work together. So, if I wanted to save my dad’s business, I had to put up with the three people I dislike the most in the world. It’s pretty obvious that the feeling is mutual. That’s why things have not been going well so far, to say the least.
“Look,” my aunt says, patting my hand. “Why don’t I call up your assistant and offer to pay overtime if she can do these invoices for you? And I’ll stay and supervise to make sure they get done,” she adds, knowing that there’s no way I would leave all of this up to an assistant. My aunt knows me better than anybody else now.
“No way, Aunt Ashley,” I tell her. “There’s no way I’d let you do this for me. That’s very sweet of you to offer but I have responsibilities and I’ll stay here and do them.”
“No,” says my aunt, putting her foot down literally as well as figuratively, stomping it on the cement floor of the basement. “You are going to go to this Ball with your friends and have a fun time. You deserve it. You just got rid of that total asshole boyfriend you had, and you need to celebrate that fact.”
“Really?” I ask her, rushing to her arms and hugging her.
She hugs me back and I’ve never been so happy to have my father’s sister still in my life, even though I can’t have him or my mother in it.
“Really,” she says with a smile. “Really, really, really. And don’t make me say ‘really’ again because I’m really sick of saying it.”
Laughing, I say, “Well, I have to be back by midnight because the software I use to send out the invoices requires my thumb print. I don’t use a password, so I can’t give it to anyone. One time my dad did that and found out that the assistant at the time was trying to commit Medicaid fraud by billing for fraudulent things and pocketing the money. So, lesson learned— never trust anyone but myself to do it. Plus, I have to check over what she does just to be super sure. And my step mother said she was going to be back to make sure that I did it, which I’m sure means coming back to make sure that I stay here all night, so I’m just going to have to pretend as if I did…”
“Ella, relax,” my aunt says, and only then do I realize I’ve been talking non-stop like a madwoman.
“Okay,” I say, and I’m really trying, but I can’t. “If she comes to check on me any earlier than that, just tell her that you’re helping me do this and I ran out for some food, then text me and I’ll come right back, okay?”
“No way,” Nikki says. “You’ll be way too drunk for that.”
Looking at my aunt, she says, “She does not know what she’s talking about. She’s too sober. Do not hold her to this later. I repeat: She’s going to be too drunk to work later.”
“That’s exactly how I hope and expect the night will go,” my aunt says, with a smile.
“You really did arrange for them to make it possible for me to go,” I tell my aunt. “Thank you so much.”
Then, turning to my friends, I joke, “Thanks to my fairy Godmother here, it looks like I’ll be going to this friggin’ Ball after all.”
“Too bad the prince is already spoken for,” Sharon jokes back.
“Not if my step sisters have anything to do with it,” I say.
Then, getting very serious all of a sudden, I say, “Oh no. I’d forgotten that Sheila and Gloria are going to be at the Ball. They’ll see me there and tell their mom.”
“Well, who cares?” asks Aunt Ashley. “I’ll just tell her I’m helping you out so you could go. We don’t even need to be so surreptitious about this. I really think you’re over-thinking things…”
…as usual, I know she wants to add, but doesn’t.
“Yes we do need to be like that,” I tell her sadly. “She holds everything over my head. If I don’t do what she wants she makes my life a living hell, and I feel that I need to get along with her for my dad’s sake. He clearly wanted it. It’s even in his Will. Plus, he married her.”
“Well, that’s very nice of you to do what your father would want,” my aunt says. “But sometimes you just might have to do what you want.”
“I know,” I tell her, shaking my head. “And I want to go to this Ball with my two best friends.”
“Well, I have a little solution for that problem of your step sisters being there,” Nikki says. “And it’s called a costume party. You’ll be in disguise so they won’t even know it’s you.”
Costumes. Of course! I’m left feeling like an idiot for forgetting this fact.
“Oh yeah,” I tell them. “That’s definitely a solution. So let’s go shopping for our crazy costumes for this Ball.”
They take my arms and walk me to the door as if I’m in danger of changing my mind. And they’re probably not wrong. I guess they know me nearly as well as my aunt does.
“Have a good night,” Aunt Ashley says, as she sits down and picks up her cell phone to call the assistant to come do the spreadsheets.
“I definitely think it’ll be a good night thanks to you guys,” I say, genuinely smiling for the first time in a very long time.
See? I told you things would be starting to look up soon enough. I just don’t know why I can never believe that myself.
Chapter 8
Ella
Two hours later, I’m outfitted from head to toe in clothes my friends found for me way quicker than I expected them to. I have no eye for shopping for anything, let alone Halloween costumes or Princess Ball dresses, but we went to Buffalo Exchange and then a costume store for makeup and props. Nikki and Sharon threw together all three of our outfits in record time.
Nikki is Belle from Beauty and the Beast, except that in her Halloween twisted version of the story, while Gaston was fighting the Beast, he grabbed the rose that the Beast was about to present to Belle out of the Beast’s hands, and tried to throw it at him. Belle intervened and took the rose in her face, whe
re it impaled her, thorns sticking up everywhere and blood gushing out. The red makeup all over her face ensures that hopefully my step sisters won’t realize that it’s my best friend.
Sharon is such a ride or die kind of friend that she’s going as a clown version of Snow White. She has white and colorful clown makeup on, with apples instead of blush on her cheeks. She’s wearing a black curly wig that looks like clown hair.
Then there’s me: Gothic Cinderella. I have white makeup on and a black mask to cover my eyes and part of my face. On the rest of my face, brown clumpy makeup is streaked and splattered to represent the cinders that Cinderella had to sleep in.
“And I thought I had it bad,” I snorted, as I recounted this part of the fairy tale to Sharon and Nikki while we were shopping. None of us could remember how fairy tales went very well, since none of us really liked them. But when I said that part, they said I had to be Cinderella. It was just too fitting.
My dress is black and lacy with little pieces of fabric that are picked up and hung with tiny skeleton pins. It’s black and white and looks like a lovely combination between tattered housedress and elegant evening ball gown. Leave it to Buffalo Exchange to be selling something like this, undoubtedly sold by some hipster teenager after she wore it to Prom.
“You look absolutely gorgeous,” Nikki assures me as we enter the resort where the Ball is being held.
The environment is festive and lavish; obviously no expenses were spared for the Prince and his future Princess to have the rehearsal dinner and then celebration of their dreams. The costumes are stunning, and my own happens to fit right in with the decorations. They’re frosty and Gothic and it looks like we’ve been transported to a Palace in a faraway land. A haunted Palace, that is.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the MC announces, once we’ve grabbed cocktails and are mingling with Princes of different Halloween varieties: vampires, ghosts, even a Dragon. “I now present to you his Royal Highness Prince Gregory Martin Carrington the Third, and his Princess to be, Miss Julie Jane Landers.”
They descend a spiral staircase and they both look magnificent. They weren’t kidding when they said this Prince was hot. His fiancée is a lucky girl.
She’s wearing a silver dress, with her face painted all silver and with sparkles added to it, and a long and pointy tiara. I believe she’s supposed to be the Ice Queen. From her body language— she almost seems like she doesn’t even want to be here— I can’t help thinking that she really looks the part.
Stop being jealous over someone you don’t even know, I try to tell myself, but then I hear Sharon beside me, whispering, “Is it just me or does she have kind of an upturned nose? She looked really snotty.”
I have to agree with her. This Julie chick looks a little perturbed that she even has to be here tonight but I’m probably only imagining that, since I don’t believe in fairy tales and all.
She’s probably thrilled to be marrying this royal hunk who has her arm wrapped tightly in his. I mean, who wouldn’t be? Even though I don’t believe in any of this stuff, I’d go along with it, for the extra special effects.
A love song begins to play and as they reach the base of the staircase they begin dancing and hearts begin falling from the ceiling.
“Awwww,” everybody coos, myself included.
I usually have a heart of stone but there are some things too cute for even me not to coo at. So far, the list includes cute little babies, furry puppies and, apparently, hearts falling down from the ceiling while an engaged couple dances at their rehearsal dinner party the night before their royal wedding.
Sure, it’s a little over the top to have a party after your rehearsal dinner and invite everyone in the entire city. I can’t complain, though, since is my first night out in a long while and I’m grateful to Mr. and Almost Mrs. Prince Charming for giving me the opportunity, as well as for paying for this open bar and not carding me. If I weren’t so shy, I would propose a toast and say just that.
For the rest of the night, Sharon and Nikki and I have fun dancing to everything from oldies to songs from the Rocky Horror Picture Show Soundtrack to the latest pop hits. It certainly is the party of the century.
I can’t help sneaking some glances at the handsome Prince throughout the night, with his muscular looking chest nearly bursting out of his fitted tuxedo, which perfectly caresses his wide shoulders and shows off his toned arms by becoming trimmer in the sleeve area.
His eyes are a unique shade of green— like grass, almost— and he has a full head of dark brown curly hair. How lucky does one have to be to be born rich, royal, and handsome? I bet he has a huge cock, too.
They really don’t make guys this good looking here in this country. I guess you have to go to some far-off place I’ve never heard of in order to find one of these.
I keep an eye out for my step sisters as well, but there are so many people here that I only see them once during the night and they’re in line for the bathroom. Although I was headed there, I take a bee line back to the dance floor and decide to wait so that I can avoid running into them.
Thereafter, I resume my pastime of watching the Prince. I know I shouldn’t lust after an engaged man but it’s only in my fantasies. And I’m sure every other girl here is doing the same thing.
What would it feel like for him to pick me up and wrap my legs around his strong-looking hips? Would his hair fall into his eyes as his cock entered me, filling me up for my very first time…?
“What’s up with the Prince and his chick?” Sharon asks at some point.
I had been so busy staring at his eyes and focusing with a laser lens stare on his face and body that I didn’t even realize he’d been fighting with the soon to be Princess. Or at least it looks like that’s what they’re doing.
They’re obviously trying to keep it to hushed tones, but their mouths are moving furiously. And her body language expresses that she’s pleading with him while his is stone cold and resistant.
“I don’t know, probably crazy royal family type shit,” Nikki says. “Maybe they just found out they’re related or something. But the night’s almost over. We have to get Ella back to the Dungeon so she can send those invoices, in about an hour and a half. So let’s make the most of it, shall we?”
I hold onto the pumpkin necklace around my neck, nervous that we won’t make it on time and grateful that Nikki is reminding me. When I look back at the Prince, his fiancée is no longer there. One of his friends has his arm around him and is talking to him as he leads him over to the bar for a drink.
“Must be a lover’s quarrel,” I murmur under my breath.
“Or else maybe they broke up and he’ll be looking for a new Princess,” Sharon suggests. “If so, I volunteer.”
“You’ll have to beat Sheila and Gloria away with a stick,” I tell her scornfully. “Their whole plan was to try to steal the Prince away tonight and him breaking up with his fiancée would just make it all the that much easier for them.”
“No offense but— b-but— I don’t know what Paul was thinking when he hooked up with Sheila,” Sharon says, slurring her words and sounding a bit tipsy. “I know you think she’s so pretty but it’s just because she ha-has some strange power over you.”
Yeah, the power of ruining my life forever and my not being able to do anything about it, I think.
“B-but, well, she shouldn’t, because you’re wa-way prettier than her and you have a much better personality too,” she continues, sloshing her drink around. “It’s definitely Paul’s loss. You’ll find someone wa-way better.”
“Thanks, Sharon,” I tell her.
I know she’s drunk and she just means well. But I don’t want to think about Paul, nor do I want to think about my step sisters hooking up with this Prince even if he did just have a falling out with his fiancée. On that note, I decide they’re probably done in the bathroom now, so I say I’m going to head that way.
But the line for the bathroom in the Ballroom is incredibly long and I don’t
want to spend my last hour and a half standing behind a bunch girls who are asking each other— or, God forbid, me— if their hair became too frizzy and if that guy over there is looking at them. So, I make my way out to the hotel’s main lobby.
Even though I grew up in Denver, and this resort isn’t too far away from where I live, I’ve never been here. It’s way too fancy for my budget and I don’t know anyone who could afford it. But I know there has to be another bathroom in here, I just don’t know where. I wander around until I see a lobby bar where I figure there has to be one.
As I turn the corner, I step down some stairs leading to the bar area and run almost right smack into Prince Charming himself. His hair looks disheveled as if he’s been running his hands through it and his eyes are red as if he’s been crying, or maybe just drinking too much. In fact, the bartender had just brought him a drink but she scurries away when she sees me approach, probably because she erroneously assumes that we’re together.
I look up into the Prince’s grass-green eyes and then lower mine but then I’m staring right at his scorching hot body, wishing that the bartender’s assumption had been correct. Even though it’s nothing at all like me, I seem to be spellbound in the Prince’s majestic presence.
How I wish I was marrying this guy tomorrow, instead of just dressed up like Gothic Cinderella, getting ready to hurry back to my evil step mother and step sisters. If only my life really was a fairy tale.
Chapter 9
Gregory
There are quite a few things a groom might expect to hear from his best man on the night before his wedding. Things such as “I’m so fucking happy for you, Dude,” “Thank you for having me by your side,” or, if he’s the sentimental type, maybe “I’m so glad I can support you in this journey.”
Hell, some best men that double as jokesters, like my best man Kevin is known to be, might say something like: “How’s it feel to be living the last free day of your life?” or “Let me know how you feel about her after she becomes your old ball and chain.”