Modern Fairy Tale

by Proby, Kristen

  “I don’t know either,” I say, thinking of the way Abi has nursed her obsession with Ash through the years. “She can be quite determined when she wants to be.”

  Ash’s lips are on my hair now, and then on my face, and then on my lips. “She’s not more determined than I am. Rest assured, she holds no allure for me.”

  That does ease my mind a little, although I’m still uneasy about this latest development. It almost seems unhinged, unstable, especially for a woman who’s spent years trying to perfect the most charming, put-together personality imaginable.

  But then Ash’s hands are back under my dress, his stiffening cock warm against my hip, and everything else slowly bleeds away.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  It turns out that finding a time for the three of us to talk is harder than it sounds. The rest of our stay in Geneva is busy, with Ash and Embry gone from six in the morning to one o’clock the next morning, and all the hours between are filled with helping Kay put out fires back home.

  Abilene avoids me so expertly that I don’t see her until we fly home, and when we board the plane, she apologizes for her absence, blaming it on the Carpathian man she spent her days with. I watch her eyes as she tells me about him, as she asks me how much I’ve seen or talked to Ash since the dinner, and I realize she doesn’t know I know.

  It’s dishonest, but I feed that belief, telling her everything she wants to hear. I act innocent, I act like I have no idea she’s still in love with Ash or that she tried to kiss him at the dinner, and it makes me a little sad to see how easily she swallows what I say. I think about the way she acted when I first told her about Ash and me, about the way she lied about something as trivial as how I looked in a dress.

  Maybe Ash is right to say I shouldn’t trust her.

  But once we get back home and settle into the fast-paced rhythm of work and life, I also settle back into loving her. She’s just Abilene—passionate and fierce and impulsive. And I’m the last woman to judge another for making mistakes because of a man like Ash. I forgive her, go on loving her and having weekly lunch and sometimes grabbing cocktails after work on Thursdays, although I try not to bring Ash up around her any more than I have to, which seems to work for her just fine. She even acts happy when I ask her to be my maid of honor, though I can see the brittle displeasure in her face when she thinks I’m not looking.

  But what can I do?

  The wedding consumes every waking minute. There’s the planning, of course, but then there’s the endless rounds of interviews and photo shoots that Merlin and Trieste—the Press Secretary—keep signing me up for. Overnight, I’m transformed into America’s Sweetheart, the granddaughter of a former Vice President marrying the youngest President in history. My face is everywhere in print and online, to the point where I’m recognized on the street and where students I don’t know stop me on campus for Snapchat selfies. It’s flattering the first few times, but slowly it becomes a nuisance and then a real burden. All the work I did, all the choices I made to build a life of quiet solitude, it’s all undone in a matter of a few weeks. Even Grandpa Leo calls me to warn me about the dangers of constant press attention.

  Both Embry and Ash are incredibly busy too, and it’s only once or twice a week that I get to sneak into Ash’s bed, and it’s only on Sundays that all three of us are together for church and sometimes football. But I’m usually grading papers or working on the book, and Belvedere and Kay and Trieste and Merlin are constantly in and out, and the moment just never comes, that moment where the three of us are alone and have unlimited time to just talk.

  At first it’s agony, every missed day that turns into a missed week that turns into a missed month. Ash and I keep our word to each other and we both act carefully around Embry. He acts carefully around us in return, especially after Ash informs him of our decision to have an agreement created by all three of us. Ash tells me that Embry agrees to that, and I smile at the irony that we have all talked about talking but still haven’t talked.

  I wonder if Embry knows how often we bring him up when we’re alone, sometimes as we’re having sex, but other times as we’re falling asleep or even as we’re simply working in silence together. Ash will set down his pen and rub his forehead and say my name in the kind of pained, quiet voice I know means that right now he’s missing Embry. And I’ll crawl onto his lap and whisper me too me too me too, and kiss him until we both feel better again.

  And so the days pass, interminable and yet blinding in how quickly they fly by, until I find myself holding Ash’s hand as Air Force One touches down in Kansas City the day before our wedding, a warm day in May. Ash’s mother greets us with a big hug on the tarmac, and then we begin the painstakingly photographed dance of the rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner. All the while being achingly aware of Embry watching us, of Embry there like the unseen shadow of our future marriage.

  He said it was hell watching Ash and me. Was watching us walk through the ceremony worse than hell? Is there anything worse than hell?

  Yes, I decide as we make our toasts and speeches at the rehearsal dinner. Loving two men but only marrying one—that’s worse than hell. Watching Embry quietly die is worse than hell. Watching Ash watch Embry, and wondering if he wishes he was walking down the aisle with him instead of me—that is much, much worse than hell.

  Ash and I part that night with a chaste kiss. And I go to bed in my own room, staring up at the ceiling and wondering what new hell tomorrow will bring.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The Wedding Day

  Abilene went to find the veil and some lunch, and so for the moment, I’m alone. I stand in my hotel suite, which also serves as my bridal dressing room, so silent and calm after all the rustling of tissue paper and the chatter of women and the noisy comings and goings of every single female relative Ash or I have. I turn to the mirror for the thousandth time, and for the thousandth time, a cold dagger slices through my heart, slicing it right in two.

  One side, still red and healthy, pulses with joy. The other side, black and frozen, feels nothing but icy despair.

  It’s really happening.

  It’s really happening.

  The one thing I want most in the world—to marry Ash—and the one thing I want least in the world—to be separated from Embry.

  I can’t cry—I spent too many long hours in the makeup chair for that—so instead I smooth my hands along the expensive fabric of the dress and turn away, the huge skirt of my wedding dress turning with me.

  Don’t look in the mirror, I tell myself. You’ll only want to cry again.

  Most women wouldn’t cry to see themselves as I look right now. Custom gown embroidered with Swarovski crystals and silver thread. My white-gold hair coiled into a sleek ballet knot at the nape of my neck. Diamonds glittering at my ears and throat. There is a princess in that mirror…and I can’t bear to look at her.

  I walk over to the window and press my hands to the glass. The hotel room looks out on an unfamiliar skyline, a healthy and contained cluster of skyscrapers, old brick warehouses and architectural oddities. Kansas City’s skyline. Ash’s skyline.

  Ash.

  Has any woman loved a man like I love my Ash? If he ceased to love me or I ceased to love him, my entire world would shrink to a singularity and then explode. I need him like I need air, like I need the sun or like I need God.

  I can’t not marry him. Every cell in my body cries out for his presence, pines for the slightest brush of his hands or words or eyes; I am as destined to marry Ash as much as I am destined to have my gray eyes or my blond hair.

  So why the tears, Greer?

  But of course I know why. Ash would know why too if he could see me right now. Because I can’t help loving Embry, because neither can Ash, because the three of us have some sort of twisted, fucked-up love that no church would agree to sanctify, much less the American electorate.

  I’ll marry Ash as Embry watches, as Embry hands Ash the ring that will seal our vows, and the three o
f us will quietly ache together, quietly die together, even as Ash and I are quietly born anew as man and wife.

  There’s no way around this, nothing that can be done, at least nothing that I can see. I can’t not marry Ash. I can’t stop craving Embry. Both of them love me, and both of them love each other. Whichever way we move, there will be heartbreak, and Embry knows—has always known maybe—that if he forces me to choose, if he drags my choice into the open air and says me or him, then it would be Ash.

  It would always be Ash.

  And maybe that’s why I want to cry, because my heart is breaking for Embry just as much as it’s breaking for me.

  A knock sounds at the door, and I shake off my thoughts, expecting Abilene and the veil. “Come in,” I call, blinking a few times to rid myself of the lingering tears.

  I hear a keycard snick in the lock, and the heavy door opens. I step away from the window, prepared to fake a smile and a laugh for Abi, prepared to take the veil from her and pin it to the delicate tiara set in my hair.

  But it isn’t Abilene who walks through the door.

  It’s the best man.

  “Embry,” I whisper. I breathe his name like it’s the last breath I’ll ever take.

  He walks in and turns to close the door behind him, shutting it and carefully swinging the deadbolt closed.

  We haven’t been alone together for so long, weeks and weeks and months and months, but now here we are, alone at last. But I’m dolled up to be the American Bride of the Century and he’s in his tuxedo, and so the wedding hovers in the air like its own entity, a third presence in the room.

  I train my eyes on the floor, not trusting myself to look in his face, not wanting to see the torment I know will be written there. Not wanting him to see the torment written on my own face. Isn’t this hard enough as it is? Why is he here? Why come and force this moment between us when we could have simply gone on as we always did—ignoring, denying, avoiding? Silently dying?

  Embry steps deliberately toward me—so unlike him, so unlike the turbulent, impulsive man he is. He stops just out of reach, his dress shoes black and gleaming against the carpet.

  “Greer,” he says quietly.

  I force my eyes up to his, trailing up his long legs, up that perfectly-fitted tuxedo jacket which highlights the lean, hard lines of his waist and shoulders, and then finally up to his face, where pain is stamped onto every handsome feature.

  The moment my eyes lock with his, I know it doesn’t matter that we aren’t touching. The electric heat in his eyes is desperate, and I know he can see the same in mine, and in that instant, in my mind, we share a thousand scorching kisses, he trails caresses over every inch of my skin, I come a thousand times under his slender, muscled body.

  Those ice-blue eyes blaze with heat and I shiver. “What are you doing here?” I ask in a whisper.

  “I wanted to see you. You know…before…” he trails off.

  He steps closer, lifting a hand. I shouldn’t let him touch me, not on my wedding day, not in my wedding dress, but my chest is filled with that tight ache, and so I close my eyes and hold my breath as he reaches forward.

  The backs of his knuckles graze against my cheek, sending shivers chasing down my back, and every brush of his fingers over my skin makes me want to scream, makes me want to cry.

  My eyes flutter open to find him staring intently at me, those blue eyes glacial with pain. My gaze drops down to his mouth, where his lips are parted ever so slightly, as if he has to catch his breath.

  I can’t stop staring at them, those firm, straight lips with their barely-there tilt at the corners, the tilt that can turn from a smirk to a sneer to a smile, depending on his moods. I want those lips. I want them against my mouth, I want them pressed to my throat, I want them between my legs. I want his lips and his hands and his cock, and I want him to rip off my wedding dress and do what his searing stare promises and fuck me. Ash be damned.

  Except…

  Except I love Ash. Except I promised him I wouldn’t touch Embry until the three of us had finally talked.

  I suck in a breath and take a step back. It’s too dangerous, Embry here and my heart so twisted in knots. Embry notices my step back, and his eyebrows draw together the tiniest amount, confusion and hurt simmering under the surface of his expression. I hate hurting him, and I hate myself for doing it, but what’s the alternative? How can there be any other way?

  “You have to go,” I choke out, turning away from him, unable to look at his wounded face any longer. “You can’t—and I can’t—just. Please.”

  “I can’t go yet,” Embry says, and his voice has lost its earlier husky uncertainty. In its place is the dispassionately icy tone he usually uses with recalcitrant senators or the puerile hordes of reporters and paparazzi that follow his every move. It’s his Vice President voice, and it makes me shiver. “Ash asked me to deliver a present to you. I made sure Abilene would be occupied so I’d have enough time to give it to you personally.”

  I let out a long breath, wondering if this is how it will always be. Alone together only when there’s a pretext, forever divided by the one man we love more than each other or ourselves.

  “Greer.” The ice in Embry’s voice thaws the tiniest amount when he speaks my name. “Please let me give you your present. You know how Ash was about seeing you today, so he asked me to deliver it.”

  I finally turn back to him and he holds out his phone, indicating that I should take it. Confused, I reach for it, and then the screen lights up with Ash’s name.

  My heart soars at the same time that it sinks. I grab the phone and touch the accept button, pressing the phone eagerly to my ear as if it has been weeks since we last spoke instead of hours.

  “Ash,” I say, my voice hiding nothing. I know he can discern every doubt, every guilty thought, every needy pang I’ve felt in the last six hours and he can do it all just from that one syllable. What’s more, I welcome it. With Ash, I never need to be shriven. He knows each sin the moment he hears my voice or looks at my face, and then all is immediately forgiven.

  “Greer,” he says, his voice soothing and sure. “I wish I were with you right now. I miss you.”

  “I miss you too,” I say, ignoring the way Embry’s eyes are pinned on me as I speak.

  “I know you look beautiful right now,” Ash says, his voice going a shade deeper, a shade rougher. “I won’t be able to keep my hands off you after you walk down the aisle to me.”

  “Can’t you come see me before then?”

  A warm laugh. “You don’t care for this particular tradition?”

  “What point does it serve, other than to keep our guests waiting longer while we take pictures?”

  “It serves the point of marking the moment I first see you. When I first lay eyes on my bride, I will be surrounded by our family and friends and watched over by God. I want the first moment I see you to be special and apart from any other moment, just like today is special and apart from any other day. Greer, today is the most important day of my life.”

  My throat tightens. “Oh, Ash.”

  “And,” he adds in a voice heavy with promise, “patience is always rewarded, my little princess. Always.”

  His voice—and the murmured little princess—makes my cunt ache and my pulse pound, and when I think about tonight after the wedding, when I think about Ash’s broad, muscled body pinning mine to the bed, I can barely breathe.

  “I miss you so much,” I say. I’m repeating myself at this point, but I don’t care.

  “Greer, I want to give you your present now.”

  “The phone call isn’t my present?”

  That warm laugh again. “I’m not that stingy. No, it’s not your present. I want you to hand the phone to Embry for a moment.”

  I obey, as I always do with Ash, and Embry takes the phone. He paces away from me, back towards the suite’s sitting room, so that I can’t hear what he’s saying to Ash. They speak for a few minutes together and when Embry returns, his
face reveals nothing, although I think I detect a hint of a frown on that perfectly shaped mouth.

  He hands the phone back to me, and I hold it up to my ear. “Ash? What does this have to do—” I break off my words.

  Embry is getting to his knees. In front of me.

  “Greer,” comes Ash’s voice through the receiver. “I want to be there so badly right now. I want to touch you and taste you and tell you how beautiful you are. I want to make you feel good.”

  While Ash speaks, Embry tilts his face up to mine. Something pulls at the edges of his calm mask now, but I can’t tell if it’s pleasure or pain, joy or contrition. And then his elegant hands with their long fingers reach for the skirt of my wedding dress.

  I freeze.

  “Embry…?” My voice is no louder than a raindrop coursing down a window, but both men hear it. Embry bites his lip but starts lifting the hem of my dress.

  Ash, on the other hand, says, “Stand still, Greer. Are you standing still?”

  “Yes,” I say, unable to tear my eyes away from Embry’s, unable to move away from this terrible, terrible, delicious thing. I tremble with a molten heat low in my belly as Embry’s able hands slowly gather up all of the layers of petticoat under my dress.

  Ash continues talking. “I kept thinking about what I wanted to give you today, and honestly, Greer, there isn’t really anything I couldn’t give you. Jewelry or exotic vacations or rare editions of the books you love, anything I could have dreamed of, I could get for you—but they were just things. I didn’t want to get you a thing for a curio cabinet or a jewelry box. I wanted to give you something that you could carry with you through our new life together. Something that would make you a promise.”

  Embry’s hand brushes up against my stocking-covered ankle and I gasp.