Beauty and the Beast (Not Quite the Fairy Tale #3) (4 page)

Nonetheless, Belle cringed. These weren’t here for little DIY sessions.

She’d done her homework; she knew that the Nest was a very private, select casino; she’d imagined that sex went hand in hand with that sort of business. She just hadn’t expected it to be quite so predominant.

Belle was disgusted, feeling half angry, half sick. She didn’t have a thing against sex per se, her peeve was the non-consensual kind, and she didn’t believe for one second that workers desired their clients. Well, maybe some of them, but surely, most of the patrons were unattractive, or they would find someone to volunteer their services, rather than paying for it.

The fourth floor managed to relax her. It was full of rooms, too, but those felt cozy, lived in; after popping her head in a messy bedroom, she closed the door, feeling quite intrusive.

She ran into Arthur Lightwoods, who confirmed that she’d made it to the employees’ quarters.

Belle considered asking about the rooms downstairs, but she bit her tongue.

She didn’t mind Arthur, he was friendly, but he smiled too much, which made her wonder what he had to hide. She was more comfortable around Clocks, the silent, focused guy who communicated by nodding or shaking his head.

“Ok, I’ll go. No need to rush and hide your dirty magazines.”

He chuckled and she smiled in triumph. She didn’t joke very often; managing to extract a laugh from someone who wasn’t a sibling was noteworthy. 

Finally, Belle returned to the last floor. She’d already seen part of that level: her space was located on the right, and she understood that the left hand side of the penthouse was the Beast’s domain.

What itched at her curiosity were the large doors just in front of the grand staircase, but she’d tried them and they were closed.

She pouted all the way back to her rooms.

Her apartment was phenomenal; larger, more luxurious than any place she’d ever seen, let alone lived in. There was a music room, a TV room, an office, a walk in closet – full of garments far too girly for her – and her bedroom, which would have been fit for a princess.

Everything in there seemed new; it had that smell, that feel, and she’d found a couple of tags on her pillows.

She really appreciated the effort; however, the person who’d shopped had never met her.

The room was pink. A subtle, almost tasteful pink, but pink all the same. There also was an awful lot of lace involved. And freaking
ribbons
.

Belle had borne it the first night, too tired from all the packing, carrying and unpacking she’d done in record time; Clocks and Lightwoods had helped when they’d made it to her place, so she hadn’t had to use a muscle from there to the Nest, but she’d taken the opportunity to sort through her shit, picking out everything she didn’t need, and she’d dropped the bulk of it off at the nearest orphanage earlier in the afternoon.

She never gave money; money, the administration could steal – but clothes, food, books, blankets went a long way. She recalled the days of her residency there; it had felt like Christmas each time some patron dropped a bag of well-worn unwanted frocks.

Nine boxes of practically new items made it to the orphanage, while she kept two cases; one of those wasn’t going to stay in her room over twenty-four hours. There weren’t many material things Belle was attached to. Her brother said she was the least high maintenance pretty girl he’d ever met; he was wrong.

There were things she liked, and they were priceless. Unpolluted wind on her face, naked earth under her feet, and flowers; roses, above them all. She recalled experiencing it all, back when they’d lived in the country with her parents; but it wasn’t likely to happen again, until she could get out of Jereena.

Getting a bit of fresh air sounded simple enough; it wasn’t nowadays. It meant taking time off work to get out of town, to some kinda posh resort, because flowers were picked up to be promptly sold as soon as they grew in the wilderness.

So, in short, her idea of a treat was pretty damn expensive. 

Belle forced herself to stop daydreaming and spent the next twenty minutes trying to rearrange her temporary abode, hunting for spare linen and normal cushion covers in her cupboards, but it was no use; if anything, the replacements were worse.

She thought about the generic bed sheets downstairs and resolved to ask if grabbing a few sets was alright, although the idea of spending more time in
those
rooms didn’t appeal to her.

“Clocks,” she called out, jumping two steps at once down the posh stairs.

The man had told her to holler whenever she needed him, and as trying to actually find anyone in that mansion might have taken her a whole afternoon, she did just that.

She was jumping the last four in one go when the Beast suddenly appeared, emerging from the left corridor with his gorgeous white hunting dog in tow.

Belle closed her eyes, anticipating the collision, but instead of hitting a hard surface, she somehow ended up in his very large arms, carried under the shoulders and knees, like a freaking bride.

Her breath caught in her throat for a minute, as she acknowledged how that made her feel.

Good. Very good.

Uncomfortable, too, because it shouldn’t have, she wasn’t the kind of woman who needed a man to make her feel warm and safe...

She felt just that, though. It was his fault: he was so damn big, and smelt like all sorts of yummy stuff. Like sweat and musk, and…

The Beast cleared his throat. She realized that he’d dropped her down on the floor, but she was still attached to him, because at some point within the last few minutes, she’d lost her mind and wrapped her arms around his neck.

What the
hell
.

She let him go, mumbling god knew what about her room being completely, utterly pink. She was demanding to know what had made him think that she might possibly like that color; no other room in the entire house had a shred of pink in it.

“You’ve been exploring?” he asked, frowning.

“You wouldn’t have?”

Anyone who’d just moved in would have looked around – it was basic human curiosity.

Ok, Belle may possibly have been injected with an extra dose of nosiness, but she was quite certain she wasn’t the exception – just an extreme case following that particular rule.

“Perhaps. It’s fine – just don’t go down to the dungeons,” he ordered, his low voice curt and threatening.

Oh, boy. He just had to say that, didn’t he?

Belle hadn’t been overly interested in the dungeons – that sort of term often went along with spiders, rats and other creepiness.

But he’d forbidden it now, making in number one on the list of things she needed to explore during her stay at the Nest.

Belle might not be that different from her brother, after all.

Chapter Four

the Streets

H
e was kidding. Right? He better be kidding.

“Perfect size!” the girl told her, smiling as she took her in.

If he wasn’t kidding, she needed to kick his ass to the moon and back.

The Beast had sent her a fuck me suit. Great. Exactly what she needed to wear in a fucking brothel.

Belle turned to the girl who was untightening the ridiculous garment.

“Vera, right?” she asked her.

The girl was perhaps a bit younger than Belle, but she seemed legal – or somewhat close.

“Do you like working here?”

Ok, that was probing, but she needed to bring it up with
someone.

“Definitely. My family has worked in this house for generations; some of my relatives left when it became… a bit more public.”

That was one way of putting it.

“But I can’t say I’ve seen a lot of difference. The job is the same.”

“So you don’t do…
things
downstairs?”

If looks could kill. Vera had been friendly until then, but her smile slipped and her tone changed.

“Do you like mopping the floor at the library?” she snapped.

Duh. She was a librarian, not a cleaner.

“I’m a house servant. Not a bartender, not a server, and certainly not a whore. Besides, don’t you feel sorry for the girls here. No one forces them to do it: they love sex, and they definitely love the money they make.”

Belle was pretty sure her face was the picture of disapprobation.

“Whatever. Feel free to judge them. Just try not to insult the eighty employees here who don’t open their legs for money. Eighty employees who certainly will judge
you.
”

Direct hit; but she’d had a point. Belle
had
insulted her, after jumping to conclusions.

Vera worked in silence and left.

♦

He’d sent Vera to her at five o’clock, leaving Belle a good six hours to reconcile herself with his demands.

Aiden had personally chosen the clothes. He recalled liking shopping; not for himself, perhaps, but he’d always been more than willing to take a woman out with his credit card – and not only because they liked to show their appreciations in the most pleasing ways.

There was something decadent about picking out which piece of fabric a woman would wear for him, right down to the underwear.

He hadn’t had the leisure indulging in that pleasure for years, so if she didn’t like it, Sibelle had to suck it up and deal with it.

He’d gone for a dark yellow mustard corset and a long velvet skirt. Because he wasn’t a saint, there was a huge slit on her left leg, and he’d bought fishnet stockings. She was also to wear a black collar similar to Adler’s.

The ensemble would be stunning on her tall, classically beautiful frame, but more to the point, it would be screaming one very clear message out loud: that she was his toy. A very classy, exclusive toy, but a toy nonetheless.

He’d chosen underwear, too. They weren’t suggestive – a simple strapless red bra and a matching silken pair of boyshorts. He knew she would have thrown a crotchless tongue at his face, but he liked to think she’d choose to wear those. 

At five twenty-five past, he received a little note, written on one of his elegant guest cards embodied with “The Nest” at the front.

“I see I’m not required to breathe,”
she’d written, with an underlined
“asshole”
underneath.

He laughed and spontaneously decided to reply with an invitation to join him for dinner, making it clear that there was no obligation.

She was summoned at ten downstairs tonight, and he knew she’d turn up, for her brother’s sake – but it would have been nice to get to see her outside of the whole charade.

Sibelle refused.

Of course she did; he didn’t know why he’d asked.

Aiden closed the curtains to escape the reflection the window threw back at him. He really didn’t need the reminder.

♦

During school term, she visited them three, four times a week, max, but the schools had broken up for the summer and the kids had asked for extra lessons; she’d said yes. It wasn’t like she had anything else to do.

She sent a text to the few amongst them who owned mobile phones, asking them to spread the word: she wanted to see them earlier today.

When she made it to the skate park at six, the eighteen teenagers were on the ramp; they stopped skating as soon as she glided down towards them, converging around her.

Belle wasn’t helping them because of their unbounded adulation, but she had to admit – it felt pretty damn good.

They didn’t admire her because she was attractive, they didn’t give a damn about the surface. No, to them, she was
it,
because many moons ago, she’d pulled off the craziest stunts any street kid had ever attempted, and had gotten away with each one. There was a pair of boobs still painted over the portrait of Prince Aiden Archer in the City Hall attesting to it.

Ok, it had been childish and needlessly dangerous, she’d never encourage anyone else to try – as unlike her, they weren’t practically bulletproof – but at the same time, that had given everyone who entered the Hall a reason to smile for eight years, so whatever. Totally worth it.

Belle had gone shopping; she had things for every girl, and giving them clothes without passing anything to the boys would have been incredibly dumb and unfair; borderline cruel, really.

Saying that the kids didn’t have much was an understatement. Three of them were emaciated, and worked hard to feed themselves; six were residents of the orphanage where she’d grown up – which meant that they worked harder yet, and very rarely went to bed with a full stomach. The rest had various sob stories – she didn’t know them all. All she knew is that she’d seen them in the streets at some point, doing what they needed to survive, and she’d stepped in, because surviving was what she did best.

She’d met Tim, first; the stupid, reckless twat had actually nicked an aristocrat’s wallet. She’d seen it and laughed, simply observing.

The noble hadn’t seen a thing, but unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said for his guards: they’d gone for the kid, metal batons in hand.

The kid was good – he’d skated between them, heading for the market where he would have managed to evade them, if he’d seen the forth guy who’d tailed him. He hadn’t; Belle had.

She might not have intervened, if the guy had just asked for the wallet, but he actually used the baton, hitting the helpless child straight in the stomach.

She’d kicked his ass, grabbed
his
wallet as well as his employers, before getting Tim out of there in record time.

A map of Archange City highlighting every hideaway, potential escape route and shortcut was firmly implanted in her brain, so it had been a piece of cake.

Belle couldn’t give them much – predominantly because she wasn’t loaded, but also because none of them would accept actual charity; when she’d been in their shoes, she wouldn’t have, either.

She knew they’d take what she’d brought today, because most of it was second-hand handouts, and they’d understand why she’d bought the rest.

None of the things in her tattered suitcase were fancy; hoodies and jackets, trainers, headphones, old music players. But they were more luxurious than what they could afford.

Belle didn’t especially like posh clothes, but she bought quality and purposefully changed her wardrobe often, knowing that everything she purchased would have one or two other owners six months down the line, when she replaced it.

They spent a good hour raving about her gifts, and then, they started.

Tim taught the young Larry and Ken, making them spar against each other and helping them perfect their movements. They were both a step above the rest of the "class," so the warm up Belle was leading was below their skill level.

After the kata, Belle set up a little game: a race without rules, offering a dinner at a posh pizzeria as the prize.

The kids were ruthless. Biting, pushing, tricking, flashing boobs – nothing was forbidden.

The plan had been to spar with Tim during the race, but it had just been too fun to watch: after a couple of attempts at concentrating on their duel, they gave up, taking the spectator seats around the ramp and watching the little gladiators going at it.

She took them all out in the end, but gave Ruth a whole pizza to herself, proud as a punch that the smallest, youngest, shyest amongst her recruits was also the most frighteningly cunning little shit.

God knew what the waiter thought when she walked in with almost twenty sweaty, dirty, beaten up kids and asked for ten pizzas, thirteen cokes and six beers. But she paid cash straight away, so he shut his mouth and got her order going.

Belle was having an awful lot of fun, until she looked up at the clock; then, she ran all the way from the restaurant to the Nest, making it just before ten.

After the quickest shower in the history of female ablutions, she started cursing the Beast. Of course he’d picked a freaking steel boned, lace up, waste training corset and not something a girl could casually slip into.

She’d just tied herself in when she realized she hadn’t put her knickers or tights on. Shit. No time to squeeze them under the long bodice, now. She put the skirt on and worked on her make up as quickly as humanly possible. She looked down at the collar and laughed. In his dreams.

Watching her reflection in the mirror, she blanched, just like she had that afternoon. Not a lot of things frightened her; that did.

The only reassurance was that no one she knew would
ever
see her look like that. Her life was downtown, a world away from the most exclusive neighborhood in the capital…

But still.

She was sexy. Belle avoided looking
pretty
; sexy was ten, fifteen times worse.

To be entirely honest, she rocked the look. She would have loved to live in a world where a girl could get away with wearing that sort of get up just because it was
fun,
without every guy around taking it as an invitation for calling her names, stalking her or trying to rape her, but her life was no fairy tale.

There had been a time when she’d worn skirts and little blouses, done her hair every day and put on scented gloss. She’d liked the looks, compliments and the attention it brought. She’d never been slutty, or even sexy, but it hadn’t mattered. Jason Fairin had decided that she was his to take as he pleased.

Somewhere around the first week of her freshman year at college, he’d invited her to look around campus. She’d been flattered; he was popular, gorgeous, and a senior, too. However, she’d turned him down, because she wasn’t stupid: she knew what
looking around campus
stood for, and she hadn’t wanted it; not with a stranger.

Belle had realized it had been a great decision when he hadn’t taken no for an answer; he was asking her out practically every day, and turning up everywhere; her friend’s parties, her regular coffee place, her dorm. It had been uncomfortable.

Then, after a party, she’d woken up in a strange place; every single one of her muscles ached and she didn’t recall a thing about the previous night, past the
one
drink she’d sipped.

The police hadn’t helped; they hadn’t even accepted her request for a restraining order. In Jereena, influence, connections and money counted more than truth in the eyes of the law.

She had been told that there had been a time when things had been different; not so long ago, just a little decade.

Sibelle didn’t recall it. In this day and age, being beautiful was a weakness she couldn’t afford.

However, there was something else she couldn’t afford: one hundred thousand marks. So she moved her ass downstairs.

Looks like Vera was right after all. Everyone had a price.