Modern Wicked Fairy Tales: Complete Collection (48 page)

“Success!” Andrew called over his shoulder.
“Come on, princess, let’s get you back to the ball!”

Thank God.
She hated living her life
worried about how Vivian would react to everything she said and
did, but it was the path of least resistance. At least she and Hans
were in it together.

“Ladies first.” Andrew smiled and bowed,
waving toward the now open window. The lights were off inside but
in the moonlight she could see the reflection of a surface that
looked as if it might be a desk.

“Um…” Gretel eyed the window as she
approached, frowning down at her dress. “This isn’t gonna be
easy.”

“Want a boost?” He locked his hands together
and bent low.

“Um…” She looked from him to the window,
debating. “Oh fuck it.”

He laughed as she slipped off her shoes and
tossed them through the window, hiking her dress high up on her
thighs and slipping a leg over the edge. She found herself
straddling the window ledge, wincing as she felt a run starting in
her pantyhose as she scraped her flesh over the edge of the metal,
giving Andrew far more of a view than she’d intended.

“You okay?” he called as she slid to the
floor with a muffled “oof,” her dress pooled around her in a satin
puddle.

“Fine,” she assured him, getting quickly to
her feet and looking around the dim room. Definitely someone’s
office, she could tell that even in the dark.

“Good.” Andrew swung both legs gracefully
through the window and slipped inside. “I wouldn’t want to be
accused of breaking the birthday girl.” He slid the window closed,
shutting out the cold, and turned to face her. “Is there a light in
here?”

“On the desk maybe?” Gretel felt her way
across the surface, trying to see in the silvery moonlight, and
found what she was looking for, flicking the lamp’s switch and
illuminating the room.

“That’s better.” Andrew bent to pick up her
heels. “Yours?”

“Thanks.” Gretel took them, using the desk
to lean against to slip them back on. “Well, that was quite an
adventure.”

“Every girl should have an adventure on her
birthday.” He smiled and she couldn’t help notice the dimple that
appeared in his left cheek, like a sly wink. She wondered how old
he was. Older than her brother, certainly older than she was. An
older man, but not old. No, not very old.

“I must be a mess.” Gretel touched her hair,
a mass of red curls on the top of her head, feeling several stray
strands falling around her face. Her gorgeous dress was damp on the
bottom from the snow and it stuck to her legs. Probably dirty too,
she reasoned, not looking down to check but thinking of the tag
tucked into the bodice, realizing she wasn’t going to be able to
return it. Her stepmother was going to be angry, and although she
wasn’t looking forward to the lecture, she was rather glad she
would get to keep the dress. Especially the way Andrew was admiring
her in it in the lamp light, in spite of her disheveled
appearance.

“Actually, you look…great.” There was that
dimple again, just a brief appearance, a flash of a smile. The
pause that followed was a little awkward and full of so much heat
that Gretel thought she might actually faint. From far away, she
heard the faint strains of music, but the look in Andrew’s eyes had
captured her attention almost completely. He straightened suddenly,
taking her by the elbow. “Whoops, I think that’s your cue.”

“It is?” She looked up at him quizzically as
he steered her toward the door and opened it, letting the
still-faint sound of “Happy Birthday” seep into the room.

“They’re playing your song.” He grinned and
that dimple deepened. “Come on, don’t want you turning into a
pumpkin or something.”

They followed the sound of the music back to
the hall, arriving breathless at the doors just as an enormous cake
with a large silver wax “18” candle lit on top was being wheeled up
to the front of the room. Drew steered her by her elbow behind the
cake as the whole crowd began to sing “Happy Birthday” on cue from
the DJ.

Gretel couldn’t help the flush creeping into
her cheeks as she used the stairs to join her brother and father on
stage. Her stepmother was there, furious under her plastered-on
smile, as the cake cart came up the ramp to the middle of the
platform.

“There’s our birthday girl!” The DJ—a master
of ceremony of sorts—announced as the birthday song ended. “Make a
wish, Gretel!”

She felt Hans slip his hand into hers,
giving it a big squeeze. She knew what he was thinking—that she
would wish for freedom, for opportunity, not just for herself, but
for them both. Glancing over at her father, his tired eyes and
faint smile, she would have given that wish away for him in a
heartbeat if she thought it might do him any good.

“Psst.” The sound was soft but she heard
anyway, seeing Andrew standing down in front, just part of the
crowd now. She met his eyes as he mouthed the word ‘adventure,’
waggling his eyebrows, and she nearly laughed out loud.

Closing her eyes, she made her
wish—
please let me have an adventure
—and blew out the
candles, leaving whiffs of blue smoke hovering above the pink and
white cake. The crowd clapped and the cake was wheeled away again,
guests already lining up to taste the three-foot high
concoction.

“The family has one more announcement before
Gretel opens her gifts.” The DJ was a short, balding man and Gretel
saw the faint look of fear in the man’s eyes as he handed the
microphone over to Vivian in her heels. She made him look even more
diminutive as she snatched it from him, and Gretel almost wanted to
apologize and tell him,
it’s not you she’s mad at, it’s
me.

“We have a very special guest here tonight.”
Vivian was so mad she was practically purring as she handed the
microphone over to a woman Gretel had hardly noticed standing
behind her brother and her father. The two of them parted so the
old woman could come forward and take the microphone, and although
Gretel had never seen her before, she looked oddly familiar.

“Thank you so much.” The old woman’s voice
was clear and steady, and so were her eyes. “I’d like to introduce
myself to you—and to my lovely granddaughter.”

Gretel straightened, looking wide-eyed at
her family, seeing her father mouthing the words, “Your mother’s
mother.” As if she wouldn’t know. His parents had died before both
she and Hans were born. This was the grandmother she had never met,
the one her mother had insisted they never have anything to do
with.

Gretel stepped a little closer to her
brother, whispering, “What is this?”

“An ambush.” He shrugged, watching as their
grandmother spoke.

“I have been estranged from my grandchildren
for many years, but thanks to the reunification efforts of their
stepmother…” The old woman nodded at Vivian, smiling warmly, and
Gretel felt her stomach clench at the way the two women looked at
each other. “Now that both of them are of-age, I am being given the
opportunity to be in their lives once more.”

She and Hans exchanged glances, his eyebrows
rising in surprise. To their knowledge, it had been their
grandmother who had disinherited their mother for marrying their
father. It has been their grandmother who had told her daughter to
get out and never come back. Although their father had assured his
wife before she died that he would never allow their grandmother
into their lives.
He promised
, Gretel remembered. She’d been
young when her mother died—barely in kindergarten—but she
remembered that conversation very vividly. Their mother hadn’t
wanted them to have anything to do with the woman who had given
birth to her—although neither she nor Hans had ever found out why.
Their father wouldn’t talk about it.

The old woman smiled at her and Gretel
feigned a smile back, her whole body tensing at her grandmother’s
words. “My gift to this beautiful young lady—and her handsome
brother—is a two-week cruise on my private yacht in Australia so we
can all get acquainted.”

The crowd gave a collective gasp and began
applauding and of course Gretel didn’t have to act surprised—she
was. She looked over at her brother and saw he had stars in his
eyes, probably already planning what he was going to do on this
sudden, luxurious vacation. Both she and Hans had a two week
mid-winter break starting on Monday. Clearly this had been planned.
The smug, greedy look on her stepmother’s face told her that much.
Something was up, she just knew it. Her grandmother and stepmother
had hatched some sort of plan, although she couldn’t fathom would
it might be.

“What do you say, Gretel?” Vivian nudged her
a little too sharply and Gretel smiled, leaning over so her voice
would be heard through the microphone.

“Thank you.”

What else could she say? Looking down at the
crowd, she saw the man who had rescued her from the cold—he saw her
too and smiled, showing her that dimple again—and she found herself
thinking it might have been better if she’d stayed locked outside.
Although, glancing between her grandmother and stepmother, two
clearly very powerful women, Gretel knew she was outmatched.

And she had wished for an adventure, hadn’t
she?

* * * *

Hans felt his jaw clenching as Andrew
stepped in front of him, holding out a hand to Gretel to help her
off the ladder. Water sheeted off her body, clad in only a black
bikini, onto the deck as she pulled her mask and snorkel off, her
red hair sticking in dark curls to the sides of her face. Hans
stepped back, taking off his own mask and snorkel as his sister
looked up at Andrew with big eyes.

“Oh my god you should have seen it!” Gretel
exclaimed, shaking her wet head like a dog, spraying a
fully-dressed Andrew with water, but he didn’t seem to mind.
Normally, Hans would have liked Andrew—his grandmother’s personal
assistant and bodyguard seemed like an all around great guy—but he
didn’t like the way the man hung around his sister, the way he
looked at her.

“Did you see the stingray?” Gretel turned
those familiar, worshipful eyes toward him and Hans smiled, about
to respond, when her attention shifted back to Andrew again. “There
were jellyfish, Drew! And stingrays and turtles! And the coral was
magical! And these gorgeous blue and yellow fish—”

“Sweetlips.” Andrew nodded, smiling
indulgently, that fat dimple on his cheek deepening as he handed
Gretel a towel.

“What did you call me?” His sister flushed
prettily, using the towel to dry off. He wished she would cover up
with it.

“That’s the name of the fish.” Andrew
laughed. “But it would be the perfect nickname for you.”

“Oh you! Stop!” Gretel sounded very much
like she didn’t want Andrew to stop at all.

Hans ignored them and grabbed his own towel
from a stack, using it to dry his wet, salty hair. He never in his
life would have imagined he would be snorkeling in the Coral Sea—at
least not while he was still under his stepmother’s thumb. The
woman had made their lives hell for years, keeping up the
appearance of wealth on credit while denying her stepchildren every
possibly convenience. He had blamed his father when he was an
adolescent, but the older he got, the more he realized how much his
father was just trying to escape the grief of losing his first wife
any way he could.

And in some weird way, he knew Vivian had
been his father’s answer to taking care of two children he had no
idea how to raise on his own. His father, like him, was a
scientist, a professor, a man of logic and reason who got lost when
the world upending in emotional upheaval. Vivian had been the
perfect, logical answer—a woman who claimed to love and want him,
who would care for his two young children while he did research on
one of the world’s most important discoveries—the Genome
project.

Of course, that was back before the
university had lost its funding, back when his father was on track
to becoming one of the most well-renowned—and well-paid—scientists
in the country. Vivian had hitched herself to his father’s rising
star, only to see it plummet to earth like a stone. He supposed he
couldn’t blame the woman for feeling a little bitter, but he knew
in his heart, had his mother been alive, she would have been proud
of her husband regardless.

Hans draped the towel around his shoulders
and walked to the railing of the yacht, looking down at the
impossibly clear, deep blue water below, thinking about his mother.
Gretel had been so little when she died, she didn’t remember too
much, but he remembered everything—his mother’s pain, the cancer
spreading from the tumor on her arm to her bones and finally to her
liver and her brain. Redheads were so susceptible to skin cancer,
and his mother had been such an outdoor lover, the combination had
proved deadly.

He couldn’t believe how much of a hole it
had left in his life, a gaping wound that even a kind, motherly
stepmother would have had a hard time filling. But adding Vivian to
his life had been less like putting a band-aid on a bleeding
artery, and more like taking a chainsaw to a limb or two. He hadn’t
realized how much he had longed for someone who would be gentle
with him, someone who would attempt to fill that horrible gap.

Until he met his maternal grandmother.

“You’ll have to go diving with me instead of
just snorkeling.” Andrew took a seat next to Gretel on a chaise
chair, handing her some sort of drink with an umbrella in it.

“I don’t know how to dive.” She sipped the
fruity concoction, settling herself in her own chaise, soaking up
the sun. Her creamy skin was already turning pink.

“Gretel, you should put on more sunscreen,”
Hans warned, inwardly groaning at the situation he had created when
Andrew offered to spread the creamy lotion on his sister’s pale
skin. She accepted his help willingly enough—too willingly, as far
as he was concerned. He didn’t know why it bothered him so much.
There had been plenty of boyfriends in Gretel’s life, and Hans had
been part of many a plot to get Gretel out of the house on a date
their stepmother didn’t know about. So why did Andrew bother him so
much?