Wickedly Charming (6 page)

“I'm sorry I said that,” she said. “It's rude.”

“So are these placards,” he said. “They insult book people.”

“They do?” she asked.

She clearly didn't understand.

He sighed and let his hand drop. “Book people love books. Most book people love books more than anything in the whole world.”

His voice shook. He was talking about himself. He knew that. He wondered if she did.

“When you tell book people that they should change books or censor them or ban them, you're taking away the one thing that makes books so wonderful.”

“There would be other books,” she said.

He shook his head. “You miss the point. The point isn't that there would be other books. Or even that there would be more appropriate books. The point is that books themselves are an adventure. They challenge us, change our perceptions, make us more than we are.”

There it was: the first person plural. Right after he had sworn to avoid it. He was revealing himself, but he didn't know how to do this any other way.

“We need to know that all kinds of books exist. Books that make us fall in love. Books that scare us. Books that are so full of lies they make us angry.”

“Why would you want that?” she asked.

“Why would you not want it?” he asked.

“Because they're lying about us,” she said.

“Do they ever call you by name?” he asked. Then he frowned. “What is your name, by the way? I only know the Disney name, and that can't be right—”

“It's Mellie,” she said.

“So Disney had it right?” he asked, trying to remember. Was it Millificent? Millicent? Mill—

“Melvina,” she said. “My name is Melvina. Which is actually a good name. It means—”

“The female form of Melvin,” he said. “It means ‘chieftain.'”

Her mouth was open just slightly. “How did you know that?”

He smiled, happy to give her the answer. “Books,” he said. “I have an eidetic memory. So I remember everything I read.”

“Good heavens,” she said. “Doesn't that clutter up your brain?”

Which was a fairy tale character's answer if he had ever heard one. But he didn't say that to her. He didn't want to insult her.

Instead, he said gently, “I don't have much more to clutter it up with. My whole life is about—”

“Waiting for your father to die, I know,” she said, not without a bit of compassion.

He didn't want to talk about that. He was sorry he had said it earlier. Something about this woman made him more honest than he usually was.

Mellie. It suited her. Just like Melvina did. Only Melvina was one of those formal names, the name that a person used when they needed the dignity of their full name. Like David. The Biblical King wasn't King Dave. He was King David. But Charming would have wagered that all his friends called him Dave.

“What I was asking,” Charming said, keeping his voice gentle, “before I sidetracked us, was do any of these fairy tales mention you by name?”

She looked away from him, as if the door behind them—the door that got slammed a few moments ago—had suddenly become very interesting.

“No,” she said sullenly, rather like one of his daughters when he caught them in a lie.

“Do these fairy tales describe you accurately?” he asked.

Her gaze snapped back to his. “That's the whole point. Of course they don't. Why else would I be—”

“No, no,” he said. “I mean, do they describe you accurately physically? From that lovely dark hair of yours to those emerald eyes.”

He took her hand. It was soft. Her skin was as smooth as he remembered it from a few hours ago, and he didn't need to know that. He didn't need reminding about how attractive he found her.

He wanted to kiss her, and wouldn't that startle her? Just the urge startled him.

He leaned toward her, traced the side of her face with his thumb. She watched him, her mouth open just slightly.

“Do those fairy tales you hate describe the way that your cheeks flush just slightly when you're feeling passionate about something?” he asked quietly. “Or the rich, almost musical timbre of your voice?”

That flush he had mentioned had grown in her cheeks. He had unnerved her.

He was beginning to unnerve himself. He knew he could pour on the charm. He had just never done it unintentionally before.

His thumb had a mind of its own, touching that soft skin of hers. And if he got any closer, he would kiss her, and wouldn't that just scare her to death?

It scared him.

So he talked. He talked instead of kissing her because he didn't want her to run away.

But he kept his voice soft and gentle, as if he were talking to a frightened rabbit.

“I mean,” he said, “do those fairy tales mention any identifying marks, anything about you that's unique to you, something that someone—when they first meet you—would say, ‘Why look, Gladys! That's the Evil Stepmother from the Snow White tale.'”

She let out a reluctant bark of a laugh. “No, of course not.”

“Then what angers you so?” he asked.

She sighed. Her hand moved in his, as if she thought of taking it out of his grasp, but she didn't.

Instead, she leaned into his caressing thumb, just a little, as if she didn't realize that she had done so.

“It affects all of us stepmothers,” she said as if she were confiding in him. Maybe she was. “We've become a cultural stereotype, especially here, in the Greater World. We're expected to be hateful and evil, to try to kill our husbands' children, and to try to destroy his family when in reality, most of us do our best to become part of the family—sometimes to heal it. It's a destructive, horrible myth. Think about it. Children read stories about horrible stepmothers, and then their mother dies or leaves in a divorce, and suddenly they have a stepmother. Whom they're programmed to hate. We have not just the difficulties of blending families. We have to fight this horrible perception all the time.”

Charming sighed. Ella had hated her stepmother. Lavinia had come into Ella's house with her father, already married (which Charming blamed on the father) and with two daughters of her own, and, Ella said, seemed nice enough. Then Ella's father died, and everything changed. Ella got treated poorly. (
She ran wild
, Lavinia said.
I just imposed some discipline; not well, because I was in terrible, horrible grief
.)

“You don't agree, do you?” Mellie said. He had been silent too long, lost in his own thoughts, a problem he'd had his whole life.

She moved that beautiful head away from his thumb. Then she pulled her hand back.

“You don't think this is a problem at all,” she said, her tone becoming strident again.

Maybe that was how she dealt with embarrassment. She used her anger, her power, to keep people from seeing how vulnerable she was.

He couldn't grab her hand again; that would be wrong. But he felt like he had missed an important moment—and he didn't want to. He didn't want that closeness to go away.

“Actually, I do think this is a problem,” he said. “It's a serious one, and no amount of picketing will change it.”

She blinked hard, looking away from him. He could sense her frustration. Unless he missed his guess, she was very close to tears.

“So tell me, Mr. Perfectly Charming? What
am
I doing wrong? I suppose I'm not nice enough or
charming
enough to make my point properly.”

She did have a wicked tongue, he would give that to the storytellers. But she only seemed to wield it when she was frustrated.

“You can make your point any way you want,” he said. “But you need to use the right vehicle.”

“I'm trying to get on television. I'm trying to get interviews—”

“I know,” he said. “But that's ephemeral. You need to try it my way.”

“The Charming way?” she asked. “Oh, good. Because I'm clearly the most charming person in the room.”

He smiled. “You don't need to be charming to follow the Charming way,” he said. “Come with me.”

He held out his hand again.

She looked at it one more time.

“You don't quit, do you?” she asked.

He didn't answer that, because he wasn't sure he would like the answer. He just kept his hand extended.

She rolled her eyes, then put her hand in his. Her touch was soft, her skin warm and smooth, and this time, sent a tingle through him.

“Oh, all right,” she said. “Show me the way, Obi-Wan.”

He tucked her hand in the crook of his arm, then put his other hand over it.

“I don't think of myself as Obi-Wan,” he said. “I'm more Luke than anyone.”

“Oh, goody,” she said with that tart tone. “The milquetoast character.”

He shook his head. “The hero,” he said softly. “I always like to think of myself as the hero.”

And he hoped, in this case, that he wasn't wrong.

If she wanted to show Charming that she wasn't anything like her stereotype—bitter, frustrated, angry—she was certainly doing a good job.

Not.

Mellie let him lead her to the stairs. It felt right to walk beside him, his big hand clasped gently over hers. He had tucked her hand in the crook of his arm, royal style, as if they were heading to a ball.

Yeah, right. Like she would ever go to the ball with Prince Charming. If anything, she would stand in the corner (in a truly lovely dress) and diss the people going by. Ostensibly for amusement, but really because she wished she were one of them.

Even now, she wasn't one of the beautiful people. She was just walking with one, one who had happened to take pity on her.

He eased her up the stairs. What was it about his princeliness that made her feel like she was floating? The way that he maneuvered her forward? The gentleness of his touch? That endearing sense of shyness that he gave off?

Or maybe that was fake shyness. Maybe he knew how to make people feel comfortable, needed and wanted. And maybe he knew that she was a sucker for a shy man. Maybe knowing how to be what other people wanted was part of his charm. His magic.

Because everyone from the Kingdoms had a bit of magic. His clearly was the power to charm. Hers wasn't that subtle. Once upon a time, she had had the ability to use magic for really big things. But then she had used it all in one of those once-in-a-lifetime spells, and the magic hadn't come back.

She hadn't missed it.

Much.

Although she thought if she still had magic, she'd use it here, to repair all that damage the fairy tales had done.

She swallowed hard as they reached the top of the stairs, feeling nervous, looking for the rent-a-cops and the burly union guys. They would toss her out if they found her here again.

Normally that wouldn't bother her, but she wasn't feeling very normal at the moment. Charming had already seen her bad side. He didn't need to see anything worse.

He smiled at her and patted her hand, as if he could sense her nervousness. Great. He was sensitive too. Just what she needed.

Another overburdened bookseller staggered out of the exhibition hall, carrying two heavily laden book bags in each hand, red-faced already. No one offered to help him, not even Charming, who watched with—

Well, she would have said compassion, but that wasn't right. He was watching with envy.

He wanted to be doing
that
?

“I'm getting in your way, aren't I?” she asked.

It took a moment for him to look at her, as if he hadn't quite realized that she had spoken, and when he had realized it, he had to take another moment to comprehend it.

“No, no,” he said. “Come on.”

He led her to the exhibition doors.

“Do you have a badge?” he asked.

She had one. She had tucked it into one of her pockets when one of the burly union guys threatened to take it away from her and bar her from the premises.

She pulled out the badge, the lanyard crinkled, and the plastic holder creased.

Charming raised his eyebrows at the mess—didn't he ever accidentally destroy something?—but didn't say a word.

She put the badge around her neck.

“Orange,” he said softly. “That means you don't have book privileges. And I didn't think to ask for an extra badge. So you can't take anything out of here.”

She almost said,
Why would I want to?
, but then she saw the look of distress on his face. He thought she would want to carry books out. He thought she would be disappointed.

“That's okay,” she said, hoping she put the right bit of edge of dismay in her voice.

He glanced at her sideways, smiled slightly as if he didn't believe her, and pulled open the doors.

A cacophony of light and sound greeted her. Voices, indistinguishable from one another, blended together. She didn't hear words, just the rise and fall of conversations. Hundreds of conversations.

The air smelled of ink and glue and perfume and hair spray and mildew from the overworked air conditioning. The lights were very bright, aided by displays that had mirrors, displays that had flashing lights, displays that had pinwheels of color. Product everywhere—book product—also reflected the light, and people milled about, mostly wearing red or black power suits, although more than a few of them opted for corduroy blazers with patches on the elbows and pressed blue jeans.

Occasionally, someone short with a purple badge—the males almost indistinguishable from the females (at least at a distance)—staggered out the front door with armloads of book bags. She finally understood why people who left carrying swag had red faces.

The exhibition hall seemed to go on forever. She couldn't see the back end of it. She couldn't even see the middle. The aisles were crammed with people, displays, books, and tchotchkes.

No wonder everyone ignored her protests. They were so overstimulated by this place they didn't have the capacity to notice anything else.

“Mellie.” Charming's voice penetrated the noise. He said her name with just enough warmth that she tingled. She wished she hadn't heard that. Or, to be more accurate, she wished she hadn't heard it while paying attention to something else.

Because she could get used to a man saying her name that way.

She could get used to
this
man saying her name that way.

She looked over at him. He was talking to a man behind a table. The table had laptops and lists and more badges on it, as well as more lanyards and some stickers.

“This man wants to put a sticker on your name tag,” Charming said.

She felt a twinge of alarm. A sticker? “For what?” she asked.

“I get one guest. I've never taken the guest, but they'll let you change your status. You okay with that?”

She didn't know if she was okay with that, but Charming wanted it and he seemed to know his way around.

“Just hold out your badge, miss,” the man said.

Miss. She looked at him in surprise. The man was balding, but pleasant enough, and he certainly couldn't be as old as she was. Yet he had called her
miss
, not
ma'am
. Maybe she would like this place after all.

She held out her badge and he stuck a big purple splotch across the bottom. She had been expecting something small. That splotch covered everything but her name. And written in magic marker along the splotch were the words,
The Charming Way
.

“Enjoy,” the man said with a smile.

She nodded, too stunned to say anything to him.

As she let Charming lead her into the main part of the exhibition hall, she said, “What's the Charming Way?”

“I thought we had that discussion,” he said.

“No,” she said, indicating her badge with her free hand. “He wrote that on my splotch.”

Charming gave her a funny look. “Your what?”

She suddenly realized how that sounded. “My sticker. He wrote that on my sticker.”

“It's the name of my bookstore,” Charming said. She wasn't sure, but she thought he sounded reluctant to say that. “Back home.”

“Oh,” she said. “I hadn't realized I was making a pun earlier.”

“It's okay,” he said. “You weren't. You can only pun intentionally.”

She hadn't known that was a rule. She shrugged and let him lead her down the main aisle. As they passed a young, thin woman with too much makeup, she handed them both book bags. Mellie, remembering what Charming had told her, was about to turn hers down, when he said, “It's okay. That's why you're on my store. So you can take samples from here.”

A book bag was a sample? How bizarre. She took the bag, wrapping the cloth handle over her free wrist.

Charming pulled her to one side, near one of the booths, but not directly in front of it. They stood just outside the traffic flow which was, she noted, considerable. People moving back and forth, most of whom carried packed book bags. A few people were trying to shove more books into a bag, while a few others carried only one or two books under one arm.

“What do you think about vampires?” Charming asked.

“Excuse me?” Mellie said. She looked over at him. She wasn't sure, in all the noise and activity, that she had heard him correctly.

“Vampires,” he said. “What do you think of them?”

“Personally?” she asked.

He nodded, watching her as if her answer made all the difference in the world.

“I don't like them,” she said.

“Why not?” he asked.

“Have you ever met one?” she asked.

He smiled, but didn't answer. “I asked you your opinion. Just tell me. What do you think of them?”

“Why?” she asked.

“Indulge me,” he said.

“You're not going to introduce me to one, are you?” she asked, her skin crawling. She had no idea how a vampire could be in this well-lit place, but there might be some magic that would make it possible, some magic she didn't know.

“No,” he said. “I'm not going to introduce you to one. Just tell me why you don't like them.”

“They smell,” she said, and then bit her lower lip. She hadn't expected
that
to come out of her mouth.

But they did smell. If they just walked by, they smelled faintly of dried blood and graveyard dust. If one spoke, however, the stench of rotting flesh was overwhelming.

Her eyes watered just thinking about it.

“They do,” Charming said. “What else?”

“Why would I like one?” she asked. “Every vampire I meet wants to kill me. And you, for that matter, and anything else that is flesh and blood.”

She shuddered as she spoke. She'd had a few too many run-ins with vampires, particularly in the dark days after Snow's wedding, and she really didn't want to see another vampire ever again.

“Come with me,” Charming said, and without waiting for her response, led her to a gigantic booth filled with books. As she looked at the nearest display, she saw pictures of men dressed as vampires, standing in sexy poses, wind blowing back their capes.

“What's this?” she asked.

“This,” he said, “is the modern vampire.”

“No, it's not,” she said. “Vampires aren't even human. They're an entirely different species, one that preys on flesh and blood, like jackals. They'll even go for the dead if they have no other choice, like hyenas. They're—”

“I know that,” Charming said gently. “But vampires care about their reputation too. About the time we started dealing with those Grimm people, they had to deal with someone named Stoker. He let the Great World know about them—”

“So?” she said.

“And the Greater World heard how evil they are,” Charming said.

“And you think that's bad?” she asked.

“What I think doesn't matter,” he said. “What matters is what the Greater World thinks. And right now, the Greater World thinks vampires are sexy.”

She shuddered. The very thought was horrifying. Had no one in the Greater World seen a vampire? Not only did they smell, but they had huge bat wings that looked—yes, indeed—like capes, arching over them. They had gray skin—truly gray, gunmetal gray—and pale red eyes that could see movement in darkness, just like cats could. They had long fangs that sometimes cut their black lips. They were pure predators, who ripped through flesh looking for fresh blood.

There was nothing sexy about them.

Nothing.

At least from a human perspective. Other vampires might differ, since they did procreate—with each other. She didn't know a lot about vampire reproduction, except that it happened like it happened most other places in nature—when a male and a female of the same species had some form of sex.

She shuddered again. Even that was more than she wanted to think about.

“Why would anyone write this?” she asked. “It's all lies.”

More lies. Everywhere in this room—lies.

“Think about it, Mellie,” Charming said. “Who benefits?”

No one, so far as she could tell. No one benefited at all. Vampires didn't look like this, and no one would want to have a close-up encounter with a real vampire. It was just… disgusting.

“How could anyone benefit from this?” she asked him.

He smiled. “When the barriers between our worlds eased,” he said, “and members of the Kingdoms came into the Greater World in larger numbers, someone named Polidori saw a vampire and wrote a story about him. As a predator. Vampires became a staple of fiction.”

“As heroes?” she couldn't keep the contempt from her voice.

“No,” Charming said. “As villains. These were warning stories, made all the more powerful by a book you've probably heard of.
Dracula
by a fellow named Bram Stoker. He made vampires loathsome but powerful things to be avoided. And it worked for a very long time.”

“Worked?” she asked.

“To those in the Greater World who believe that fantasy and fairy tales have no basis in fact,” Charming said, “Stoker's tales still served as a warning to stay away from that shadowy individual walking down a dark alley. Vampires had a tough time finding prey here.”

“Which is a good thing,” Mellie said.

Charming nodded. “Unless you're a vampire.”

She looked at him sharply, then back at the books. Dozens—no, hundreds of them. Sexy human males with fangs and a bit of danger. Posters, clearly aimed at teenage girls, of a pasty boy with bright red lips and fangs. Statues of these boy/men, hats with vampire logos, and even some fake fangs sat on makeshift shelves.

“Vampires did this?” she whispered.

She thought she had spoken to herself, but Charming nodded.

“They went on a PR offensive in the last few years,” he said. “They decided they needed a public relations make-over. Vampires are all the rage now. Teenagers dress up like them. Prince Charming is passé. Now they all want to fall in love with Edward.”