Wickedly Charming (9 page)

Mellie saw him through the window of the coffee shop. She tried to pretend she wasn't looking for him. She had her laptop open and she typed—albeit comments on someone else's blog—but she really kept an eye on the window.

She positioned herself at a table in the center of the room. She took the seat that enabled her to see both sets of windows and the door. She could only see the counter and the barista if she turned slightly. But she could watch the windows without raising her head from the computer screen.

Charming looked frazzled. He drove his silver Mercedes past the door, then around the block, and into the parking lot. He got out, ran a hand through that thick, black hair, and took a deep breath.

Mellie wasn't sure if he was nervous about seeing her or if he didn't want to see or if he was nervous about both seeing her
and
telling her that her book was crap.

Which it was.

She should have thought of that before making it be her excuse to see him again.

Only it hadn't really been exactly an excuse. It had felt like salvation at the time.

He pointed his remote at the car, and the headlights winked on and off. If the jazz overhead wasn't so loud or the conversations so obnoxious, she could've heard the little chirrup of acknowledgement most cars gave as well.

Oh, she was obsessing. (And who wouldn't? He was the most gorgeous man she had ever seen.)

Once he started walking toward the front door, she put her head down and typed rapidly. She wasn't going to send the comment; she barely knew what she was writing. But she had to look busy. Legitimately busy.

She didn't want him to know how she felt. She hated being a cliché—whether it was an evil stepmother cliché or a lusting-after-the-handsome-unattainable-prince cliché.

She typed and waited, and tried very hard not to look at the door.

***

Charming had a heck of a time finding the coffee shop. There had to be eight hundred billion coffee shops in the greater Los Angeles area, most of them centered around the major studios. He went into five coffee shops, none of which looked quite right and none of which had Mellie inside.

He almost left the folder with printed copies of the twenty pages and Mellie's notes in the car. But he carried it to one last coffee shop before giving up.

And then he saw her, sitting near the fake fireplace in the back. The fake fireplace was off, which made it seem almost regal. Mellie looked beautiful sitting there, softer somehow. At the book fair, he had seen her as all angles—not quite the angular beauty portrayed by Disney, but a tad too thin, a bit harsh around the edges.

That harshness was gone now. She looked younger, her black hair down around her shoulders. Her clothing wasn't as harsh either. She wore a black sweater that accented her fair skin, and black pants that had a small flare around some stylish boots. She didn't look like a fairy tale creature at all or, as she seemed to prefer, an archetype.

She looked like a trendy, beautiful Southern California businesswoman working her afternoon away in a coffee shop.

He suppressed a sigh. He felt dumpy and awkward. He'd been up for hours, soothing Grace who hadn't wanted to go back to school, then walking her to class, meeting with the principal. Charming hadn't lost his temper in that meeting, but he had channeled his father. He had told the principal that, with the prices Charming had paid to get his daughters into the school, his daughters deserved to be treated with respect from everyone.

The implied threat seemed to get through.

He hoped.

He did feel the strain. Being forceful was not his normal style, and it exhausted him.

Mellie looked up from her computer and smiled. She had seen him. The smile had worry in it, as if she knew he was uncertain about being here.

More forcefulness—or was he going to be charming? He didn't know. All he knew was that he had read her first twenty pages, and wished that he hadn't.

Maybe today was his confrontation day. Once he got through all of this, he would be done with confrontation for the entire year. Or at least, he wished he would be.

He made himself smile in return, then he held up one finger, and walked to the counter. He ordered one of the fancier drinks—chocolate, espresso, and lots of cream—and didn't even try to sound like a native.

He was too tired to pretend to be anything other than what he was.

Dave the bookseller, who was meeting a woman he barely knew to talk about a terrible book he had told her to write, a woman he was attracted to, a woman who would probably balk when she learned that in the past month he had become a full-time single father to two rather lost little girls.

He paid for his drink, then walked over to the table, and made himself smile as he sat down.

“Mellie,” he said, using his warmest voice.

He was pouring on the charm—he knew it, and he wished he wasn't. But he didn't see any other way to do this.

“It sucks, doesn't it?” she said, putting the same emphasis on the word “sucks” that Imperia had used the day before. Was that something girls got taught when they came to the Greater World? Or did they just feel free enough to use the word here, when they wouldn't have used the word at home?

Mellie opened the door. But he wasn't going to walk through it. After all, she had worked on this project for a month. And he really didn't want to hurt her feelings. He wanted her to kiss him again.

She probably wouldn't, even if he was particularly gentle about this book. He had to keep reminding himself that their one kiss was not really a kiss at all.

It had been a spontaneous thank you, one she probably forgot in an instant.

He needed to charm her. He needed to take the attention off that damn book. He needed her to realize that he liked her.

“You're looking particularly beautiful today,” he said with a smile.

She smiled in return, but the smile was reluctant, as if she couldn't help it. The smile made her seem young and vulnerable.

“How are you?” he asked. “Well, I'm fine. Gee, it's been a while since we've seen each other. Is everything working out well for you?”

Her smile grew and became sincere. She clearly understood what he was doing, and it made her eyes twinkle.

“How are you, Charming?” she said. “Or do I call you Dave here?”

She didn't put that snide emphasis on the name, and he appreciated that.

“No one notices Dave,” he said. Usually he liked that. Just not with her.

“Everyone notices Dave,” she said. “You should've seen the look that the barista gave you as you came through the door.”

He flushed. Mellie had been watching him, then, from the moment he arrived.

“Yes,” she said, “I saw you come in. And I saw you hesitate. Is it that you don't want to see me or you don't want to tell me about the book?”

She wasn't going to let it go. He had hoped they might have a few minutes of flirting before he had to talk about the book.

Although, if he was really honest with himself, he would say that he never wanted to talk about the book.

She shrugged one delicate shoulder in response to his silence. “I don't mean to push you. I'm just the kind of person who likes to get the bad news out of the way first.”

He bit his lower lip. They had a moment—just a moment—before he had to sound like a jerk. He could lie to her, he supposed, but he wouldn't feel right about that either.

After all, she really wanted to change her image—rather, the image of Evil Stepmothers—and he had come up with the perfect way to do it.

Just not the perfect writer.

“And you,” she said, “are clearly the kind of person who doesn't like dealing with bad news at all.”

She got that in one. Ella had accused him of going passively through life, letting things happen to him. While that wasn't completely accurate, it took a lot for him to demand something he wanted, at least for himself.

“Look,” Mellie said. “You can go if you want. I release you from your promise, if that's what it takes. I know that you were just being kind at the book fair.”

Charming looked at her. She had a pleasant expression, but a slight frown creased her brow. She believed that? She believed he was just being kind?

Hadn't she figured out how much she attracted him?

He sighed. Probably not. When he had been surprised by that kiss, he had probably communicated disinterest. Even though he hadn't meant to.

“I'm sorry,” he said before he could stop himself. “It's already been a rough day.”

“And I'm about to make it rougher,” she said with compassion.

He shook his head. “No. I'm just tired. I yelled at someone this morning, and I don't do that very well.”

Now her pencil thin eyebrows went up. “You yelled at me at the book fair. Have you met someone else who tried to ban books?”

He smiled in spite of himself. “No. Nothing like that.”

“Then what was it like?” she asked.

He shook his head. She didn't need to hear about his personal woes. He grabbed the folder and opened it.

“How about we talk about the book instead?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she said, looking at the pages before him with trepidation. “How about it? It'll be such fun.”

And he could tell, just from the tone of her voice, that no matter what he said, he would disappoint her.

He hated disappointing anyone.

But he had no choice here.

Because she was right: her twenty pages really did suck.

Charming hadn't seemed this distant, not even at the book fair when he was yelling at her. Then Mellie had felt a connection. Maybe it had only been because they were both from the Kingdoms, or maybe it had been because they both felt a little out of place. But they had seemed like similar people.

Even if he was handsome and charming and obviously beloved, and she was the scourge of the Earth.

Now, however, he didn't seem to want to be with her. He was charming, but it had a fakeness to it—or maybe the kind of charming that he delivered to everyone else.

That was it. He was charming to everyone else.

At the book fair, he had been honest with her.

He wasn't going to be honest now.

Although there was that moment, when he told her about his rough day. She had actually seen pain in his eyes.

What could cause a man like him pain?

She wasn't sure how to ask him. Or if she should ask him.

He wanted to divert the conversation from him to her book. She'd let him tell her about how horrible it all was, then she would offer to buy him another coffee, and let him talk about his own life.

People did talk to her, and tell her their woes. She knew how to listen. It was one of her best skills.

He looked like he needed a shoulder. She'd provide it—and, she promised herself, she wouldn't scare him off by kissing him.

“I'm ready,” she said. She folded her hands on the cool cover of her laptop, and braced herself for the bad news.

“Do you read for pleasure?” he asked.

Read for pleasure? She blinked at him. Read what for pleasure?

“What do you mean?” she asked.

He had smoothed his hands over the manuscript. She couldn't see if he had made any markings on it. “People read books for enjoyment. Do you?”

But she could tell from his tone that he already knew the answer. She didn't. It hadn't even occurred to her.

She supposed she knew that people read for pleasure. After all, why would all the various books exist? But she hadn't really thought about it, any more than she had thought about those games and comic books that seemed all over the Greater World culture now. She didn't even shop for pleasure, although she had a greater understanding of that than she did of reading.

“Sometimes I enjoy what I read,” she said, wanting to give him the answer he wanted.

He smiled. The smile was as gentle as his tone, and very sad. “That's good. But reading for pleasure is something else, something you do because you enjoy it, not because you enjoy it when someone else tells you to do it.”

“Like you,” she said.

“Yes,” he said, as if she were a particularly good student.

“Then, no, I'm sorry,” she said. “I don't read for pleasure.”

He nodded and looked down.

“That's a problem, isn't it?” she said.

He continued nodding. He didn't meet her gaze.

She glanced at all the other people staring at their laptops. Were those people all online? Or were they all writing?

And if they were writing, did that mean that they liked reading for pleasure?

“Are my pages that bad?” she asked.

Charming ran a hand over the lower half of his face. Then he sighed. His gaze met hers, and she was struck again by how handsome he was. His glasses didn't magnify his eyes, like so many people's glasses did. Instead, they accented the startling blue.

Her cheeks warmed. She wanted him to think well of her, and she had blown even that by trying something she had no business trying.

“It's not so much that the pages are bad,” he said, and she could tell just from the words he chose that he was lying. “It's the proposal you wrote.”

“Proposal?” she asked.

“The part telling me what the rest of the book would be like,” he said. “Books, novels, they all tell stories. You have no story here.”

“I said that people would learn they were wrong about stepmothers, and my heroine would have a good life,” Mellie said.

“But ‘people' aren't who the story is about. The story is about Mally—which, I'm sorry, is a name you'll have to change—and she doesn't change. She just educates people as to who she is, and then they like her, and that's the end.”

Mellie frowned. Her heart was pounding. She really didn't understand any of this stuff. “So?”

“Characters change, Mellie,” he said. “Because people change. You've changed over your lifetime, haven't you?”

She shrugged a shoulder. In some ways she had. In other ways, she felt like the same person she had always been.

“I certainly have changed.” He glanced at the door—because he wanted to escape? “I'm not even the same person I was a month ago.”

Uh-oh. He'd met a woman who didn't want him here. Mellie could understand that. No woman would want to share this man.

“How have you changed?” she asked and braced herself for an I'm-in-love-it's-great saga.

His face seemed to collapse in on itself. He suddenly looked nothing like Prince Charming, and everything like Dave the bookseller—a middle-aged, overburdened man who wasn't getting enough sleep.

“You don't want to hear this,” he said.

“Oh, but I do,” she said, and she did, because she suddenly realized she was wrong. It wasn't about another woman. Something had happened to him. Something that bothered him.

The something he had mentioned that was “rough.” The something she had thought she would have to pry out of him.

Apparently, she didn't have to pry. Apparently, he wanted—make that
needed
—to talk.

“You just want me to tell you about me so that I don't talk about your book any more,” he said.

“No,” she said. “I want to know. What's changed?”

He looked at her again, and this time, she saw the man from the book fair. He wasn't distant. He wasn't trying to charm her. He had returned to his eyes.

He flipped the manuscript pages, as if he didn't even realize what he was doing, and said, “My wife abandoned my daughters.”