Beauty and the Beast (Not Quite the Fairy Tale #3) Read online

  Great.

  Aiden really didn’t need the agro.

  They walked down to the lobby, and then towards one of the private offices where he received business partners.

  That’s where he met her.

  By everything holy on this land, he was in deep shit.

  The warning had been fortunate. Considering the fact that she came as a powerful punch in the guts regardless, it was quite possible that being prepared for her might have saved him from a heart attack.

  There was a woman who could kill with one look; he hadn’t believed they’d existed before this day, but the proof was in front of him. There was a Gorgon. He wondered how many had died at her feet.

  Dear goddess, he was growing quite poetic about it.

  The woman was standing next to a sleek grand piano when he made it in; her hand rested on the lid, as though she was considering opening it. She was turned towards the window, away from him, but a general aura around her somewhat prepared him for what was to come.

  Her silhouette was picturesque, her hands, delicate. She wasn’t tall, but she appeared to be, because her figure was, in one word, perfect. She proved how cruel she was by wearing skinny jeans; they showcased those lean legs and the curve of that perfect heart-shaped ass.

  Aiden didn’t see much more at first: she wore a jacket and its hood was up, despite the fact that there hadn’t been a drop of rain since April; not to mention that they were inside.

  But then, feeling his presence, she turned towards him.

  In this instant, he knew just how strong a man he was, because he didn’t fall to his knees.

  He also realized just how powerful she was: she took him in, appraising the lithe, long and muscular body he hadn’t really covered, before settling on his inhumane face – the skeleton wrapped in blue-white flesh he knew to be.

  And nothing. Just nothing. Her eyes weren’t wide, her breathing didn’t change, she didn’t shiver. She looked at him without disgust or fear; it wasn’t a façade, because he couldn’t smell either emanating from her.

  No, he could just smell honey. And freaking cinnamon.

  “Do you play?” he heard himself ask, because by that point, something had to be said, and it wouldn’t be relevant, clever or coherent if he pushed himself to formulate anything beyond three words.

  She snorted before speaking. Her voice, thank all heavens, didn’t match the face. Rather than the sweet, high, musical pitch he’d imagined, it was broken, low, harsh and hoarse. While these qualities made some parts of him react to it in an entirely inappropriate fashion, it also served to remind him that she was flesh; not some sort of angelic illusion.

  “For you? I don’t think so. Let’s not pretend that I popped by for a visit of courtesy.”

  She crossed the room, her hips discretely swaying from side to side with each step, and bent down to drop a worn piece of paper on the low table.

  Holy freaking hell. Eyes up, asshole.

  She was a DD, easy. Of course she was.

  Aiden wondered what she’d paid for it. Not the breast – they were natural, damn her! – but the whole package.

  Clocks was right: there was magic involved. She wasn’t the sort of thing that nature came up with. Her eyes were proof of it: they were those of a freaking tiger. He wasn’t talking about the stone, but the actual living feline. Red-brown at the rim, yellow inside, and gold with sparkles of green near her irises. That just wasn’t normal. The hair wasn’t much better: most of it was hidden under her hood, but a few strands fell in soft dark waves, reflecting red in the morning light.

  Aiden swallowed, hard.

  Then, unquestionably proving his point, Adler left his flank without being bidden to do so, for the very first time since the completion of his training over twelve years ago.

  He sniffed the woman and carefully approached her hand, propping it with his head, demanding a scratch.

  What. The. Fuck.

  Adler was a royal hound; a very well trained one. He didn’t take food, cuddles, even water without permission. Never had, in any case.

  Aiden shook his head, wondering if it would wake him up. No such luck.

  “So, your brother sent you.”

  The guy deserved to be killed for it. Actually, Aiden was all for volunteering his services.

  If he’d had that for a sister, he would have locked her up under key to protect her until his dying breath.

  The woman, fay, witch or thing, just laughed.

  “You don’t know a thing about a family like ours, if you can believe that. No, I’m here of my own volition. I believe clause two of your little contract did specify that Ben’s debt could be erased if one of his sisters showed up, correct?”

  “So, that’s what you’re here for? Repay his debt?”

  He didn’t mean to take the next four steps, but he did. She didn’t back off, not even when he was completely invading her space.

  Fuck. Aiden didn’t force himself on women, but if she was offering? A hundred thousand was a steep fee, but he’d pay twice that for her.

  Inhaling his next breath, he took in the spices that had tormented him from the instant he’d woken up. Scratch that. Ten times. She would be a million mark screw if there was ever one.

  “Just to let you know, touch me and my knee is going to collide with your balls,” she informed him and he frowned at the unexpected wave of recognizable pain.

  It had been a while since he’d felt it – that shame.

  The truth of the matter is: physical appearance is something people grow used to, regardless of how pleasing or repulsive it is.

  It had taken a while, but he had accepted his reflection. Acceptance had liberated him: he’d been able to live relatively normally after realizing that there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about his face, his height or the color of his skin.

  He’d hidden in his home the first year; then, while he’d ventured out, he’d constantly worn a cape and a mask. It had only been two years ago that he’d come out of the proverbial closet, after meeting Stella.

  Stella had been desperate for a job and when Aiden had interviewed her for a shitty position at the bar, she’d offered to suck him to guarantee to be chosen. Crass, but the fact that someone had actually wanted to offer some sort of intercourse despite what he looked like had completely blown his mind – as well as other things.

  Human interactions were about give and take. Some gave beauty; he couldn’t, so he offered money or favors instead. Most women were happy to take it.

  Apparently, not that one. As she hadn’t even attempted to negotiate a price, he knew better than to push it. Why had he even tried? She was a perfect beauty and he, an actual beast.

  But he couldn’t help himself, he needed to know.

  “So, you won’t work on your back, or you won’t work on your back with me?”

  “Actually,” she replied without breaking the eye contact, “I don’t believe your little contract specified anything about sexual favors. I’m smarter than I look: I know what you’re after.”

  She had no idea what he was after, or she would have run the other way, screaming.

  “You want to save your face to make sure other hackers don’t try their luck with you. Well, that’s fine: I’m here as requested, until you release me and declare my brother’s foolishness accounted for.”

  So that was her angle. He should have been disappointed but found that, in fact, he wasn’t. He hadn’t liked the idea of her selling that body of hers.

  That didn’t make a blink of sense. Hell, if she’d wanted to make a commodity out of those legs and that mouth, he would have advertised them and drawn thousands of fuckers to his door.

  Or locked her up in his room and showered her body under millions of golden marks to keep her there.

  “Fair enough. Well, how much do you make at your job?”

  She bit her lip, visibly annoyed at that question.

  Not very much, then.

  Aiden wondered why she bothered. W
ith her face, her body, her smell, her presence, she could have become a rich man’s wife without much effort. Sure, he’d heard of women who believed about earning their own keeps, but those were mentioned in books – generally historical or fictitious ones. In real life, nowadays, no female said no to security. None of those he knew, in any case.

  “Well, any fee for the inconvenience caused put aside, now you’re here, your brother still owes me one hundred thousand marks. Does he have it?”

  Of course he didn’t; Aiden could feel his lips curl up when she shook her head. He wasn’t sure why, but he loved the leverage.

  “If you don’t want to repay his debts the easy way, you’ll have to work for it otherwise. Your presence is likely to aid my reputation, which is why you will be by my side every evening, from ten to midnight. Then we will retire. Together. You’ll need to make very convincing sounds at some point, to keep the illusion alive.”

  Her expression said that she got what he meant: he might not take advantage of her, but people would assume he did.

  With a bit of luck, it would be enough to repair whatever damage Ben Thornton had carved in his reputation.

  •

  “You’re a pig,” she told him, blushing despite her best efforts.

  He only laughed, and she felt the vibration of his chest, close as he was.

  “I’ve been called worse.”

  That, she could believe.

  She’d heard a lot about him, too; however, she now saw that it had all been a big, huge pile of bullshit.

  From the talk, she’d expected something akin to a wild animal, completely devoid of the slightest human emotion. That sort of threat, she would have acted differently towards, but what she found instead was the opposite: a regular guy. Not even an ugly one. The pile of defined muscles, that V leading down his fleece PJs, and the chiseled, deeply marked features were exactly the kind of stuff romance novels were on about, and she understood why. Preventing herself from gawking took some effort.

  If he’d been traditionally beautiful – another six-foot-one artificially tanned guy with a pot of gel on his hair and a seedy whitened smile, she would have had the opposite reaction. Her dealings with those kinds of men had taught her to give them a wide berth. They were beasts; the real kind.

  The name Beast did fit him, too, because damn if he wasn’t massive; but save for the one and a half foot he had on her, though, there was very little to differentiate him from anyone, as far as she was concerned.

  Yes, his skin was pale. Ok, he didn’t have eyelashes. Boo-hoo, I’m frightened.

  Or not.

  What was definitely intimidating about him was his presence; he had a regal way of owning the space around him. His gaze was sharp, intense, and seemed to see straight through flesh.

  Forcing herself to refrain from fidgeting under the scrutiny, she challenged: “And for how long, exactly?”

  He seemed to consider this, before replying.

  “It depends on your performance, doesn’t it? Let’s say, if you’re good, you’re making up for one grand a night. Make it a great spectacle, I’ll write off two or three. So: for however long it takes. When we’ve ensured that no one else’s brother is going to play with my money, you’re good to go. In the meantime, feel free to pursue your usual activities during the day; as long as they don’t interfere with our arrangement. You will have to live here, too. Do we have a deal?”

  “Fine.”

  More than fine, in fact. He was letting her off lightly.

  She hadn’t thought that she might have been able to be acquitted of Ben’s debt with so little inconvenience. No job she was qualified for would pay anything close to a thousand marks a day – with her clothes on, anyway. Hell, she should ask to stay an extra couple of weeks to pump up the savings account.

  Ok, people would assume that she was his whore; whatever. She wouldn’t be, that was the main thing. It might have caused her some problem if his casino had been closer to her home, but the swanky building might as well have been in another universe; no one she knew could ever afford one glass of coke in a place like this.

  Well, except Ben, when he’d stolen enough to come out and play, apparently.

  Everything else aside, moving in was going to have advantages.

  Her lease was coming up in two weeks: she’d been looking for a new place for a while, because the landlord was raising the rent, but turned out, every single homeowner had done the same.

  Jereena had been a mess since the beginning of the Anarchy, ten years ago, and for that reason most people had left the cities – they hadn’t been safe for families with children.

  However, there were less and less jobs anywhere, especially in the countryside. People were migrating back, which had made the prices shoot straight back up.

  So a few weeks with a roof – a very nice, free roof – above her head to comfortably look for a new place was a blessing. Without it, she might have given up and just renewed her lease.

  And to be entirely honest, she had to admit – if only to herself – that she was predominantly relieved because no one would dare chase her in the Beast’s mansion.

  She wasn’t frightened of her own shadow – not anymore; but a place where she didn’t have to use three locks and two alarm systems sounded like heaven.

  “I have a condition,” she said, well aware that she was in no position to negotiate the syrupy-sweet arrangement he’d offered; but hey, he seemed to be a nice guy. There was no harm in trying. “My brother will be in within the next few days.”

  Ben and Lucia would try to contact her as soon as they realized she wasn’t turning up for their appointment with the estate agent, but they’d leave it a day, maybe two, before turning up at her place; it wouldn’t be the first or the last time Belle disappeared for a while.

  Then, when they saw the empty rooms, they’d guess what she’d done.

  “Whatever he offers you must be dismissed. He wouldn’t manage to get it on time anyway; it would be empty promises to get me back,” she lied, and the Beast seemed convinced. Then, she surprised him by requesting: “I’d like him to believe exactly the same thing as your crowd.”

  The truth was, she was aware that her actions and her acceptance were enabling Ben’s behavior. Perhaps, if he thought that his "little sister" was paying the price for his stupidity, he might finally get a grip. She lived in hope.

  Belle would speak to Lucia to reassure her in a few days; warning her beforehand wasn’t an option, as the girl couldn’t lie to save her life.

  “That works for me,” the Beast nodded. “Our little play won’t mean anything if your friends and family go around defending your virtue. The details of our agreement will stay between you and I.”

  The Beast offered his hand and she took it, intending to shake it, at first; but it was a very strange hand.

  When their skin came into contact, she was startled by the smoothness, the warmth, the strange, electric sensation running through her fingers.

  She took it by the wrist and ran her thumb along the large velvety palm, all the way up to the tip of his middle finger, absolutely fascinated. Then, she blushed, seeing how very rude she had been.

  Belle mumbled an apology and reluctantly released him.

  Chapter Three

  the Prince

  Ten years ago, Ferren.

  “Do you really have to go?”

  He almost snorted. Yes, he did, because Aiden Archer was obliged to do exactly whatever the hell he wanted and he wanted to go.

  It wasn’t her fault: Aurora just didn’t suit him.

  He liked his women wild; the kind who gave blowjobs in the bathroom and nicked your wallet while you cleaned up. The kind who didn’t expect any attention, past the occasional mutual orgasm.

  Saying that Aurora Stephenson liked attention was the understatement of the century. Boy, that girl was needy.

  To be entirely fair, Aiden knew he was responsible for his predicament: he had chosen her. When his father had to
ld him it was time to find someone to settle down with, he’d looked at his options and gone straight for the beautiful blonde; it was her or Tatiana. While the latter had perhaps been more suited to him, as far as their respective characters went, he’d already been there and done that – repetitively. And to be entirely frank, she wasn’t worth the trouble; sure, she had those fantastic tits, but as a politician, he had to think of the bigger picture.

  Tatiana might very well be hot, but she came with humongous baggage: Carabas. That land was trouble, everyone knew it.

  Jereena had enough issues right now, so, he’d chosen Aurora and had regretted it every day, since.

  Aurora asked who he’d seen at parties, the reason why he’d danced with this woman, spoken to that one; if she’d suspected he’d done a hell of a lot more than talking to Flora Crew, the most brazen out of the twelve Eastlean princesses, she would have had a hissy fit.

  Tatiana wouldn’t have minded.

  “Yes,” he lied. “Dad has just had a report from Daniel de Luz; he summoned me to go over it.”

  He hadn’t, but there was no doubt that King Armand would most definitely want to speak with his son, to yet again go over the usual: bla bla, de Luz is a Super Prince, why can’t your battalion do as well, bla bla.

  The truth of the matter was, Daniel de Luz was free to excel because the enemy focused on Aiden. The Wilderlings who believed Jereena was theirs hated the Archer family, and everything attached to it, so they followed him relentlessly, blind to everything else happening on the battlefield.

  In fact, Aiden regularly spoke to Daniel, to coordinate their positions; they were winning the war thanks to the Wilderlings’ weakness.

  However, try and explain that to a King. Kings had a thing about always being right.

  Despite all that, Aiden preferred the prospect of hearing the expected remonstrance to the idea of staying with his girlfriend for a lie in; perhaps because he knew that the Eastlean dignitaries were still in the palace, and Flora might have mentioned sucking him dry the next time she saw him.