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  Twisted Ever After

  Kayley Cole

  Copyright

  No part of this book, Twisted Ever After by Kayley Cole, may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without advance written permission of the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages for review purposes only.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, situations and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination and/or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events is purely coincidental.

  Recommended for mature eyes only.

  * * *

  Copyright © 2018 Kayley Cole. All rights reserved.

  Contents

  1. Ellie

  2. Jake

  3. Ellie

  4. Jake

  5. Ellie

  6. Jake

  7. Ellie

  8. Jake

  9. Ellie

  10. Jake

  11. Ellie

  12. Jake

  13. Ellie

  14. Jake

  15. Ellie

  16. Jake

  17. Ellie

  18. Jake

  19. Ellie

  About the Author

  Also by Kayley Cole

  Ellie

  I glide the eyeliner under my eye, my eyelashes flickering from the movement like when a lioness moves through the savannah's tall grass, prowling toward her next prey. I tilt my head, assessing the changes I've made. Recording an album might seem glamorous, but it's mostly just sitting around in my rattiest sweatpants and bedhead hair, wondering if the chord progression I've written a whole song around sounds too similar to a popular song that's lingering in my mind, but I can't quite name it.

  But tonight, Jake won't be directing, and I won't be songwriting. We'll just be two people, falling into manic rawness and rising into glory.

  Oh, I should write that one down—

  No. Tonight is devoted to my fiancé.

  I press the lip balm against my lips, the faint pink tint highlighting my mouth. I close my eyes and spray on my peach vanilla perfume. I keep my eyes closed for a few seconds before opening them.

  It's a dream— to be a well-known musician, to be marrying Jake, to be living in this brand new house, right outside of Denver, where I can still smell the cedar. Jake and I didn't go for over-the-top extravagance when it was built, but the heated marble floor, the long, cream lacquer vanity, the massive mirror that takes up most of the western wall, and the spiraling track lighting that keeps the whole room well-lit— it was all part of a fantasy I never thought I could step into.

  The front door snaps shut. I hear the beeps of Jake turning off the home security system. He insisted on a 12-number security system and, after my brother's two attempts at ruining my life, I can't blame him.

  I shake the thoughts away. When I get Jake alone, all of the bullshit of the last few years will burn away. I've turned myself into someone who is on the cusp of exquisite, someone he'll see, and his predatory side will come out to conquer me. He won't know that I've put on this make-up and dressed in this lingerie because I know I can conquer him as he invades me. We can both be captives of each other.

  I walk out of the bathroom. Right outside of the threshold of the bathroom, I'm on the top of the stairway. I'm Cinderella, ready to walk down toward the prince, except I'm in a white lace corset and white silk bikini underwear. I'm Cinderella, but one that's hoping that something other than a shoe is being fitted in her.

  I tip-toe down the stairs. When I reach the bottom, I can see Jake's back as he stands by our kitchen island, sorting through the mail.

  I'm no longer Cinderella. I'm back to being the lioness on the prowl.

  With his security paranoia, I stop a few inches behind him, so I don't encounter his combative reflexes. I start humming a few notes of my song Legacy, whose melody Jake had engraved in my engagement ring.

  He slightly turns his head, a small grin on his face, but he does a double-take as he notices how much skin is exposed on my body. He spins around so quickly, his feet nearly collide against each other.

  "Hey," he says, his voice coming out a bit ragged. He's all razor sharp edges and silhouettes— the chiseled jaw with the 5' o clock shadow, the black hair with the blue eyes that slice me into shards, and the body that could only be drawn with crisp lines and shading to depict the obstacle course his muscles make on his body. "You could give a man a heart attack."

  "Well, I shouldn't do that until we're married," I tease, taking a small step forward. "Or, at least until I'm part of your life insurance policy."

  "I wouldn't die from it," he says. "You'd be there, giving me CPR and rousing me, or arousing me back to life."

  It's corny, and from anybody else, I'd roll my eyes and walk away. But this man is my cocaine— a stimulant, a euphoric jolt, and deprivation feels like death. I take another step toward him. He opens his arms, and I walk straight into them.

  He only embraces me for a split second before he whips me around, pushing me hard against the kitchen island. My hands brace against the island top. He presses his groin against my ass while his arms become prison bars on either side of me, trapping me against the granite top.

  This is my man. This is the brink of insanity when he pulls me off the precipice, and my downfall is gloriously breathtaking.

  I widen the distance between my hands as I tease Jake's erection with my ass. He groans, his teeth slightly scraping against the curve of my ear. My breathing shortens. Everything becomes fuzzy as all of my focus is on the pulse between my legs.

  Under my palm, I feel something rough against my oversensitive skin. I see the beige color of papyrus. It's the leftover wedding invitation, to be saved as a memory.

  If we have sex right now, I'm definitely going to forget.

  I try to concentrate, but Jake's hands are moving over my thighs, nearly brushing against my inner thighs before sliding back toward my ass. His groin grinds up against my ass.

  "Wait," I breathe. I press my fingers against my temple. "Robin said your father RSVP’d.”

  He stops moving.

  "Is this the best time for this conversation?" he asks, his voice strained.

  "You know how I get amnesia after we're together." I bump my ass against him, to assuage him, but he doesn't react. "But he couldn't say if your mother is going to be there or not. He needs to know if she's going to be there."

  Jake huffs. "Why would my father need to know if my mother is going to be at the wedding?"

  "Not your father. Robin needs to know."

  "You said he…”

  I turn around to face him. "Yeah. Robin."

  He stares at me. "I thought Robin was a woman. Robin is a woman's name."

  "Robin is an intersex name."

  "Why didn't you tell me that our wedding planner was a man?"

  "Because you never showed interest in the details."

  "I don't care what happens during the wedding. If you wanted, you could include a circus or strippers. You could even have both. All I care about is that we're a married couple by the end of it."

  "Then why would the gender of our wedding planner matter?"

  He lets out another huff like a Big Bad Wolf that would eat Cinderella, her ballroom dress sliding down his throat without a single snag. He takes a step away from me, stripping me of his warmth.

  "It doesn't matter," he says. "I just thought it would be something you would mention."

  "Do you not trust me around another man? Because you know I'm around men all of the time. DJ Richter Eight is a man. Austin Buckland is a man."

  "I trust you," he states, but the words slip out like water from a sieve, filtering out destructi
ve emotions.

  "I would think your bigger concern is that your father doesn't know where your mother is. He said the last time he saw her was a few days ago, and he said that two days ago."

  "My mother disappears all of the time," he says. "She would have been just as good as a magician's assistant as a surgeon."

  "We should go see your father and make sure everything is okay," I say. "Maybe they separated and your father just doesn't want to admit it. If we find that out, maybe we can find out your mother's new address. She deserves to be at the wedding. I don't want our marriage to start with resentment and animosity."

  "If my parents were going to divorce, they would have done it two decades ago."

  "Jake," I say. "Come on. You never visit your parents, and this is going to be our wedding. They should both be there. Neither of my parents can be, so…"

  He grimaces. "Fine. We'll go see my parents. But first, I want to sit in on one of your meetings with this wedding planner. Robin."

  "That's tomorrow," I say. "About hors d'oeuvres."

  "Great. Does Robin get to charge more for using a word like hors d'oeuvres instead of appetizers?"

  I lean forward. "I'm sure he does. Just like you charge more by highlighting the fact that you're an award-winning asshole."

  He flashes me a smile. "And you're my award-winning, future-Mrs. Asshole. Congratulations, love."

  He gives me a quick kiss on the cheek, his hand sliding along my hip before he moves away from me. I cross my arms over my chest, the lingerie allowing a chill over my skin and a sense of deprivation. It never occurred to me that the story of Cinderella tends just to end after the shoe is slid onto her foot.

  Jake turns around at the end of the stairs.

  "Are you coming?" he asks. "Or did you want to make sundaes in those clothes?"

  I smile at him before pushing myself off the kitchen island. I nearly fling myself into his arms, our lips meeting like lightning striking a lightning rod. We're electricity— imperfect energy, accelerated hearts, and sparks crackling under my skin.

  I close my eyes, and as he kisses my neck I see every color in the world. I see the voltage between us and how we could generate so much power, the only consequence would be a perfection explosion.

  * * *

  Jake

  The music video I'm directing involves the lead singer 'swimming' through a crowd of people. We've figured out the logistics— wiring him up well enough that we can pull him through all of the bodies as they lay all around him, with a single layer of people lying above him and a single layer of people below him, plus we'll add more people though computer imagery— but we've run into one huge ass problem: the lead singer is a germaphobe. He originally loved the idea and swore he could get over his phobia, but we've already tried going through the shoot multiple times and he just fails to get more than a couple of inches through the crowd before acting like he's drowning.

  Fear is a father with a tight fist. Dreams are a mother who is always vanishing. I've learned the only way to succeed is to abandon both for the sake of practicality, but both tend to be desperate to reunite, simply to remind you of your failures. Ryan, the lead singer of Eden's Ocean, has continuously reached for his dream of this music video while his fear paralyzes him, leading to thousands of dollars of wasted money. I've dreamed of a life with Ellie, fearing the moment she realizes that I'm not enough, and the bridge I've built to lead me to her is crumbling.

  As I sit down next to Ellie and across from Robin at this white-as-all-fuck restaurant where we're all surrounded by nothing but white tablecloths and white empty chairs, I'm reminded that fear can also change. Sometimes, it changes from a father to a smug, dark haired 30-something man with a Chicago Cubs cap on in a fucking Colorado Rockies area. He looks like some porn star trying to look like some movie star who was method acting to be the most clean-shaven homeless man in the entire United States of America. Hollywood seeps into the real world like an oil spill into the ocean.

  Robin has a face that's so clean shaven, it's entirely possible he isn't able to shave. It's also possible that his eyes keep looking over at Ellie too much, even as a chef places three plates filled with appetizers in the center of the table, along with three smaller empty plates in front of each of us.

  "Here we have roasted tomato focaccia," the chef— a woman in her forties with pale blonde hair— points to something that looks a lot like bread. "There's bruschetta, and that's eggplant roll-ups. Once you've tried all of those, we also have the blini with smoked salmon, the five different types of sliders— cheeseburger, roast beef, cheesesteak, chicken, and portobello mushroom— and we have the crab cakes. We didn't want to make it all and have anything get cold while you were sampling the other plates. At your wedding, we will prepare the hors d'oeuvres depending on the demand, which will allow us to ensure every bite is fresh."

  "This is great. Thank you, Chef Kerley" Robin says. She smiles at him before quickly walking away from the table. Robin turns to me. "I'm so glad you could come, Jake. This is the best part of wedding planning— the food. I went through a list of the best caterers with Ellie, and she liked this restaurant the most because of Chef Kerley's rave reviews and her previous presentations at other weddings."

  Ellie tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. "She was the chef at Molly and Cal Dewott's wedding."

  I pick up a piece of the bread, AKA roasted tomato focaccia. "I don't know who that is."

  "They're two of the four members of the Dewott Band."

  It's damn good bread. Suspiciously good. The bread itself is warm, which brings on a sense of comfort, but the flavor is fresh and complex.

  "I do need to talk to you about something, though," Robin says. "You and Ellie decided only to have twenty-six guests, which I think is wonderful, but that means your mother is about 4% of your wedding guests. She's also supposed to be at the wedding table. I've gotten RSVPs from nearly everyone else— but not her, and your father doesn't seem to know where she is. Are you able to get ahold of her?"

  "No."

  Ellie is a fire in a world of pyromaniacs. Her hair is the torch, her touch is incandescent, and her eyes are identical blue flames. I've seen her stalkers, I've seen her overwhelm men who everyone claimed to be rational— I’ve seen her own brother lose his mind in a desperate need to keep her under his thumb. They all want to be consumed in her luster. So, I sure-as-fuck don't trust this guy.

  Robin clears his throat. "Okay. So, should we just assume she's going to be there?"

  "We're going to try to find her tonight," Ellie interjects. She smiles at Robin in the same way she smiles during photoshoots. He looks at her like she's Aphrodite.

  How long would it take to get blood out of white tablecloths? Barely any time at all if I burned this whole place down.

  "Good," Robin says. He glances back at me. "Did you try the bruschetta? It's delicious, but it's one of those things that your guests will have to eat quickly or the toppings could soak the bread and create a soggy dilemma. The same could happen with the sliders."

  I ignore the bruschetta, picking up one of the eggplant roll-ups. It's infuriatingly good. It's lasagna with more cheese, less guilt, and some kind of seasoning that adds this perfect zest that lingers on my tongue.

  As I check my phone, Robin leans closer toward Ellie.

  "Does he know I'm going to be the wedding officiant?” he mutters while he thinks I'm distracted or deaf.

  "I... think we should give that tidbit a few more days," Ellie whispers back.

  I look over at Ellie. She bites into the eggplant roll-up, a smile lighting up her face. I must be a pyromaniac too. She's a wildfire, and I'd walk right through her just to get the chance to ignite.

  * * *

  Ellie

  The lake house that Jake's parents live in is two stories tall, sloping toward the lake with a porch that's half the size of the house. Jake guides me toward the west side that's facing the lake. It's mostly made of windows, but the rest resembles a log
cabin. I'd envy it if it weren't for the mosquitos that seem to land on me as soon as I start walking up the porch stairs.

  Jake knocks on the door. His movements have been stiff, and I can almost taste the tension in the air around him. His lip curls up into a partial snarl as I hear the door scrape against the strike plate, but it disappears after the door opens.

  "Hello, Jake," the man says. Mr. Amberden doesn't look like Jake at all. He has sandy blonde hair, he's nearly an inch shorter than Jake, and his face has so many creases on it, I have to assume he was a smoker or stress turned his skin into sand dunes. His hand juts forward. "And Miss Rue. It's so nice to meet you. I've read so much about you in magazines."

  His words are kind, but there's a stoicism behind them that makes the gesture feel condescending.

  "Hello, Mr. Amberden." I give him my best smile. "I've wanted to meet you for so long. Jake told me that you were an extraordinary cardiothoracic surgeon."

  "I have a hard time believing Jake ever said anything about me," he says. This is actually true— we had dated for nearly five months before he told me what his parents did and he never expanded the discussion past that.

  "Well, Jake is always willing to be unexpected," I say.

  "Perhaps. Please, come in." He leaves the door open as he walks farther inside the house. Jake gestures for me to walk in, his hands clenched in a partial fist. I step in.

  The house is decorated with rustic touches— baskets with antlers for handles and bear-shaped jars filled with potpourri— but everywhere I look, there's a high-tech device to remind me that this isn't a cozy cabin for someone who will chop wood and gather eggs from a chicken coop. This is someone who has the best speakers in the world, an autonomous vacuum cleaner that knows the layout of the floor, and a virtual assistant that controls the whole house.