Glass Ceilings: A Modern Steamy Cinderella Fairy Tale (Fairly Twisted Tales Book 1) Read online

  So I stayed and did his bidding. Trevor hasn’t picked up a spade or shovel since he hit the blackmail jackpot. He’s micromanaged me into creating award-winning landscaping that he takes the credit for. He’s been published in dozens of magazines and publications. Well, I should say that Pierce Rogers has been published with his fabulous gardens, but Trevor has received the praise from Rogers. When something isn’t up to par, that’s when Trevor lets me take credit.

  I got tired of his blackmail one day, and I called bullshit on him during a particularly brutal argument. He laughed at my audacity. Then he whipped out his phone and showed me the video from start to finish, including a full visual of my face as she sucked my dick and a money shot of Helen’s red-lipsticked mouth dripping with my cum. Watching twenty minutes of raunchy pornography with your stepfather is uncomfortable enough. When you’re the dude in the video smearing the makeup of your boss’s wife with your dick, it’s a whole new level of cringe-worthy.

  There was no denying what was recorded in full HD, including her breathy moans of my name. There was also no way to try to say he doctored the video. I’ve heard rumors that she was caught screwing more than one other man recently, and Pierce kicked her to the curb for being a lying, cheating bitch.

  You’d think I’d have disappeared long before then, but Trevor threatened that if I ever stepped out of line again, he’d send the video to every one of Pierce’s business partners from my email. The only thing worse than messing with a man’s wife is messing up his business endeavors because you messed with his wife. Pierce Rogers is a powerful man and one I don’t need as an enemy, so I agreed to stay on and do Trevor’s workload. It’s not like my mother left me a hidden nest egg of money somewhere, so if Trevor obliterates my options in New York, there’s no way I’ll be able to continue living here.

  I haven’t seen Helen behind closed doors since the night we were caught, but a new object of my affection has begun to frequent the penthouse windows of Rogers’ SoHo apartment. She’s younger than Helen, she’s prettier than Helen, and she’s even more forbidden than Helen - Pierce’s flaxen-haired renegade daughter. I overheard Trevor talking to my God-awful stepsisters about her last night and how he’s hatched a new plan to get in good with Pierce Rogers. I know exactly who she is, but we’ve never been in the same room for more than five minutes, and certainly never alone, so she may as well be a stranger to me.

  There’s a Halloween party being held in Rogers’ honor and rumor has it, he’s looking to find a suitor for his hellcat daughter. He wants to marry her off to a wealthy prat who will take care of her and lavish her with finery. It sounds like it’s going to be a pretty exclusive party. It’s invitation only and apparently, my stepsisters received invitations. Not sure how Trevor managed that, but he made sure to let me know that I was not invited.

  Too bad Trevor taught me everything he knows, including how to manipulate, lie, and cheat my way through life. He may be one hell of a gardener with experience on his side, but I’m a better crook than he’ll ever be. I will find a way into that party.

  THREE

  Ashley

  Ever punctual, my father is banging on my bedroom door at quarter to eight, demanding that I not keep the potential suitors waiting any longer. For the briefest of moments, my thoughts turn to sneaking out my bathroom window, but I soon come to terms with how idiotic that would be. He didn’t put bars on that one, but we’re in the penthouse. It’s a twenty-story drop to the concrete jungle below. I just need a temporary out, not a permanent solution.

  It’s time like these when I miss living in upstate New York on the property my father bought with his first earnings from the Flush-O-Matic. I was six, Blake was nine, and Carter was eleven when we moved into the beautiful estate nestled on sixty acres of protected land. My mother still lives there, since she got the Upstate property in the divorce. It’s always been where I’ve felt at home, but my father had better lawyers than my mother, and he was able to sabotage her custody case to get full legal custody of all three of us.

  He never cared much for the physical custody until his doctor warned him that the stress levels of his business enterprises were going to put him in an early grave. We bounced back and forth between the properties, but things were always hectic in the city. I’ve always preferred the quieter life in the country. My mother did what she could with us while we were in her care, and I’m inclined to believe that our rebellious streak is her crowning glory.

  She never outright told us to be burrs in my father’s backside, but it became my mission at a young age. Shortly after their divorce, when I was twelve, I got myself kicked out of public school in the city. Father demanded I attend the prestigious Ostinghouse School for Girls. I decided I wanted nothing to do with it and promptly got into a fight that ended with me knocking out the two front teeth of the first person to call me Potty Princess. She got dentures, I got expelled, and the nickname stuck like glue.

  After that, he insisted I go away to boarding school to become a proper lady. We all know how that went. Surprisingly, my mother never stood up to him about it. I don’t know if she agreed that I was a bit rough around the edges or if she just didn’t have the financial ability to fight him. Whatever it was, my father wasted tens of thousands of dollar on a “proper” education where I learned more about the birds and the bees than history.

  If we were upstate, I’d have snuck out of my bedroom window and been gone hours ago, poofy dress and all. As it stands, I have five minutes left before I’m subjected to the gloom and doom of a royal ball… yeah, it’s royal alright. A royal pain in my ass. Putting on the fakest smile I can manage, I swing my bedroom door open and murmur, “Cool your jets, father. It’s not like I can jump out the window.”

  He eyes me and I can see the gears turning in his head. He’s trying to figure out how serious I am and if I’ve contemplated it. He’s probably already running the numbers in his head how he can put bars on my bedroom window so I don’t do anything “brash.”

  “Relax, dad,” I murmur. I know I’m trolling him by calling him that. He absolutely hates when I address him informally, even in private. He cuts his eyes at me in his best admonishing stare, but after a dozen years of it, I’ve grown immune. I roll my eyes and gather up the voluminous tulle that spills out of my doorway. “So where’s the limo?”

  He shakes his head as he points to the private elevator that requires a key to access. I push past him, mumbling under my breath. He probably has a woman waiting downstairs in a town car. The minute I leave, he’ll hold the door open for her to come upstairs and do God-knows-what while his handlers try to pawn me off on some unfortunate dude who thinks winning my hand in marriage is like winning the lottery.

  Sure enough, after I’m settled into the backseat of a ridiculously expensive limousine, a town car pulls up to the front doors of the apartment building slow enough to raise suspicions. I turn around and watch out the back window as a leggy brunette steps out of the town car. I roll my eyes back into my head as the door man offers an outstretched hand to her. I know the woman can’t see me, but I throw up a rude gesture with my right hand anyway.

  Maybe it won’t be so bad to escape the oppression of living with my father. I don’t have high hopes of finding a man who would even begin to pass muster, but I have to believe that he’s out there somewhere looking for me just as I’m looking for him. Who am I kidding? I quit believing in fairy tales years ago when my perfect family was shattered in divorce. We were further torn apart by the lofty expectations that being from money bring.

  As the limo slows to a stop in front of the Edison Ballroom, I inhale a deep breath of stale limo air. Despite being unable to purchase my own alcohol, the limo is fully stocked with a selection of miniature bottles of liquor that would make any bartender envious. I select two that are clear and cracked the bottles open and down them.

  Wiping the back of my hand sloppily across my mouth, I stash the bottles under the seat and close my eyes for a moment to cente
r my thoughts. As I feel the whoosh of cold air creep in from the opening of the limo door, I hold my hand out expectantly for the driver to take.

  Several heartbeats pass and nobody takes my outstretched hand. When I finally open my eyes to see what’s going on, I find myself looking up at an unfamiliar man. He’s decidedly not the limo driver, who is nowhere to be found.

  He awkwardly bows halfway as he takes my hand and pulls me out of the limo. Once my feet are firmly planted on the sidewalk, he presses his lips against my hand. He glances up at me as his lips connect to my skin, his blue eyes startling in the ambient lighting. They’re not the kind of eyes that take your breath away, but I still feel myself inhale a startled breath as his gaze meets mine.

  “My lady,” he says. His voice is even, low, and masculine. There’s no discernible accent, which makes it impossible to place him. He’s taller than me, even in my ridiculous neck-breaker heels. As he stands up straight, he towers over me, his broad shoulders filling out the navy blue suit he’s wearing. Though his costume is minimal, the mask he wears obscures his face entirely. All I can see is a full bottom lip that curves below the peacock mask he wears.

  I raise one eyebrow and give him a blatant up and down look. With a grin twisting my lips, I reply, “You’re not my driver.”

  The man tightens his grip on my hand, and I yelp in surprise. He nods as he turns me to face him. He stops so suddenly in the middle of the sidewalk that I crash into him, despite his hold on my waist as his hand flies out to catch me.

  As our bodies collide, I’m assaulted by the crisp scent of fresh water and soap, with an underlying aroma of dirt. Compared to the musky colognes of the pretty, rich boys who normally try to woo me, it’s refreshing to smell such a rugged, natural scent on a man.

  His hand cascades down over my back until it lands just above my ass. His fingertips flirt with the beaded drape of the extremely low cut back of the dress. I can’t see his entire mouth, but what I can see curls into a knowing smile.

  He drops into an animatedly elaborate bow. He stands up and glances over his shoulder at the entrance to the Edison Ballroom, then looks back at me. “Ready to go die of boredom at the lamest party of the year?”

  I narrow my eyes at him and scoff, “That’s my party you’re dissing.”

  He shrugs as I yank my hand back from him in disgust. “To each their own, princess. Spoiled or not, the fact remains that as long as you’re standing out here, the party in there must be droll indeed.”

  I look down at my feet as a blush creeps up and over my cheeks, nearly matching the hot pink of my dress. I stare at my shoes for several moments, then hear a loudly squealing voice followed by indistinct shouting and the thundering of hurried footsteps.

  When I look back up, I see that the mysterious man his disappeared. I don’t know why, but suddenly a dark cloud has settled over me as I turn to the entrance and open the door for myself, relieved to finally have a moment to myself.

  It’s in this moment that the old familiar feeling of fight or flight creeps back into my mind. It takes everything in my willpower to push open the entrance and walk inside. I’d much rather give up and disappear into thin air like the strange man with the haunting blue eyes, but running away isn’t how real life works. I’m not sure how much longer I can live under my father’s thumb, but something has to change. And it starts with tonight...

  FOUR

  Eli

  I hadn’t intended to run into Ashley outside the event, but when I saw her father’s limo pull to a stop outside of the Edison Ballroom, something inside me gave in to the magnetic pull between us. Well, I don’t know if she felt it, but I did. Probably wishful thinking. She’s been the object of my hidden affection for years, even long before I screwed her former-stepmother. Ashley Rogers was probably my first crush, but that could be because she was the first female I spent any time with that wasn’t my stepsister.

  It might be my imagination, but I swear when our hands touched, time stood still. I don’t know for how long, but there was definitely an preemption of the program already in progress. Judging by the way her body is reacting to my innocent touching, I’d say I wasn’t the only one who felt the pull.

  But it was jarring. Finally touching her after years of wondering how her skin would feel was like a shot of heroin to a junkie. If I thought I’d wanted her before just from staring into her bedroom windows and stealing glances when nobody was looking, the need is palpable now.

  It was tortuous to leave her standing there alone, but the sharp squeal of my stepsister Lacey’s voice pulled me out of my private revelry. Leave it to her bratty ass to expose me. I booked it out of there and slipped around the corner of the Edison Ballroom, tucking myself into the dark alleyway beside it, but it wasn’t enough.

  I’ve waited here for several minutes until I figured the coast was clear. That was my first mistake. The second I step out of the alleyway, I instantly regret it. I don’t make it six steps down the sidewalk before the cold voice of Trevor cuts through the New York breeze.

  “Well, well… what do we have here? Seems there’s a little birdie trying to fly without… permission. Do you know what happens to birdies who act out of turn?”

  Despite my brain screaming to run, my feet feel like they’re glued to the sidewalk. I’m trapped, and there’s no escaping the eventual fury that’s going to come out of Trevor’s mouth. I close my eyes and swallow hard, gagging as he snatches me by the collar of my borrowed suit. I stumble back against a solid body of muscle and cringe as I realize that what’s coming next is inevitable.

  The sickeningly sweet tone in his voice doesn’t match the ferocity with which he snatches the mask off my face and whirls me around to face him. “They get their wings clipped, boy.”

  Everything in me wants to hurl my fist into his face, but I know that will only make things worse. Knocking out a couple teeth will make him look as ugly on the outside as he is on the inside, and it’s tempting. I ball up both of my fists at my side with the intention of hitting him. But I hold back my temper. If I provoke him, I can count on him ruining my life.

  Though the video is the only real collateral he has to hold over my head, he’s cunning. If I push him far enough, he’ll just start making crap up, and the people who have control over my life will believe him. If I lash out now, that video will be in Pierce Rogers’ inbox before I can take my next breath. And once Rogers sees what I’ve been doing right under his nose, he’ll make sure I never work in this city again. With no money and no family to lean on, that would be a one-way ticket to life on the streets. Trevor’s made a life out of swindling people and he’s good at it. I’ll outsmart him, eventually. It’s just a matter of time, but I have to be careful until then.

  Though I’m seething through my bared teeth, I release my fists and turn my face away from his snarled grin. He throws his head back and cackles as he waves his daughters forward. “Come on, girls. Let’s show little Eli what happens to birdies who try to escape…”

  Lacey giggles as she steps out of the shadows. Her pinched nose and downturned lips accentuate a face that looks plastered onto her head. With long blonde hair, bright blue eyes, and a cute little body, she knows she can draw the attention of almost any man. Too bad she’s even more of a whore than I am.

  I’m not allowed at any socialite functions, but she’s somehow wormed her way into the good graces of some of the wealthy men in this city. I have absolutely no idea how she accomplished that. It was probably on her knees in front of men older than Trevor. I’ve heard sex sells. Apparently it pays pretty well too if it doesn’t destroy you first.

  Her sister, Layla, is content to ride Lacey’s coattails. I don’t know if she’s taken up the habit of giving lip service to social elite New Yorkers yet or not, but it’s only a matter of time. Before long, those two will be offering a Buy One, Get One Free deal — if they aren’t already. They look similar enough that they could advertise themselves as twins. I hear people pay top dollar for that k
ind of kink.

  Lacey steps up behind me and thumps me in the back of the head. I don’t see her do it, but the sickly sweet scent of the perfume she bathes in invades my nostrils three whole seconds before the stinging sensation reminds me how much of a bitch she can be. Her tittering voice follows shortly, “Ugh, like, what is he doing here? He’s going to positively ruin our chances with the Potty Princess…:

  Lacey crosses her arms over her chest, pushing her plastic boobs almost to her dress’s breaking point. If that thing were one size smaller, the men of New York wouldn’t even have to pay for a show tonight. “Daddy, if he shows up at the ball, people might realize we’re related to him. I don’t want people to pity me. I want them to like me.”

  Despite knowing better, my mouth is running ahead of schedule while my brain is lagging behind. “People may like you better if you didn’t spend half your time under tables with a dick in your mouth. They only pity you because they don’t know how else to express their horror with your chosen profession.”