Cinderella, The Return of Genevieve (7 page)

“I’m sorry.” She reached
for his hand and froze when he flipped his hand over and squeezed hers.

Her heart thumped once, hard
. Skin crawled with goose bumps and for a moment she let go and let her fingers intertwine with his. For a moment everything around them seemed so distant and silent. Genevieve felt a jolt in her chest, her heart felt like it was being resuscitated. Her hand slowly grasped at her dress where her heart thumped. Patrick’s eyes never left hers, he lifted her hand slowly, and pressed his lips against the skin of her hand. “This…isn’t anything.” He smiled.

T
his was one day and the only day she would ever be able to be with him. This would be okay.

Patrick nodded, “What do you paint?”

“I dabble.”

“You paint. I can tell, I have an eye for artist. Plus, it was communicated to me through your hand.”

He has a gift. Genevieve pried her hand from his—he let her go. “People mostly. Anything that I find interesting, I find most of my inspiration comes from people. I try to paint character, who the person really is, oppose to just painting a face.”

“Hmm…that’s an interesting take.”

“It makes the art more meaningful. I hate emotional art. Emotions are fleeting, pain is felt by everyone so the uniqueness in anger or sadness is not very exciting. But character is near impossible to escape. We are who we are.”

He r
ubbed his chin, “So we are born who we are. We have no choice. If I’m an ass, I was born an ass and always will be an ass.” Patrick snorted.

“How many people in your lifetime, human and vampiric life, have you seen change? My father always said,
tigers don’t change their stripes.
I’ve found that to be true.”

“When people suffer, they change. When people are met by adversity,
” Gesturing with his hands, like he was pulling something from his chest. “Something inside of them changes. You
have
to believe that.” Pleading eyes, Prince Patrick had always been over zealous.

“The change is always temporary. How much faster do they run back to their old ways after adversity? An unrepentant heart, lives unrepentant. The world is full of empty words
empty promises and empty people. We are who we are. We cannot change.”

Patrick didn’t respond right away, he sat back, gnawing at his thumb nail.
“Who are you?” He nodded his head. “Who is this person sitting beside me? Where did you come from?”

“I…I…” Cinderella slowly seeping out of her pores, fumbling with her hands.

“I don’t understand what’s happening right now. You’ve slain me in one sitting. I never talk about these things with anyone, let alone a woman, who actually knows what she’s talking about. Well…I did have an interesting conversation with, Liza’s maid, smart girl, interesting, she’s a painter like yourself.” He said thoughtfully, chewing on his lip. “I’ve never…” He whispered, “What am I to do after today? You come in here, talk to me like I’m the scum of the earth and I am totally smitten by it all.”

“You’ll go back to your fiancé and pretend we never met.”
Genevieve, choking on anxiety.

“You can do that? Just go on about your life after having
this experience? Is this really our end?” The blue in his eyes, vivid, smoldering with ardor, untamed.

The jolt in her chest happened again, the breath caught in her throat. She was like a ship being anchored in place
. “This isn’t good, it has to be our end. You’re practically married. Don’t you love her?”

Patrick scoffed, “I love her just about as much as I love a wooden stake. She’s a nice girl, but
her conversation isn’t anything that leaves you…wanting. It’s purely business. Her mother has German contacts that will expand the reach of the Elite. We’re only statewide, we want to be global. We’ve been planning this for centuries. Liza knows this. It was the arrangement from the beginning.”

“
German contacts?”

“
The German dynasty is dying, they have no sons to pass it on to, only a daughter whose husband is dead. Liza is the last of their bloodline. This is an opportunity to establish power and expand.”

“But you’re vampire, and you can’t have children. How do you expect to…”

“Another time…” He smiled and grabbed the bottle of Crystal out of the wine chiller, pouring the amber liquid into two wine glasses. He reached for the glass pitcher, the thick red liquid rolled heavily forward and into the first glass, sinking to the bottom of the glass. He sat the pitcher down and took a thin glass mixer. “Mixed?”

She nodded.

“How do you feel about meeting me again?” Handing Gen, her glass.

“I don’t think so. I wouldn’t want to ruin your business arrangement.” Gen
evieve raised the glass to her lips carefully and took a small sip. The refreshing and clean taste of blood, citrus and honey teased her taste buds, tasted like spring.

“I can understand. And I will try my best to respect your wishes. However I won’t make any promises.” He took a sip of his champagne, eyeing her with
crave in his eyes.

“We haven’t even talked for an hour.
You don’t know how you’ll feel about me after today.”

“Isn’t that the point? I’m saying I want to talk to you more, figure out who you are? Your character.
I want to know if what I foresee is true. I promise, nothing will happen. I’ll behave, you have my word. One night, just you and me. You can come down to my gallery and see the artist I’m promoting.”

“Isn’t that too public Prince?”

“I can draw the curtains as I do for a private viewing, I’ll send the car for you. We can have dinner there. Maybe you can paint something for me.” Patrick beaming ear to ear.

“I’ll think about it.” Too dangerous, she would never
, not even if she wanted to.

“Well, shall we dance?” He stood up offering her his hand. “You go down first and I’ll meet you by the bar. I have to take the back way.”

She nodded and headed for the door, she found Rueben standing by the one way window she hissed, distracting him from some groupie who pawed at his chest like some stray feline,
take me home, make me your pet today…
Genevieve blew him a kiss he caught it and smiled and watched as she walked out.

It felt good being herself today, she had suppressed so much of who she was because of Mother and her step sisters
, well more Liza than Gertrude... What she couldn’t understand was, why Mother would lie about having German blood when she was Italian. Liza wasn’t even her birth child, she was only her maker. The only one with German blood was Genevieve’s father and herself. Her dad wasn’t royalty, he was a normal human and an even better vampire. Her human life was spent on a farm, with cows and horses, chickens. Lies were being told that was for sure, but she wouldn’t bother getting tangled in it. She only wanted Mother and Liza gone.

The crowd was full of energy, sending chills over Gen’s body. Strobe lights bounced off the cement walls in a rainbow of colors, pink, green, yellow…each time a light hit the wall the bass in the music thumped, they were completely synchronized.

Music thumping harder and harder into the floor, the walls, and her body. She didn’t care about meeting the prince at the bar, instead she was sucked into the music, into the crowd. Her hips swayed, her head swung, back and forth, whipping her head around to the beat. This is what she needed, more than the Prince. To feel free again, alive and not crammed into a 2x2 square box of a room. She jumped and waved her hands in the air, the music was completely seductive. She opened her eyes, and a crowd of masked people were shouting and smiling, twirling around like three year old toddlers. Stray feathers floated in the air, from people who were dancing too hard for their mask. A string of pearls wet sailing across the crowd and then a bustier, a bra and women’s panties. It was getting wild.

A burst of glitter filled
the open space above her and everyone yelled as the tiny specs blinked and twinkled on their way down. She yelled with them. They stomped there feet, in a marching sequence, she stomped hers—heels mashing against the concrete. The sound of shoes colliding with the ground in unison, to the beat of the song, was almost louder than the blaring speakers.

“You deliberately disobeyed me.” Patrick’s voice was heavy in her ear.

“I’m not your dog.” She smiled and he pulled her against his body.

“This is my favorite song.
” He said. “Let’s dance!” Genevieve backed away and watched him with a close eye. Now that she knew who he was behind that feathered mask, she found it hard to watch the Prince of Darkness, among commoners, dancing, acting like an equal. But wasn’t that the way he presented himself? Equal. An endearing character indeed.

H
is head dropped, his fists were level to his head and he began to pump them, his body jerked to the rhythm of the music. His shoulders jerked, and as the crowd began to shout,
Eat! Sleep! Rave! Repeat!
He shouted with them. Then her body jerked and her head was being thrown back. Her body was swaying and she shouted
Eat! Sleep! Rave! Repeat!
She closed her eyes and jumped up and down, to the beat, twirling her body against other cold bodies that moved with her and continued to chant.

Cold sweat dripped down her body, she jumped again and felt firm hands catch her, holding her up in the air being spun around. Her head fell back and her arms fanned out and spun with her like propellers. She pumped her fists into the air as the music sped up.
She opened her eyes and looked down and found the Prince staring up at her. His eyes piercing blue beneath the black feathered mask. She lowered her hands and stroked his face. He was special, different.

Patrick,
set her down and she looked up at him, he was lowering his face to hers. That unnatural jolt in her heart again. Her hands climbing up his arms, she drew his face to hers, lips centimeters away. Patrick took her hand and intertwined his fingers to hers. His frigid breath smelled like warm hazelnut.

In her mind she watched them kiss and it was wonderfully, sweet lust.
It was everything she dreamed of. But she knew better, her lips found his ear and she whispered. “Maybe next time.” She gave him a wicked smirk and stepped away from him until she vanished into the crowd. All she remembered was his longing and furious blue eyes paralyzed in place.

***

Rueben walked up behind Genevieve and whispered, “Naughty girl. Do you know how many times I had to pretend not to see you? Patrick had me hunting for you from the time you left him on the dance floor. He nearly shut the place down.”

“He didn’t.”

“I was forced to give him my number. This isn’t over. You’ve opened a can of worms.”

“I did.”

“It’s good.” He smiled broadly. “You’ll have to see him again.” Rueben took her arm into his. “He’s a persistent and pushy prick. He would barely let me leave, if it weren’t for Daddy. He asked for your address…come on! I gave him my number. This is going to be interesting, let’s make a wager. He’s going to break off the engagement!”

“Just from this one night, you think he’d do that?” Genevieve stared at Rueben incredulously.

“After the second night. I told him I’d bring you back in a couple weeks.”

“Rueben! You know how hard it is for me to get out of that damn house!”

“I’ll think of something. Don’t worry.” Patting her hand in that fatherly way of his.

“Who says I want to see him again anyway?” Bumping him with her hip.

“A girl locked up for, say about a century, who’s had no social interaction whatsoever, doesn’t want to see a man who’s interested in her? Sure.”

“Okay, I would like to see him again. This is just a really dangerous game I’m playing. Mother Minerva will kill me if she ever finds out.”

“Please stop calling her ‘mother.’ She is awful, and that’s coming from a vampire.” He shook his head. “We’ll just have to do our best to evade that evil witch. I’ve got a few tricks.”

The two watched as the doors to the club began to ope
n, they stepped through into the waiting room. Genevieve looked back and found Patrick, watching her out the door. Hundreds of people at a time pushed past him, he didn’t seem to be jostled at all. Women stared at him, working to catch his attention, but he was focused on Genevieve. He smiled and pointed at her. She didn’t know what that meant, but she felt excited and alive. And at that moment she decided that she would rather die alive than die dead. She couldn’t live the way she had for long.

The DJ’s voice echoed through the tunnels. “
Come back and join us again. Every Thursday, Friday and Saturday morning, here at Club Masqueraaaaaddddddeeee!”

Episode 2 of Cinderella, Genevieve Rising will be released August 30
th
. Till next time!
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