The Mischievous Mrs. Maxfield (97 page)

“Charlotte, when will you ever learn that when it comes to you, I’m capable of just about everything?” he said indulgently as he peeled the envelope open and drew the letter out. “You have your metaphors. I have my bare heart—laid out nicely in a fairy tale befitting a princess like you.”

I rolled my eyes. “Alright. Since you’re so sure to impress, let’s hear it.”

He unfolded the sheet and held it with one hand while his other curled around one of mine.

Once upon a time, there lived a great prince who ruled a vast kingdom, secure in his place on the throne, of the gold crown that sits atop his head, of the powerful sword that hangs by his hip, and of the many hearts he’d strung along like a cape to the wind.

“—ah, so you admit to being a playboy.”

He knew somewhere out there was a princess worthy to stand by his side and wear his ring and name. He swore he would find her and marry her—when he eventually got around to it. The prince had many responsibilities to occupy his hours, and many willing women to occupy his bed.

“—this sounds a little Rated R for a fairy tale, Brand.”

One day, impatient to see his son marry and run the palace over with tottering princelings and princesses, the old but wise king commanded his son to seek out and win the heart of a servant girl and make her his princess. Naturally, the arrogant prince was shocked because servant girls didn’t make princesses. He was further angered to realize that his father expected him to curtail his freedom—not for a regal princess, or a goddess, for he felt he certainly deserved one—but for a servant girl, nonetheless.”

“—a goddess, really? You were that full of yourself? And I was a waitress, not a servant.”

But the prince went to seek out the servant girl anyway, determined to prove to his father that even great, wise kings made foolish mistakes. 

The prince expected no argument when he presented his case to the servant girl. He should’ve known his life was never going to be the same again when the servant girl lifted her face to him and fearlessly met his eye. She may have been a peasant but there was nothing subservient about her at all. She gladly tossed her wild mane of sun-streaked golden hair behind her as she tilted her head up at him in bold regard, as if the gap in their height and age was more in her favor than his. Her blue-green eyes sparkled and gleamed with fire and mischief as she clearly and loudly recited every one of his abominable attributes to his face as reasons why she would never marry him.

“—I’m not sure abominable covers all of it. You’re stinting on the important parts.”

She joined the prince’s cause for the sake of the great, old king she respected and adored but even with all the rules the prince had set, autocrat that he was, she carried on like a force of nature—forging her own path where one didn’t exist, making up her own rules as she went, vanquishing villains one good deed at a time, and stealing the prince’s heart with every cheeky smile, every giddy laugh, every brazen banter she got him tangled into, every scar she counted on for strength, every tear she fought not to shed in his presence, every sweet kiss she bestowed on him like berries to a starving man. 

“—aw, damn you, Brandon Maxfield.”

It took no time for it to become perfectly clear to the prince that while the gorgeous gowns and dazzling jewels made for a lavishly fashionable woman, they did not make a princess. With each day he spent alongside the servant girl, watching her win hearts back by giving pieces of her own away, knowing that her real fortune was not gold but rather a golden heart, the prince came to the conclusion that she was richer than any wealthy maiden in the land, and deserved someone far more worthy than he.

With the realization of his great fortune in finding a treasure more precious than he could have ever imagined, came the stark possibility that like the sun, she will never be contained to shine in one place, that light will always seek any darkness it can fill. 

He worried that despite his immense wealth, he would never have enough to offer someone who held material possessions immaterial to her happiness. He feared that even though he could slay dragons for her, his gallantry would never be required by a fierce warrior princess who fought not with swords but words, and prevailed often. He worried that despite his fine form and face, he would wither away with the years to become an old man who might tell tales of a beautiful angel from times past whose smiles and laughter would keep her forever young.

“One, I could be slightly mercenary. Two, I prevailed all the freakin’ time, if I must say so myself. Three, I haven’t found the fountain of youth. I will grow old and gray just like you. We can smile and laugh together, even when we’re wrinkly and hobbling about.”

With nothing to anchor her to his side save for the current affection she felt for him, the prince feared that she, like the sun, would move on somewhere else and leave him in the shadows, with no guarantee except for the hope that like every sunrise, morning will come once again.

The prince did not realize that even though the sun continued to rise, he could not see the light because he kept his eyes closed. And like a man suddenly blinded, he clumsily stumbled, imagining monsters in the darkness and swinging his sword at them, not knowing that he drew blood not from the fearsome phantoms haunting him but the princess who never once left his side.

“...Brand, no. I know you didn’t mean to hurt me.”

The prince finally opened his eyes and saw that the limp, weakened body in his arms was his princess, deeply wounded by the force of his fears. Her once bright eyes were sad and hurting, her once proud shoulders hunched in defeat. His heart shattered into a million pieces, knowing that he’d plucked a star from the sky and let it nearly burn out because in his own selfishness, he’d kept it cooped up in his hands rather than leaving it where it could shine, as it was meant to.

“What good are stars if there isn’t anyone who would wish on them?”

Knowing what he almost lost, the prince decided to keep his eyes open and take courage in facing whatever came his way, may it be night or day. He decided to trust and keep faith that the princess will stay by his side, not because he chose her but because she chose him.

This story isn’t about the servant girl who was found worthy to be a princess.

Rather, it’s a story between a woman who wore either apron or tiara with equal grace, and the prince who had to become a man worthy of her love beyond the measure of his crown and sword.

To some, it is simply another fairy tale.

To the prince, who will continue to tell this story in the years to come, to his and the princess’s many children and their children’s children, it is and will always be, the greatest honor of his life.

I was crying.

I was laughing and crying and forcing myself to sit up so I could throw my arms around my husband who was holding me steady in his embrace, showering my face with the lightest kisses, murmuring in my ear how much he loved me. 

I couldn’t say I loved him back fast enough.

All my walls were thoroughly and spectacularly annihilated.

Nothing stood a chance against a love like that.

And I was okay with that because I was worth it.

While fairy tales didn’t exactly make the world a magical place where heroes always prevailed over villains, faith did. I had plenty to give but very little to leave myself with. I was lucky that some of it made its way back to me, restoring what I had long ago lost, pushing me far enough to make the leap and claim what every person should for themselves—a chance at happiness, no matter how scarred or seemingly unworthy we see ourselves.After all, the wrong girl is sometimes the Right One, may it be in love or life—and you have to be the first to believe it.

“But Dad, there weren’t any dragons in this story!”

“The villains aren’t always going to be dragons, silly!”

I glanced at the two small, round faces peering up at me expectantly.

Even though their light brown hair varied slightly by the shades of gold in them, their eyes were the exact shade of aquamarine that I knew so well and loved so much.

And their uncanny similarity to their mother didn’t end there.

At six, both Skyler and Samuel, only four and a half minutes apart, already possessed the same irrepressible nature that made me sweat a little when I thought about the future. 

It was normal, I was told, to worry about the days when I couldn’t be there to help them up when they stumble and fall, but Charlotte would always just shake her head and tell me that the first thing our children needed to learn was how to pick themselves up and keep on going. The world would never be a perfect place, no matter how much money we had, and the only way to live was to know that and strive to be happy anyway. I believed her, of course, because if there was one person who could proudly declare such a thing, it was Charlotte whose many trials by fire only forged her to be the strong, beautiful person she was today. 

“Your sister is right,” I told Sam with a small smile. “Villains don’t always appear as you expect them.”

“Of course, I’m right,” Sky asserted with a haughty tilt of her chin as she crossed her arms and gave her brother a look that couldn’t mean anything else but I-told-you-so. “Princesses like me know these things.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “But they don’t know about space aliens or battleships!” He turned to me with those large blue-green eyes and nudged my thigh. “Right, Dad?”

I suppressed a sigh as I stared at the nearly-identical stubborn looks the twins gave me, both entreating me to take one side over the other.

I wondered now why I thought that today was a good day to tell them an old fairy tale I wrote about eight years ago which I still knew by heart. Maybe because while I was sitting here and waiting along with the restless crowd in front of Langdell Library, I thought it would be fitting to finally tell my children what a wonderful princess their mother was, even if they didn’t quite know it was her in the story. 

They were still too young to fully understand, even though Sky adored the princess and Sam thought the prince should’ve had a big, black horse that could fly. It may continue to be nothing more than a story to them and that was alright with me. Stories had a way of finding themselves back to you when it was time for them to serve more than just glimpses of life inscribed in pages. 

“Are they yours?” A woman who was seated behind me in a different table asked in a measured flirty tone, boldly reaching out to touch me on the arm.

She was attractive, somewhere in her mid-thirties maybe, and very professional-looking in some sleek kind of navy blue suit. She flashed me a coy smile when I finally looked at her. It still happened a lot to me but I’d learned in the last eight years that while women’s interest were often harmless because I hardly paid it any attention, it was safer to steer clear if I didn’t want Charlotte to get dragged to prison for seriously injuring some unwitting woman who didn’t know who they were messing with. Charlotte may have a giant golden heart but she had a temper, alright.

But before I could politely dismiss the woman, Sam piped up.

“He’s our Dad.” He was frowning at the woman slightly, nudging my arm so the woman’s touch fell away. “He’s married to our Mom. She’s very pretty.”

“And she’s a princess,” Sky added smugly, her fierce eyes daring the woman almost exactly like her mother’s would. “And she fights villains.”

When my children put it that way, there wasn’t much that I could add so I just smiled at the poor woman and shrugged, knowing it was enough because she instantly looked nervous under the twins’ scrutiny and awkwardly looked away.

And just before I could distract the kids’ attention away from their full-fledged defense of their mother, Sky shrieked in excitement and pointed to someone behind my shoulder. “Look, Grampa’s here! With Uncle Mattie! And Uncle Jake and Auntie Tessa! And Uncle Francis and Auntie Nikky! And Auntie Anna and Uncle Jason! And, and...”

I grinned as my little girl ran out of breath, squinting at the throng of people to spot more familiar faces heading for the two large tables that were reserved for our family and friends.

There was a strict rule against reservations of tables, and Charlotte would probably have something to say about fairness and equality and all that, but I could tell her straight-faced that these were offered to us without us even asking. If she raised her brow at me in a silent pressing for further explanation, I may have to admit that it might have something to do with the generous donation Dad made to the university to renovate one wing in the Langdell Library a few months ago. She’d be naturally suspicious about it but she’d reluctantly accept it because everyone knew that there was no explaining Martin Maxfield and his mysterious ways.

“Hey, Dad.”

He patted my shoulder wordlessly as he took the seat next to me only to be promptly besieged by the twins who clambered off their seats to round my chair to get to him and Mattie. These days, my father busied himself with nothing else but being a doting grandfather. He was great at it too, and all the grandkids loved him.

“Hey, did you all meet up or something so you can all show up at the same time?” I asked Jake as he pulled out a chair for Tessa, who was very pregnant with their second child. 

“Two stretch limos, half a dozen stops to pick up everyone, and a mini-conference in the forty-five minutes it took to get here and join the slow procession of cars coming into campus. Thank my wife for her overzealous planning,” Jake answered with a roll of his eyes, earning a sound smack from Tessa on the arm. 

“Parking was going to be a pain if we all arrived separately. Plus, it gave us a chance to iron out the last minute details for the party later,” she explained, looking up and waving over more of our small army of guests.

Layla came arm in arm with Gilles who still looked very much like the body guard I hired more than a decade ago although he now owned his security company. He and Layla married about five years ago and although they didn’t have any children of their own, they seemed blissfully in love. Riley, now twenty, was right behind them, and he grinned and high-fived Mattie when they saw each other. They’d been best friends in the last eight years, being only two years apart and now attending the same university. Felicity also came with her husband Damien Holt whom she first met at mine and Charlotte’s wedding reception. He was the lead singer of the band we hired that night and since then, his music career had taken off. They got married four years ago and moved to California but Charlotte was still very close to her former assistant. Clyde and Armina, Charlotte’s still-favorite beauty and style duo, also arrived, and I had  to suppress a helpless groan when Clyde whistled and loudly cheered, “Go, Charlotte! Go!” before Armina dragged him down to his seat. Already a blossoming beauty and a promising heartbreaker at twelve, Rose arrived with her mother, Aimee, who also towed in her new husband Danny (yes, Layla’s cousin), which surprised me because they only got married two weeks ago and I thought they were still on their honeymoon. I really shouldn’t be surprised because when my sisters devised a party, they pulled no stops. Everyone who was important to Charlotte’s life who could make it here today showed up.

“Last but not the least—Simone and her new hunky boyfriend whose name I can’t remember,” Anna said, smiling at the tall brunette gliding our way in the arms of her latest beau who was a model a few years younger than her. She and Layla had headed the Championettes in the last three years when Charlotte was too busy to work in the Society full-time. She caught my eye and gave me a little wave and I politely nodded back.

Simone didn’t look like she’d aged in the last near-decade, and her beauty would always be undisputed, but while I still treated her like the old friend she’d been to me, I couldn’t recall much of our relationship, if one could even call it that. It wasn’t a surprise because my thoughts were constantly filled with wild blonde hair of sunshine and eyes the deep blue-green color of the ocean. 

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear you call him hunky,” Jason muttered wryly to Anna who just giggled.

“I could describe my favorite parts of your anatomy right now but I doubt anyone will want to live through that,” she said before we all groaned loudly and Jason had to lower his reddening face. 

As embarrassing as my sister’s blunt and dirty comment was, I was glad to see her happy. She didn’t get her happy ending right after Jason’s speedy divorce from his first wife. Anna made the painful decision to move to London where she finished her studies while Jason tried to get his life back together. It was probably three years later that Jason came after Anna just as she was graduating, and after a year-long engagement, they married and soon had little Gabriel.

“You may want to save that when there aren’t kids around, you know,” Francis said in a mock-reprimand, a teasing smile tilting up one side of his mouth. He wasn’t really complaining. If anyone had applied himself more religiously in his marital duties, it would be Francis who was now a proud father of five. Apparently, when he decided to embrace what could be left of his life, he decided to go all out. He had another health scare a few years ago, causing family-wide anxiety, but he pulled through stubbornly, telling everyone he wasn’t quite ready to quit just yet. Charlotte told him firmly that she’d kick his butt if he didn’t put up a good fight.

As I sat and silently observed our large group of family and friends talking and laughing around the table, I decided that despite all the obstacles most of us had to overcome, we were a lucky and happy bunch. And for many of these good things, we had Charlotte to thank, because in a way, she was the force that brought most of us together and kept us there.

A strong female voice rang out on the speakers and we all turned to the stage where the dean of the faculty of law now stood at the podium, about to finally proceed with the commencement exercises in this beautiful and sunny spring day. 

We all sat and watched attentively as the degrees were conferred, waiting in nervous excitement for one name to be announced. 

I couldn’t see her from all the bobbing black grad caps up front but I knew she was there, probably just as much of a nervous, excited mess as I was.

“Charlotte Maxfield,” the dean called out just as my wife skipped her way up to the stage from the side stairs, a big, radiant smile on her face as she threw her arms around the older, silver-haired woman who chuckled heartily along with the audience.

Charlotte released her and accepted her diploma, clutching it to her heart before turning to us in the audience, waving at everyone even as her eyes locked in with mine as if she knew exactly where I was in this sea of people. 

I grinned and waved at her, my chest tightening with a swirl of emotions I should really be used to by now, as I took in each of my lovely wife’s features—that honey-gold hair as wildly untamed as her spirit, those rosy cheeks that only darken into a deep berry shade when I show her just how much I wanted her, that defiant chin that dared whatever came her way, that full mouth that drove me a little crazy with both the words that come out of it and the maddening kisses it was more than capable of, and finally those deep blue-green eyes that sparkled with life and laughter and softened with love and kindness in the same heartbeat.

It had been many years but I had a nagging suspicion that my fascination with Charlotte was nowhere near being cured. I didn’t want it to be cured anyway. 

Charlotte Maxfield is the kind of affliction that leaves something good where your defenses used to be before she obliterated them all.

Many years ago, my father saw in her a brave, lovely girl who needed at least one shot at happiness. 

When I met her, I saw more than that, even though my resentment at being cornered had first clouded everything that probably rung loud and clear the moment Charlotte opened her mouth and knocked me off my very sure feet with her first witty swipe at me.

“I want to go to Mommy!” Sky suddenly blurted out, turning to us with a pout that gave anyone a little cardiac arrest because hearts just weren’t made to resist a face like that. 

“Not yet, sweetie,” I told her with a soft smile. “Mommy still has to finish graduating.”

“Will they give her cake?” Sam asked with such serious eyes. “Or maybe ice cream?”

“We’ll have lots of cake and ice cream for her at her party later,” Mattie promised with a mischievous wiggle of his brows. “But you promised not to tell her so it would be a surprise.”

Sky turned to my father, squeezing his lined face in her hands and pleading at him with large, watery eyes. “Grampa, will you take me to Mommy?”

Dad shared a knowing look with the rest of us adults who were watching in amusement and wondering if Martin Maxfield could indeed be taken down by a mere six-year-old blue-green-eyed elf who knew her charms too well. 

“I swear, it’s illegal for daughters and granddaughters to have this much power over grown men,” Jake muttered with a small groan, reminding me of his own battles with his little girl, Lily, who had him wrapped around her finger almost as tightly as Tessa did. Since she was a miniature version of my youngest sister, it was no surprise really.