Chapter 27
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Knightly’s words hang over me heavily. The twins got over it pretty fast, but the truth has me on edge. The day went by slowly. I finished as much work as I could while Knight played with them. Tessa and Maria took them outside to go horseback riding again, and now that they’re bathed and sleeping, I have time to work on Aryie’s fairy princess dress. I took the trunk Maria almost opened out onto the balcony to set up.
I missed cool nights like this away from the city. There’s a bite of salt in the air and it’s almost comforting to be this close to home. I make sure my portable sewing machine has working batteries and get to work on the wings.
“Phoebe,” I almost jump out of my skin looking around. “Down here,” I lean forward to see Knightly below. “What are you doing?”
“I’m being sneaky. What are you doing?”
“Same thing,” he laughs. “Lean against the rail,”
“Why?” I ask and do as he asks. I cover my mouth when he jumps up and lands in a crouch next to me. “Oh,”
“What’s all this?” he takes a seat.
“It’s Ayrie’s fairy princess dress for her un–birthday,”
“Her what?” he grins. I groan.
“Okay,” I say pinning the wings down. “For their birthday this year, they wanted a Shark Boy and Lava Girl birthday party and I delivered. But, one of the other moms had a princess tea party thing for her daughter so all the little girls from their schoolwent to her party and only the boys came to ours.
“Ayrie spent the whole day watching Alice and Wonderland movies in her room dressed as Lava Girl. I asked her if she wanted to get dressed in one of her princess dresses and go there, but she was upset.
“So, I asked her what I could do to make her feel better and she asked if she could have an un–birthday y so she wouldn’t have to share themes with Aizen anymore and she could have all the princess parties she wants,”
“That is so cute,” he chuckles.
“I agreed and I asked her what date would be more suited for her and picked July Twenty–Six,”
“Why that day?”
“It’s the day the original Alice In Wonderland movie was released in Nineteen fifty–one,”
“That’s in seven days,”
I’ve always wondered why the twins were so ahead of their age, but the way he reacts to what I’m saying tells me that it’s completely normal for them to be that way. The biggest reason why we were let into the private school was because they passed some crazy intellect tests. A lot of things are starting to add up.
“Right. And since we’re in Cali I want to take her to Disneyland,” I nod.
“I love everything about that story,” he smiles. “Let me see the dress,”
I laugh and sit back to show him the mannequin. The dress is complete. It’s the wings I’m having trouble with. Ayrie is a watercolor fairy princess and I want her wings to match her personality perfectly. I just didn’t want to use plastic for it. Before leaving Paris I found the perfect shades of green and yellow to make them.
“How did you learn how to do this?” he asks touching the bottom of the dress. No one has ever asked me that and I myself am caught off guard with the emotions that surge forward. “Hey,” he places his hand on my back. “I didn’t mean-”
“No, no,” I laugh at how stupid that was, I look up to blink away the tears. “No one has ever asked me that before,”
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邮寄2%粉
+20)
Chapter 27
“Oh,” he smiles. “You don’t have to tell me,”
“If I tell you. Will you tell me about your Dad?” the question catches him off guard and he stares at me for a bit before he agrees.
I sit back to lean against the metal bars behind me.
“My mom died when I was two. My dad said she was sick but he married his mate weeks after, He was a really good dad at first. That’s the memory of him that keeps me from completely hating him for what they did, but after my brother Manny was born, things changed.
“Melissa, my stepmother hated me. That was never a secret, but after Manny was born her aggression worsened, I was ten. During full moons, she would go into my room and fuck all my things up. She would tear everything apart and I didn’t understand.
“So, my dad moved me to the basement and he would lock me in there two days before the full moon and he wouldn’t let me out until two days after. All my mom’s things were in the basement. She was a seamstress and there were these beautiful sewing machines and rolls upon rolls of beautiful fabric, yarn, and thread.
“I didn’t know her and we didn’t have any pictures because Melissa got rid of it all, but it made me feel like I knew her. I got really good at making my own clothes. My friends at school and in the reservation would pay to make their dresses and outfits for formals and dates. It’s how I got out of there,”
“I’m so sorry,” he says rubbing my
I don’t know what it is about his touch that calms me and I don’t feel as vulnerable as I thought I would be. It’s weird because I’ve always had trouble connecting with people. I want him to know everything when I’ve tried so hard to bury those memories so no one would know the ugly things in my past.
“I told him about the twins,” I roll my eyes. “He called them bastards and he told me I was just like my useless mother,”
“I could kill him for speaking to you like that,” he growls. I laugh because the jolt of fear that just went through my body makes me. After the story Maria gave me, he might actually do it.
“That’s not necessary. Being upset by someone as irrelevant as him just continues to let him win. There is no point in me being miserable over them while my so–called father sits in his big ass mansion with his bitch ass cat wife that probably has a brush tongue not giving me a second thought.
“It’s not exactly perfect, but I love my life. It’s taken me to pretty cool places. It took me to you and it’s given me my beautiful kids. I love my job so much. If I would have let them win, I wouldn’t be who I am. I wouldn’t be a millionaire before thirty and I wouldn’t be acting CEO of a branch of one of the biggest fashion companies in the world. So, fuck them,”
“That is a beautiful way of looking at things,” he smiles and sits back against the glass.
“If you don’t want to talk about your biological dad, I’d love to hear about Freddy. He seems like a good man,”
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