Never After

  Never After

  Billie Dale

  Published by Billie Dale, 2018.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Never After

  Never After: | What Happens When the Fairytale Ends

  Prologue:

  ONE | One year earlier....

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  THE END

  Prologue

  Chapter One | So Mote it...Begins

  About the Author

  Acknowledgements

  To the little girl in all of us who believes Prince Charming is out there and to my very own.

  All Right Reserved.

  Copyright Author Billie Dale, 2018

  Cover Design: Witchy Richey Booktastic Reviews

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite book retailer and purchase your own copy.

  Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  If your reading this and didn’t purchase it, STOP. Don’t be a dick. Don’t take the blood, sweat and tears of authors and share it freely with everyone.

  Never After:

  What Happens When the Fairytale Ends

  When I walked down the aisle all those years ago, I thought I was about to begin a fairytale romance...

  Boy, was I ever wrong.

  Now my would-be Prince Charming is doing a stint behind bars, and my two kids and I have been dropped on our butts at the one place I never wanted to see again - the home of my witchy, bitchy, poisoned-apple-giving Wicked Stepmother.

  I've got to get my kids and I out of there, before she goes back to her old tricks. But it'll take more than the money I make as cleaning lady to the seven messiest brothers in history...

  But then Elsabeth Delle bursts into my life like a winter storm - with an idea that might get both of us damsels out of our distress.

  It starts with a bed, a webcam, and the promise of safe, sanitized anonymous cyber-sex with whichever Internet strangers are willing offer up their golden coins.

  What could go wrong?

  As it turns out, it's not a what. It's a who.

  Royal Princeps.

  He seems almost too good to be true - all radiant green eyes, perfect scruff and a body that's just made for sin. Even better, it doesn't take a magic mirror to tell me he thinks I'm the Fairest of Them All.

  I've got to figure out if this handsome hunk is my Knight in Shining Armor, or the Big Bad Wolf in sheep's clothing; ready to eat me all up (and not in the good way.)

  Or, as I'm starting to suspect, maybe he's a bit of both...

  Never After is a Snow White-inspired, curse-word infused bedtime story for adults only - exploring what happens when your fairytale "happy ending" is actually just the beginning...

  Prologue:

  “I can’t get up there.” I whine, peeking through a small slit in the door, all the faces filling the room makes the butterflies turn into bats in my already flipping stomach.

  “Yes. You. Can. Stop being a pussy, pull your big girl panties up to your ears and strut your shit out there. This is your dream, your happy ever after and you’re going to do it.” Ripping the door from my hands she shoves me through, sending me stumbling ass over elbows, tripping on my three-inch heels onto the stage. The heat of the lights overhead, the anticipation of the crowd and hearing, “Ladies and Gents put your hands together for Snowy Whitaker,” has the microphone shaking in my hand.

  Tugging at the hem of my dress, hoping to make it cover more skin, blood rushes through my ears blocking the sounds of the bass beating behind me. I peer into the sea of eyes until I land on one perfect set of glowing green orbs.

  “Stop fidgeting and sing, damn it,” She whisper yells from the side of the stage.

  But those brilliant emerald green eyes allow me to take a deep breath and push back the rest of my nerves. The music starts again, swaying my hips to the beat, I let the chords fill my veins. Flipping an imaginary middle finger to the universe, I draw the microphone to my lips and allow the words to flow from my heart.

  ONE

  One year earlier....

  Wiping red goo from my hands, I stomp across the yard to my piece of crap car sitting alongside the curb. My black hair is plastered to my head, my pale skin tinged red from whatever those kids had in their cups and my expensive costume’s ruined. I knew taking a temp job as a princess for a birthday party was a mistake, but the agency lady insisted I fit the role. “You’ll be a great Snow White,” she said. “The kids will love you,” she boasted. “You look just like her,” she cooed.

  What little girl knows who Snow White is? None. They all want Moana or Tatiana not some washed up, damsel in distress from 1960.

  It’s bad enough I came here after I finish cleaning up after the Slobby Seven, as I like to call them. Seven men living together in one house is a nightmare. Housekeeping for them sends me straight on my own personal trip to hell. Used condoms, women’s underwear, pizza boxes and more grossness than you could ever conjure in your head make my job one I’d rather quit than continue to subject myself to. Don’t even get me started on the bathrooms. I swear not one of those bastards know how to hit the damn toilet bowl.

  This is what my life has become.

  Once upon a time, I held it all in my hand. A huge Victorian style palace, a shiny new BMW, more money than I knew what to do with and a husband who promised me the moon and stars. Hard to believe it was just a few months ago. Harder to believe I lost it all when he went to jail for a Ponzi scheme, leaving his famous clients broke and wanting his head on a silver platter. Uncle Sam may take his sweet time giving you money he owes, but when your spouse cons millions out of the biggest names in Hollywood, he works real fast to take away everything in your possession. In the end, leaving me homeless and penniless with two kids and only the clothes on our back.

  My once prince charming Nic Geppetto and his partner Jim, or as the press referred to them Pinocchio Liam Geppetto and Jimenez Criqet, get three meals and a cot while I scurried home with my tail between my legs. To beg my step-monster, who would rather poison me than help, for a place to live.

  With a roof over our head, I set out to find a job. Who wants to hire a thirty-five-year-old former house-wife whose specialties include folding laundry, washing dishes and the ability to talk to woodland creatures?

  Let me answer for you, no one.

  I don’t have one marketable job skill. I’m digitally stupid, technology scares me. Hell, I don’t even have a high school diploma. Nic swooped in with his manicured hands, stiff polo shirt, coiffed hair and stole me away while I processed the death of my father and dealt with the maliciousness of my stepmother. Older and wiser, he guaranteed I didn’t need to finish school. He promised love and stability at a time when my world crumbled. I ate up his li
es unable to see he wasn’t a real man. He insured my ignorance enough to keep me from seeing him scheming behind my back. Knocked me up a month after we started dating. Producing false documentation about my age so we could get married, again more lies. Eight months later, I gave birth to our son Axel and a year after, Aurora arrived.

  Now, Axel is eighteen, ready to graduate and Aurora is right behind him with one year left of school. When the Feds caught up to Nic, they took all the money we’d saved for them to go to college, depleting not only their college fund but also all our liquid and non-liquid assets. Now, the burden is on me to make sure my kids finish high school and get a college degree, not including making sure they don’t fall victim to a big whale in a small pond the way I did.

  All of which led me to my present predicament, covered in juice and cake after an attack by a small herd of angry little girls who wanted Moana instead of Snow White.

  Two

  I don’t care if I’m a mess, I don’t give a crap if I’m dressed like a princess; I need a drink.

  “Come on ole girl please start for me,” I plead with my clunker car, turning the key and hoping for the best. With a whine and grind the engine roars to life. Shifting it into drive, I head across this one-horse town to the small local tavern, Rumpelstiltskin’s.

  Ignoring the glares and odd glances, I slide onto a stool at the bar, telling the bartender to give me something strong.

  “Appletini?” He offers with a sly smirk, a small tip to his lips I would like to smack right off his face.

  “Ha, Ha. You’re so funny.”

  “What do you expect? Aren’t you supposed to be Snow...”

  I hold up my hand, squeezing my eyes closed. “Stop. Don’t worry about who or what I am. Can I please have a drink?”

  “As you wish,” he nods, turning his back to me, he grabs a bottle of whiskey from the top shelf before pouring the glass half full. My mouth waters watching the amber liquid fill the cup.

  With a shaky hand, I tip it to my lips and guzzle the contents. Coughing and sputtering when it burns my taste buds and blazes a trail down my throat to my stomach. A hard nudge to my right sends my body sideways, off the edge of my seat, where I land hard on my butt. Flailing my arms to break my fall. My hands slap down in a sticky sludge coating the floor.

  This day just keeps getting better. That’s it, I’ve had enough. Someone is going down.

  Blood boiling to the point I’m sure smoke is coming from my ears, I look up from the nasty residue gluing my fingers together, to the person who knocked me from my stool. Feeling a flush cover my face, I push to stand. Eyeing the spot next to me.

  “What the hell did you do that for?”

  Cocking one white blond brow at me, the stranger shrugs, “You were choking. I helped. If you can’t handle your whiskey perhaps you should’ve taken the Appletini.”

  Biting my bottom lip, I slip back onto my stool, watching the woman next to me. Anger sparks a flint at the base of my spine starting a blaze crawling along my skin. She twirls her finger in the air before touching my empty glass. When the tip of her index finger rests on the rim, the glass frosts over and the inside fills with ice.

  My rage turns to awe. “Woah,” I whisper as my eyes bug out. I lean down to study it closer. “So cool.” I stick a finger inside the glass and flip the cubes around.

  Snapping her fingers to catch the bartender’s attention, she points to my glass when he glances her way. Yelling a demand for him to refill it with something less caustic. The woman pulls a package from her purse and hands me some sanitizing wipes to clean my hands.

  “Thanks,” I grumble, side-eyeing her to get a good look.

  I slump in my chair, willing myself to sink into the floor. All my hidden insecurities flood to the surface. I’m like the grumpy old troll who lives under the bridge sitting next to her. Even on my best hair day I hate looking in the mirror. Her hair’s a platinum shade of blonde, cascading like a blanket of fresh snow, long and wavy down to her waist. Her skin’s porcelain white like mine, but hers is soft and bright where I’m more walking dead. She has large sky-blue eyes and a narrow slim nose, with perfect rose-colored plump lips. She smells like winter and crisp clean air, and even in the dank darkness of this bar, her scent is fresh. Jesus, I’m the beast to her beauty.

  Pushing the glass toward me, she says, “Drink up. Looks like you need it.”

  A warm tingling travels from my stomach through my veins, the effects of the first drink beginning to take root. Afraid to relive the shocking scorch of the whiskey, I take a small sip of the offered beverage. A blast of sweetness explodes inside my mouth, then fades to a tart tang before flowing down my throat. The chill dousing the burn from the cheap bourbon.

  “Not bad. Thanks,” I offer before swallowing down the rest.

  Again, she touches my glass, frosting the inside before the bartender moves to refill it.

  “Neat trick, you would have been a hit at the birthday party from hell today,” I offer, my eyes focused on swirling the small cubes around in the liquid.

  Shrugging a shoulder, her mouth in a grim line, she mumbles, “If you say so.” I hear a hint of sadness in her words but before I can question it she’s tilting her head toward me. Her brow crinkles with squinted eyes as she takes in my dress. “So that’s the deal with the outfit? I thought you ate Snow White and barfed her back up.” Her deep blue eyes widen in recognition. “Wait. You look familiar. Do I know you?”

  Looking her over once more, I scan my brain to see if we’ve met before. I’m certain I would remember her blinding hair and beauty. “No, I don’t think so.”

  Snapping her fingers, with an a-ha light to her eyes, a poof a snow floats up from her hand. “You were on the news and every supermarket tabloid. You’re her. The woman, the one married to the guy who stole all the money. I remember seeing you sitting in the grass crying with your fist to the sky as they led him away in handcuffs.”

  Tears spring to my eyes, remembering the day I lost it all. Reliving them taking everything from me, hearing all the despicable things Nic did and wondering where we were going to go. I cursed his sorry ass to the pits of hell as I tried to explain something I didn’t understand to my kids while they watched their possessions carried away. Hours of sitting in a little room pelted by question after question did nothing but push me further to the edge. My body shudders at the memories.

  “Shit, sorry. I didn’t mean to blurt it out.” Sticking her hand out to me, the stranger introduces herself. “I’m Elsabeth Delle.”

  Gripping her hand, a biting cold flows along my palm and up my forearm freezing my skin. I jerk back when the cold begins to burn.

  I stare at my hand then back to her. “I’m Snowy,” I respond as I shake it to bring feeling back. The alcohol traveling through my bloodstream helps reheat my flesh.

  We sit for hours drinking and talking. I learn she too is newly divorced and living with her sister. Her husband disappeared at the same time as her best friend, leaving her with a failing ski lodge and a mountain of debt. The last she’d heard from him he claimed her vagina was an icebox and he was tired of being afraid his dick was going to get stuck inside like a tongue to a metal pole during the winter.

  She couldn’t keep up with the lodge because instead of creating the snow she needed she kept making ice, and after two skiers hit trees, she couldn’t afford the insurance any longer.

  My head floats, a nice calm numb has taken over my body and all the stress has melted away. We’re both slumping and slurring out words when the man behind the bar announces, “Last call.”

  One last upbeat tune fills the air from the jukebox. Tapping my fingers with the beat, I begin to sing along with the words. Something about surviving and still standing, an anthem fitting my life. I belt out the words, not caring who’s watching or who’s listening. When the song finishes Elsabeth pats my shoulder, infusing me with bone-chilling cold, giving me a cat that ate the canary grin. “You. You can sing. Nice, very nice.” I
should be frightened by the gleam in her eyes and the full devious smile spreading across her face, but I’m too drunk to care.

  Everything after her words is a blur. I don’t know how I got home or who put me to bed. A heavy agonizing fog coats the inside of my skull, and my head is on the verge of exploding from the hangover pounding at me when the time comes to wake.

  Three

  Axel and Aurora stumble around each other in their rush to get ready for school. Their bustling sounds beating like a bass drum inside my head. I drag my way to the kitchen with my hand help to my temple, in search of some much-needed coffee. I’m still wearing the nasty, slime-covered costume with cake matting my hair and a rancid stench of stale booze floating out of my pores. My tongue is stuck to the roof of my mouth and tastes like ass. The beams of morning sun burns my eyes and has me hissing like a vampire. Slamming cabinets, loud television, even breathing is a drum line banging in my brain. A few blissful hours of numb equals a ton of regret for my attempt to forget.

  Axel kisses the side of my hair not plastered to my scalp, crinkling his nose in disgust when he gets a whiff of my stench. Aurora stands with her arms crossed, dressed in all black with thick charcoal lines encircling her eyes, looking disgusted and pissed. Nothing new there. Her disgust for me is no secret.

  Lowering his voice to a whisper, slipping two Tylenol into my hand, “You need a shower bad and maybe burn your clothes.” His lips tug up on one side from my cringe, his sweet brown eyes giving away his laugh.

  “Have a good day, kids,” I mumble low, trying to keep my head from exploding. Aurora curls her lip but doesn’t speak, and Axel calls out his love before they disappear out the door.

  Tapping my fingers on the counter, I wait for the coffee to finish brewing. I don’t miss much from my old life. But I loved my coffee pot, my Keurig. I make do with my thrift store find and the long minutes it takes to percolate. Most mornings I’m content to have the means to make some at all; today the slow drip is like a sloth crossing the road.