The women all start cheering, and Mrs. Anderson shoos them away with her hand, turning away from everyone to continue with her call.
Grabbing the bride-to-be’s hand, I guide her over to the folding chair in the middle of the room, and everyone takes a seat on couches and chairs as Ariel starts the music for me.
It’s a popular song that everyone knows—“Pillowtalk” by Zayn, and all the women start clapping and singing along as I begin my dance. I channel my sexy inner goddess and start swaying my hips in front of the bride-to-be, running my hands up and down my body. Ear-piercing screams almost bust out my eardrums when I easily rip my dress off and toss it to the side.
I put everything I have into this dance, sitting down on her lap facing away from her and rubbing the back of myself all over her as I sensually move to the beat of the music.
“This is my first lap dance, and my first time ever seeing a stripper, and it’s awesome!” the bride tells me.
“Did you know the first account of a woman getting paid for dancing erotically can be traced back to the Bible, where some interpreters tell us that Salome, the daughter of the Jewish princess Herodias, seductively performed the Dance of the Seven Veils to please King Herod during his birthday celebration?” I tell her, bending forward in her lap to touch the ground and shake my ass before coming back up and pressing my back against her chest.
“Seriously? That’s crazy!” she tells me as I fling my arm back around her head and continue gyrating on her lap while the room goes wild.
“Yep. Herod was so impressed with the dance that he granted the daughter anything she desired. Obeying a request from her mother, Herodias’s daughter reportedly replied that she wanted the head of John the Baptist on a platter,” I add, getting up from her lap and turning to face her.
“That’s a pretty steep price for a lap dance,” the bride laughs as I put my hands on the back of her chair and bring my boobs right to her face, shaking them around.
“I know, right?!”
I glance over at Ariel, and she’s got her head in her hand, shaking it back and forth.
The song comes to an end, and the woman gives me a quick hug before getting up from the chair and asking who’s next. A loud chorus of screams almost makes me go deaf, but I can’t stop smiling at how much fun this is.
An hour later, exhausted and sweaty and back in my too-tight yellow dress, I take a huge wad of cash from the bride’s mother, and Ariel gives her a stack of our cards.
“You did good, kid,” Ariel says with a smile, patting me on the back as we head out to the driveway. “Next time, tone down the Encyclopedia Britannica shit a little and just concentrate on the tits-and-ass shaking.”
I roll my eyes at her as we get in the car, pulling my phone out of my purse and calling Vincent, telling him yes I’m finished, yes I’m fine, and no, I’m not calling him from the house because I’m already in the car.
He growls through the phone and my smile grows even wider, knowing he’s going to be extremely bossy when he gets home from work later.
Chapter 30: Fairy Tales are Bullshit
I practically skip into Charming’s, hugging an insulated lunch bag to my chest and looking around for Vincent with a huge smile on my face. It’s hard not to be completely giddy, having just come from the where I deposited more money in my account than I’ve ever seen in my life. I’ve successfully completed seven parties in the last week, and despite Ariel telling me to tone down my chattiness and penchant for fact-giving while dancing, that’s actually the reason I’ve been booking so many parties. All of the emails that have specifically requested me stated: “We want the princess stripper who gives fun facts during her performance.”
Everything seems to be falling into place with my life, and I want to pinch myself just to make sure it isn’t a dream. My dad and I talk constantly, and he doesn’t shy away from asking me about the Naughty Princess Club and how my jobs are going. He even did some research of his own and gave me a few random facts about stripping to use at my next party. Vincent and I are growing closer and closer, and even though we haven’t exactly put a label on our relationship, he’s finally stopped insisting he isn’t my knight in shining armor. He moved all of my things out of the spare bedroom and put them into his room, and told me to forget about his house rules and put whatever “girly shit” I wanted around the place. And with all of my newly earned money, and since Vincent almost went into beast mode when I told him I wanted to help pay the bills, I was able to leave a voicemail for the board last night, saying we needed to schedule an emergency meeting as soon as possible because I am definitely making enough money to keep the library running for a little while longer, until I can come up with a better plan or find a beneficiary. Since I never heard anything from Mrs. Anderson, I’m assuming all the yelling she must have done with her husband never resulted in anything.
“Well, hello there, lovely Belle. You are positively glowing.”
Eric emerges from the back hallway and greets me with a kiss on the cheek.
“I have a lot to glow about lately,” I tell him with a smile. “Is Vincent around? I brought him lunch.”
I hold up the insulated bag containing with the leftover fettuccini alfredo, which Vincent made all by himself last night, without any help from me.
“He had to run up to the liquor distributor because they messed up our order, but he should be back in a little bit.” Eric explains. “So, things are going well between you two I see.”
My smile grows even wider, and I nod my head.
“They are. Especially now that he’s letting me help him.”
Vincent is really coming along with these cooking lessons, and it’s so nice to see his fridge filled with Tupperware containers instead of takeout ones.
“Oh, thank God! He told you? Jesus. I didn’t think that guy would ever come clean,” Eric says with a shake of his head.
I don’t think admitting he couldn’t cook would be considered coming clean. The first time I opened his fridge it was pretty obvious.
“I told him he needed to just trust you and tell you the truth. Even though he acts like an animal and isn’t exactly in touch with his feelings, I think the big guy was so afraid of hurting you, he couldn’t see past that bullshit. I knew you’d understand the issue, and you’d be more than willing to help him get past that nonsense.”
Okay, I don’t think we’re talking about cooking lessons anymore. I try not to be embarrassed that Eric seems to know about my sex life with Vincent and why he kept putting me off, but it’s not like I haven’t shared the intimate details of these things with Cindy and Ariel.
“Oh, yes! He told me, and it’s fine. It’s perfect, actually. He admitted everything the night I danced at Charming’s, and of course I understood, but it was just silly for him to be so afraid of hurting me,” I tell him with a shrug.
“Exactly! Silly! I mean, you’re a sweet, understanding woman. It’s not that big of a deal the guy needs a wife to get a green card to stay in the country.”
Eric laughs, and it takes me a few seconds for his words to penetrate. I shake my head, thinking I might have misheard him, but Eric happily continues talking, oblivious to the blood rushing through my ears and my stunned silence as I process what he’s saying to me.
“And really, even if you didn’t agree to the plan, it’s not like Canada is a million miles away. There are worse places he could get shipped back to,” Eric says with another chuckle as I grab onto the closest chair for support, feeling like the floor is dropping out from under me. “It’s not like it’s all his fault, this grand plan. I mean, I’m sure he told you I’m the one who was at the bar across from the library and saw you locking up and never coming back out. I put two and two together and figured out you were living there for whatever reason. The guy already had a thing for you, even though he wouldn’t admit it, so it didn’t take much on my part to convince him he should ask you to move in with him to get the ball rolling. But honestly, it would have saved
you both a lot of grief if he’d just told you from the get-go his work visa was running out and he needed to get hitched to stay here.”
There’s no need for me to pinch myself now to see if this is a dream. All of the happiness I was feeling when I came in here to bring Vincent lunch rushes out of me, and the lunch bag I’m still clutching slips out of my hand and drops to the floor. This isn’t a dream, it’s a nightmare.
How could I be so stupid? How could I be so clueless? Me, the woman with a brain full of so much useless knowledge, and I couldn’t even see the truth staring me right in the face all this time. My instincts were right all along, and I should have listened to them. Of course a man like Vincent wouldn’t really be interested in someone like me unless he had another, more important reason. And I guess I know what that is now. It all makes sense. Vincent asking me to live with him when he barely knew me, his parents thanking me for saving him, Vincent trying to tell me he had something important we needed to talk about and being so concerned with hurting me. All along he was keeping this huge secret from me, and it was the only reason he let things go further with us. Not because he actually liked me and wanted to see if it could be something more. Because he wanted to use me.
“I . . . I have to go,” I whisper distractedly to Eric as I turn and blindly make my way across the club, bumping into chairs and not paying any attention to what I’m doing as my eyes fill with tears.
“I’ll tell Beast you stopped by!” Eric yells after me.
“Don’t bother,” I mutter, swiping angrily at the tears as they fall down my cheeks.
Thanks to Vincent, I have plenty of sexual confidence to be a stripper. And I also now know what it feels like to have your heart broken. Who knew, even after years and years of reading romance novels, that it would actually be a physical pain that explodes inside my chest, which feels like a knife right through my heart?
* * *
“What the hell are you doing?”
I don’t even jump when I hear Vincent’s voice behind me as I finish shoving all of my things into my duffle bag resting on top of his bed. I figured as soon as he got back to Charming’s, Eric would tell him I was there and the things he said to me. I knew it would only be a matter of time before Vincent showed up here and tried to make excuses for himself, although I’m surprised he got here so fast. I thought he’d spend more time kicking Eric’s ass for letting the truth slip out.
“I think it’s pretty obvious I’m leaving,” I mumble, zipping the bag closed and dragging it off the bed.
He curses under his breath when I turn to face him, probably horrified by the state of my appearance. My face is a red, splotchy mess, and my eyes are bloodshot and puffy from all the crying I’ve done since I left the club.
“You’re not leaving,” he growls, wrapping his hand around my upper arm when I try to walk past him through the doorway.
I jerk my arm out of his hold and attempt to glare at him, wishing I could be angrier than I am. Right now, I’m just sad. I feel like an idiot, and I feel used and deceived and . . . sad.
“That’s the last time you try and tell me what to do,” I inform him, my voice cracking with emotion as I shoulder past him and move quickly down the hallway and into the living room.
“Belle, stop! You’re not leaving like this,” Vincent orders as I whirl around to face him.
“No, you stop! Stop giving me orders and stop pretending like you give a shit what I do!” I shout. “I get it. I was an easy mark. The sweet, innocent, gullible book nerd who never had any real-life experiences. Jesus, you must have been laughing your ass off this entire time at just how easy it was to pull one over on me.”
“Don’t say that,” he growls, running his hand through his hair in frustration. “That’s not how it was, and you know it. I should have told you the truth, and I’m sorry you had to hear it from Eric. I was going to tell you. I tried to tell you a few weeks ago but you wouldn’t let me!”
“Oh, don’t you dare put this on me!” I shout, the tears falling faster and harder now. “You’re just sorry you got caught! What was the grand plan, Vincent? We’re you going to keep stringing me along, making me fall even more in love with you than I already was by proposing? How exactly was this whole green-card situation going to work? Were you going to tell me after we got married, when there was nothing I could do about it? Oh, I know! You know how much I love grand, romantic gestures. I bet you were going to somehow save my library and make me indebted to you! I’m finished with your fucking games!”
I spin around and stalk towards the door, hearing the thump of Vincent’s boots against the floor as he races after me. As soon as I fling open the door, he smacks his hand against the wood and it slams closed.
“Goddamn it, will you just give me a chance to explain?!” he yells.
His body is pressed against my back, crowding me against the door, and I hate it. I hate that the smell of him and the feel of him standing so close to me clouds everything in my head and my heart. I hate that I want to stay and listen to what he has to say.
“This was never a game for me.”
He speaks through clenched teeth, his voice right next to my ear, and despite how hurt I am, he can still make shivers run down my spine. I squeeze my eyes closed and force everything I feel for him away, leaving nothing behind but a huge emptiness in my heart and soul.
“Yes, I initially asked you to move in with me because I let Eric talk me into this asinine plan of his, but that idea went out the fucking window within the first hour of you being here. I knew I couldn’t take advantage of you like that. I knew things would be different with you, and they were.” His voice grew soft. “You changed me, Belle. You made me want to be fucking happy again. You made me stop regretting every stupid decision I made in the past, and you made me want to be a different man. One that wouldn’t hurt you, and one you could trust to take care of you. I am still that man, and it’s all because of you. Please, don’t leave.”
I do everything I can to ignore the desperation in his voice. He’s just desperate because his ticket for staying in this country is walking out the door.
“You lied to me. Every word out of your mouth was a lie just to get what you wanted,” I whisper brokenly.
“I never lied to you. I may not have come right out and said it but I showed you. Every fucking day I showed you what you meant to me. What you still mean to me. I don’t give a shit about the fucking green card. I don’t give a shit about anything but you.”
I slowly turn around to face him, lifting my chin and making the mistake of looking him right in the eyes. He looks as distraught and frustrated as I feel, but it’s a lie. It’s all lies.
“You should have told me the truth. The minute you asked me to stay here, you should have told me!” I argue.
He throws his hands up in the air in exasperation.
“Really? I should have fucking told you I needed a wife to stay here because my work visa was on its last leg and PJ couldn’t get any more extensions?!” he yells incredulously. “You’re a romantic. You love fairy tales. There is nothing romantic about that shit! You would have laughed in my face and run as far away from me as possible. Admit it, Belle. There’s no way you would have stayed if you knew there wasn’t a possibility of a happy ending!”
“Yes, I would have! You think you know me, but you don’t know the most important thing about me!” I scream, swiping angrily at my tears. “If you would have told me the truth, I would have stayed. Because that’s what you do for someone who needs help, even if it’s someone you barely know. You make sacrifices and you help them when they need it because that’s what a kind, caring person does!”
He actually has the nerve to look guilty, but I don’t care. He’s ruined the part inside of me that cares and wants to help people. He ruined it with his lies and his distrust of me. He ruined it by making me fall in love with him and not giving me every part of himself in return.
“I would have done anything for you,” I tell h
im softly, shaking my head at him sadly that in all this time we’ve spent together, he just doesn’t get it. “You kept telling me I needed to trust you and I needed to be comfortable with you, but you never had any plans of reciprocating that, did you? I would have married you the day you ordered me to pack up my shit and come here. All you had to do was trust me, tell me the truth, and just ask.”
My voice wobbles, and I know I need to go before the dam breaks loose and I start sobbing uncontrollably again.
“I fucked up, Belle. I know I fucked up. Give me a chance to make this right,” he pleads.
I shake my head at him, reaching behind me and turning the doorknob.
“It’s too late. You’re right. I’m a romantic and I wanted the happy ending. I wanted a man who didn’t lie to me. I wanted one who trusted me as much as I trusted him, and you ruined that. You took my happy ending and you ruined it.”
This time when I open the door, he steps back and doesn’t try to stop me again. At least not physically.
“You told me nothing I said or did could ever make you run away from me. You promised you’d stay.”
Vincent’s voice is low and filled with pain and it kills me. I want to comfort him, but I can’t. I won’t. Not after what he’s done.
I give him my back, not wanting to see the devastation on his face as I walk out the door. It doesn’t matter. I don’t care if he’s sorry now and has regrets. He should have thought of that weeks ago. He should have trusted me, and he didn’t.
“Yeah, well I guess we’re both liars then,” I whisper.
As I walk out the door to the Uber I had waiting, I realize Vincent broke a lot more than my heart and my trust.
He broke my belief that fairy tales can happen to anyone, especially someone like me.
Fairy tales are bullshit, and I was an idiot for thinking otherwise.
Chapter 31: Closed Indefinitely
I’m all cried out by the time my Uber pulls out of Vincent’s driveway and I stare out the window at the passing landscape feeling numb. The only thing stopping me from completely breaking down is the familiar drive to the library. I feel my heart start beating again when I see the large stone structure come into view.