Page 27 of Monster Among the Roses (Fairy Tale Quartet 1)

“If it’s not how to hide a body, then it’s not going to be a good enough suggestion,” Ezra mumbled moodily even as he bent to press a kiss to the good side of Isobel’s cheek. But his lips barely grazed her skin before he straightened in surprise. “Hey.” His gaze shot to me, then returned to her. “You have your hair pulled up.”

Isobel flushed and sent me a quick, guilty glance before tucking a stray piece that had come undone from her ponytail behind her ear. Then she shifted to the side, hiding her scars from us. “Yeah. So?”

“So…” Ezra drawled. “You always keep it down and covering your…your face.”

The urge to step in and defend her was strong. Except her brother had done nothing whatsoever to attack. He’d just made her uncomfortable by so boldly pointing out she wasn’t hiding her scars. And I didn’t like her being uncomfortable.

“He’s just staff,” she muttered defensively, making me feel less than human, as if being part of the staff made me a nobody. Staff didn’t have thoughts or feelings or a brain. Staff didn’t count.

Ezra glanced toward me as if he could smell the insult oozing off me. With a small clearing of his throat, he announced, “All right then. I’m going to go talk to Dad now,” and he booked it out of there.

Isobel remained frozen, purposely avoiding looking in my direction. So I turned away to set up the ladder by the wall. Then I found the tape measure on the table and grabbed it before climbing. Once I reached the ceiling, I blindly lifted the tape measure toward the wall, not recording a damn inch.

“So, that was your brother, huh?”

“Yes.” She sounded distant and stiff as if she’d been the one who’d just been insulted. Or maybe she felt guilty for hurting my feelings and didn’t know how to apologize. I had no idea.

I nodded, grinding my teeth. “He seemed nice.”

“He is.”

Okay, I guess the one and two word answers meant she didn’t feel like talking to the staff. Message received.

But then she said, “He just got a job in the fashion industry this last year.”

I turned to her, surprised she’d voluntarily offered information to me. “Oh yeah?” I asked, more interested in the fact she was finally talking to me, opening up—about her brother, but still…opening up.

She nodded, rigidly, as if this talking rationally stuff was all too new and foreign to her. “Yeah. My dad did this merger with a clothing company that was struggling and instead of selling it off again, he decided to put Ezra in charge of the half he’d bought to, you know, give him some life experience on how to administrate and run a real company.”

“And he’s doing okay with it?” I asked, eager to hear more of her voice in that tone. When she wasn’t mad, or condescending, or bitter, she sounded softer. Feminine. Sweet.

Captivated, I watched her face as she shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. Dad seems pleased anyway. I mean, he—Ezra—struggles a lot to get along with the co-CEO of the original half of the company. I guess she’s a real witch. But I can still tell he gets a thrill out of the rest of his job. He likes it, and I think it suits him.”

I smiled. “Well, good. That’s pretty cool.” Then a thought struck me. “Did you ever want to be a CEO or run a multimillion-dollar company?”

“Me?” Her lips parted and lashes fluttered for a second before she jerked her head back and forth. “N-no. Not at all. That was never my dream.”

“What was your dream then?”

Shadows and ghosts filled her eyes, haunting her. Panicking because I’d put them there, I revised my question. “When you were five,” I blurted. “What did you want to be when you were five?” Then I grinned and laughed at myself. “I wanted to be a mailman. Nothing gave me a bigger thrill than mail time. Mom always let me open the junk mail advertisements, and I’d pretend all day they were important documents that needed to be archived and organized.”

Isobel gazed at me a moment before saying, “I was pretty typical for a five-year-old, I think. I wanted to be a princess.”

I grinned at the idea of her running around in a dress full of tulle, a tiara and maybe a magic wand. She was probably the cutest little five-year-old princess ever.

“And when you were fifteen?” I asked.

“Fifteen?” she asked, lifting her eyebrows before drawing in a breath and thinking. Then she said, “I wanted to be a professional reader.”

That one made me laugh, before nodding my approval. “I like it.” Then a thought struck. “Do you now? Write reviews for

all the books you read, I mean?”

She shrugged. “Not really. Nothing in a professional capacity, anyway.”

“Oh.” I didn’t know why that depressed me. It just…it was sad that none of her dreams had come true, and on top of that, she’d been hit with the fire, and her mom’s death. How many other things had she missed out on doing? How many things was she avoiding because of her insecurities?

“How old were you when your mom died?”

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