Page 9 of Monster Among the Roses (Fairy Tale Quartet 1)

“Well, that’s impossible.” She leaned toward me as if trying to intimidate me. “He knows I’m the only one who touches these flowers. He would never send someone else in here to do so. This is my garden.”

I leaned in toward her as well, unwilling to be the first to back down. “Well, that’s exactly what he did, so I don’t know what else to tell you.”

“You’re lying.”

I laughed and lifted my hands as an incredulous snort escaped me. “Why would I lie about this?”

She didn’t have a ready answer, but her scowl sure was immediate. It pinched with annoyance before she sniffed. “Let’s just see what my father has to say about this.”

“Fine. Whatever. Great.” I shrugged, actually relieved to get Mr. Nash’s interference on the situation.

She scowled even harder from my lack of fear. Then she whirled away and stormed toward the entrance of the house.

I followed, hoping to learn what the hell was going on myself.

She moved quickly; I nearly had to jog to keep up with her. She sharply rounded corners and flounced over hardwood floors, each footstep clanging out her anger, before she flung open the door to Mr. Nash’s office without knocking.

“Who the hell is the idiot in my rose garden?” she demanded without preamble.

“Idiot?” I squawked, chasing her inside. There was no call to be labeling me an idiot. “You’re the one who started yelling at me for doing what I was told to do.”

Isobel crossed her arms tightly over her chest, shifted again to hide her bad side from me, and then proceeded to ignore me as her father lifted his face from whatever he was reading on his computer.

He glanced back and forth between us with raised eyebrows. “I see you two have met.”

“Met?” Isobel repeated the word as if it were some kind of sacrilegious act.

“Yeah,” I muttered, crossing my arms over my chest as well, glaring her way. “Shaw Hollander. So nice to meet you.” Then I nearly pissed myself when I realized how disrespectful I’d just been to Mr. Nash’s daughter. Right in front of him.

Damn, he was going to kick me off his property in about five seconds flat, wasn’t he?

None too keen about my greeting, Isobel narrowed her eyes my way before whirling back to her dad. “Who is he?”

Instead of growing angry with me, Mr. Nash actually looked amused. His eyes crinkled and flittered with mirth as his lips tightened, trying to hide a smile, which made me think, holy shit, maybe he wasn’t going to fire me after all.

“He just told you, sweetheart. His name’s Shaw Hollander. I hired him this morning to be our new handyman.”

“Handyman?” She stared at her dad as if he’d lost his mind. Then she shook her head. “Why? We don’t need some fumbling, inept louse,” and yeah, she just had to fling her hand in my direction when she said louse, “screwing up things when we can just hire a professional whenever we need something fixed.”

When Mr. Nash opened his mouth—hopefully to object on my behalf—she rushed to add, “And besides, how does handyman equate to him plucking roses from my garden?”

Her father paused to send me a sidelong glance. I flushed, unable to lie and claim I hadn’t been half a second from scoring a flower for my mom. He blinked at me before turning back to his daughter. “The fact of the matter is I want a handyman, so we’re keeping the handyman. And I only suggested he help with your roses as a way to relieve you from all the work you put into them. You slave away hour after hour every day, darling. I thought you’d like a break every once in a—”

“Well, I don’t!” she snapped. “I don’t want anyone else messing in my garden. Especially him.”

Hey. What was that supposed to mean? Especially me? I hadn’t done anything wrong, except try to steal a single rose I was sure she wouldn’t even miss, and I bet anyone would’ve done that. She didn’t have to go making me feel like a worthless scumbag because of it.

I glared at her, mentally concocting half a dozen nasty comebacks, like sarcastically apologizing for being too lowborn for her lofty rose garden’s standards, but I kept my mouth shut.

She growled, “Keep him out,” and spun away to storm from the office.

Well. Goodbye to you too, princess.

God, what a bitch.

Except I felt bad for thinking that as soon as it entered my brain. I didn’t know anything about her or what her life had been like. I could only imagine the pain and suffering she’d gone through to gain those scars. And the cook’s son had called her a monster. What if he’d called her that to her face, or other people had? Maybe she had a perfectly good reason to attack first. Maybe she was just that used to being attacked. Her mood really did scream defense mechanism. It made me feel even guiltier about labeling her bitchy when honestly she was probably just in self-protect mode.

“She seemed particularly passionate about you, didn’t she?” Mr. Nash murmured, almost more to himself than to me. And what was more surprising was that he seemed pleased about Isobel’s “passionate” dislike of me, like maybe something was going exactly according to his plan.

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