The Ugly Stepsister Strikes Back Read online

  I heard Jake saying something. I think he was telling me to hold on. I could hear his dog barking in the backyard, but he stopped after a few seconds.

  Jake finally opened the door, and seemed a little out of breath. He was wearing a long sleeved button up shirt, with the arms rolled up to his elbows. He had on a sweater vest and jeans. It reminded me of something, but he was too pretty for me to think clearly.

  "I'm glad you're here. Come in."

  I stayed put. "Are your parents home?" I was worried that they might blame me for Jake's plans the way that Pearl had blamed him. I wasn't in the mood to be drawn and quartered.

  "My dad took the jet out to Mexico this morning with my mom. He decided he needed a weekend vacation away from me and my 'poor decisions.'"

  I heard music coming from somewhere as I stepped into the foyer. "I know what you're going through. I told my parents about my manga and college."

  "Oh yeah? How did that go?"

  "My mother reacted pretty much how I expected. I don't think she and I will be talking anytime soon. My father was sort of amazing about it. He knows a guy who knows a guy who used to work for Tokyopop and might be able to use his connections to help me get an internship."

  "So, maybe I was right and you should have told him sooner?"

  I rolled my eyes while he laughed. "Yes, you were right. I should have."

  Jake's hands were in his pockets. "Want to go sit down?" I nodded and he led me into a small formal room with a couch and two chairs. I sat in one chair; he sat across from me.

  "Do you need anything to drink?"

  "No, I'm fine. Thanks." What I needed was for him to get on with it before my heart exploded in anticipation. He had said he wanted to talk.

  "I didn't get a chance to tell you last night, but I like your hair that color. It looks nice. Not that I didn't like it before. I did. I just like it now, too." He sounded very un-Jake-like. He sounded nervous.

  "Thanks."

  "I can't believe I didn't recognize you. I wish I had known it was you."

  Well, that would have defeated the entire purpose. "Why?"

  "Because we would have had fun." His perfect smile nearly blinded me. I looked out the window for a second before looking back at him. Part of me had expected him to be angry. He had every right to be mad. I had basically set out to trick him. I didn't know exactly what Ella said to him, but whatever it was, it worked. If he was willing to forgive and forget, I should be willing to do the same.

  "Hey, I have something for you." He got up and walked out of sight, returning a minute later. He had my phone. Right as he got to me, the phone slipped out of his hands and landed near my feet. I reached forward to get it, but Jake knelt down and picked the phone up. He handed it to me, and the sight of him took my breath away. I thanked him and took it with shaking hands. He wasn't having me try on a glass slipper, but for some strange reason, I finally understood exactly why Cinderella ran off with the prince after having only known him for one night. Having a hot guy kneeling in front of you is sort of intoxicating.

  He got up and returned to his chair. He exhaled loudly while he rubbed his hands over his pants legs. He smiled again. "Okay. I asked you over here because I, uh, wanted to talk to you. So, first off, you know I didn't write that speech yesterday, right?"

  I did know it. "Yes."

  He let out a small laugh. "Sorry, I'm a little nervous. I've never really done anything like this before. I feel like all I keep doing is trying to explain myself to you. So I'm just going to put all my cards on the table. Good enough?"

  So he was nervous. I nodded, not daring to breathe.

  "Do you remember when I ran into you coming out of the bathroom at your house?"

  Vividly. In Technicolor detail. Of all the things I had expected him to say, that was definitely not it. "Vaguely."

  "You were taking a shower and we ran into each other in the hallway?" He looked a little embarrassed. Oh my Buddha, could he be any cuter? I wanted to melt.

  "Anyway, I realized you were this like, hot chick, and it wasn't cool to lust after you when I was dating your sister."

  "There was lusting?" my voice squeaked.

  He had a cocky smirk. "There was definite lusting. Which is why I was a jerk to you. I had to keep you at arm's length. Especially since I also thought you were dating that Trent guy. It's not okay to move in on another guy's girl."

  Jake thought I had been dating Trent? What? Before I had time to process that information, he kept going.

  "But then you just, I don't know, got under my skin. I kept thinking about you, even when I didn't want to. You are the only girl who didn't do everything I wanted her to. At first I hated it, but then I kind of liked it."

  His eyes were so, so intense. I hung on to his every word. "You make me push myself and you don't take my BS. You're smart and funny and pretty and into the same things as me. I really like you."

  I was so flustered and excited I didn't know what to focus on. He liked me? He thought I was pretty? And smart? And funny? He was attracted to me? He wanted to be with me?

  "Come here. I have something else for you." I only had one phone. What was he talking about? He stood up and held out his hand to me. I put my hand in his and got up. Electricity and warmth sparked between us where we touched. The tingles threatened to consume me.

  I would have followed him to the ends of the earth. But he only walked me into another room, standing in front of two large sliding wooden doors.

  "I wanted to do something to show you that I am all in."

  He slid open the doors. There, in the middle of a long, wooden dining room table big enough to seat twenty, was a round birthday cake with candles. It took me a minute to realize what he had done. He had recreated the scene from the end of Sixteen Candles.

  To say I was stunned and overwhelmed and amazed would have been selling the experience short. "I don't know what to say."

  "Don't say anything. Just get up here with me."

  The music I heard was coming from his iPod. It was a loop of "If You Were Here," the same song playing at the end of the movie. He helped me climb on a chair and then up on to the table. I sat down cross-legged and he sat across from me with the cake in between us.

  I sat there, staring at his beautiful face, touched beyond words by what he had done. He really, really did like me to go through all this effort. I wanted to say something but couldn't think of anything.

  "It was the best I could do on short notice." He looked boyish, like he hoped he had made me happy.

  "Shut up. It's perfect. I can't believe you did this for me." I squeezed his hand, and he held it tightly. "But it's not my birthday."

  "I know. But I'm doing something here." He let go of me to pick up a lighter. He started lighting the candles.

  He was doing something all right. He was making sure that I would never possibly ever love anyone the way I loved him. This was beyond anything I could have imagined. I couldn't believe that I had almost missed out on this. I made a silent promise to myself to never let anyone else get inside my head. To keep my own insecurities at bay. To always believe in love and magic.

  With all the candles lit, he looked back up at me. "Well?"

  I smiled at him. "I'm all in, too."

  He grinned back at me. "Make a wish."

  I knew my line.

  "It already came true."

  "I'm glad you came over, Tilly."

  I thought he might be teasing me about the name I'd used at the dance the night before. "Oh, that's just a nickname my family uses for me. Only people who love me get to call me Tilly."

  He reached across the cake to cup the side of my face with his hand. "Then I guess I'll be calling you Tilly."

  And then, just like the movie, he leaned across the cake and kissed me. An actual, real kiss, and not the weird lip-mashing thing I'd done at a party once.

  A curl your toes, steal your breath, heart-pounding, stomach-dropping, lose track of time, perfect kind of kiss.
r />   * * *

  I let go of my List of Grievances given my current circumstances. I made a List of Rights instead.

  Right the First: Jake Ryan Kingston was my boyfriend. MY BOYFRIEND!!! Sorry, it just never got old saying it. He made me feel beautiful and smart and like I could conquer the entire world. It was amazing. And I got to ride in his car every single day.

  Right the Second: Scott declined his win for vice-president since Ms. Rathbone banned Mercedes from being on student council given her inappropriate behavior by showing up at the dance. So I got to appoint my own cabinet. Jake, Ella and Trent joined me and helped me get hearings with the board on the lunch, parking and uniform issues. Nothing had happened yet, but we were all hopeful. It also changed my standing at school. Where I had been mostly invisible before, people I hadn't spoken to in years came up to tell me that they had voted for me and hoped that I could change all the things I wanted to change. It made me more determined to get the board to listen to us.

  Right the Third: Ella and I became closer than ever. This was helped by the fact that she finally saw the wisdom of my philosophy in not threatening Carlotta's job. In addition to spending less time cleaning, she dropped half of her volunteer work and gave up her job. I felt sad that I'd spent so much time being envious of her when all she wanted was to have a relationship with me. I was sorry for the time we wasted, but glad that we were in a better spot now. We didn't double date or anything though. That would be way too weird. She also convinced me to add some color to my wardrobe and to give Andre a second chance. I was actually digging the red hair.

  Right the Fourth: Things with my dad had improved too. Mrs. Putnam, I mean, Jennifer, made him spend more time with us as a family. She got him eating right and exercising and leaving his studio. I told him what happened with Pearl, and he was not forcing either one of us to spend any more time Skyping. I think things got better because I finally understood what it meant to be really in love and I would never want to take that away from him. Because, as we could all tell, what he had with Jennifer was the real thing. We also came to an understanding about Pearl. He understood that I was better off without her in my life, and I understood that I would not be responsible for my actions if he ever tried to make me talk to her again.

  Right the Fifth: Ella had been right about Mercedes wanting Jake. If living well was the best revenge, I had revenged all over Mercedes stupid Bentley. I could see how insane it made her that Jake and I were together, despite all her fake smiles.

  Right the Best: Jake's dad made good on his threat to cut Jake off financially if he didn't go to Yale. So Jake took the full-ride baseball scholarship to UC Santa Ana. (Although after several weeks his father, despite still wanting him to go to Yale, had come around to respecting Jake's "personal drive.") I also received my acceptance letter to UC Santa Ana. The head of the art department wrote me a personal note to tell me that he was looking forward to working with me as he had enjoyed my portfolio. I suspected my father had something to do with that. But I was going to study what I loved and for the next four years, I'd be doing it alongside the guy I loved. There were no words to describe what that level of hope and excitement feels like.

  Which made me finally understand why they lived happily ever after in those fairytales. Because there was a lot of happy to be had with a boy who loved you and kissed you like nothing else in the world mattered.

  ~ ~ ~

  First of all, thank you, thank you, thank you for reading this book. I hope that you loved reading it as much as I loved writing it.

  And if you loved it, I'm hoping I could ask you for a teensy-weensy favor.

  The only way that a book can ever become successful is by word of mouth. So if you loved it (or even if you weren't in love with the book, but definitely had some warm, fuzzy feelings about it and could generally say that you cared about the book and wished it well, but love is a strong word), I would so appreciate it if you could tell everyone you knew about the book.

  Please email your friends. Hop on Twitter. Facebook it (especially those of you who have like ten million friends). Let them know what they're missing out on by not having read this book (I mean, seriously, it could change lives, right? Okay, not really, but they don't need to know that until they're done reading it).

  And could I ask for an even bigger favor?

  It would be amazing to let all your friends know. It'd be even more amazing to let total strangers know.

  So if you could post a review of the book on Amazon, on Goodreads, on LibraryThing, on Shelfari, or any other message board or site that you know of that has anything at all to do with books, it would mean the world to me.

  Thanks again. The better this book does, the less time I'll have to spend trying to convince random people to buy it, and the more time I will have to work on telling you Ella's story. (Yep, there's a sequel set four years later. Want to find out what happens to Mattie and Jake? Then you'll have to help spread the word! Yes, I realize this is emotional blackmail. And I apologize. I promise to make it up to you later.)

  And if you want to be kept in the loop on my upcoming releases, please come check out my website and sign up for my mailing list at:

  www.sariahwilson.com

  Or like me on my fan page at Facebook:

  facebook.com/sariahwilsonauthor

  Or come be my tweeps on Twitter:

  twitter.com/sariahwilson

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  A big thank you to Melinda Fulton for her awesome editing skills and for her help in making this book even better. Thanks also to Eschler Editing for pairing us up. Thank you to Kirk Shaw for believing in me and telling me I was spot on.

  Special thanks to Melody Salisbury and Elizabeth Eborn for being my beta readers, for offering suggestions and giving encouragement. Thank you to Kara Ladle for loving this book and reading it through four times just to let me know what you thought.

  A big thank you as well to authors Kaylee Baldwin and Diane Stringam Tolley, reviewer Mindy Holt and her awesome daughter Michalla for all their input and critiques and overwhelming enthusiasm. Thanks to author J. Scott Savage for helping me with my blurb, and his belief that I could make this indie publishing thing work.

  Thank you to Kaleb, Kameron, Shiloh and Kollin for being the best kids anyone could ask for, and for letting Mom work on her book.

  And most importantly, all my love and thanks to Kevin, not only for my cover, but for loving me more than I ever imagined possible.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Sariah Wilson has never jumped out of an airplane, never climbed Mt. Everest, and is not a former CIA operative. She has, however, been madly, passionately in love with her soulmate and is a fervent believer in happily ever afters—which is why she writes romance. The Ugly Stepsister Strikes Back is her fourth happily ever after novel. She grew up in southern California, graduated from Brigham Young University (go Cougars!) with a semi-useless degree in history, and is the oldest of nine (yes, nine) children. She currently lives with the aforementioned soulmate and their four children in Utah, along with three tiger barb fish, a cat named Tiger, and a recently departed hamster that is buried in the backyard (and has nothing at all to do with tigers).

  Her website is www.sariahwilson.com.