Chapter 2 Glass Shoes Princess

Twelve years ago,

Alexander was giddy with happiness; he'd finally been able to get away from his parent's over protectiveness. His father had been introducing him to so many people that he wasn't sure he'd even remember them all by the next morning.

"Going to be CEO one day when this man gets too old to pronounce his own name eh?" They joked to him and they and his father had laughed like it was the funniest thing ever.

He was Fifteen now and his father had insisted it was time for him to start attending social events, interact with powerful families and form relationship and the necessary familiarity with them but the poor boy was bored out of his mind plus the Burke's twins had been giving him twinkly eyes all night, it was more scary than irritating because the girls looked so much alike, when they stood together staring at him, it gave him goose bumps.

He'd made his way up the stairs and eventually found himself on the balcony, the breath of fresh air was such a relief, the silence made everything better, back in the party hall, they'd been some terribly boring and slow music playing loudly.

he didn't know how anyone could be enjoying themselves. He was already seated on one of the very comfortable chairs when he noticed the yellow caution tape lying on the floor; it had obviously been torn off.

It didn't take long for him to become bored again, Alexander wasn't used to doing nothing, he was always doing something physical, jumping around, playing in the pool, loosening and then fixing a gadget, his grandmother used to call him her little daredevil.

He fingered the bracelet he was wearing, it used to belong to her and he'd been wearing it since she'd died four years ago, he felt her presence with him all the time because of it, and he rarely ever took it off.

He wondered what Mike was up to now, Mike was his younger brother by two years, and he'd been spared from attending this.

"Lucky ass!" Alexander thought to himself as he got up and walked towards the balcony's railing, the view from the top was beautiful, it was as if he could see the whole city which was brimming with lights.

"Cool view." He muttered before turning to look at the view beneath him, he watched as life went on normally, cars drove past in speed, people stroll about casually, some hurriedly, he wished he were down there instead.

"Woooo, we must be like in the tallest building in the city right?"

He heard a voice ask and he immediately turned to the source, it was a little pretty girl in a beautiful red gown. Alexander had seen her earlier in the party hall, she had been talking animatedly to a man in a suit who'd looked to be her father.

He remembered thinking she was the prettiest little lady in the whole room because she had seem to be glowing from joy as she spoke. He hadn't been wrong; up close she was even prettier.

"Cat got your tongue?" She asked him again teasingly, "or you've just gone speechless because a beautiful young lady like myself is talking to you, Lady Amelia declared earlier that I was the prettiest thing she'd ever come across and she'd also said I looked like a princess, daddy's princess I'd said to her."

"Why are you telling me all of that?" He grumbled, she was a chatterbox, he thought to himself amused.

"Oh so you can speak." She plopped herself on the seat he'd just vacated. "I was beginning to think you were mute, my best friend's younger brother is mute and now I'm learning sign language to be able to converse with him so if you were mute..." And she trailed off her words before doing some weird movement with her hands

"What's that?" He asked interested, he turned to give her his full attention and leaned his back heavily on the balustrade.

"I said if you were mute..." Then she did the hand movements again.

"You're exhausting me already." He murmured.

She grinned before crossing her legs daintily.

"mom says I should behave more like a lady, ladies don't talk much and are always so elegantly put together but I think I'm as much a lady as I could be tonight, I look every inch of one."

She perked up as if in realization,

"hey if I were a Disney princess, which do you think I'd be?"

Alexander smiled, she was definitely something else. "I don't know any."

He admitted.

She shrugged, "I'm not surprised, boys are stupid and stuff, they think they're too cool for Disney movies meanwhile they're just missing out on a whole beautiful world plus if I were a Disney princess, I'd be Cinderella because look..."

She said stretching out her leg and thrusting her feet towards him, he saw from her toes peeking out through her shoes that her nails had been meticulously painted a light shade of pink.

"What am I looking at?" He asked confused.

"My glass shoes dummy, Cinderella wore glass shoes to the party and I'm wearing glass shoes too... Oh God!" She face palmed dramatically, "what'd do you even know?"

He smirked, "I at least know you're not Cinderella, she is way prettier."

"Says some who looks like the beast from the beauty and the beast." She retorted.

"No I do not!" Alexander was offended, he was beginning to hit puberty and was becoming aware of how his looks were changing, he used to be a chubby kid, now he was just a lanky one with gangly limbs and disproportionate facial features as if his face hadn't yet decided if he was to be really ugly or extremely handsome.

"Yes you do." She said bursting into laughter and even though he knew she was teasing and he'd started it, he was pissed.

He pushed back his hand on the balustrade preparing to leave her and look for somewhere else he could get peace, what he hadn't prepared for was the railings been broken and one of them unhinged, Alexander found himself suddenly falling, he clutched tightly on the railing but it too was wobbly.

He hadn't realized how loud he was screaming and screamed even louder when he looked down and saw the city beneath him, his legs dangled dangerously above and it looked like the cars driving past below drove even more speedily, he was sweating profusely and the railing his hand was clutching seem to become even more shaky, Alexander was terrified.

"Hey give me your hands!" He heard the girl scream out to him, he'd momentarily forgotten her presence. She lay down on the floor, one hand on the foot of the chair she'd been sitting on and the other hand stretched towards him.

He released one of his hands from the balustrade and stretched it to her but he still wasn't able to reach her.

"Come closer." He screamed at her, he wasn't ready to die. He fervently began to pray to the heavens and his grandmother.

"Don't order me around dummy." She snapped but she moved closer and grabbed his free hand with hers then began pulling at him, he felt himself move but only slightly...

He began to doubt if she was going to be able to pull him up, she was only just a kid who didn't seem to weigh much, his prayers intensified.

"Should I go get help?" She asked in a strained voice, trying to pull him up was too much hard work for her small body.

"No!" Alexander screamed in terror, the railing didn't seem able to hold onto his weight for any longer.

"Please help me." He begged as tears began to pour from his face, he saw a determined look set on her features and she began to pull him again with much fervor until he was close enough to jostle himself up and back onto the balcony.

He fell onto his back and laid there panting, he couldn't barely believe it.

"I'm going to call for help." He heard her say.

"Wait!" He said immediately sitting up.

"What?" She asked impatiently.

"I really don't know what to... You've just saved my life, you are like..." He was stumbling over his words.

"A super hero, yeah?" She asked with a small smile.

He nodded and before he could think twice, he removed his grandmother's bracelet from his wrist and handed it to her: "please take this, it used to be my grandmother's and I cherished it and her and..."

He choked on his words, "having it has helped protect me from so much but I would absolutely love for you to have it, it's a gift for, for..." He trailed off; he was still shaken by his near death experience.

She shrugged, collected it and put it on, "Cinderella certainly didn't have a bracelet this beautiful now did she?" And her face glowed again when she smiled and before he could say a word, she'd disappeared through the door.

Few minutes later, he heard voices up the stairs and his parents came rushing to him, and all through as he was led to a waiting ambulance on a stretcher, he'd strained to see if he'd see the little girl, he'd noticed a flash of red and before he could see more, it was gone and Alexander never saw her again that night, or ever.

PRESENT...

Alexander sighed as he detached himself from the memory of that night, he'd told his parents about the girl who'd saved his life but they didn't know her either.

His parents had realized how much finding her was important to him and also to them, they needed to find the little hero who'd saved their son's life so they'd tried pulling all strings to find her and had even been able to reach the Lady Amelia of that night but she'd been unable to remember what family the girl had been from.

Despite years of effort, it had proven futile and Alexander had never been able to find her and he'd to give it up eventually...

He was never going to find her. Through the years, he'd seen women who reminded him of what the little girl would've looked like a?grown woman but it hadn't seemed right and then came Kelly, the beautiful, shy Kelly whose resemblance to the girl from that night was uncanny.

Kelly was beautiful in a way that Alexander was unused to, she had blonde beautiful locks that he'd had to stop himself from running his hands through each time he saw her, her beautiful eyes were hidden behind big rimmed glass but that didn't in anyway lessen the fact that she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever set his eyes on.

Alexander had been shaken when he'd first been introduced to the newly hired web designer, she had stirred something in him and every single time he was in her presence, he was reminded of her but that wasn't right, the personalities were opposite in every sense of the word.

Kelly was painfully shy, introverted and could barely string a complete sentence in his presence except when she was talking about her works and she'd completely turn into a different person, Alexander would then see the similarity between them but still, it wasn't right.

He had also never seen the bracelet with her, he knew it might be possible that she could be the one and still not have the bracelet on but not once has he ever seen her with it and they've been working together for a year now.

Still, Alexander had decided to himself that it didn't matter, he was ready to get real with a woman, he was going to get over his obsession with finding the girl from that night enough for him to stop having temporary relationship with other women pending when he found her.

He was going to ask out Kelly Hepburn and he was going to be as real with her as he had never been with any other woman and while still mustering the courage enough to approach Kelly, he had found her; the girl he'd been waiting for all these years, his little Cinderella.

Alexander had almost stayed home on the day he'd met her, he had been invited for a cocktail party but at the end of the day, he was too exhausted to want to go anywhere but Mike had cajoled him into it and he'd set himself aside from the crowd nursing a drink and hoping everyone else would let him be when she'd walked up to him.

she was a beautiful redhead and he'd noticed her earlier on the arms of Andrew Miller, the host of the party.

"Someone looks to be in the mood for a good time." She'd said to him in a flirty voice and just as he'd turned to her to tell her off, he'd noticed the bracelet on her wrist.

"Where'd you get this?" He asked grabbing her by the wrist to confirm if it was the same one and to his utter shock, it was.

The bracelet had been custom made by one of the greatest jeweler in France who'd been a friend of his grandmother's, on the inside he'd written; with great love to K... Katherine Hepburn, his grandmother.

She stared at him in confusion before gathering herself and pulling her hand away, "I don't know, I can't remember. I've worn it for most of my life I can't even remember how I'd come to possess it."

And she'd laughed nervously.

That had been two weeks ago and tonight he was hosting his new girlfriend's family for dinner, he'd found his Cinderella, Jennifer Hardy and he was ecstatic but what he couldn't understand was why there was still a feeling of dissatisfaction in him and anytime he saw Kelly.

he felt like he was betraying her somehow.

Alexander hadn't expected to see her that night as he'd come down for dinner with the Hardys but there she was seating down quietly in his sitting room, his heart had almost stopped.

How was she related to Jennifer? Could life be as ironic as to making the two women he couldn't get out of his head related?

"Baby!" Jennifer had screamed and ran into his arms, one would've thought he hadn't just seen her this morning but still, he wrapped his arms around her even though his eyes were locked to Kelly's until she suddenly keeled over and threw up, he pushed Jennifer aside and hurried over to her.

Alexander tried to help her, he placed a hand on her back but she flinched and in a tone he had never heard her speak to him.

She yelled, "do not touch me Alexander!"