make it that far. As a longtime employee and lover of Fairytale Kingdom, I knew about the Knightley family. They were royalty. Cal Knightley was the man behind it all, someone rarely seen at the park. I thought I might have caught a glimpse of him once, from afar. His grandson worked at the park as well, but as Head of Entertainment, he was someone I’d never once come close to interacting with either. Oddly enough, my post as a balloon vendor didn’t require much face time with the higher-ups, and yet, here I sat as Derek Knightley’s new mentee.
I couldn’t believe it.
I received an email from his assistant that same day requesting a schedule of my classes and park shifts. I responded right away, fingers flying, and then hovered near my computer the rest of the night, waiting for directions for where and when I should expect my first meeting with Derek.
It was planned for one week later at a coffee shop on Castle Drive inside the park.
I knew next to nothing about Derek outside of his role in the park. Not his age, not his appearance—nothing. Though there were whispers that he was handsome, it seemed more like an urban legend than anything else. How could one human have that much luck? There were also whispers that Cal lived inside the castle, but no one had confirmed or denied that either. There was so much secrecy surrounding the Knightley family, and any rumor could catch fire, from the innocuous (Cal drinks his coffee with five teaspoons of sugar!) to the absurd (He acquired the capital to build the park from the Russian mob. Don’t cross him.).
The day of my meeting with Derek, I showed up at the coffee shop right on time in clothes I’d grabbed from a resale shop the week before. I was drowning in a navy pantsuit, and though I’d convinced myself I looked professional back in my dorm room, out there in the Georgia sun, I just felt like a sweaty mess. It didn’t help that my flats were half a size too big as well—Avery’s hand-me-downs. They kept sliding off when I walked, and I already had a nice fat blister developing on the back of my right heel.
My appearance came into sharp clarity when I caught my reflection in the coffee shop window. My too-long auburn hair hung in loose waves. My skin had a healthy glow—thank you, brisk walk in 90-degree weather—but the shade of red lipstick I’d bought at a drugstore the night before wasn’t doing me any favors. It brought out the pink undertones in my skin, resulting in me too closely resembling a cherry tomato. I wiped it off with the back of my hand as quickly as I could, but as I pulled open the door of the coffee shop, I was still conscious of the stain across my lips.
It was early morning—one hour before the park officially opened—so the coffee shop was empty except for other employees.
One man sat alone at a table with his attention focused on a laptop. He typed away furiously then paused, picked up a pencil, and scribbled quickly in a notebook.
He wasn’t just casually attractive. The sight of him grabbed me by the collar, as if to say, Look, you fool. Look!
He wore navy slacks, cool tennis shoes, and a white button-down tucked in and rolled to the elbows. No tie. He had brown hair, thick and trimmed shorter on the sides. There was minimal product in it, just enough to give it a sophisticated look.
His face was clean shaven. He had a strong jaw and dark lashes that fanned across his cheeks as his attention stayed down on his notebook. His concentration was unwavering. So was mine. I stared for so long I lost track of why I was there in the first place.
Ah yes, mentorship.
I jerked my gaze away from him and scanned the shop, looking for stereotypical signs of an executive: paunchy, suited, arrogant. There was a male barista and a man dressed up in a medieval jester’s costume, but everyone else was female. Unless Derek was late, my mentor was the man at the table.
My stomach squeezed tight as I gave in to the urge to take another look.
A man in a league of his own.
So the rumors about him were actually true then. I wondered if Cal was really in the Russian mob.
“Excuse me,” someone said, cutting around me to get inside the coffee shop.