Pien for Meli
Dancing Queen. A Twilight fanfic by Pienuniek
Summary: Poor little rich girl meets rich little poor boy. Sparks fly! But what do their so-called friends think about that? AH Romance
Chapter 1 Her past.
The large group was having the best time around Bella, who sat in the middle of them with a scowl on her face. There was so much she should be happy about but she just couldn't feel it with this group of sycophants around her.
Today was her twenty-fifth birthday.
The day she came into her inheritance.
The day her guardian, Renee, had to step back and give over the reins of her life. The day she could finally decide her own fate. Yeah, right. Renee still ruled the roost with this party, because the guests around her were primarily Renee's friends and their entourage.
Renee herself wasn't happy either. Her cozy position of spending two-thirds of Bella's monthly stipend had come to an end. That morning, Bella's solicitor had turned up and offered her an envelope. It held a new contract; an offer to stay on as housekeeper. The nasty part was the list of duties the housekeeper was to perform. Renee had hoped to live a life of luxury by seducing the man of the house. She was fired from her first position for just that. When Catherine Swan, Bella's mother had died just weeks after the girl was born, Renee had seen the opportunity that position held and jumped at the chance to nurse the grieving father of a newborn into a new life of keeping a wife in leisure. It didn't work out that way. The only woman Charlie Swan ever looked out for was his daughter, Isabella. The spitting image of his late wife and the light of his life.
From the age of four, Charlie took his Bells with him to the stables of the Cygnet Ranch. That name always caused a buzz on the tracks, because at least six of the last ten winning horses came from that stable. Any horse with the prefix Cygnet to its name gained high praise and prizes. Yes, Charlie Swan was a well-known race horse breeder and he groomed his daughter to follow in his footsteps. As a little girl, she learned to ride and at the age of ten, she asked her father to be allowed to try and learn dressage. Fifteen years later, the stable's prefix had also become a household name in that branch of equestrian sports.
When Bella was sixteen, she was in full control of the breeding at the stables. She had a knack for pairing mares and stallions to get the best results in both race and dressage horses. Charlie took care of the business side of things, although he still worked on the horses as hard as any groom in his employ.
That became his downfall. He'd hired a new stable hand and while he was still awaiting the background checks, the lowlife had allowed his horse thief friends access to the stables. Charles was in late at night to check on a mare that was ready to foal when he disturbed the thieves in their illegal exploits. He was able to activate the alarm but was shot in the back for his troubles, leaving a distraught Bella alone to run the business all by herself.
Charlie had left everything to his daughter, including a letter in which he warned her of Renee. Renee knew nothing about that the letter, however, Bella had always been wary of the woman's intentions. Not able to win over the man, she now recruited her friend's daughters to keep Bella in line. She was, after all, Bella's guardian and as such could make sure the girl kept her in the money. The last nine years the three of them had done everything to undermine Bella's self-esteem. Alice and Rose had declared themselves Bella's friends and started to form her into a socialite, against Bella's own wishes. Renee put in her two cents, pushing the girls on her. Their parents were clients of Cygnet Ranch, or at least in the same social circle. Bella's so-called friends hadn't actually taken notice of the things Bella appreciated, though.
Bella was a breeches and T-shirt kind of girl; she didn't use make-up or perfume. On a typical day she put on her breeches and went to the stables, she took care of the training of most of the foals, making sure they were indeed suited for some kind of top equestrian spot. She succeeded in both race and dressage equally, although she worked mostly with the dressage foals.
It was more than obvious that Bella enjoyed the companionship of horses a whole lot more than her mall-traipsing, self-imposed friends. Their overbearing ways made her shy and clumsy, and something they mercilessly exploited her shortcomings to put her down.
The fact that she refused to wear heels over two inches made them declare her unladylike. When she was in college, Renee should have taken care of the business. But Renee, her friends, and her friend's daughters were all afraid of horses. Maybe afraid was the wrong word. They thought horses were fine from afar, but up close, they thought them to be stinking beasts that made you dirty. Being around them was not a fashion statement. A horse also would devour your clothing budget if you didn't watch out! Alice alone had three, room-sized walk-in closets that held her clothes. In those rooms, she had created seven sections, one for each weekday. Alice was a bit OCD about her clothes. Each day of the week had a predetermined color. People knew what day of the week it was by one look at her. She hated pastels; pink was a pastel to her. She had a section for each color of the rainbow. Shades of a color would be acceptable as long as everything she wore that day fell into that color scheme. She had a fourth room that was dedicated to shoes and accessories; getting dressed could take her anywhere from two to five hours depending on the occasion.
Rose took Alice's advice in clothes but her focus was more on enhancing her plain exterior in a more permanent way. At twenty-five she had a mouth full of bright, white facings, permanently pouting lips that looked ready to burst, combined with a surprised expression that had been Botoxed on her face. She had implants in both her chest and rear to get curves on her rail thin, I'm-hungry body. Her hair was blonde from a salon that made it look good all over her body, with weekly touch ups.
Their combined idea of dinner was a salad at one of the best restaurants in town for the price of a complete cow. Bella loved a good, home-cooked meal, something substantial after a hard day's work. The fact that she had natural curves and muscles made the girls and Renee call her fat. Her ribs couldn't be counted that was true, but her BMI was squarely in the healthy range, neither too high nor too low.
Most of the time Bella could avoid them, even if they kept bombarding her with demanding texts and voicemails. Her work on the ranch, thank God, gave her enough excuses to stay out of their way. That didn't work for Renee's organized birthday party. That's why she now sat there, moping, between ridiculous amounts of presents, most of which wouldn't see the light of day after they were brought inside.
The first four packages were from Renee and her friends. They gave her three, very flattering dresses that didn't contain enough fabric to cover her even if she wore them all at once. She put on her polite, fake, smile at those, but the fourth present had put the scowl back on her face. Renee found it prudent to give her a Weight Watchers subscription. She hastily put it aside to grab another gift bag. It produced the skimpiest workout clothes in a fluorescent yellow color of which Bella had never encountered. Where did they get this stuff? Alice giggled and pushed an envelope in Bella's hands commenting that those workout clothes would come in handy.
With trepidation, Bella opened the envelope and read the gift certificate inside. Rose piped up that it should help her with her clumsy nature. Bella was beet red, and that color changed to purple when the rage at her would be friends 'gift.' They had given her an eight week, pole-dancing course. Alice made sure that Bella knew that it was on Wednesdays, 'their' day and the girls would pick her up an hour in advance so they could all go together. Bella almost burst with rage, which only grew when the girls giggled their hearts out at her expression. She knew they wouldn't let it go, she knew she would be subjected to eight hours of torment with those bitches in the gallery.
Happy birthday to her.
Wednesday arrived too soon in Bella's book. After she had taken care of her personal horses, she ate lunch and took fifteen minutes to dress somewhat Alice approved, dumped her new workout clothes in a duffle bag with a towel and a water bottle. She then sat in the living room with a good book to wait for the controlling 'friends' to pick her up. She'd spun her life like this, curtailing those girls to two moments in her week; Wednesday afternoons and Saturday evenings. With a sigh, she got up at two o'clock, picked up her bag and relocated to the front porch. They said they'd pick her up at two but knowing them, she still would have about half an hour to wait. To her surprise they arrived at ten past two, the possible humiliation they could dole out must have had some effect on their grooming skills, or their inner clock… Nah. The moment she slid into the back of Alice's Wednesday car, a canary yellow Porsche Cayenne, Bella knew she should have driven herself to the studio. The name was familiar, but she had no idea where it was. The certificate held no address and that was why the already demeaning twosome had talked her into driving her there. She could have saved herself a lot of grief. Her jeans were too mundane; her blouse was not only out of style but a Friday blouse on a Wednesday to boot, and her duffle bag a crime against fashion. Rose added that she might have thought to tweeze her eyebrows; the unibrow was out of fashion. Bella just nodded her head and forgot what they said. Unbeknownst to the two harping bitches in the front seat, inside her duffle bag, a Dictaphone recorded everything said in the car. She had adopted that strategy soon after she had digested everything Charlie had told her in his letter. In the wall safe in her room, she had a large collection of tapes and memory cards, collected over the last nine years.
After they had put her down enough, the two in the front seat ignored her, talking fashion and a possible nose job for Rose; she was convinced her nose wasn't pointy enough.
The moment the car turned into the car park near the two-business building, Bella knew why she thought the name of the dance studio was familiar. The other business in the building held her vet clinic. Emmett and Jasper had been lucky enough to get help to set up their practice from the foster son of Carlisle and Esme Cullen, her neighbors. He had bought the entire building to help his college friends. Bella was quite amused that she didn't even know his name since Carlisle was tight-lipped about his foster son. The only things Bella had learned was that their foster son lived on their property in his own cabin, that he was very private and didn't like strangers to know anything about him. Emmett and Jasper were just as protective of him as well.
After Charlie had died, Bella knew her business would go down the drain if she didn't have any help in running it. She knew Renee should help, as her guardian, but she also knew Renee hated horses and only knew how to spend money, not how to make it. She went to her neighbors and asked them for help. Ever since then, they left the training decisions to her but kept an eye on the business side of things. As Bella's education took shape, they took more and more of a back seat until they were just the advisors.
Upon exiting the car, Alice grabbed her arm and towed her inside. When she pushed through the doors, she slammed into Jasper, who came rushing out of the office, a box of supplies in his arms. He cursed and looked down at the five foot four Alice on her six-inch heels, a scowl prominent on his face. Alice took one look at him and started to bat her eyelashes at him. He gave her a cursory glance before looking at who was with her. He greeted Bella with fervor, telling her he had to go to the Cullen Ranch because one of their best jumpers had colic. Alice huffed and ramped up the pouty lips and fluttering eyelashes. Jasper scowled at her and left the building at a run, eager to get to his car. Alice stated with confidence that that man would be her husband; she had just seen her future.
Rose entered the building and grabbed Bella's other arm. She completed the tow, now two persons long toward the dance studio. Bella dug her heels in once they passed the door.
"What are you doing? You know I'll go now, because you'll only go inside with me if you try it at the same time!" She hissed in an angry whisper.
"Don't be absurd, Bella. Be glad we gave you these lessons, maybe you'll learn some elegance and sex appeal, it should at least be good exercise for that fat ass of yours. But this part is our gift to ourselves we're going to watch your clumsy ass get into trouble." Rose spoke in a whisper shout.
Bella's eyes sprung full of tears and her face heated in unadulterated rage. She was so angry that her voice gave out, and she couldn't retaliate. The queens of mean had reached a new depth, she wasn't even sure they were still on this side of the earth. She should tear herself loose and run for cover with Emmett in the vet clinic. Before she could act on her plan, though, an ice-cold voice spoke to her wardens.
"Our lessons are private, you should've noticed that when you bought the package. Furthermore, we don't allow bullies into our establishment. Your remarks plainly put you in that category. So if you do not intend to attend the lessons yourself, there's the door please close it behind you."
A beautiful, statuesque woman strode their way, her eyes blazing, their stare unwavering on Alice and Rose. The girls were so flustered that they were caught, they dropped Bella's arms like hot potatoes and faced the woman dressed in a tight, light blue polo shirt with the studio's logo on the pocket and a simple, white, flaring skirt falling down to her calves. Alice twitched at the colors but found her voice the fastest; her brain, however, had difficulty keeping up as she blurted,
"But we gave her the lessons! We should, at least, be able to watch her fall on her ass!"
"That just crossed the line even more. I'll tell you one more time, GET OUT, or I'll call the authorities and tell them that I've unwanted intruders here."
The woman spoke through clenched teeth. Her natural blonde hair slicing the air with her movement as her arm stabbed in the direction of the door. The slut sisters scurried out of the building as fast as they could, followed by the enraged stare of the woman and the bemused one of her next-door neighbor, Emmett. He doubled over in laughter when Rose's left heel became stuck in a crack of the pavement and broke off, landing the Barbie doll sprawling on the blacktop. The most unladylike stream of curses left her mouth when she limped on one heel to Alice's car, holding the pieces of her color-of-the-day-defying, red-soled shoe in her hand.
The woman took a deep breath, rolled her shoulders and turned to face Bella.
"Are you Bella Swan?" Bella couldn't speak yet, but she nodded. "My name is Kate, my husband, Garrett, and I own this studio. Looking at your agitated state your eagerness to learn to pole dance is as big as mine regarding meeting clowns, which is non-existent to be clear."
That did it, with her flippant remark, Kate broke through Bella's rage and she laughed.
"That's about right, they forced me to come. I think they're now bitching about it being a waste of money. Well at least I halved my bitch exposure for the next eight weeks. They booked me on Wednesday afternoons themselves. Even if they won't know I'm not going it's the best excuse ever."
Kate looked perturbed, "All our classes are the same rate, isn't there something else a little less provocative you'd like to try. Our best ballroom instructor is present today even though his agenda is empty."
Bella thought about it. She loved the cooperation between herself and her horse when she worked on the choreography. The possibility to experience that with another person could be interesting. She took a full minute to consider her options; an entirely free afternoon, or a new experience.
"You know, I'm here now so I'm going to try it. If I don't like it I can always take the afternoon off. Thank you, for suggesting it."
Kate smiled and escorted Bella to one of the private instruction rooms. It was one of the smaller ones because she thought it would be beginner level box stepping.
"Wait here; our instructor will be with you in a minute."