Not So Snow White Read Online Free PDF Page A

taking a seat next to her. "Come on, Gaby," he said calmly, focusing all of his attention on her.
    She kept her gaze averted, but he just waited. He knew a few buttons, too. Finally she shifted her steely, unrepentant gaze to him. It was a small capitulation, but a telling one for anybody who knew her. And no one knew Gabrielle Fontaine better than her big brother.
    "You convinced me you were ready to move up, but—"
    "I am," she said with absolute certainty. "You and I both know it."
    He did know it. She'd obliterated the juniors to the point where there was nowhere else for her to go but pro. Truth be told, he was the one who hadn't been ready. He'd held her back as long as he could, keeping her as protected as possible from the big bad world of the women's tour. Not that competing on the junior level was a walk in the park. She'd been an international attention-getter for some time now, but on a much smaller scale.
    Only the tennis world really paid attention to the junior phenoms. Now she was on the main stage, with the whole world watching. An enormous amount of pressure had been brought to bear on her as the next great hope for the American women's game.
    He'd prepared her for that as much as he could, and carefully selected the initial events she would play in, keeping them well paced and her overall schedule light for her first year. Professional tennis was a sport populated by teenagers, so she was far from alone out there, but he'd seen too many burn out or end their careers early due to injury from overextending themselves and putting too much of a strain on their still growing bodies. On top of that, they had the international media paying attention now since her debut in Paris. It didn't hurt that she was beautiful, flamboyant, and confident bordering on cocky. Okay, maybe not bordering. She was making quite the splash already and it scared the hell out of him in ways he hadn't been prepared for.
    He'd been almost relieved when she'd lost early this week. London media was the worst and he was thankful she was out of the spotlight for now. She'd been given a wild card into Wimbledon, her second grand slam of the year, starting in a few weeks. They could both use the break,
    He'd been more worried about the tour pressures than the media attention, but her very confidence in herself insulated her somewhat. Gaby was so sure of her abilities that t he pressures and international- scale expectations didn't seem to faze her. It seemed normal to her for people to expect great things of her, since she expected them from herself, as well. She only seemed to get bent out of shape with her assumptions about his expectations of her.
    As brother, mentor, manager, guidance counselor, and most important, the only family she had left in the world, he worried constantly about whether he was making the right choices for her. Especially lately when her temperament careened from typical teenager, to t yrant, to woman-wise-beyond-her- years. Often in a breathtakingly short time span.
    Now more than ever he wished Gaby had a female influence in her life, someone to maybe soften her up a little. Even a female coach would be welcome, but Gaby had gone through the few they'd tried like water through a sieve. Male coaches had slightly better luck, but didn't last much longer. And while they'd had varying degrees of success in molding her game, none of them had forged any inroads into molding her temperament. That job, apparently, was destined to remain his and his alone. Lucky him.
    "I just don't see why I'm being punished with this stupid spa thing," Gaby insisted, drawing him from his thoughts.
    "You know," he gently chided, "most people wouldn't view a few weeks stay at a place called Glass Slipper as punishment."
    Gaby snorted. "Glass Slipper. I'm no princess."
    "You're telling me," Max muttered before he could catch himself.
    But rather than flip out, Gaby laughed, though it was totally sardon ic in tone. The going-on-thirty- year-old