by Leah Ashton
She dreamed of being a girl less ordinary...
Eleanor has worked hard to transform herself from the lonely girl she once was. Switching braces for a breathtaking smile, dowdy clothes for fabulous dresses, and heartbreak for flirty, fun-only dates, she’s now “Ella.” But one man can see the real woman beneath.
Fiercely private billionaire Jake Donner has never forgotten Eleanor, and he’s shocked to see how she’s changed. Sparks begin to fly as old memories haunt them—for the innocent attraction they once resisted is all grown up and won’t be denied again....
“After I lost Mum,” Ella said, “it hurt more than I could ever, ever describe in words. It left a hole, you know? And then you left, too....”
Her bottom lip quivered, and emotion hummed in the small room. Part of Jake was glad she’d dropped the act, but then this was why he’d left. This depth of emotion. This loss, this grief.
He couldn’t process it. He didn’t understand it.
Not then, and not now.
At seventeen, he couldn’t handle it. At thirty he couldn’t either. He felt useless, helpless.
So he did the only thing he could—with utterly no idea if it would help or hinder—and he reached for her.
The space was so small that with one stride he was before her, and a moment later his arms encircled her.
It should’ve been awkward, and it was, at first.
Ella gasped at his touch and stiffened. But almost instantly, her body softened, and she leaned into him. And then it felt like the most natural thing in the world.
For a really, really long time, they just stood there.
“You shouldn’t have disappeared,” she said.
In this moment, looking down at her, her mascara smudged, and strands of her long hair rubbed loose and framing her eyes haphazardly, he agreed with her.
I should’ve kissed you.
Dear Reader,
I’ve always loved stories where the heroine was an awkward ugly duckling who grows up to become a stunning, successful swan. Of course—she then meets a fabulous, drop dead gorgeous man and they both live happily ever after!
That’s how this story started, with dorky Eleanor in her school uniform crystal clear in my imagination. But then I thought—what if my hero isn’t quite so perfect? What if he was an outcast in school, too? And that’s how Jake was born—brilliant, geeky, reclusive Jake.
Later it became clear that Eleanor and Jake had a past—in fact, they were once best friends! Back at school they’d believed it was just the two of them against the world. But then something went very, very wrong...
I hope you enjoy Ella and Jake’s story, and the sparks that fly as they’re thrown together after more than a decade apart.
I love to hear from readers. You can contact me via my web site: www.leah-ashton.com, or email: [email protected].
Leah
Leah Ashton
A Girl Less Ordinary
An unashamed fan of all things happily-ever-after, Leah Ashton has been a lifelong reader of romance. Writing came a little bit later—although, in hindsight she’s been dreaming up stories for as long as she can remember. Sadly, the most popular boy in school never did suddenly fall head over heels in love with her....
Now she lives in Perth, Western Australia, with her own real-life hero, two gorgeous dogs and the world’s smartest cat. By day she works in IT-land; by night she considers herself incredibly lucky to be writing the type of books she loves to read, and to have the opportunity to share her own characters’ happily-ever-afters with readers.
You can visit Leah at www.leah-ashton.com.
Books by Leah Ashton
SECRETS AND SPEED DATING
Other titles by this author available in ebook format.
For my mum, Velma—who is beautiful, inside and out.
Contents
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
EPILOGUE
EXCERPT
PROLOGUE
Fremantle, Western Australia.
Thirteen years ago
NOT EVEN AS she stood outside Jake Donner’s bedroom window, watching the flimsy and slightly askew aluminium blinds smack rhythmically against the glass in the gentle breeze, did Eleanor Cartwright—even for a moment—have second thoughts.
Which wasn’t to say she wasn’t nervous. Of course she was. Declarations of love, she imagined, were always at least slightly nerve-racking.
But tonight, nerves didn’t matter.
She had to do this.
You should tell him, honey. Love shouldn’t be kept secret.
She hadn’t paid much attention to her mum when she’d said that a couple of months ago. She thought maybe she’d even laughed?
I don’t love him, Mum, don’t be stupid. We’re just friends.
And her mum had done that annoying thing where she raised her eyebrows as if she were the all-knowing, and gently shook her head. It had made Eleanor feel about twelve, not sixteen.
Whatever, mum. He’s leaving anyway. There’s no point.
And maybe there still wasn’t.
But the pointlessness—or not—didn’t matter any more.
Since exactly twenty-nine days ago, a lot of stuff didn’t matter any more.
Eleanor took a deep breath. She could do this.
Letting Jake leave Fremantle—and her—without knowing how she felt was no longer an option.
A larger pre-dawn gust of air made Eleanor shiver, and it slipped through the opening in Jake’s window to make the blinds rattle loudly.
No sound came from his room. Which wasn’t all that surprising, given it was about three o’clock in the morning. Plus, Jake slept like a log.
She stepped closer, the dew that coated the long, unmown grass around his house damp against her legs. Jake’s bed was right below the window, so, on tiptoe, she slid it open. The window—and the house—were old, and it gave its usual shriek of protest.
‘Jake?’ she said, hoping the sound had woken him.
No such luck.
So she continued with her plan, gripping the edges of the window, and hoisting herself upwards. Then she would perch on the window sill, reach for Jake, and gently shake him awake.
This, however, was not what happened.
Instead, her momentum propelled her upwards—and inwards—not at all in the way she’d imagined. In the cacophony of the blinds, her own surprised yelp, and then Jake’s much louder shout, she found herself bounced from the bed and onto the floor, Jake’s body pressed against hers from chest, to hip, to toes. Her glasses had parted ways with her face, but even so Jake’s confusion was apparent even in the—slightly fuzzy—moonlight.
‘What the hell? Eleanor?’
She nodded, temporarily incapable of speech for two reasons: the impact of hitting the worn carpet, and the realisation that Jake was only wearing boxer shorts.
But then he was up, and away from her, the overhead light coming on a second later. She stared at the naked bulb, doing her best to breathe and think at the same time.
‘Eleanor,’ he said, ‘why are you here?’
He crossed to her, reaching out and pulling her to her feet. He met her gaze with confusion. ‘Why are you still in your uniform?’
She looked down, taking in her crumpled white shirt and knee-length tartan skirt. She’d barely
registered what she was wearing. That day, the week—the past month—it had all been a blur.
‘I couldn’t sleep.’
‘So you decided to jump in my window?’
Eleanor just looked at him.
Jake sighed, and he scratched at his belly absently. That belly had changed a lot since their many trips to the beach last summer. Now it was firmer, leaner—she could see the angular jut of his hipbones just above where his boxers hung low on his body.
Following her gaze, he hooked a finger in the waistband and tugged them a little higher. But he didn’t look embarrassed.
He never did.
In contrast, Eleanor usually felt like a walking bundle of self-consciousness.
His dark hair was a mess, but he still looked really, really great.
Eleanor knew she didn’t look great. But at least she’d washed away the evening’s worth of dried tears on her cheeks. Besides, her mum had always told her that it didn’t matter what she looked like. It was what was inside that counted.
‘I wanted to talk to you,’ she said softly.
Jake’s gaze darted away. ‘About your mum?’
‘No,’ she said. And did he look—relieved?
In the almost month since her mum had forgotten to look before stepping out onto a busy Fremantle street, Eleanor had barely seen Jake.
That had been her choice—hadn’t it? For the first few days she’d left the house for nothing but the funeral—the oblivion of sleep the only relief from the indescribable pain of loss.
And then, finally, when she’d returned to school, it’d been alone. Jake’s final year exams were already over and so, for the first time in four years, she’d walked to and from school without him.
She hadn’t wanted company. Not even Jake.
But now she did. Now she needed him.
And yet he was shifting his weight from foot to foot—like an Olympic runner settling into his starting blocks, mere milliseconds from sprinting away.
No. That couldn’t be right. Jake had always been there for her.
She needed to sit, so she did, perching on the edge of his bed. Amongst the bunched-up fabric she found her glasses, and she put them on with hands that shook just slightly.
He eyed her warily.
This wasn’t at all how she’d expected this would go.
‘I wanted to talk to you before you left.’
‘I don’t fly out until Monday, Eleanor. That’s two perfectly good days you had to come knock on my door at a time I wasn’t—you know—sleeping.’
She narrowed her eyes. ‘I didn’t think you’d mind.’
But obviously, he did.
Just three weeks ago he’d held her hand at the cemetery, his pockets stuffed full of tissues for her—and now he couldn’t even look at her?
Jake crossed his arms. Not exactly the body language of someone open to a declaration of love.
Not that it was going to stop her. She’d come this far. Jake acting strange didn’t make a difference.
She understood strange, anyway. She could barely remember what it felt to feel normal—to feel like herself. All she had was little pinpricks of the normal and familiar amongst a near blackout of grief.
And this thing with Jake—well, she wasn’t stupid. She’d seen the way he looked at her sometimes. She wasn’t imagining it. Something had changed. She was sure of it.
Maybe she just needed a different plan of attack.
She shot across the room before her nerves got hold of her. Jake’s eyes widened as she came closer, but he didn’t move.
A ruler length away from him, she stopped, and had to tilt her head upwards to meet his eyes.
She considered reaching out to touch him. The popular girls at school made it look so easy—they’d absently hook an arm over their boyfriend-of-the-moment’s shoulder at lunchtime, or wrap themselves around him at the bus stop.
But she wasn’t one of those girls. And she didn’t know what to do.
Frustration made her talk quickly. ‘I love you.’
It ended up being more a mumble, but that Jake heard every word was obvious in the way his body jerked away from her.
Not the reaction she was after. The churning in her stomach stopped dead.
‘No, you don’t,’ he said. As if that were a fact.
‘Yes,’ she said, more clearly this time. ‘I do.’
He shook his head. ‘You’re just confused because...’
‘Of my mum? No. I knew before. It was her idea I tell you.’
Now he walked away, just a few paces. He turned his back to her, resting his hands on a desk covered in keyboards and hard drives and floppy disks—and a lot of stuff Eleanor couldn’t possibly name.
At the back of her mind, she had the feeling she should be crying. But instead, she felt oddly still. Calm.
She needed to walk away, straight across to the fence that separated their houses, then through the three-paling-wide gap they’d used to cross back and forth for years. Back to her room. Tomorrow morning she could come back here, pretend she hadn’t meant it, and things could go back to normal.
But Jake was about to leave. Things were never going to be normal again.
‘I think,’ she said, her heart pounding, ‘that you might love me, too.’
This made him spin around, and suddenly he was right in front of her. Crowding her.
‘You need to go, Eleanor. Your dad will be worried.’
No, he wouldn’t. Her dad wouldn’t notice if she stripped naked and ran laps down at Port Beach.
Jake was so close.
She liked the width of his shoulders, and his chest, too. Some of the pretty girls had noticed, but Jake hadn’t been interested. And she’d been glad—really glad—when he’d shut them down. Actually, he’d laid his geek act on pretty thick—thick enough that, if anything, his weirdo label had been even more firmly reapplied, which was of course exactly what he’d wanted.
The guy standing right in front of her now, in his bedroom, with his shirt off, was definitely not a weirdo in her book.
He was her best friend. The guy who made her laugh, and helped her with maths—which she hated—and that she helped with his English—which he hated. They were a team.
She loved him. And she needed to know if he loved her.
‘Eleanor—please, you need to—’
But before he got the words out, she kissed him.
Or at least, she tried to. But by the time she stood on tiptoes, closed her eyes and leant forward—her lips only collided with his cheek.
His cheek.
And it was this—this—that finally kick-started what should’ve been her immediate reaction. People who loved you did not respond with ‘no, you don’t’.
They definitely didn’t turn away from your kisses.
For a moment, the icy horror of humiliation froze her. Froze her with her lips still whisper close to his skin.
‘No. I can’t do this. I—’
What was he saying? Eleanor could barely hear him, overcome by her own voice in her head.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
How could she have really believed that Jake could love her? Why? Why on earth would he?
She wasn’t pretty. She wasn’t super smart like him.
She didn’t wear the right clothes like the popular girls. She didn’t know how to flirt, or to kiss a guy. Obviously.
She had to go. She should never have come.
Without a word she stepped around him, climbed onto his bed and halfway out of the window before she registered he hadn’t said a word.
Wow. She’d actually thought he’d tell her to stop. To stay.
She looked over her shoulder as her legs dangled outside, her skirt all rucked up around her waist—but she didn’t care. As if Jake would even notice.
Jake was watching her. His gaze was full of...what?
Regret?
No. Now she was just being delusional. She knew what it was.
Pity. Definitely.
And she had no interest in staying around for that.
So she jumped to the ground, and walked—even though she badly wanted to run—back to her house. Without a backward glance.
Later, as she stared at her ceiling, incapable of any more tears, she managed to unearth one single positive out of the whole horrible mess.
This was another one of her mum’s ideas—the absolute belief that something good could be found in absolutely anything. She was pretty sure even her mum would’ve been stumped as far as finding a positive in having her ripped away from Eleanor far too soon—but this thing with Jake? Yes—there was a positive.
She’d never have to see him again.
CHAPTER ONE
Sydney, New South Wales
Today
IT WAS AN ambush. Plain and simple.
Jake Donner knew it. Every one of the board members who currently watched him with matching unreadable expressions knew it, too.
How long had this been planned? Hours? Days? Weeks?
‘No.’
Jake figured that was pretty much all that needed to be said.
‘There’s no other option, Jake.’ This came from Cynthia George, a silver-haired, retired chief executive of one of Australia’s major banks who now spent her spare time on a handful of corporate boards across Sydney. As she studied him with what could only be described as a steely expression, Jake was reminded why he was so keen to appoint her to this board.
Intimidating just began to cover it. Pretty damn scary was closer.
But still, he shrugged. ‘Find another one.’
Jake forced his body to fall back into the soft leather of his high-backed chair, attempting a fair facsimile of casual nonchalance. But his muscles were tense, and he found himself fighting the instinct to leap up and pace around the edge of the Armada Software boardroom.
This was not representative of his usual board meeting experience. Usually, the time was spent paying careful attention during the topics that interested him, zoning out during those that didn’t, and occasionally congratulating himself on his decision a few years back to extract himself from this excruciatingly boring world of the business he’d founded. Now he had a twenty-eight per cent share of the company, an up-and-coming CEO—also currently studying him across the streaky marri surface of the boardroom table—and a board made up of Sydney’s corporate elite—nearly all financially invested in Armada. All this added up to the perfect excuse to pay as minimal attention as possible to the day-to-day operations of the company and instead let the experts worry about it while he did what he was actually good at: coding software.