A Cinderella for the Greek

by Julia James

  He held his hand up now, silencing any retort she might have been likely to make.

  ‘That is entirely and completely irrelevant. Because you, Ellen...’ He paused, and a new timbre suddenly underlaid his voice, resonating through words that echoed in the sudden shift in his expression. ‘You,’ he breathed, and his eyes were boring into hers, never letting them go for an instant, an iota, ‘have the body of a goddess. A goddess, Ellen.’

  There was silence—complete silence. Max let his eyes rest on her, saying nothing more. Watching her react. It was like a slow-motion sequence in a movie. Red washed into her face like a tide, then drained out, leaving it white and stark. Her eyes distended, then shut like the shell of a clam.

  ‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘Please don’t.’

  But he did. ‘The body of a goddess,’ he repeated. ‘Don’t tell me you don’t—because I’ve seen it. I’ve seen damn nearly all of it. And believe me...’

  Suddenly his long, long lashes swept down over his dark, dark eyes and Ellen felt a kind of hollowing out in her stomach that had nothing to do with the tide of misery that had been drowning her and everything to do with the hot, humid memory of how she’d been wearing only a sports bra and brief shorts when he’d seen her out running that time.

  ‘I liked what I saw. I liked it, Ellen...’ and now there was a huskiness in his voice ‘...a lot.’

  He shifted in his seat, relaxing now, his broad shoulders moulding the back of the chair, a smile starting to curve his mouth. ‘I’ve seen a lot of women with fantastic figures, Ellen—and my time with Tyla Brentley, especially when I was out in LA with her, supplied that amply!—so I promise you, you can trust my judgement on these matters. And you can trust my word, too.’

  His expression changed, and so did his voice.

  ‘My word,’ he announced, ‘is that I will donate five thousand pounds to your city kids charity today if you will agree to the following. To put yourself into the hands of the team of stylists this afternoon and let them do whatever it is they do. When they’ve done it, if you still don’t want to come to the ball tonight I will let you off and double the five thousand pounds. If you do want to come, however, I’ll triple it.’ He gave a brief, slashing smile. ‘Deal?’ he posed.

  Ellen stared back.

  Five thousand pounds... Ten—because of course it would be ten! Of course she wouldn’t want to go to the ball tonight. No way on God’s earth would she volunteer for such an ordeal, however desperately she was scrubbed at by whatever professional make-up artists and the like he had lined up. Yet even as she made that mental averment she could still hear his voice echoing in her head.

  The body of a goddess, Ellen.

  She heard it, felt it—felt its power. Its temptation.

  ‘Well?’ he prompted.

  He was holding his hand out across the table. His large, square, strong hand. Into which slowly—very slowly—her own hand seemed to be placing itself, though her head was still reeling with what he’d said to her.

  ‘Good,’ said Max. ‘So that’s all settled, then.’ Satisfaction was blatant in his voice. He sat back, withdrawing his hand, moving it towards the coffee pot and starting to pour. ‘Cream?’ he asked, with a lift of his eyebrow, and poured it in anyway. With a honed, toned body like hers she could drink cream by the bucketload and it would never turn to fat.

  Goddess body sorted. Now all that was needed was to sort out the rest of her appearance. Happy anticipation filled him.

  * * *

  People were doing things to Ellen. She had no idea what, and she didn’t care. Even about the painful bits that involved tweezers and razors, hot wax and skin peels. She shut her eyes mostly, and let them get on with it, focussing her mind on what she’d do with the ten thousand pounds she’d get for the charity when they’d finished with her.

  There were three of them working on her, stylists, beauticians, hairdressers. Whatever they were, they were chattering away. They were all stick-thin, just like Chloe, all wearing ultra-fashionable clothes and four-inch heels, with sharp hairstyles and loads of make-up—which was par for the course, Ellen reasoned, if one worked in the beauty industry. Their conversation seemed to be about clubs and bands, film stars and fashion brands, about which they were intimately knowledgeable.

  They looked about twenty and made her feel like thirty. She hoped they were getting paid generously by Max, considering the impossibility of what they were attempting—making her look good enough to go to a ball. Because of course that was impossible. How could it be otherwise?

  Dear God, how Chloe would laugh like a hyena if she could see this. She’d be filming it on her phone, posting it to her bitchy friends on social media, and they’d be squealing with laughter. Elephant Ellen, trying to look glamorous! How hilarious! How beyond pathetic!

  Cold ran through her at the thought. Well, she’d be spared Chloe’s mockery. Because the moment she had that cheque for ten thousand pounds in her hands she’d wipe off all the gunk the stylists were putting on her, get back into her school suit and head home. Back to the safety of Haughton—blessedly hers alone for the next few weeks while Pauline and Chloe were away. Hers to make the most of...the very, very most...

  While she could.

  Fear bit at her. Max Vasilikos was powerful, rich and ruthless. He’d clearly set his mind on trying to eject her, and he probably had the financial means to do so. It would cost him—but did he care? Maybe he was one of those men who had to win at any price. Wasn’t what he was attempting this evening proof of it? Resorting to trying to flatter her into submission?

  Telling me I have the body of a goddess!

  She heard his voice again in her head, low and husky.

  She silenced it.

  She realised that one of the stylists, who was busy painting her nails a dark crimson—or the nail extensions that had been stuck on—was talking to her.

  ‘You are so lucky to be going out with Max Vasilikos tonight.’ There was open envy in her voice. ‘He’s just to die for!’

  Mortified, Ellen steeled her jaw. ‘This isn’t a date,’ she said, horrified at the implication and trying desperately to sound composed. ‘It’s a charity fundraiser.’

  Her protestation was ignored. ‘He took Tyla Brentley last year,’ the second stylist confirmed, doing something with long pins and a curling tong to Ellen’s newly cut, coloured and piled up hair. ‘She was a sensation.’

  ‘Her dress was stunning’ said the third, applying yet more mascara to Ellen’s eyelashes, having already lavished eyeshadow and eyeliner plentifully upon her.

  ‘It was Verensiana, and the shoes were Senda Sorn,’ the first rattled off knowledgeably. ‘She wore Verensiana to the film awards this year too—he’s her totes fave designer. She went with Ryan Rendell, of course—they are so an item now!’ She sighed soulfully, and then her eyes brightened as she smiled encouragingly at Ellen. ‘Don’t worry—she is, like, so totally over Max Vasilikos now. So the coast is completely clear for you.’

  Ellen let them babble on, not bothering to try and refute their insanely wrong assumptions. Nails finished, the stylist dried them off with a hairdryer, before standing back with the other two stylists, who’d also finished whatever it was they’d been doing to her.

  ‘OK,’ announced the first stylist, ‘let’s go for the gown!’

  Resigned, Ellen got to her feet, as requested, shedding the cotton robe she’d been inserted into after bathing, standing there in underwear that consisted of a low-cut underwired bra that hoicked up her breasts, plus lacy panties and black stockings—a universe away from her usual plain and serviceable underwear. As for the gown that had been selected for her, she had no idea and didn’t care. It wouldn’t be on for long anyway—just long enough for her to tell Max to hand over the cheque for ten thousand pounds.

  But as she watched one of the trio fetch the gown out of the wardrobe she gasped. ‘What is that?’ she breathed.

  ‘Isn’t it fabulous?’ came the answer.

>   ‘But it’s...it’s...’

  ‘Edwardian,’ said one of the others confidently. ‘You know—like Victorian, but later. But not flappers like the roaring twenties.’ She looked at Ellen. ‘Didn’t you know it was a costume ball?’

  No, Ellen had not known. Had not known anything of the sort.

  And right now, as the trio started to help her step into the stiffly draped dark red skirts and draw up the whalebone bodice so that it fitted tightly over her bust, pulling narrow straps over her shoulders to flare outwards in a spray of black feathers, her only conscious thought was that it was going to be hellish getting herself out of the dress again when she changed back into her own clothes. There must be a zillion hooks to undo.

  CHAPTER SIX

  MAX GAVE HIS bow tie a final twitch. Thank heavens Edwardian male evening dress was not a million miles from modern formal wear. It was very different for women. An anticipatory gleam lit his eye. Oh, he was looking forward to this. He was really, really looking forward to it. It would cost him fifteen thousand pounds, but it would be money well spent, he was sure—and not just for the sake of the charity!

  Checking his cuffs, he strolled to the drinks cabinet, extracting a chilled bottle of vintage champagne and setting it down by two flutes. The noise at the bedroom door made him turn. It was not the stylists—they’d already gone in a flurry of chatter and on their phones already. Ellen was emerging.

  His eyes narrowed. And then—

  Yes! He wanted to punch the air in triumph. Yes, yes, yes!

  He watched her walk into the room in a trail of long skirts. She halted abruptly when she saw him. He saw her face tighten.

  ‘OK,’ she said, ‘where’s this cheque you promised me?’

  She spoke brusquely, because Max’s eyes were like a hawk’s on her, and it made her feel acutely, agonisingly uncomfortable. Even though she hadn’t looked at her own reflection yet—she couldn’t bear to!—she knew exactly what he was seeing. A big, hulking woman in a ridiculously tightly laced preposterous costume dress, with a tottering hairstyle and a face full of make-up that did absolutely nothing for her—because she had a face for which absolutely nothing could be done and that was all there was to it.

  Yet again in her head she heard the peal of Chloe’s derisive laughter mocking her...mocking the pathetic attempt to make Elephant Ellen look glamorous.

  Well, she didn’t care—wouldn’t care. She only wanted the cheque that Max Vasilikos had promised her, then she was getting out of this ridiculous get-up—zillion hooks or not—and hightailing it to the station and home.

  Max smiled his urbane, social smile and reached inside his breast pocket. ‘Here you go,’ he said, and held the cheque he’d promised out to her.

  Awkwardly, Ellen walked over and took it. Then her expression altered and her gaze snapped back to him. ‘This is for fifteen thousand,’ she objected.

  ‘Of course it is,’ he agreed affably. ‘Because of course you’re coming to the ball with me. We’re both kitted up—let’s have a look at ourselves. See if we look the part.’

  He helped himself to her arm with a white-gloved hand—he was wearing evening dress of the same Edwardian era, she realised, but on a man it was a lot less immediately obvious—and turned her towards a huge framed mirror hung above a sideboard.

  ‘Take a look, Ellen,’ he instructed softly.

  Ellen looked.

  And made no response. Could have made no response even if someone had shouted Fire! Could only do what she was doing—which was staring. Staring, frozen, at the couple reflected in the mirror. At the tall, superbly elegant and dashing figure of Max Vasilikos—and the tall, superbly elegant and stunning woman at his side.

  The dark ruby-red silk gown was wasp-waisted and moulded over her hips to flow in a waterfall of colour the full length of her legs and out into a sweeping train, the body-hugging boned bodice revealed a generous décolletage, and the spray of feathers at each sculpted shoulder matched the similar spray in the aigrette curving around the huge swirled pompadour of her hair.

  Curling tendrils played around her face—a face whose eyes were huge beneath winged, arched brows...rich tawny eyes that were thickly lashed and fathoms deep—a face whose cheeks were sculpted as if from marble, whose mouth was as lush and richly hued as damsons.

  ‘Didn’t I tell you?’ Max said softly to her, because he could see from the expression on her face that something profoundly important and significant was happening to her. She was seeing, for the first time in her life, someone she had never seen before—the strikingly, dramatically beautiful woman that was looking back at her from the glass. ‘A goddess,’ he murmured. ‘Didn’t I tell you? In figure and in face...like Artemis the huntress goddess...strong and lithe and so, so beautiful.’

  He let his gaze work over her reflection, drinking in face and figure, her beauty fully and finally revealed to him. A frown flickered in his eyes. ‘Have you put in contact lenses?’ he heard himself ask. What had happened to those wretched unflattering spectacles of hers?

  She gave a slight shake of her head, feeling the soft tendrils curling down from her extravagant hairdo wafting softly and sensuously at her jaw.

  ‘I only really need glasses for driving,’ she answered. ‘But I wear them because—’ She stopped, swallowed.

  Max said nothing—but he knew. Oh, he knew now why she wore them.

  Ellen’s eyes slid away. Her voice was heavy, and halting. ‘I wear them to tell the world that I know perfectly well how awful I look, and that I accept it and I’m not going to make a pathetic fool of myself trying to look better, not going to try to—’

  She broke off. Max finished the painful, self-condemning sentence for her.

  ‘Not going to try to compete with your stepsister,’ he said, his voice low.

  Ellen nodded. ‘Pathetic, I know. But—’

  He caught her other arm, turning her to face him. ‘No! Don’t think like that!’ His expression was vehement, even fierce, as she stared at him. ‘Ellen, whatever you’ve come to think in your head about yourself it’s wrong!’ He took a breath. ‘Don’t you realise you don’t have to compete with Chloe? Leave her to enjoy her fashionable thinness! You...’ His voice changed. ‘Ah, you have a quite, quite different beauty.’ He lifted a hand to gesture to her reflection. ‘How can you possibly deny that now?’

  Ellen gazed, her mind still trying to keep on denying what Max was saying to her—what the reflection in the mirror was telling her. That a stunningly beautiful woman was gazing back at her. A woman who was...her...

  But that was impossible! It had to be impossible. It was Chloe who was lovely—Chloe who possessed the looks that defined beauty.

  And if it was Chloe who was lovely, then she, Ellen, who was everything that Chloe was not—not petite, not blonde, not thin, not with a heart-shaped face, not blue-eyed, not Chloe—could only be the opposite. If it were Chloe who was lovely—then she, Ellen, could only be unlovely.

  That was the logic that had been forced on her—forced on her with every sneering barb from Chloe, every derisive glance, every mocking jibe from her stepsister—for years... Those vulnerable teenage years when Chloe had arrived to poison her life, poison her mind against herself, destroying all her confidence so that she’d never even tried to make something of herself, instead condemning herself as harshly as her stepsister condemned her. Believing in Chloe’s contempt of her. Seeing herself only through Chloe’s cruel eyes.

  But how could the woman gazing out at her from the mirror with such dramatic beauty possibly be described as unlovely? How could a woman like that be sneered at by Chloe, mocked by her, treated with contempt by her?

  Impossible—just impossible. Impossible for Chloe to sneer at a woman such as the one who was gazing back at her now.

  Emotion swept through Ellen. She couldn’t give a name to it—didn’t need to. Needed only to feel it rush through her like a tide, sweeping away everything that had been inside her head for so many years. And now
Max was speaking again, adding to the tide sweeping through her.

  ‘You can’t deny it, can you?’ Max repeated. His eyes were fixed on her reflection still. ‘You can’t deny your beauty—your own beauty, Ellen. Yours. As different from Chloe’s as the sun is from the moon.’

  He gave a laugh suddenly, of triumph and deep satisfaction.

  ‘We shall drink a toast,’ he announced. ‘A toast to the goddess revealed.’ He drew her away, towards the tray of champagne, opening the bottle with skilled long practice and filling the flutes to hand one to her.

  Ellen took it numbly, her eyes wide, as if she was in a dream. A dream she still could not quite believe was reality after all.

  Her eyes flickered back to her reflection in the mirror.

  Is it really, truly me? Can it be—?

  Then Max’s gloved hand was touching her wrist, lifting his own foaming glass, and she looked back at him, still with that bemused expression in her eyes, as if she dared not believe the truth of her own reflection. He held her gaze, not letting go for an instant.

  ‘To you,’ he said. ‘To beautiful Ellen. Beautiful, stunning Ellen!’

  He took a mouthful of champagne and she did too, feeling the bubbles burst on her tongue, feeling a glow go through her that had nothing to do with champagne at all...

  He smiled down at her. ‘Tonight,’ he told her, his mouth curving into an intimate smile, his lashes dipping over dark eyes lambent with expression, ‘every man will envy me—you’ll be a sensation.’

  The word echoed in her head. A sudden memory stung like a wasp in her mind. She lowered her champagne glass, her fingers gripping it hard suddenly.

  ‘Those girls—the stylists—they said you brought Tyla Brentley here last year—that she was a sensation.’

  Max heard the sudden panic in her voice, that demon of self-doubt stabbing at her again. He wanted to kick it into touch without delay. He gave a deliberately dismissive shrug. ‘Of course she was,’ he said indifferently. ‘Her fame guaranteed that. And Tyla adores men gazing at her. It flatters her insatiable vanity.’