by Kris Buendía
Friends though that day, that night I would swear that I was fal ing more in love with him.
“Why are you so afraid of her?” He pressed the metal with his hand and I realised he was angry.
“Do you know the story of Cinderella?” My question made him hesitate for a second, but it was as if he knew everything without saying anything.
I was between the sword and the wal .
An abusive stepmother.
An idiot father.
A sil y sister and the other devilish sister.
“I wil be your prince then.” He looked for my hand and squeezed it. “I wil wait for you, even though I do not understand anything, at least I know you feel the same. I can see it in your eyes. I do not know what Paris is doing with you but I wil find out and I wil not let her hurt you. I wil take you with me to England and we wil study together. I have a lot of money saved to help you study away from them. But there is a condition.
I could not assimilate anything. He was crazy if he thought that what I was looking for in him was an easy way out of al that. I would get it myself, get out of al the enclosure of a Cinderella. And I would wait for him. Now it would be me who would wait for him or maybe I would visit him in England or he would come here. I was thinking too much about everything. But I could only ask one thing:
“What condition?”
“I can not wait to kiss you.”
“What do you…”
And he kissed me. He took me by the neck and kissed me. Our tongues met so delicately that I could only close my eyes and return the kiss. His mouth tasted like mint, his breathing became deeper and faster and our kiss became longer and longer. I had my hands in his wide waist and he hugged me too. We broke our kiss when we heard footsteps.
“Are you okay?”
I said yes with my head. I felt nervous, scared.
“Damn, Cinder I hate to see that expression in your face, it is because of her? You are so afraid of her” Then everything made sense to him. “Did she hurt You?”
“Cinder” we hear a voice and we turn at the same time. It was Pippa, she was crying and she seemed confused.
“Pippa, what's wrong?” I hurried to touch her.
She was freezing even though she was wearing my jacket.
Something in me went on at that moment. I remembered the three rules.
Not see.
Not speak.
Not… touching… I kissed him.
I went back to Thomas when I heard more steps.
“Thomas, you have to…”
“That is how I wanted to find you” Said Paris, she looked drunk.
“Paris…”
“Do not talk, bitch” she mumbled.
“Paris, I am not going to let you talk to Cinder like that.” Thomas spoke to my rescue and that made things worse.
Pippa was close to him, Paris a little farther and I clung to Thomas’s hand. I squeezed so hard that he noticed. His question was answered by seeing my reaction.
Paris was the devil in the flesh. And when she drank alcohol she was out of control.
“I caught you cheating with this bitch.”
“You did not catch me at al and Cinder is” He paused briefly. “Cinder is now my girlfriend and you’d better address her now with respect or you do not know what I am capable of.”
Paris was red. She was hysterical and about to scream. But what she did next surprised me. She started laughing. A diabolical laugh.
“She is crazy, come on.” She took my hand. “I wil take you home.”
Thomas took a step further, only one step and everything went in slow motion. I looked at Paris and what I saw in her eyes that night, I had not seen it before.
Hate.
The most powerful and dark hate that a person can have and that is reflected through her eyes.
With al her strength and without stopping to look at me, she pushed Pippa.
Pippa pushed Thomas.
Thomas released my hand.
His hand swayed in the air and his body crushed against the railing. I heras a creak and what happened next I can not forget.
Thomas fal ing into the void.
They were screams, cries. Pippa threw herself to the ground in a faint, I stared into the darkness, I knew that between those rocks and the withered grass was Thomas's body, but I could not see it. I did not wanted to see it.
Pippa regained consciousness quickly.
“You are going to tel the police that Thomas was drunk, that he wanted to rape you and that he tripped.”
“I am not going to do that” My voice sounded like a whisper.
She hit me in the face.
“If you say I pushed him, I wil deny it. It is you who has his saliva in your mouth, you wear his jacket and there is blood on Pippa’s jacket that is also yours. Do you want to go to jail?”
I did not deny nor did I agree. She had pushed him.
“Why I do not just say that it was you?” I said with tears in my eyes.
She took a step back.
“Because as I did with him, I can do it with your father… or with your mother.”
My hands did not stop trembling. Pippa’s jacket. My jacket, I burned it that night. It was not necessary to say that Thomas had tried to rape me, nor were there witnesses.
The police said it had been an accident. A tragic accident, because on the terrace there was no energy or a means of light to warn us that the railing was defective.
I stil felt his scent, I felt his kiss. Our only kiss and the plan of being together some day as a couple.
Could the devil have more luck?
3
The smal respect or pity that I had for Pippa turned into hate. The hate that I felt for Paris became indecipherable. Now I was in her hands, or that was what I thought.
After going to university, Paris and Pippa went to a major university outside the country. I did not.
I decided to go to the state of design and I was lucky that they accepted me. My dreams of moving forward and returning with my mother grew and with the passing of the years, I had achieved it.
But I would not forget that night. And it would not come out of the clutches of my stepsisters either.
“Wherever you go, I wil find you. Marginals like you should be in the ground. And that is what you wil do, you wil clean the floors of the company in which your father worked. I have heard that they wil open Thomas's case, and I can stil talk and tel them it was you. Think about it, Cinder. I think you are smarter now. You wil never be someone. And besides, Thomas's jacket, I have it and it has your prints. Also, do not forget the scar on your wrist where you scratched with his watch wanting to hold on to you. Save you? I do not remember anymore.
May that scar remind you that you are in my hands, Cinder. You always will be.”
My world fel apart and ruin and for the part six years I am in the shadows of not being recognised.
I was the last one who saw him alive and part of me blames myself for it.
He died trying to save me.
Paris and Pippa do not make my life impossible, they spend months where they ignore me and I do not even see them. I do not know how they ended up working in the company where my father was one of the directors. But they did it.
Coincidental y after graduating I did not receive any job offer and in any design company they accepted me.
It did not have anything. Only floors to clean and service a caffe.
I am not afraid of going to jail and the chances of that happening are minimal. But I do not have another job either. And my salary helps my parents a lot. We have a free mortgage thanks to me, we have food in the fridge and can have smal trips to the beach two hours from the city whenever we feel like it.
Seattle is one of the most beautiful cities, as wel as expensive. I would not forgive myself if I left my family helpless now, no now that my grandfather is getting older every day.
And I have licked my wounds enough to accept that, I wil always be a Cinderel a.
>
…
My stomach hurts due to the blow of Paris, but it wil pass. I do not care if she hits me, I wil tel her a couple of things when necessary. I am not afraid of her and I refuse to live under her shadows or threats, I am no longer a girl and definitively my father is not alive to endure it. I just have to keep my job and be happy. Although it it not the job of my dreams.
Now I have to clean the bosses floor. And I had felt intimidated until now. Despite my overal s, some entrepreneurs always look at me in a lascivious way. I do not understand why.
Mona says that it is because I am beautiful and no overal s can hide it. But I think it is something else.
They are perverts and that's it.
I am absorbed when I finish the main hal , I only have ten minutes to do it before they al leave the office. The floors must be immaculate, but it is forbidden to be seen cleaning, except of the bathrooms, in my case, the women's.
I hear steps.
I hide and hurry to clean. I lean into a corner to see if there is nobody in the corridors and get out of here as soon as possible when I see a silhouette.
That aroma.
That back, can not be someone else.
Mr. G.
I close my eyes and stifle a scream when I see him in the distance. This damn labyrinth is going to drive me crazy. I walk as fast as I can before Mr. G
looks at me and I see my feet walk. I am stil a little wet with dirty water and I am shitting myself of the cold. This floor is quite cold and I know why.
When I see the service elevator in the distance I hurry, but I lose the intent when Mr. G passes in front of me and stops right away so as not col ide with my cleaning cart.
I close my eyes and I can only can hear his tired breathing due to the braking he has just given.
I have never seen him up close and I do not want to do it. I keep my eyes down and open them to see the toes of his shoes.
Black, bright and surely expensive. His suit is navy blue too.
He does not talk so I am the first to do it and I know what to say:
“I'm sorry, Mr.”
He does not say anything, I step aside to give him free access and let him go, but he does the same as me and he is back in front of me. I stil do not raise my eyes. Not out of fear, it is out of respect. I have heard that Mr. G does not like to interact with the staff, much less the cleaning staff. I would be a lucky one if he would even speak to me and not fire me at this time.
“If are going to talk to me, you better see see me in the face , girl.”
Shit.
Shit.
Shit.
Little by little I look up, going al over his body, wide hips, toned legs surely. His neat three-piece suit, a strong chest and broad back that… I am afraid to reach his neck. I see a rather long beard peeking out from there.
Then I look him in the eyes.
Blue eyes, bluer than the sky or the ocean.
His brown and a little long hair combing to the side. He do not have to put so much effort into it.
The man… the man is beautiful, so much that it hurts. And more if I have imagined al kind of things with him and now I have him in front of me, I feel like an idiot.
«If the knew»
His look is dark, so dark that I want to cry. He may be the most beautiful man I have ever seen, but his aura gives off danger and darkness. He does not give me a lustful look, nor does he give me a reprieve. There is something in the way he looks at me that catches my attention, and that is that he looks at me like never before a man like he had.
As a human being.
“I'm sorry, sir…”
“Do not talk” he cuts me.
Fol ow the silence, so I understand that I am getting in his way. I step aside and this time he does not move in my direction.
I swal ow and breathe deeply, I can not stop looking at him. He likes to be seen in the eyes, so that is what I do. Another woman in my place would be pissing right here, but not me. I am miraculously not afraid of him, only curios to know why they fear him so much and why no one hols into the eyes of Mr. G.
Better known as Gideon Graysson, the CEO of Graysson Publicity and owner no only of the advertising world and international image, but of the world itself.
He looks me up for the last time before saying:
“Change those clothes, or you will catch a pneumonia.”
He tel s me in a perfect English accent. God, I thought that only in movies was it heard like that, but in sexier in real life.
“Yes, sir.”
Then he leaves. I hear him enter the elevator and the doors close. It is when I breathe again. And the only thing I can do is laugh out loud. I leave there as soon as possible before he return and do what he asks. I change clothes. Not without first remembering that tone of voice.
Finally, in so many years, something has left me in the clouds and it is that of al the women in the world and in this giant skyscraper, I was one, not to say the only one, who does not fear Mr. G.
On the contrary, he catches my attention in a way that I could not explain with words, they are like my crazy fantasies.
I thought I would, hear about him, even Monkey that few times is in boards with him. That it Mona who is rarely in meetings with him. That is a difficult guys, of bad fleas and that makes you piss in your panties with only listening him talk or with a simple look.
My panties were intact. Although I could swear that my heart felt something, those feelings that only happen at the end of the movies.
…
That night, when I got home, when I had dinner with my family, when I went to bed. In my mind was that tone of voice, that scent and the words he said.
It stung me to seek information about him. Google was ful of his photos and I did not bother looking for information, with the photos it was enough for me.
He was a pretty important man. He did not have many dates although a particular photo caught my attention.
A photo of him with Paris.
Of course. He was a very handsome and important man so that Paris would not set her eyes on him. It does not surprise me that she worked in his same company. She was probably looking to be Mrs. Graysson.
I closed my computer, I was upset with myself.
For remembering the crazy fantasies I had with him.
Bending my back against his desk and pul ing on my overal s as he took me in silence or better, he crawled into my bed at midnight. That thought led me to put my hands inside my panties not longer dry.
What was happening to me? The last time I liked someone ended up dead thanks to her, I did not want to imagine what it would be if Paris realised that Mr. G had the nerve to talk to me.
Nerve? I was the reckless here for not fearing his look and wanting to know why they cal him
“Feared Mr. G”
The day pasts pretty fast, so much that right now I am having a drink at Mona’s house. She did not let me return home after I told her I had had a very close encounter with the G type.
“He only said that?”
I nodded taking a sip of white wine.
“I can not believe he spoke to you. Sometimes we are at meetings and he does not say a word.
Sometimes he sends a video asking what he wants at the whim of not showing up. He does not like being around people, so we al work in closed offices so he can move from one place to another.
And his dates, What do I tel you!”
“I saw a picture of him with Paris. Both looked elegant and he put his hand on her waist.”
We look disgusting right away.
“I do not think anything has happened. Paris walks with her legs open al the time, if you know what I mean. She is a bitch. But Gideon is not a fool. His few girlfriends have been quite exclusive, if not scarce. Either the guy is gay or has a minor G
problem. He is not know as a womanizer, he is not the typical business tycoon cliché. He real y seems to have suffered a lot. Like you. But if he has a secret life, he has mana
ged to keep it wel .”
“At what point do we focus on myself? Come on, what pain can someone like him have? Not being able to count his mil ions on his own? He looks arrogant, bad humoured, what he looks handsome has him as a tyrant and his beard, God!
He looks like a guy ful of tattoos who smokes.”
“He has them and I think he does smoke, like me.”
I choke. This conversation with Mona wil not go anywhere and less if the thick smoke makes me mockery out of her mouth. At least she knows him a little more. They work together. Mona says that Gideon trusts her ideas and campaigns.
Mona’s work is incredible. Not as much as Paris, she is an image executive, who recruits skeletal models like her and Pippa has been like her lapdog, she takes care of the music of commercials. Mona is the one of the ideas, and the position on creating the own exclusive designs of Graysson Publicity, that simply does not exist. That is why I never dreamed of applying to a job, not so far from cleaning floors.
“His father died, I think al his family except for his mother and sister. I do not know. I think that is why he has that face.”
“Are you talking about Mr. G?” I ask and she rol s her eyes in white. Of course she is talking about him.
“They say he did not want to take over the company. He did not get along with his father, but when he died he inherited the advertising conglomerate.”
“He was not dedicated to that?” She denies.
“Then what did he do?”
“He likes to buy, buy many companies, smal or big does not matter. He picks them up from wherever they are and turns them into a big competitor. I think he likes to “save” things, besides art. He is a true-know-it-al about art.”
“Interesting.”
After talking , criticising and immersing ourselves in the life of Mr. G. Something was not right in Mona's head. She knew that something was happening to her and it was not the first time that she helped clarify her ideas.
“This dinner. Something like an anniversary.
My fucking boss next to Paris wants to do something about it. Something tel s me they want to impress Graysson a lot. He never goes to those things unless they are from his own companies, but everything that has to do with Graysson Publicity he does not show up so often and more in celebrations. The thing is, I have to prepare it or at least have an idea of the subject. I am not a event organiser, but work is work.”