ELLEN TOOK A BREATH. Or tried to. There didn’t seem to be any breath left in her body because her lungs seemed to be caught in a vice. Horror drenched her—horror at the very thought of being paraded at a ball with Max Vasilikos. Her mortification would be exquisite, unbearable—hideous! As hideous as her appearance would be. She felt the colour drain from her cheeks and there was a sick feeling in her stomach.
Max was continuing to speak, still in that same blandly smooth way. ‘If you’re worried because you have nothing to wear, don’t be. I’ll have some suitable gowns delivered and you can make your choice. We’ll have lunch first, and then afterwards I’ll leave you in the hands of the stylists I’ve booked—it’s all arranged. Now...’ His tone changed and he walked to the house phone on the desk at the side of the room. ‘Time for that lunch. Would you like a preprandial drink? You look somewhat pale.’
In fact she looked like a dish of curds and whey, he decided, and without waiting for an answer crossed to the drinks cabinet and found a bottle of sherry, pouring her a generous measure.
‘Drink up,’ he said cheerfully.
She took it with nerveless fingers but did not drink. Instead she made her voice work, though it sounded like creaky hinges. ‘Mr Vasilikos, I cannot possibly go through with this! It’s very...kind...’ she almost choked on the word ‘...of you, but...but...no, I can’t. It’s out of the question. Impossible. Unthinkable.’ She swallowed. Made herself look at him. ‘Unthinkable,’ she said again, trying desperately to put a note of finality into her strangled voice.
It did not work. He simply gave her a straight look. She’d reverted, he could see, to having that grim expression on her face she’d had when he’d gone to Haughton to view it. It didn’t suit her—beetling her monobrow and pulling heavily at her features.
‘Why?’ He gave her an encouraging smile. ‘You’ll enjoy it, I promise you.’
She swallowed again. ‘I’m not, Mr Vasilikos, a party animal.’ There was strain in her voice, as if she were forcing herself to speak. ‘I think that’s pretty obvious.’
He was undeterred. ‘It will do you good,’ he said blandly.
A knock on the door diverted him and he went to open it. Lunch had arrived.
‘Come and sit down,’ invited Max, and gestured to the table once all the food had been laid out for them and the servers had departed.
Involuntarily, Ellen felt hungry suddenly. She also realised she must have gulped down half the sherry, for there was a taste of alcohol in her throat. She’d better eat something now...
I’ll eat lunch, then head off to the station and get home. Maybe if I write to the charity director he’ll consider my application anyway.
Because doing what Max was so ludicrously suggesting was out of the question—just totally out of the question.
Thank God he hadn’t mentioned me going to the ball in front of Chloe. She’d have had a field day, sneering and mocking me. Laughing like a hyena at the thought of me dressed up for an evening with Max Vasilikos!
Cold snaked down her spine as she made a start on her meal. It was delicious, she noticed absently—a seafood terrine with a saffron sauce, and keeping warm an entrée of lamb fillet. Hunger spiked in her and she tucked in. From the other end of the table Max glanced at her. It was good, he realised, to see a woman eating well. Not that it would put any fat on her—he knew that now. Not with a toned, sleek body like hers. Memory leapt in his head at just how toned and sleek her body was, and how it was that he’d discovered the amazing truth about this woman he’d crassly assumed was overweight.
‘Did you go running this morning?’ he heard himself enquire.
She looked up. ‘I run every morning,’ she said. ‘Plus I use the school gym and the pool. Taking Games lessons also keeps me pretty active.’
‘Hockey?’ Max asked interestedly.
She shook her head. ‘Lacrosse. A much better game!’ There was a note of enthusiasm in her voice that even her dismay at Max Vasilikos’s absurd notion of taking her to a ball—a ball, for heaven’s sake!—could not squash.
Well, she wouldn’t be going to any ball—with or without him, tonight or any other night—so there was no point worrying about it. She would just put it out of her head, enjoy this delicious lunch, and then head for the station. Maybe she’d look in at the Natural History Museum in South Kensington, get some more ideas for her Geography classes, pick up some learning material for her pupils. Yes, that was what she would do.
Relaxing slightly at the realisation that of course Max Vasilikos couldn’t make her go to this ridiculous ball of his, she heard him asking, ‘Isn’t lacrosse somewhat violent?’ He frowned.
She shook her head again. ‘You’re thinking of men’s lacrosse. That can be vicious! But then so can men’s hockey. Girls play a gentler game. But it’s fast and furious for all that. I’ve always loved it. Nothing to beat it.’ There was open enthusiasm in her voice now.
‘Were you in the team when you were at school?’ Max asked.
It was good to hear her speak without that note of almost panic in her voice that had been there as she’d reacted to his mention of the evening’s ball, and he knew it was necessary for him to back off for a while, let her calm down again. Her forbidding expression was ebbing, too, and that had to be good.
Besides, it was, he realised, something of a pleasant novelty to be lunching with a female in his private suite and not have her endlessly making doe eyes at him, batting her eyelashes, trying to flirt and get his attention. With Ellen there was no such tedious predictability. Instead it was refreshing to talk to a woman about keeping fit, exercise and sport—all of which he enjoyed robustly himself. And she was clearly in her element on such subjects, knowledgeable and confident.
She nodded, then answered him. ‘On the wing—loads of running there.’
He glanced at her speculatively. ‘What about Chloe? Was she sporty?’
He knew perfectly well she wouldn’t have been, but he wanted to hear what Ellen would say about the stepsister she so glaringly resented. Would she despise her for not being in the team?
A tight look had formed in Ellen’s eyes. ‘Chloe wasn’t in the sporty crowd,’ she said.
Max picked his next words with deliberate care. ‘It must have been difficult for her, joining a new school after her mother married your father. She must have looked to you to help her fit in.’
Ellen’s expression froze. Memory pushed into her head. Vivid and painful.
Chloe, with her long blonde tresses, her supercilious air of sophistication and her worldly experience of boys and smoking and alcohol and fashion and music and make-up, had been instantly accepted into a bitchy, cliquey set of girls just like her, effortlessly becoming the meanest of the mean girls, sneering at everyone else. Sneering most of all at her hulking, clumping, games-loving stepsister, who’d so stupidly tried to befriend her initially, when she’d actually believed that her father’s remarriage might bring him happiness instead of misery and ruin.
Max’s eyes rested on Ellen, seeing her expression close up. Had he hit home? he wondered. He hoped so—because it was for her own good, after all, getting her to face up to what was keeping her trapped in the bitter, resentful, narrow life she led, refusing to move on from the past.
She has to let go of her resentment against her stepfamily, stop using her share of their inheritance as a weapon against them. Stop clinging to the past instead of moving into the future. I need to bring her out of herself. Show her the world beyond the narrow confines she’s locked herself into—let her embrace it...enjoy it.
And what could be more enjoyable than a ball? A glittering, lavish affair that she might enjoy if only she would give herself a chance to do so! But for now he would not press her. For now he just wanted to keep her in this unselfconscious, relaxed zone. So he didn’t wait for an answer to his pointed comment about Chloe, but turned the subject back to an easier topic that she clearly found less uncomfortable.
‘What kind of workout routine do you do?’ he asked. ‘You must use weights, I take it?’
To his surprise she flushed that unflattering red that he’d seen all too frequently on his first visit to Haughton.
‘That’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?’ she mumbled, knowing he’d have spotted her developed muscle tone—so mercilessly mocked by Chloe, who jibed at her for being more like a man than a woman—when he’d seen her in running gear. ‘But I’m good at them and I enjoy it.’
Was there a defensive note to her voice—defiance, even? If so, Max wondered why. She obviously had a fantastic physique—he’d seen that for himself, and had very much enjoyed doing so! But she was speaking again now, and he drew his mind back from that tantalising vision of her fabulous body when she’d been out running.
‘I balance weights with cardio work, obviously, but I’d rather run than cycle. Especially since it’s such a joy to run in the grounds at home—’ She broke off, a shadow in her eyes. Those glorious early-morning runs she loved to take would become a thing of the past if Haughton were wrenched from her...
‘What about rowing?’ Max asked, cutting across her anguished thoughts. ‘That’s a good combo of cardio and strength work. It’s my favourite, I admit. Though only on a machine.’ He gave a rueful smile. ‘When I’m on the water I’d rather swim, sail or windsurf.’
She made herself smile. ‘Well, you’ve got the weather for that in Greece!’ she riposted lightly, glad to be away from the subject of her overdeveloped muscles, which so embarrassed her. She knew she was being stupid, feeling self-conscious about it with a man who couldn’t care less what she looked like as a woman. Inevitably she was invisible to him in that respect. Much less stressful to blank all that and just talk to him as she’d been doing, about sport and exercise, without any connotations about the impact on her appearance.
‘It must be great not to need a wetsuit,’ she said enviously.
‘Agreed.’ Max smiled, glad that he was getting her to relax again.
Deliberately he kept the conversation going along convivial lines, asking her about her experiences in water sport, which seemed to be mainly focussed on school trips to the Solent—definitely wetsuits required. Equally deliberately he waxed lyrical about how enjoyable it was to pursue water sports in warmer climes, recommending several spots he knew well. He wanted to open her mind to the possibilities of enjoying the wider world—once she had freed herself from the self-inflicted confines of her past, stopped clinging to the house he wanted her to let go of.
But with the arrival of the dessert course he steered the conversation back to the reason for her presence here.
As they helped themselves to tarte au citron Max was pleased to see Ellen tucking in with obvious enjoyment. It’s a sensual pleasure, enjoying food. The thought was in his head before he could stop it. And the corollary that went with it. There are more sensual pleasures than food for her to enjoy...
The words hovered in his head, but he put them firmly aside. They were inappropriate. All he was doing was introducing her to the delights that could be hers if she embraced the world instead of hiding away from it.
Starting tonight.
He pushed his empty plate away and glanced at his watch. ‘We’ve time for coffee, then a team of stylists are arriving and I’ll leave you to them.’ He smiled at Ellen.
Her fork promptly clattered to the plate. She was looking at him, her former ease vanished, her expression now one of panic. Panic that changed to a kind of gritty stoniness. He’d seen that look before, and knew it meant she was locking herself down into herself again.
She began to speak, her voice as tight as her expression as she bit the words out. ‘Mr Vasilikos—look, I’m sure you mean well, in your own way, but I really, really don’t want to go to this ball tonight! It would be...’ she swallowed ‘...horrendous.’
He levelled his gaze at her. ‘Why?’ he demanded simply.
Ellen felt her hands clench the edge of the table as if it might support her. Then she forced herself to speak. To spell out the brutal truth he seemed oblivious to for reasons she could not fathom. She had to disabuse him of any notion that going to a ball would be anything other than unspeakable torment for her.
‘Because,’ she said, and it dawned on him that she was speaking as if she were talking to a particularly intellectually challenged pupil, ‘you said it to me yourself at Haughton, when you saw me running. You said, “You’re nothing like your stepsister Chloe.” You couldn’t have made it plainer. And you’re absolutely right—I am nothing at all like Chloe and I never have been. I accept that completely—I’ve no illusions about myself, believe me. I know exactly what I look like. That is why going to a ball, or anything resembling a ball, or any social gathering of any kind at all is anathema to me. The very thought of dressing up and trying to be...trying to be...trying to be anything like Chloe—’
There was a choking sound in her voice and she broke off. She felt as if the blood was curdling in her veins—as if Chloe herself were standing there, her mocking peal of derisive laughter lashing at her at the very thought of her going to a ball—and with Max Vasilikos of all men! Her eyes tightened shut again, screwing up in their sockets, and her fingers indented into the wood of the table as she gripped it. Then her eyes flew open again.
‘I know what I am. What I’ve always been. What I always will be. I’m pushing six foot tall, I’ve got size eight feet and I’ve got muscles that can bench fifty kilos. I’m like some gigantic elephant compared with Chloe.’
The misery and the self-loathing in her face was contorting her features. Consuming her. Across the table Max had sat back, gazing at her with a new expression on his face. Abruptly he spoke.
‘Tell me, do you think Chloe beautiful?’ There was a strange note in his voice. Enlightenment was dawning in him like a tsunami in slow motion. Was this what was screwing up Ellen Mountford?
Ellen stared. ‘What kind of question is that? Of course she is! She’s everything I’m not. She’s petite and incredibly slim, and she has a heart-shaped face and blue eyes and blonde hair.’
The new expression on Max’s face did not change. ‘And if I described her,’ he said carefully, his eyes not letting her go for an instant, ‘as...let’s see...like a scrawny chicken, what would you say?’ Deliberately he chose as harsh a term as she had used about herself to make his point.
She said nothing. Only stared at him, not understanding. Incapable of understanding, Max realised with dawning comprehension. He shook his head slightly. ‘You wouldn’t believe me, would you?’ His voice changed, becoming incisive, incontrovertible. ‘Do you not realise,’ he demanded, ‘that it is only you who thinks you are like an elephant?’
She stared at him. Her face was expressionless. Her voice as she answered him toneless. ‘Chloe thinks so too.’
She revels in thinking it. Taunts me endlessly. Is viciously gleeful about it. Goes on and on about it! Has tortured me ever since she and her vulture of a mother smashed my life to pieces—going on and on at me about how big I am, how heavy I am, how clumping and lumping and pathetically, pitifully plain and repulsive I am, how I’m just an embarrassing joke! Someone to laugh at and sneer at and look down on! Elephant Ellen...
Max made a sound in his throat and his dark eyes flashed. ‘And has it never dawned on you that Chloe, with her tiny size zero frame, would consider a greyhound to be the size of an elephant?’ He took a heavy breath and his eyes bored into her. Something in Greek escaped his lips.
Ellen could only stare at him, her face stricken at the ugly memory of Chloe’s years of merciless cruelty about her appearance.
‘I fully appreciate,’ he said, now speaking in English, spelling out each word carefully, emphatically, so that they would penetrate her skull, reach deep inside her where they needed to reach, ‘that for whatever reason—the fashion industry, the prevalence of eating disorders and God knows what else!—extreme thinness is currently regarded as beautiful. And I fully appreciate,’ he went on, not letting Ellen do anything except sit and stare at him with blank eyes full of helpless misery, ‘that Chloe happens to fit the current description of what makes for a “fashionable” figure. But—’
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.