Julia James - Love Islands - Secret Escapes

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.