Page 43 of The Billionaire's Cinderella

11

Ella

“Special delivery,”I call that Monday night when I tap on Bellamy’s apartment door. We like to get together several times a week and decompress. Living next door to each other in the same building certainly makes it easy.

“Treats?” she squeals over the barking coming from the apartment’s interior, clapping as she swings the door open for me. “For me?”

“Yes, yes, try to contain yourself,” I say, laughing and balancing a platter of beautifully decorated petits fours as I head for her little kitchen table. She’s been an enthusiastic guinea pig for my test recipes, a trait that I greatly appreciate. “There’s plenty to go around.”

“Another round of rejects? Too much almond flavoring again?”

“Not exactly,” I say, sitting. “The mom who placed the order decided that she wanted sparkly shoes instead of sparkly crowns on her little princess’s first birthday party treats, so she changed her order.”

“It’s hard out there for an Upper East Side princess these days,” she says, reaching for plates, napkins and a bottle of Prosecco she keeps around for just such occasions. “Great news for me, though.”

“Indeed. Are you going to do anything about that yapping in the bedroom?”

She sighs, ever the embarrassed pet mom.

“I wanted to give you a minute to come in and catch your breath first. Are you ready for him?”

“As I’ll ever be,” I say, bracing myself.

She opens her bedroom door and out springs Jeremy, barking his idiot head off. His apex predator routine suffers because he’s a blonde version of Toto, which means that he weighs ten pounds at most. Still, he puts his heart into threatening my life.

“It’s me, Jeremy,” I say, holding out a hand for him to sniff. Honestly, the dog is a fool. You’d think he’d start to remember me after all this time. “Why do we have to go through this every single time? You know me. I give you treats.”

In our well-choreographed routine, Bellamy slips me a dog treat. I slip it to Jeremy. He crunches it down and remembers his manners by standing on his hind legs and putting his front paws on my knees.

I am not deceived. Still, I appreciate the overture.

I drape him over my lap. We all settle in happily, distributing petits fours and popping the cork.

“Here’s to your new man,” she says, cheering me with her glass.

“I don’t have a new man,” I say, trying to look unruffled as I scratch Jeremy’s ears with one hand and raise my own glass with the other. “Here’s to your new man.”

“I don’t have a new man either.”

We clink glasses and burst into girlish laughter. What can I say? It’s what we do.

“Your skin looks bright and healthy. I know what that means,” she says before digging into her first petit four with an unabashed groan of delight.

“Oh, no you don’t. You go first. How go things with the Beast?”

“Stop calling him that,” she says, scowling. “He doesn’t deserve it. I wish I’d never given him that nickname.”

Whoa. Where did all this new ferocity come from? And why such a staunch defense of the man who, everyone knows, maintains a reign of terror at the office?

The look on her face, sudden change of tone and her new protectiveness toward him all hit me like a swift uppercut. I know where this is going. Worse, I know how this movie ends, and it ain’t pretty for Bellamy.

“Oh my God,” I say, gaping at her. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,”she snaps, then reaches for her glass and takes a couple of deep gulps. Whatever she says next is a lie. Guaranteed. “We had fun in the Hamptons. Things were a little strange at work the other day, but we got through it. He’ll be here in a minute. That’s all there is to it.”

Lies. All lies. Bellamy has had a huge thing for her boss for the last year. And I mean huge. Now that she’s acted on the impulse, she’s fallen for him. Just that quick. I can smell it on her. So much for keeping things casual, which was her original intention. This train has left the station. Next stop? Heartbreakville.

“Bellamy. This is supposed to be just sex at most. No feelings. A summer fling only. We talked about this.”

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