Page 70 of The Billionaire's Cinderella

I stiffen, probably because this exact fear has been plaguing me for the last several days. So much for keeping my smile from slipping. Also, so much for a quiet moment of maturity and shared brotherly joy. I know these two jackasses are only messing with me again. A glance at the banked mischief in their expressions removes any doubt. They look like frat boys plotting a midnight heist of some rival house’s mascot. My job is not to rise to their bait. Unfortunately, at this dark moment, that’s easier said than done.

“Yep,” I say tightly, then sip my drink.

“Too bad she’s not here right now,” Damon says, looking as sympathetic to my plight as an alligator is to the duck he’s about to eat. “Too bad you can’t, I don’t know, snap your fingers and make her appear. You’d probably kill to make that happen, wouldn’t you? Poor schmuck.”

“Yeah, but knowing Ryker, he’d probably say something stupid, wouldn’t he?” Griffin says to Damon. “Screw things up even worse.”

“True,” Damon says with exaggerated sadness.

“We can’t all be winners in love,” I say, still determined not to let them yank my chain. “Looks like I got the short straw.”

“Can’t say we’re surprised,” Griffin says, one side of his mouth twitching. “Maybe the best thing for you to do is make peace with the idea of Ella winding up with someone else. Go ahead and let her go. What’s that saying about setting butterflies—”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I say, hitting the end of my patience like a test car rolling down the track and smashing into the brick wall in a safety lab. “Butterflies? I get my heart ripped out and you’re talking about—”

My brothers explode into raucous laughter, which does nothing to defuse the situation. I’m seriously thinking about taking a swing at one or both of them when Damon pulls himself together.

“I don’t even have the heart to do this to you,” he says, still chuckling as he gestures above and behind me. “It’s time for you to go get your girl.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” I snarl, still spoiling for a fight.

“Look,”they say, both pointing this time.

I take a glance over my shoulder, my attention snagging on a beautiful blonde woman coming down the steps in a delicate white dress that shifts around her legs as she walks. I’m about to turn back to my brothers and let them have it with both barrels—there’s a woman here who looks like Ella and you think it’s a joke?—when our gazes connect and the world flips upside down on me.

It is Ella.

“Holy shit,” I say.

That’s about all I can manage with my lower jaw dropped down around my belt and my brain emptying of all rational thought. As for my heart rate, it starts pounding like the drum line of a high school marching band during the halftime show. I can hear the driving thump in my ears.

I take a closer look, turning my body to keep her in sight as she descends. It’s not every day that an angel shows up in your house out of the blue. I don’t want to miss a second of the experience.

She’s got a headband thing on top of all that gleaming golden hair. The dress swoops low in front and seems to swoop low in back, with only a couple of thin straps and a few strategic ruffles and drapes to keep the whole thing together. She looks like a Grecian goddess arriving for a visit, as though she got bored with life on Olympus and decided to pop down here for a while and blow the minds of us mere mortals.

The graceful curve of her neck and shoulders…the gorgeous flush in her cheeks…the glittering blue eyes and the radiant half-smile as she stops on the bottom step…

I never had a chance.

I want the record to reflect that from the second I laid eyes on Ella Richardson until this moment and on into the future until the day I die, I never had a chance.

“Take this,” I say, thrusting the remainder of my drink at one of my brothers without breaking eye contact with her. “You two scram. I can handle it from here.”

There’s a round of obnoxious sniggering behind me. I don’t care.

“Whatever you say, chief,” Griffin says.

Then they disappear into the crowd, leaving me alone with the woman I fervently hope will become my wife. Sooner rather than later.

“Hi,” I say, doing my best to get my thoughts back online with her looking at me like that. A smile is out of the question.

“Hi,” she says.

I swallow hard, desperate to keep my cool and think of something to say. “I don’t believe you were on the guest list…?”

“Are you sure?” she asks. “I heard that this is a great ball. Seems like a good chance to practice my flirting.”

Flirting.

---