Page 5 of The Billionaire's Masquerade Ball

Now Cynder didn’t need to worry about spilling anything on her custom gown. At least the dress wouldn’t go to waste as it would still go to the store as a sample, but it was a disappointment not to get to wear it at least once. And this event was going to be the biggest she had ever worked on. Not getting to experience it was such a disappointment.

The masquerade element had its own draw. For a night she could be anyone. Not a grieving daughter, a newly demoted administrative assistant, a single twenty-six-year-old sharing a tiny apartment with her best friend.

Probably better this way. She didn’t belong in that crowd. Though her father hadn’t been poor, they were firmly middle class. He had started Looking Glass with almost nothing and made it a success. They took on high-end clients, but her father had hand-picked them, generally avoiding the kinds of people who were part of the elite snobbery. The opposite of how Gail chose clients.

“Having money doesn’t make a person bad,” her father was fond of saying. “But money is like a light, revealing what was there underneath all along.”

Cynder only wished some of that light had somehow shined on Gail so he would have realized what was underneath before he married her. That decision now impacted Cynder’s whole future. And without her father, she felt oddly loose and unprotected in the world. She hadn’t realized quite how much he did for her or how much she trusted in him until he married Gail and then more when he was gone.

“Cyndil.”

Cynder jerked in her seat as a voice breathed close to her ear. She kicked her feet against her desk, rolling her chair away from the person behind her. Though everyone in the office called her by her given name rather than her nickname, only Patrick drew out the soft sound at the beginning, making it sound like a hiss. And only one person who would do it right in her ear.

“Patrick! I told you not to sneak up on me like that.”

“Who’s sneaking?” Patrick said, a grin stretching across his face.

“What do you need?”

Cynder had found that the most effective way to deal with him was to keep their conversations focused on work. Though nothing seemed very effective in keeping him away from her.

He slipped a piece of paper with names on her desk. “Just a few phone calls. Nothing big,” he said. “I wanted to check on you also and see how you’re doing since Gail announced you can’t come to the ball.”

He made a pouty face. The only redeeming quality about Patrick was the fact that he seemed to loathe his mother and sisters as much as Cynder did. Why Gail even let him work there baffled her.

“I don’t mind,” Cynder said.

“I can’t imagine that you wouldn’t want a chance to bag a billionaire. That’s my sisters’ goal anyway.”

“Money isn’t everything to me,” Cynder said. “And it’s not like he’s going to be trying to pick up women at this event anyway.”

Patrick played with the pens in a cup on her desk. She resisted the urge to smack his hand. “From what I’ve heard, he picks up women everywhere he goes. I’m pretty sure that’s why my mother didn’t want you to go. Less competition for Barbie One and Barbie Two.”

Cynder looked down at her desk, trying to hide her smile. Eliza and Crystal did look like Barbie dolls: platinum blonde hair, perfect makeup, endless wardrobes, and tans kept the perfect shade by a tanning bed Gail had set up in one of the guest bedrooms of her father’s house. They were almost as manufactured as Barbies as well. The amount of money Cynder imagined they had spent on plastic surgery was staggering.

“I’m hardly competition,” she said.

“You really have no idea how beautiful you are,” Patrick said.

Cynder groaned. She walked right into that one. She had meant that she wasn’t trying to snag the billionaire, not fishing for praise. “Patrick, stop.”

“That was a compliment, you know,” Patrick said. “It’s polite to say thank you.”

“Thank you. Now if you don’t mind, I’ve got some calls to make.” Cynder waved the piece of paper he’d given her. “What am I calling for, exactly?”

“These are the point-people from our vendors for Saturday. It’s a simple job—double-checking the orders. I’ve sent you an email with invoices and details. You can check those against what they tell you on the phone. Better to be sure now when there are a few days to make up for any mistakes.”

This was easily a job that Patrick should have done. But Cynder didn’t mind work if it meant she had an excuse to stop talking to him. She didn’t trust him to handle anything at all. As he walked by her desk on the way back to his office, he brushed a fingertip along her arm. She flinched away.

“See you soon, Cyndil.”

No sooner had Patrick disappeared than Gail had shouted from her office. Cynder stuck the list of names into her desk drawer and stood, smoothing down her skirt. Gail was the kind of woman whose eye sought out imperfections, which included wrinkles.

“Yes, Gail?”

Cynder stood in front of the ornate wooden desk. It had been her father’s, passed down from his father. Seeing Gail behind it always made her throat feel tight. It was so unfair to see Gail in his old position, what Cynder hoped one day would be her seat. She studied Gail, trying to see what had bewitched her father.

She did look impressive behind the desk. Unlike her daughters, Gail was a natural beauty. She had let the gray hair mix with the blonde and her face showed natural aging. With high cheekbones and gorgeous blue eyes, she looked her age, but was stunning. When she wanted to, Gail could be charming. But Cynder never saw her eyes lose the icy chill that now bored into her.

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