C of Cinderella E-Book

Kris Buendía

• Herausgeber: Kris Buendia
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

"I don't believe in fairy tales. But I do believe in the evil that my step-sisters once were. The three of us work for the same company: Graysson Publicity. They as executives and I ... far from being one. Mona, my best friend wanted to be the Fairy Godmother for one night. My sisters will hate me if they find out and Mr. G also finds out that: one, I am not a model, and two ... that I am the girl who cleans the floor of his company." A different romantic comedy, in which you will suffer, laugh and come back to believe in love after dark.

Leseprobe

C OF

CINDERELLA

Kris Buendia

Copyright © 2020 Kris Buendia.

All the rights reserved. Any part of this book can be reproduced or transmitted anyway or by any half, electronic or mechanic, including photocopy, recording, or by any system of storage and recovery, without permission written of the owner of the copyright.

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance with the reality is mere coincidence. All the characters, names, facts, organisations and dialogues in this novel are or product of the imagination of the author or have been used in this work of fictitious way.

1st Edition, January 2020

Original title:

C OF CINDERELLA.

ISBN Digital: 978-99979-0-387-7

Design and Cover: EDITIONS K.

Photography: Shutterstock.

Layout and Correction: EDITIONS K.

Because we al carry a Cinderella inside… adreamer looking for a prince, no matter thecolor.

1

If I could imagine my life in a different way, this is what I would think: Colours, lots of colourful food, dresses, travel with the love of my life. Going through the world with his hand and being able to give mom and dad a good present for their birthday. Also that Mona final y quit smoking. Mona is my best friend, we work for the same company, but not together and definitely doing different things.

On the other hand, if I could describe my current life, the real one. It would be like this: Me cleaning the floors whiter that my own teeth, juggling my coffee tray when I had to play coffee at the Le Dome.

And that's it.

There are no colours, except for the makeup left in the dressing rooms or in the bathrooms, the food, wel , I can not complain at al if at least I have a normal sandwich to devour at lunchtime, my beautiful dress, or better, the outfit I wear today, is the same one that I wore five years ago, a drained and very bad taste blue overal s and my green converse of the sales of a thousand seasons ago.

I travel fifteen or more minutes on the way home and back, and when I have a bad day “which is almost twice a week” I walk home, which brings my glorious hour-and-a-half trip. It's relaxing, it takes away al kind of thoughts, bad thoughts for those people who ruined your glorious day of cleaning floors. And when they are real y bad days, Mona is in charge of drowning my sorrows in donuts, pizza and Coca-Cola with a lot of sugar on the way home in her car.

Or with our other two friends in a bar.

Which bring me to the last and yes, less important. The love of my life, I almost have trouble saying it out loud. And it is not that my lack of filter or my best friend sarcasm does not leave me. It is that there is no such thing. Because if I drown my sorrows in junk food and watching some bad movie with long commercials on my TV, I could not have any. And the truth, I think I’ve never had it. I do not fit with anyone, nor with life itself.

Does the love for your father count?

No, it does not count.

“Have you finished, Cinder?” Questions Mr.

Clay, who is in charge of maintenance of the company where I work.

“Yes, Mr. Clay. I finished cleaning the seventh floor.”

It's crazy that now I have to clean up there, it's the floor of the enemy, or rather, the big boss. I had been assigned to clean corridors of other floors, even the floors of some bathrooms, but now I have climbed. I could not be more proud. Who said wecould not be promoted in this job?

“I’m very sorry for the change at last minute, but we are short of staff.”

“You do not have to apologise, Mr. Clay. It is my job.”

He looks at me as he always does, with an effect of tranquility in his eyes. Mr. Clay is an old man, I think he has become part of the inventory of the company, everyone here has a lot of respect and I am grateful that he understands my position here.

“You should not work here. I met to your father when he was stil alive, he was very good to me by naming me head of the maintenance staff and I remember you running around the corridors, I never imagined that…”

“That I would end up cleaning them, I know, Mr. Clay, but every fairy tale has its end, and not always a happy one.”

He puts his hands on my shoulders. As if he could understand me or avoid scolding me.

“You’re wrong, your fairy tale has not even started yet, Cinder.”

“Al right, I better go now before it gets more uncomfortable than it already is.”

He laughs and nods.

I take my backpack with my overal s inside and enter the staff elevator because my day here is over and I would like to believe that tomorrow wil be a different day, I say it every day, but it is not like that, although today I managed to clean another floor.

Hurrah.

…

“I’m home!” I shout, hanging the keys. I greet my grandfather who sleeps in front of the television with a kiss on his forehead and the aroma that comes from the kitchen cal s me.

“Cinder, what did I tel you to go to the kitchen with that backpack?”

My mother reprimands me. But it is her fault. I know very wel that she is baking a cake and I wonder why. I give her a kiss on the cheek and leave the backpack in the corner of the kitchen.

“It is your fault. You are baking a cake and I have been carried away by the aroma. To what do we owe the occasion?”

“What else?” I am sure it was a rhetorical question. “It is your twenty-sixth birthday.”

Shit! It is my birthday. How I did not know before! I know, it is because a long time ago I stopped carrying.

My mother notices the expression on my face.

“Don't you think, Cinder El a Mattis. We wil celebrate it, your friends and Mona wil come. She said she has a nice dress for you. Let's see if having fun tonight you forget a little of that horrendous work with which you punish yourself on a daily basis.”

“What kind of mother sel s her daughter that way?” I make fun, but it is not funny for her. My intention to make her laugh has not worked this time. I know my mother hates that I work for the company my father once worked for. With the one that reached the top and forgot about us, getting married again with an evil witch and her two daughters. Now Graysson Publicity belongs to Mr.

G, son. To the cold and frivolous man who hates the whole world. Including me, I cleaned the floor of his famed company, but he does not even know it.

Nor does he know that once I saved him from being run over when he crossed the street to his luxurious van for having some sort of argument over his mobile phone.

Mr. G. does not know anything about that, like I do not have any fantasy about him either.

Imagine that a man like him noticed a girl like me.

Imagine a man like him fucking a woman like me.

Imagine a serious man like him smiling at a girl like me.

Among other nonsense.

“Cinder, make me happy with this. You deserve to have fun. You do not even tel me why you are stil in that job and I accept it, at least give me this, give us this. To see you happy.

“I am happy, mom. My work has nothing to do.

You know that the salary is very good and I cling to my father's memory. It was not as bad as they made it look. You know.”

I had completely forgotten. I do not remember when it was the last time I celebrated my birthday, nor when I ate a piece of cake pie. My favourite cheesecake, but it belonged to a dessert, one of those that mom made from time to time to surprise.

My mother had stopped doing it a few years ago, and when she remarried, the surprise cakes had been exchanged for some highly meticulous dish.

I loved my mother and any change in her life, so were things as simple as preparing cake, while she was happy for me was fine.

“I thought you did not do them anymore.”

“It is your birthday, you deserve it. I have also found the recipe. I had forgotten how it was done.”

Total lie. I knew it partly reminded her of my father, and she only maintained that tradition for a while after he left with another woman. He had forced me to live with him thinking that I would have a better life, and although my mother forced me to go with him, deep down I found it hard to forgive him for it.

When he died of natural causes of old age and lack of care even though he had a lot of money to have a healthy life, after the funeral, a suitcase was waiting for me outside the church.

“Your father is dead” Esther said it coldly. “You have no more family, we have never been your family. You’d better go back to the place where you should never have left.”

As soon as I heard it, she kept muttering a couple of other things. Something like "Gaunt" and

"Poor" of course I was emaciated. My father had died and I could not said goodbye to him. He was always good to me but he made the mistake of fal ing in love with a bad woman. Esther Bagott was fifty years old, square body and ful of surgeries, almost without muscles, empty smile; she clearly never worked in her life and always had a boyfriend or a husband with a lot of money after the father of her daughters died of a heart attack.

Hardly and lived with the smal inheritance he left her him. Enough to operate on her nose, her boobs and look younger than she real y was. Until she met my father.

An important publicist, he sold his ideas to the big companies and with that, he had created a smal empire. We lived wel when he was stil with mom. But it was a matter of time before he set his eyes on Esther and everything fel apart, including his health.

Esther was bad, very bad, like her daughters. I was ten years old when I went to live with them. And at twenty was when my father died and I returned with my mother. The evil Esther had now taken what once belonged to me, but at least there was something that she could not take away from me.

My dreams.

No one knows that she has many debts and marked her from her childhood the envy she felt to see how affectionate the parents of their friends were. She can not help but feel an excessive passion for dogs. Damn dogs that were always al over the place.

My mother welcomed me with open arms and also her new partner, Pib. Pib treats my mother like a queen and I know why she fel in love again.

He is a good man and a second father to me.

“It is your twenty-sixth birthday. You deserve a cheesecake. Your father liked it and those memories do not hurt me anymore. I do not have to pay it with you. Not only to your father liked the cake, you liked too.”

“Mom” I hug her when I see that she wants to cry. And me to, but I hold back.

I go up to my room to change my clothes and take a bath first. I’m looking at the mirror as always a little more than usual before undressing.

My skin is quite white, like porcelain not as old. My blond hair is very long I can almost feel it in my ass. And my eyes, I wil not talk about them, they are as blue sapphire as my father's, and my lips, nothing to envy Angelina Jolie. I have a thin waist and I am grateful for it, even though I eat like an old truck driver. In addition, my clothes are quite casual and I could go unnoticed if I shaved my head, would not change anything since I am pretty similar to a boy. No ass, no curves.

Almost a model with an angelic face according to my friends.

I go to my little closet and I do not need to search inside. The first thing I come out with is a pair of ripped jeans and a red plain shirt and a white blouse. I see my poor blue converse aside.

They are almost new and I take care them as my life. They were expensive as hel . Those and the other ten more pairs in different colours. But these, these blues had a different brightness. Not like the others.

It does not matter that Mona brings a dress, it is not the first time she tries to dress me like a normal girl. I am not a normal girl!

After twenty minutes, I combed my long hair with my fingers. The cake is on the table and my grandfather has awakened.

“Who are you?” He questions. He does not have dementia or Alzheimer’s. It is a game that we have invented. I glare at him and I act surprised, I run to him and look for his ribs. He laughs loudly.

“I know, I know! You are my little mouse who eats everything in its path!”

“Grandpa Gus!”

“That's me.”

I seat on his lap. The first time he made that joke I started crying. Losing someone or someone who does not remember you is the same. To lose.

Since then we played Who you are. He is my grandfather Gus and I am his little mouse. The little white mouse who eats everything in its path and nobody sees it. It is what happens in some early mornings when I can not get to sleep. Bags and noises are heard in the kitchen as a mouse was looking for food.

“The boys wil arrive soon. Do you want to go?” I ask him under his breath.

He is thinking for a second about my proposal.

“Wil be there alcohol and women?” He ask the question serious.

“I am afraid not, grandpa”.

“Then no. Not worth it.”

I rol my eyes. Of course there wil be alcohol and women, we wil be the same as always.

“Boring.”

But I know he hates going out and more at night. Anything to get me out of the night out with the boys for my birthday. I am not in the mood tonight.

“Hel o Family!” Mona and the boys.

Jimi brings a present of colourful roses and many sweets. My favourites. Wel thought for my friend, who does not even give condoms to his conquests.

“But what looks you bring, Cinder.” Gracie complains. My other best friend, we cal her the weeping woman. She complains and cries for everything. I hope she has not broke up today with her boyfriend, again.

Mona glares at me with a bag that hangs from her shoulder. Clearly a dress. Dress that I will not wear tonight.

“Don't even look at me like that. Do you know what I had to do to steal it?”

“Do not tel me, did someone touch your ass?”

My grandfather is the first to laugh and my mother berates me. When she hears the boys laugh out loud, she passes. Pib is the last to arrive.

Je brings a smal box wrapped in blue wrapping paper and a blue bow.

“Blue because I know you hate pink.”

“Thanks, Pib. You should not have bothered.”

“Open it.”

Al before eating the cheesecake, the seat around the smal room. I place the flowers on the floor and take out a couple of candies and I put it in my mouth.

“Little mouse” Says my grandfather.

“I would say rather, termite” Mona fol ows.

I begin to gradual y break the wrapper of Pib’s gift.

It is a bit heavy. So I rule out that it is another dress. When I open it, my face lights up.

“From your mother and me”

Mona, Gracie and Jimi look at each other and rol their eyes.

“A bracelet! I love it!”

I knew it could be made it. But I have no idea how how much it could have cost. My own bracelet with a silver heel shoe charm. What reminds me of my dream.

“Thanks Pib. Thanks mom.”

“I thought they were a pair of earrings”

Gracie says. “Here, these are life-size heels.”

I had not seen the box she brought with her. In effect, they are a pair of heels. Beautiful but I do not know when I am going to use them. Something tel s me that Gracie bought me the heels and Mona the dress. I love them for real.

“You are crazy, people. Now to eat cake so that the dress you have brought does not stay with me.”

…

Three rounds of beer later, a list of songs to remember, weak knees that kil me from the pain and the guts that are making a party in my stomach.

“I am hungry” I complain. We have arrived to one of our favourite clubs, where they sel cheap beer with a couple of pizza boxes. The boys are dancing and having a good time, but my best friend Mona does not look good.

“You would have looked pretty with the dress.”

“I know, but it wil be for another occasion, I promise. It wanted to feel myself, it is my birthday.”

She looks for some comfort in my words and for the smile she gives me, I think sh has achieved it.

“Wel , just because you are having a blast, no matter what you use, you are cute. Only that…”

“I know you do not like to see me in my dirty overal s, no matter how much I try to wash it every day with that new detergent that goes on television, it does not shine, not the one I want.”

“Cinder, try to think clearly. You are talented woman. You split your back with me at university.

You studied design and I studied public relations, working for Graysson Publicity was one of our dreams, to work in an important company. But not cleaning floors and me being the assistant of the image manager.”

I think she has drunk too much. It is always the same thing. Even if she does not say it, she feels sorry for me. Of the life I have lived for the past six years. Ever since my father died, I lost my dreams of being someone, and even though I am an inveterate designer in my interior and in my crazy sketchbook, I know that I wil never be able to leave my overal s, thanks to my stepsisters.

“Are you thinking about them?” Mona reads my mind. “You are thinking about your fucking sisters.

What do I say! Paris, Nail and Grime” she laughs before continuing, her nicknames are always funny.

“Nail and Grime can not have so much power over you, one day you wil tel me what real y happened Cinder, and I am not so drunk for not remembering this. Who the fuck wil not remember Nail and Grime? Thank God they are not my fucking immediate bosses, although sometimes they screw up my work and ideas.”

“Your ideas are always great” I flatter her.

“Sometimes you help me, you have to give you credit. You are not just the girl in the dirty half overal s.”

“Oh, Mona. You better stop drinking beer. How many have you taken? Five? I think that it is the only thing that your body resists, meanwhile I am dying of hunger.”

“Who said food?” Gracie and Jimi come with more beer and final y Pizza! The one that I devour with much desire and I give a little to Mona, who wil not mind breaking the diet today, with something has to lower the drunkenness.

I love the boys, but no matter how hard they try to make me feel good this day, I can only think of myself, my dreams, my martyrdom and of course, my father.

“I think that today I will have sex with Gracie.”

Jimi whispers me in the air, after giving a bite to his slide of pizza, I snatched it from his hands. It is not the first time he wants to have sex with Gracie.

“Gracie, wil you have sex with Jimi today?” I ask aloud and my friend opens his eyes wide.

“Jimi!” Scry Gracie—Who do you think you are!?”

Jimi glares at me.

“You said you broke up with that transvestite boyfriend of yours” I almost spit my beer.

“Have you broken up with Ken?” We ask Mona and me in unison.

She starts crying, we rol our eyes because it is typical of Ken. Although this time it seems to be quite serious.

“I caught him cheating on me, in fact, Jimi saw it first.”

Wait, and how is that miraculously Jimi saw it first? Mona must be reading my mind just like Gracie.

“We mer the other day and we has a coffee”

Jimi starts to say quickly as if it did not matter.

“It is weird, Ken cheating on you, I thought he was a good boy, and I did not know that Jimi drinks coffee, because you hate it, is not it?”

“Fuck, okay. We had a date” Gracie has stopped crying. “But as friends, I wanted to make Ken jealous, but the shot went the other way. He was in the same restaurant with another girl.”

“He kissed her as if they were going to have sex right there” Add my friend a bit resentful.

The important thing is not Ken, he is an idiot and Gracie does not deserve that, but taking your shit with one of your best friends is even worse, I do not want to imagine if they get tangled together.

“I am sorry, Gracie” Says Mona.

“I am sorry too, you deserve better. But you have to think with your head. You can not just go for the jump with one of your best friends. Guys, we have been best friends forever. Sex of revenge?

You can not have sex with your friends!”

“In a group no” interrupts Gracie.

“You can not have sex with your friends!” Mona and I scream. “You are going to regret it or worse, there wil be tension, or what if one fal s in love?”

“What if both?” Now Mona throws herself against the table and Gracie and Jimi looked scared.

“Guys, will not get into your sex life, you can put it where you want, but think it over. Gracie, you do not deserve to be hurt again and Jimi can not take advantage of that” I point at him.

“Auch!” Pretend pain.

“I am being serious, I love you too much for you to ruin it in one night. But if that happens, I wil cut your bal s and suture your vagina so you can only pee.” Now I point to my girl friend.

It is too much for one night. I just talked as my mother would have done in my case. It would have given her a heart attack to hear me talk like that.

But beers and guts beat me.

The night went like that, trying to convince Gracie not to sleep with our friend. And while we were doing that, Jimi convinced her why she should do it.

Definitively that is not the story of my life.

2

I had a great time on my birthday. Although I did not expect anything from the many surprises, deep down I knew I did not need it. Dedicate a day for me, my friends and family.

“You do not know who happy it made me to see you go out for a night.” Mona enters the Graysson Publicity women's dresser. Make sure there is no one else but me, and I am cleaning the floors here this morning.

“It is thanks to you of course, but please do not make me more surprises like that dress, I have kept it very deep in my closet.”

“Not that you had one so big” she teases.

In that moment enter the two most despicable women not only of the company, but also of the planet.

Nail and Grime.

“Mona” Nail, I mean Paris begins to speak. “I have left on your desk the new campaign for you to study.”

“I wil take care of it, Paris.” She says without looking her in the eyes and Mona retouches her makeup, I keep cleaning as if I was not here, but unlike some employees who are kind to me and my best friend, everyone ignores me, except my two stepsisters.

Mona looks at me for a second from the mirror and winks at me, which I understand as goodbye and leaves. As soon as the door closes, my mop cart is overturned and al the dirty water is scattered in my converse and al over the floor.

“Clean that, bastard and do not make me fire you.”

“How could you fire me? You are not the owner.”

I curse to myself when I listen to myself speak to her in that tone. The right fist of her hand is going to hit my stomach and I curl up on the floor. I do not mind getting dirty with the water that is lying in al over the floor, I feel like I am dying of pain because of her blow.

“Don't forget you are here thanks to me, Cinder.” She mumbles and then look her in the mirror, fix her dyed hair and smooth her skirt. The sound of her heels is heard less and less when the door closes. Pippa, grime, just looks at me with pity and goes behind her. If the two hit, I could not stand it.

It is not the first time she attacked me. And it always happens when I respond. Paris learned Karate when she was teenager, unlike grime, Pippa that summer preferred cel o classes. Paris is sadistic and does not mind hurting you, not only physical but psychological too, and fucking your existence for life. You wil want to be dead if you fal into her clutches, in her blackmail and humiliation.

I know… I know why I know…

ELEVEN YEARS AGO

Paris and Pippa want to go to a party. My father does not let us go to parties unless the parties are at home and finish no later than midnight.

I think that Paris is in love or something, there is a guy with whim she spends talking on her cel phone and that many times I had to cover up.

Mobiles are also prohibited until we at seventeen and was an emergency.

“You better believe me, Cinder, because if not, I wil hit you” Paris threatened. “Karate will soon be over and I am one of the best.”

I could imagine it. Poor guy. She had seen him with a broken lip the last time they pretended to do homework. One of some. The one in this party was another.

One special.

Nobody does homework during summer vacations. Besides, I had already done them to both. In order to leave me alone.

Big mistake, that would not happen.

“What happens if dad says no?”

“I wil hit you so hard that you better convince him.”

I looked at Pippa. She was not as bad as her sister. But she did not do anything about it either and when it came to tel ing the truth, she clung to the truth or rather lie of Paris, so it was the same.

She was more evil for not saying or doing anything about the injustices of Paris.

“I wil try.”

At that moment Paris took me by the hair and dragged me to the ground with al her strength, I could not move, I could not even scream. I do not know why I could not even scream. The last time that I defended myself suspiciously, Paris complained so much about the pain that she spent three days in a hospital.

She said that I wanted to break her skul .

Dad threatened to send me to a boarding school. And I could not let it happened. I missed my mother and saw her every weekend possible, I bagged her to take me with her, but soon I would go to university and we needed the money that our father gave us. I needed to go to university, get my mother forward and have a voice of my own to send them al to hel , starting with Esther.

Half hour later we were in Paris’s car. She was the only one who had one. Pippa and I were not al owed to drive because we were underage, even if Paris was only sixteen and we were fifteen.

It was the law.

“This party you say, where is it?” Pippa asked.

“You are stupid, I told you a thousand times.”

Paris answered, stil looking the road. “It is in Thomas’s house.”

Thomas, the hottest guy in school, one of many. But Thomas was the favourite and also whimsy of Paris. The boy seemed to suffer from some chronic pain every time he was with her. And the most dangerous thing of al and to have always in mind, me, I secretly liked Thomas.

He was untouchable, you could not look at him, neither talk to him. It was forbidden or Paris would take your eyes out. But Thomas was not a guy like the others, even though he was popular, handsome and rich. He was a gentleman and often defended me from the clutches of Paris.

“We have arrived.”

I did not want to get out of the car. The clothes she was wearing were ridiculous and not worth a party. At least my hair always helped me once it released it.

“Don't even think of letting go off your hair.”

Paris ordered me. I saw Pippa out of the corner of my eye and felt a little compassion, thought not enough to put her sister in her place.

We were the three of us, but as usual, Paris did not like to be seen with us. We were losers according to her. I was the sister picked up from the street and Pippa her less grateful sister.

Pippa had big eyes, almost as much as the Gol um of the Lord of the rings. She was quite thin, thinner that me, or her eyes stood out even more.

Her hair was so ful of curls that it looked like a bush or nest of birds. It seemed beautiful to me, but Paris made her see that the beauty of a woman was in her straight blonde hair.

I had it like that, but I hid it in a bun or a hat, even though it was hot, sometimes I had to put it on and cover it.

“I am very cold.” Pippa complained. The music was heard al over the place, but we were stil stepping on the grass in front of the house, many times I stayed there, where the parties were, I never went in and I was out of sight.

“Take it” I gave her my jacket. The poor girl was trembling from the cold. I did not mind staying with my shirt only. She needed it more than I did, besides, my clothes were ridiculous with my big jacket. I liked to wear jeans, it does not matter the colour, a shirt and my sports shoes. If I wore a jacket, I combined it and I have to admit that I looked pretty, or at least I saw it in the eyes of the boys who looked at me through the corridors of the school.

“Thanks” she said without further ado. I sat on the lawn and she did the same.

“You do not have to stay here, Pippa.”

“I do not… wel , I” she always stuttered. “I do not want to be there, there is the boy that I like but he never…he never notices me.”

That surprised me. Pippa was not ugly, she was different and in addition to being sil y, she could do something of her own to avoid being in the shadows of Paris. I bet everything that if I guessed the boy who liked Pippa, Paris had already slept with him. It was typical. Luckily, the boy I liked, no matter how close I knew him, he was more than taken. I just had to forget about it and that's it.

“You should try to talk to him.”

“Paris would not leave me, in her night.”

“Fuck Paris.” She opened her eyes wide. “I mean it, you are the only one who can put Paris in her place and you don't do it. I am not her sister, you are, your mother appreciates you, I mean, What mother does not want her kids? She wil believe you if you tel her that Paris is cruel to you.”

“And with you” she concluded.

“It do not care if she is with me. When I go to col ege I wil be far away from her, she wil not be able to hurt me. I hope you wil do the same.”

The truth was that Esther was also cruel to her.

But even though Pippa was here with her with her tail tucked between her legs, I did not trust her, no since she was an accomplice of Paris on many occasions and that I always got hurt. I felt sorry for the girl and hated myself for it. At least Pippa did not hit me, but she did not defended me either, she was like a smal pimple in the ass next to the biggest one.

“I wil go for a walk” I got up from the grass.

Our conversation would not come to anything.

Pippa tried to fol ow me but I told her to talk to the boy she liked in Paris hiding. I wanted to get rid of her too and stop being the nanny.

I got inside the crowd and saw in the back of the house, a terrace. It was empty. I liked the heights and surely from there the music would not be heard nor would the smel of alcohol or cigarettes be felt. Nobody looked at me when I climbed the smal iron stairs.

When I went up I liked being there since I set foot. The view was beautiful. There was a hil on the other side where there were no mansions. It was silent, and cold. The terrace was empty, but clearly I was looking at the big footsteps al over the floor. And also some cushions in the distance, as wel as a smal table with books on top.

I saw what they were al about and they were al from Steven King, none of them got my attention and I put them in their place.

I was there for about ten minutes when a voice spoke to me.

“It is my favourite place in the whole world” I jumped to the point of almost screaming. “Shit, Cinder! I'm sorry, I did not want to scare you.”

It was Thomas.

“Thomas, what are you doing here?”

“It is my house” he said smiling me and showing me some perfect and white teeth.

It was certainly his house, but I did not know what he was doing there and without Paris.

“Where is Paris?” I asked with fear, remembering the three rules of not talking, touching and looking. I was doing two of them.

“You always ask me that when I want to talk to you. Are you too got obsessed with it?”

“I… emmm…”

“I like when you do that” he was getting closer and closer.

“What thing?”

“Getting nervous when I talk to you.”

“I am not nervous” I declined. “It wil be better that you go back to your party.”

“It is boring and now I do not regret have organised it, any excuse is valid so you can come, and if that includes Paris, I accept it. I knew I would see you tonight. You look beautiful.

“That is not true” she declined again. I rejected every compliment, always.

“It does not matter what you wear, I know why it is. But stil you wear a clown wig, you would not be able to hide your beauty, Cinder. It is something Paris can not deal with.”

My heart skipped a beat every time he spoke to me like that. Thomas was so sweet that it hurt, it hurt a lot because I knew I could not have him, even as a friend.

“Why are you talking about her like that? It is your girlfriend, you should not talk to me, you wil get in trouble.”

He wrinkled his forehead, which made those marks make him look hot. It is not as if he was not.

His hair was brown, his skin as white as mine and his smile was beautiful as wel as his light brown eyes. He had a toned body for the sport he practised and also smelt delicious. I could feel him every time he came closer. I would never forget that perfume.

“Paris is not my girlfriend, never has been and never wil be.”

I did not realise it, but he was in front of me.

We were face to face. And nobody around us. I had never dreamed of this and never realised that I was very happy. I was final y talking to him.

“Your house is beautiful” I did not know what else to say.

“Thanks but it is not mine, is… forget it. It is not mine.”

“Why is not yours?”

“I do not know, I wil settle for this terrace. I built it myself.” He saw the amazement in my face.

“I mean design and I helped in some things, my father hired some people.”

I rol ed my eyes and laughed. It was as if he had done it but not with his own hands.

“It is beautiful” I saw far away, the dark mountain and the fireflies al over the place.