Page 170 of Tormented Billionaire Romance Series

Brian stuck his drink in the drink holder and turned the car on. “You could solve that by hiring her out of the blue, like you did to me.”

“Don’t tempt me with ideas. You know I’ll act on them.”

“You mean you’ll have me act on them.”

I looked out the window, dismissing him. “I pay your bills, so it’s all the same, anyway.”

“Augh,” Brian groaned. “My fragile ego.”

I chuckled. Using my straw, I swirled the ice around in my drink cup. I thought more about that cute girl and had to hold back a sigh. If I was any other billionaire in the world, I’d do more than entertain the fantasy of hiring that girl. I’d act on it. Since I hadn’t lost my common sense, I knew how it would look if I did, though. A man my age, 30, successful, buying out a young girl who was hardly 20, hiring her to make coffee sodas for him at his whim. That surely wasn’t a scandal waiting to happen.

Besides, she didn’t care who I was, not even after Suzie told her. That girl wasn’t one to be swayed by fame and status.

Smart, as well as cute.

I wondered if I’d run into her at the party.

CHAPTER6

MEGYN

Ihummed a little while tying off some stitches, finishing the last-minute alterations on my dress. Once I had started working on it, getting the fit to match me better, I started getting a strange sense of familiarity, like I had seen a dress like it somewhere before. A quick search of famous dresses on Google brought me the results I had been looking for.

The color was the same soft, blueish-white as Cinderella’s dress, the one she wore when she went to the prince’s ball. Once I figured that out, inspiration flooded through me, carrying me away, and I had started doing more work than was needed to just adjust the fit, which was why it had taken so long, right up to the point where I had less than an hour until Maggie would arrive.

I added some puffy material to the sleeves and modified the bodice to get that delicate vee shape. I added more of the same sleeve material to the top of the skirt, where the bodice met. Finally, though I could do little to make the skirt fuller, I created some artificial folds with clever stitching, so it wouldn’t hang so straight, like a potato sack.

Once I finished with the last stitches, I put the dress on and headed over to the bedroom mirror to check myself out. I gasped, pleased and admittedly surprised at the outcome. The raggedy old Goodwill garment had had new life breathed into it. The dress molded comfortably to my curves, flared out around my hips where I’d made those bunches of fabric.

For the first time, I felt myself getting excited about the party.

Still wearing my dress, the skirt fluttering around my ankles, I dashed into the bathroom and pulled my hair back into a quick bun, held in place with a dark blue headband. I put on a simple choker, which I had also made. It was only a thin strip of soft black fabric, secured with Velcro at the back.

I put in my contacts, since princesses didn’t wear glasses, and applied some makeup, since princessesdiddo that. Blue eyeshadow with a touch of white at the inside corners of my eyes and mascara, plus blush and a dark plum-red lipstick. When I looked in the mirror again, I hardly recognized myself.

Time to put on the finishing touches.

I turned to my closet, when my phone started buzzing, ringing incessantly. I bit my lip to hold back a swear and then did swear when I realized that may have ruined my makeup. A quick look at the clock on my dresser reassured me that I would have enough time to answer the call before Maggie arrived. Maybe.

I grabbed my phone and looked at the screen. My heart lurched up into my throat to see my father’s number. I licked my lips, once more doing harm to my lipstick, and then answered.

“Hi, Daddy.”

“Hey, pumpkin.”

I smiled and giggled a little at how apt his term of endearment was.

“What’s funny?”

I looked down at myself, my dress and bare, wiggling toes peeping out from under the hem of the skirt. “I’m just about to go to a party. A Halloween party. I’m dressed like Cinderella.”

Dad paused. “What does that have to do with pumpkins?”

He never did watch those movies with me. Just set me down in front of them to keep me busy.

My throat ached a little. I did the best I could to ignore it. “It doesn’t matter. Never mind.”

“Well, okay.”

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