Page 2 of The Cinderella Secret
“Also, she keeps my passport locked in the safe in her room.”
“There has to be someone you can go to,” he said.
“My uncle,” said Ella, nodding. She’d thought all of these thoughts before. “My father’s brother,” she clarified, in case Number Nine thought her entire family was like Sabine. “But he’s in Europe, and last time I checked, the ticket price was at least fifteen hundred dollars. That’s why she won’t let me have any money or my passport.”
He sat back on his heels as if thinking, then a smile quirked up the sides of his mouth.
“But the passport is in the bedroom,” he said.
“Yes,” agreed Ella. She felt stupid and slow and embarrassed. Embarrassed to have her problems laid bare before this total stranger. And even more embarrassed that he wanted to help. How bad did her life have to be when a complete stranger thought it was total shit?
“The bedroom that no one is in because everyone is out by the pool?”
Ella straightened her spine. “I have the combination,” she said. Then her shoulders dipped again. “I still don’t have any money.”
He grinned. “I’ve got an idea about that,” he said. “Give me a couple of minutes. I’ll be right back.”
Ella watched as he slipped out of the bungalow. She thought about getting up and leaving. She didn’t know Number Nine. How could she trust him? What would she do if he came back? What would she do if he didn’t?
She could leave.
But she didn’t.
She sat on the bed and waited for him to come back. She’d never waited for a boy before.
2
Aiden Deveraux
Aiden Deveraux slid out the door of the bungalow and checked to make sure no one was watching. A last-minute trip to Cancun against his grandmother’s wishes had seemed like a lark. And taking his friend Harry’s place at an illegal fight after Harry had drunkenly dislocated his shoulder jumping off the hotel balcony had seemed like the height of hilarity.
Keeping to the shadows, he made his way across the compound to the gravel parking area. The bus the fighters had been brought in on was locked, but it took him only moments to scramble to the roof and slither in through the unlocked emergency hatch that had been cracked for ventilation.
But the whole thing had stopped being funny the moment Slutty Cleopatra had lined all the fighters up and demanded Cinderella pick which one got to rape her.
In the bottom of his bag was an emergency fund meant to keep him out of trouble. He’d dipped into it twice already this vacation for random purchases, and he now regretted it. It wasn’t that he couldn’t get more, but if he pulled out too much cash, his grandmother would probably assume he’d been kidnapped and put a freeze on his bank account. Neither he, nor his sister Dominique or their cousin Evan would receive their full inheritances until they turned twenty-five. When the Deveraux children—Uncle Randall, Uncle Owen, and Aiden and Dominique’s parents, Genevieve and Sam Casella—died in a plane crash ten years ago, the last thing on Aiden’s mind had been money. He could never have predicted how annoying it would be to have his grandmother still controlling his life at twenty-one. He supposed Evan had known. But then, Evan was older and he understood a lot of things that Aiden somehow missed—things that Aiden probably didn’t want to understand, if he was being honest. Aiden pulled the cash out of the bag and hurried back to the bungalow.
He slipped back through the door, making sure that none of the other party goers were looking his way. Cinderella was waiting for him. She was a tiny little thing, with a swirl of black hair and a Day of the Dead mask covering half her face. The dress pushed her boobs up in a way that was probably too adult for her, but he had to admit looked good.
“OK,” he said, kneeling down in front of her and counting out the cash with quick fingers.
“You don’t have to do this,” she said. “It’s only six months. I can make it another six months until I turn eighteen.”
He looked up at her and with a clarity that surprised even him, he knew that she wouldn’t.
“No,” he said. “No, Cinderella, you won’t. I’ve known people like her. Or rather, I was related to people like her.” There was no way of summing up the cruelty of Randall and Owen Deveraux, but it was clear that Cinderella’s mother would have gotten along just fine with Aiden’s uncles. The fact that Cinderella wasn’t coping with her abuse through drugs and alcohol like his cousin Evan was a miracle.
“Those kind of people don’t change. They want power and they don’t let it go. You’re going to turn eighteen and nothing’s going to change. In fact, it will probably get worse. She’s not going to give you your passport. She’s never going to let you go.”
Aiden knew he had to rescue this princess—he couldnotlet her stay here—and as he spoke, tears sprang up into her eyes and she swallowed hard, but didn’t say anything.
“All I’ve got is five hundred bucks.” He held out the cash and her fingers closed around it, but she stopped.
“No,” she said, pushing it back at him. “I can’t take your money.”
He looked at her in surprise. He had never had anyone turn down his money before. He was a Deveraux, and to everyone he’d ever met, that meant he was a walking black card. For most of his life he’d had to figure out how to tell people he wasn’t going to pay for their shit.
“Yes,” he said, pushing it back at her, “you need it.”
