Page 26 of The Cinderella Secret
“Because I need to socialize and make friends and I’m not going to do that if I don’t go to Nora Lieberman’s party.”
“Are there going to be boys there?”
“God, I hope so,” said Lilly.
“You know your dad’s going to flip a biscuit if there are boys there.”
“Dad flips a biscuit every time he thinks one of us is possibly getting near a penis. But, I mean, like, half the world is made up of penises, so it’s going to happen sooner or later. Also, as daughter number three, I don’t see how come he’s not used to the idea already.”
Ella had to admit that Lilly had a point. She also had to admit that the older she got, the more horrified she was by the things she’d seen at her mother’s parties, and she wasn’t particularly sure that she wanted sixteen-year-old happy-go-lucky Lilly exposed to anything similar.
“How big is this party?” Ella asked, heading for the kitchen entrance of the apartment. She still wasn’t used to the idea that there was a staff entrance on an apartment. It seemed weird. “Is it a ‘my parents are away, let’s burn this place down’ party? Or is it, ‘my mom’s upstairs doing blow and pretending to be a chaperone?’”
“Those are your only two options?” asked Lilly. “Those are horrible options. I think it’s a: my dad is feeling guilty for divorcing my mom so there’s a pool party and it’s being mostly catered while my dad pretends to grill.”
“That’s a slightly better option.”
“Ella, please,” begged Lilly. “You’ve got to help me. This cannot be like Germany. I was a total outcast in Germany.”
“You were thirteen,” said Ella. “Everyone is an outcast at thirteen.”
“Ellllllllla,” whined Lilly, throwing her head back, and slumping her shoulders.
“I’ll talk to your mom,” said Ella. “We will discuss it. I’m not promising anything.”
“OK, cool,” said Lilly, immediately perking up. “Do you think you could talk to Dad about it too?”
“Lilly!”
“What? You’re the only one he actually listens to. I don’t understand why you get to have boyfriends and the none of the rest of us do.”
Ella sighed. The reason she got to have boyfriends was because she was discreet and she never bothered to ask Bai if she could or not. Also, with Sabine as a mother, Bai rather obviously assumed that Ella had arrived in a de-virginized state. And Bai, while phobic about discussing matters of sex with all the female members of his family, was practical when it came to matters of barn doors and horses.
“I will think about talking to him,” Ella said, taking off her coat as they walked through the kitchen. Liu was working on hiring staff, and soon she wouldn’t be able to sneak in and out this way. “Maybe. If it comes up. Where is Uncle anyway?”
“Uh… I think he was talking to some guy in the living room? I don’t know. Are you coming to dinner with us? Or are you going to spend more time on case prep?”
“If you roll your eyes any harder, they will fall out of your head,” said Ella.
“That’s all you do since you got here,” complained Lilly as Ella paused to hang her jacket in the hall closet. The Zhao family was used to moving. Any new apartment or house could be home within a week—it was simply a matter of putting up the right decorations. But at the moment, what Ella missed was carpeting. She disliked the slick, cold feeling of the tile in all the halls.
“Well, that’s because…” Ella trailed off. Aiden. It was because of Aiden Deveraux. Golden, beautiful, horrible Aiden Deveraux. “This case is really important.”
Lilly sighed in disgust. “There are more important things than case prep,” she said. “You need to hang out with me.”
Ella laughed. “Yeah, all right. Tonight. I’ll come to dinner and then we’ll stay up late and Fortnite the shit out of some stuff.”
“You are such a dork,” said Lilly, but she looked happy. The living room door opened just as they arrived in the foyer. “There’s Dad,” whispered Lilly. “Peace out. Good luck.”
“I’m not…” began Ella, but she shook her head as Lilly was already gone.
“Ah, Ella,” said Bai, opening the living room door fully. “There you are.”
“Well, there’s the little lady who’s going to take a chunk out of the Deveraux,” said the man with him. Ella took one look and instantly disliked him. He was about Bai’s age and tall, at least taller than Bai. She thought he was not as tall as Aiden Deveraux. He was hiding a bit of paunch across the middle with a long tie and she suspected he dyed his hair. It was too uniformly dark brown. But it was the eyes that caught her attention—they seemed flat and bitter, as if he were never truly happy with anything he was looking at.
Ella smiled politely, as she did at all her uncle’s guests.
“Ella meet J.P. Granger,” said Bai.
