Page 53 of The Cinderella Secret
He’d dropped off his boxes of files earlier in the morning, but he returned to find it fully furnished with notes from Dominique and Jackson. And the conference room was now home to a massive antique table from his grandmother. He loved his stupid family. If nothing else, it was nice to not have to sit on the floor.
Not that he was getting much work done. He was mostly just staring at the damn Berdahl-Copeland report from 2006 and trying not to think about Ella.
2006. A Berdahl-Copeland report. From 2006.
He stood up. Knocking over the chair with a loud crash. Fucking 2006.
Forty-five minutes of pacing his office later, he found himself in front of the palatial apartment the Zhao’s were renting. He raised his hand and knocked with a nervous feeling that he was entering the jaws of the enemy to do a very stupid thing.
A butler answered and, just like butlers everywhere, did not look surprised at either the late hour or Aiden’s request to see Ella. After a few minutes of waiting, the butler returned and gestured that Aiden should follow him.
The apartment was decorated in Chinese antiques and the occasional piece of colonial Victoriana. The butler opened the door to a smaller living room area and Aiden stepped in. Ella was by the window wearing some sort of green robe covered in a pattern of gold dragons, and her hair fell in a long black wave down her back. The wide collar of the robe exposed her neck and delicate collarbones.
“Holy shit, you’re a princess,” he blurted out. “I mean. Um. You look like a…”
She looked down at herself. “I look like what you think a princess should look like?”
“Yes, um, sorry. My sister had a book about a Chinese girl with a talking fish…”
She looked amused. “The story of Yen-Shen. Yes.” She hesitated for a moment and then her mouth twisted into a smile. “It is the Chinese version of Cinderella.”
“I don’t remember,” he said, feeling awkward. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”
She took a few steps toward him, stopping at a side table with a jade sculpture on it. “Why are you here, Aiden?” she asked, one finger tracking the spine of the jade tiger. Her voice was soft, but her expression was hard to read.
“I… We need to talk,” he said, trying to get a handle on the situation. “There’s a—”
He stopped talking as an old woman came in and began to drag a chair across the floor to a nook area where a TV had been placed. Ella and the old woman exchanged some words in Chinese and Ella looked perplexed.
“Should she be moving that on her own?” he asked. The woman looked like she was about a hundred and ten.
“Moving it? That is a matter of some debate,” she said.
He looked from Ella to the old woman. Finally, unable to take it anymore, he went over and lifted the chair. “Over here?” he asked gesturing with the chair, and the old woman nodded. He set the chair down near the TV and she patted his cheek with a pleased smile and then handed him a candy from her pocket.
“I got a candy,” he said, returning to Ella. Which was a stupid thing to say, but he thought it might make her laugh.
“Yes, you did,” she agreed, her expression still puzzled.
With a shrug, he popped the small round ball of hard candy into his mouth. The feeling of sugar gave him a little more confidence.
“I do need to talk to you though. Can we go someplace?”
“No,” she said, looking up at him.
He stared at her, uncertain of where to go next conversationally.
“Grandmother is not here for the TV,” Ella said. “She’s here for you. We are being chaperoned.”
He found the ball of candy suddenly very sticky in his mouth.
“But, you did get a nice piece of cricket candy,” she added.
“Cricket?” he repeated.
“Yes. She has them sent from China.”
“It doesn’t taste like cricket.”
