Secrets of Cinderella’s Awakening by Sharon Kendrick
CHAPTER TWELVE
ITWASANIGHTMARE.
It couldn’t be happening.
But it was. It was happening right now and right here.
Marnie’s first clue that something was wrong was an early-morning phone check to discover dozens of missed calls from numbers she didn’t recognise, including several from Pansy, who never called at this time in the morning.
Sitting bolt upright in bed, she raked her hair out of her eyes and stared down at the screen, but even in the midst of such unusual telephone activity her thoughts were flitting elsewhere and there was no mystery about who was dominating them.
Leon.
She puffed out a sigh of sheer pleasure. He had taken his jet to Paris at some unearthly hour and she must have fallen asleep after he’d gone, but not before he’d kissed her with a hard stamp of possession which had made her toes curl. Her finger hovering above the call button, she couldn’t prevent a smile of satisfaction from creeping over her lips.
They’d only arrived back from Greece late last night, leaving his father’s house straight after the wedding—thank goodness—and then taking a yacht down to Leon’s new property in Thessaloniki. And she had loved it. Just loved it. Its spectacular position on the edge of the sea was the only thing the house had in common with Leon’s forbidding childhood home. With light-filled and airy rooms, it had been the antithesis of the cold mansion they’d just left.
In the warm October sunshine, they had picnicked on the beach and swum in the sea. Marnie had sailed for the first time in her life and surprised herself by enjoying it, although Leon was an excellent and very patient teacher. They’d even had a midnight skinny dip in his enormous infinity pool, with a giant moon reflected silver in the rippling waters. And they’d been having sex. Non-stop sex, actually.
Marnie leaned back against the pillows and stared dreamily at the ceiling. At times, she’d thought Leon had been almost...
Loving?
No. Surely that was nothing but wishful thinking. But he had definitely been behaving differently towards her. For a start, he had practically ravished her on the dance floor at the wedding—something she hadn’t been expecting. And it hadn’t stopped there. It was difficult to put it into words, exactly, but his behaviour had made her decide that maybe she didn’t need to walk away from the relationship quite yet. As long as she kept her emotions in check—and surely she’d had enough practice to be able to do that?—and they continued to be discreet now they were back in England, there was no reason why this blissful state of affairs shouldn’t continue for a little while longer.
She stared at her phone but before she’d a chance to hit the call button an icon of a pouting Pansy began flashing on the screen and Marnie answered immediately.
‘Morning,’ she said cheerfully.
‘Have you seen the online edition of the Daily View?’ demanded her twin, without bothering to return her greeting.
‘You know I never read the tabloids.’
‘Well, maybe you should. In fact, I would study that one with particular care. And then you’d better call me back. And just to let you know—one of the stylists from Hair Heaven has put a link to the piece on social media and it’s already had hundreds of “likes”.’ There was a short, tense pause. ‘Oh, Marnie, what have you got yourself into? I knew getting yourself mixed up with Leon Kanonidou was only ever going to end in tears. Have you told him?’
‘Told him what?’
‘About Mum.’
There was a pause as a trickle of fear started sliding down Marnie’s spine. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘No, I’ve never told him.’
‘Why not? When are you going to get it into your thick head that it’s not your fault, Marnie?’
‘He doesn’t need to know,’ she answered, her voice hollow.
Pansy gave a laugh which sounded bitter. ‘Well, good luck with that. I think he’s about to find out—if he doesn’t know already.’
Now in a state of terror, Pansy cut the call and went straight into the sitting room to find her laptop. Plonking herself down on the sofa, she scrolled to the free, online version of the Daily View newspaper, which apparently had one of the biggest circulations on the planet.
It didn’t take long to find it—not when it was splashed all over the top of the page. Marnie’s stomach twisted into a writhe of knots as she stared at it. Because there, in glorious Technicolor, was a photo of her dancing with Leon at his father’s wedding. Only dancing didn’t seem a very accurate way of describing what the camera had captured. They were all over each other. As if their bodies had been joined together with superglue. There were accompanying comments from some of the other guests saying how close they’d been, along with snatched photos which had obviously been taken on people’s phones.
It was bad, but the headline made it even worse.
Upstaging his father’s wedding!
Marnie’s heart contracted as she read the piece.
When Greek shipping magnate Stavros Kanonidou (eighty-five) tied the knot with his latest young bride this weekend, his billionaire son, Leonidas (thirty-three), made sure all eyes were focussed on him. It seems heart-throb Leon has exited the marriage market at last, judging by his tactile display on the dance floor with nubile blonde English hairdresser Marnie Porter.
Just who is Marnie Porter and how has she managed to land herself one of the world’s most eligible bachelors?
Phone this number if you know. (We pay for any information used.)
Marnie felt faint. Dizzy. A wave of pain and regret made her glad she was sitting down because she honestly didn’t think her trembling knees could have supported her. When her phone began to buzz, she looked down to see another unknown number flashing on the screen. A journalist? She didn’t know and she didn’t care. She turned it to silent just as Leon’s chef tiptoed in to deposit a cup of steaming black coffee in front of her, but when she mimed eating—presumably asking if she wanted breakfast—Marnie shook her head because the thought of food made her want to heave.
But as well as the pain, the irony of the situation didn’t miss her. It seemed that just as she’d got used to this rarefied life with its servants and planes and luxury yachts it was about to be taken away from her. She didn’t care about the trappings, the only thing she cared about was the man and she needed to speak to Leon. She badly needed to tell him before anyone else did.
He didn’t answer. Not the first time she tried, nor even the fifth. After an hour had gone by, she sent him a text.
Please ring. It’s urgent.
But Leon didn’t ring, or text, and after she’d sent the chef away for the rest of the day Marnie began to pace around the huge apartment like a caged animal, staring out of the vast windows without really noticing the park’s blazing autumnal display. It was past noon when she realised she hadn’t even taken a shower and she was just emerging from the bathroom, wrapped in a towel, when she heard the sound of a key being turned in the lock.
She froze. And wasn’t it funny the things which crossed your mind at moments of high tension? So that instead of wondering just how she was going to tell him, she found herself wondering whether or not she should call his name and let him know where she was.
But it seemed there was no need, because she could hear Leon striding down the corridor and when he walked into the bedroom, loosening his tie, she couldn’t seem to read anything from the tight, closed look on his face. His icy gaze scanned over her and she thought about how he’d made amazing love to her that very morning and somehow she couldn’t imagine that ever happening again.
‘Get dressed and then come to my office,’ he ordered succinctly. ‘I’ll be waiting.’
Here came another stupid dilemma—deciding what to wear. And although there were plenty of exquisite clothes in the wardrobe which Leon had bought for her, Marnie couldn’t bring herself to put any of them on. The clock had struck midnight. It was time to return to her familiar rags. Wriggling into a pair of tracksuit bottoms, she swathed her bosom in a roomy top, unable to miss the faintly contemptuous curve of his lips as she walked into his office, where he was sitting perched on the edge of his desk.
‘Sit down,’ he said, gesturing towards the brown leather sofa on which they’d once spent a very passionate couple of hours one rainy Sunday afternoon.
‘I’ll stand if you don’t mind,’ she declined stiffly. As a doyenne of the formal reprimand, she was conscious that he might be employing a touch of psychological warfare here. Did he want her passively seated—and was he intending to make it seem as if he were interviewing her, as if she were his subordinate?
And aren’t you?
Aren’tyou?
Had she ever imagined for more than a second that she was really his equal?
There was silence for a moment while he studied a paperweight containing an iridescent shell, before lifting his gaze to hers—and it seemed she had forgotten how beautiful his eyes were and how sometimes his gaze could wash over you, as brilliant and as blue as the ocean itself.
‘So, where do we begin, Marnie?’ he questioned heavily.
‘That’s up to you,’ she answered, in a low voice. ‘How much do you know? Have you been told that my mother was a prostitute?’
‘Yes.’
She nodded. Had one of the journalists prised out that particular nugget and presented it to him, or had someone in his office been tasked with uncovering her past? It didn’t matter. She had often wondered how it would feel to talk about this to someone, to open the door on a room which had been kept closed and locked for so long. And although she knew that what she was about to say was going to bring to an end this part of her life with Leon, wasn’t there another part of her which felt a funny sense of relief to be able to unload the dark and heavy burden, after so many years of carrying it around?
‘Do you want to hear why?’
‘Not really.’
It hurt to think he didn’t care enough to want to find out more—but wasn’t that just another layer of hurt to add to all the others which were building up inside her?
‘Well, I’m going to tell you anyway,’ she said, suddenly fierce—and Marnie realised that maybe she was defending the indefensible. But really, she was defending her mum.
‘She came from the north of England,’ she said slowly. ‘They said she’d had a tough childhood. A father who drank and who liked to beat her mother. He beat my mum, too, and I think...’ For a moment her voice faded away as she recalled the other things she’d heard. Things buried too deep ever to be resurrected. Dark things hinted at by social workers, too tired and overworked to know how to deal with two angry and confused little girls.
‘Anyway, she ran away to London and got in with a bad crowd. It’s as simple as that, really. There was no safety net—and if there was she had no idea how to access it. Nobody to look out for her. She got pregnant by one of her clients.’ Her mouth was working like crazy now, but years of practice meant she was able to keep the prick of tears at bay. ‘I guess I should be grateful that she kept us.’
She lifted her chin, aware that her voice was trembling, waiting for him to prompt her—and when he didn’t, she continued of her own accord.
‘I told you I didn’t remember anything about my early years, but, of course, I did.’
‘Yes,’ he breathed. ‘I imagine you did.’
‘I remember we used to have to stay very quiet whenever she had clients round. I remember the sounds they used to make.’ She pulled a face. ‘That was probably what put me off sex for so long. We used to sit upstairs in our bedroom and I would whisper little games for Pansy to play to keep her amused. We always kept the door locked, of course. And it wasn’t all bad. If...’ Her voice wavered again. ‘If mum had had a particularly good night, then she used to go to the corner shop next day and buy us a cake, for tea. Ch-cherry was our favourite.’
‘Go on,’ he said grimly.
Marnie nodded, but the bitter lump which had risen in her throat was suddenly making it very difficult for her to breathe. ‘Then she got pneumonia. It was all very quick. One minute we were being taken into care while mum went into hospital and the next we were told she’d died.’ She shrugged. ‘And it was as if she had never existed.’
‘You didn’t go to the funeral?’ he said, as though this mattered, as though he were remembering the secrecy surrounding his own mother’s illness.
‘No. Things were different then. As you know yourself. Apparently they thought we would get over the whole experience more quickly if we moved on. So we did. We were sent to a children’s home and from there we were farmed out to various foster families, but nobody wanted to adopt us.’
‘Why not?’
She shrugged. ‘We were too damaged, I guess. Too suspicious and too close and too much of a handful. They tried to split us up but I made sure that was never going to happen.’
Marnie’s knees felt wobbly and she would have loved to have taken Leon up on his offer and to have sunk into that squishy sofa, but that would mean she was looking up at him and would definitely put him at an advantage. And he certainly didn’t need any more advantages. Besides, how would she be able to leave quickly and with dignity if she had to haul herself up? ‘It’s okay, Leon. You don’t have to worry about how to tell me. It’s over. I know that. Who wants a girlfriend with a past like mine?’
He stood up then and she could see the shadows which were flitting like dark clouds across his face, making him look like a Leon she didn’t recognise. His blue eyes were boring into her with a coldness she’d never seen directed at her before.
‘It’s not okay,’ he negated harshly. ‘It might have been if you’d told me all this right from the start.’
‘Really? And how would that have worked?’ She gave a bitter laugh. ‘Should I have thrown it into the conversation on our first date? Maybe confided it when I came to see you at your office, or murmured it as pillow talk a little further down the line? At what stage of our relationship should I have told you the truth, Leon?’
‘But surely that’s the whole damned point!’ he ground out. ‘That you didn’t tell me the truth. That you feigned ignorance and pretended. That in essence you lied to me, Marnie. And I can bear a lot of things, but not lies.’
Leon tugged off his tie and flung it to the ground as if it were choking him. And in a way, it was. Because her words had taken him hurtling right back to his own childhood. To the mother who had always appeared startled whenever he caught her taking tablets, explaining them away by saying she had a headache. A mother who told him she much preferred the shiny new wig to her own wispy hair—though he’d never really understood until afterwards why all those gloriously thick black locks had fallen out so suddenly. Not one honest answer had she given to any of his questions and he’d felt sidelined. As if he didn’t count enough to be told the truth. As if he didn’t matter. And that feeling had stayed with him, lying dormant inside him—always ready to rise to the surface if someone was deliberately dishonest.
‘You didn’t tell me the truth, Marnie,’ he repeated quietly. ‘And I’m afraid that’s a deal-breaker for me.’
He saw all the colour leach from her face and thought the clipped finality of his final statement would be enough to send her running from the room, saving them face and saving them both from any more soul-bearing or heartache. And didn’t he want that? Wouldn’t that have made it—not easy—but easier for them both? But she didn’t go. She just stood her ground like an immovable force. Dignified and proud, despite the sloppy clothes and her diminutive height, as she tilted a mulish face at him.
‘And being used is a deal-breaker for me!’ she hissed back.
Mutual mud-slinging was the last thing he wanted to engage in right now but he couldn’t let her furious accusation pass. ‘Being used?’ he verified icily. ‘And just how did I do that?’
‘You used me to upstage your father on his wedding day!’
‘You believe all that rubbish you read on the website?’
‘Yes! Because that’s what happened! I was there, remember? You must have realised that everyone was watching you, because they’d been watching you from the moment we arrived. What better way to pay your father back than by stealing all his thunder? By showcasing your own youth and vitality in contrast with a man in his declining years?’ She drew in a deep breath and he could see a tiny pulse hammering away at her temple, close to the moonlight sheen of her hair. ‘You told me you were angry with him. Angry that he’d duped you into attending a wedding you secretly disapproved of, but you did it because you were hoping for some kind of closure and reconciliation, which he failed to provide. You don’t want or need his fortune, but the fact that he’s doling it out to other people must have hurt you more than you care to admit, because that’s human nature.’
Her words faded away but Leon shook his head. ‘You can’t possibly stop now, Marnie,’ he said grimly. ‘Not when this is just starting to get interesting.’
She stared at him and he could see the hurt in her eyes, but was able to steel his heart against it because the slow pulse of anger in his blood was dominating everything.
‘You didn’t stop to think how all this might impact on me, did you, Leon?’ she questioned quietly. ‘I mean, you were never demonstrative with me before, were you? You never so much as held my hand or kissed me in public and I was okay with that because I sensed that was the sort of man you were. Yet suddenly, you’re all over me. I couldn’t believe the way you were acting on the dance floor.’
He gave a short laugh. ‘Neither could I.’
‘So why do it?’
It was a question he wished she hadn’t asked. A question he was under no obligation to answer. But he was aware that he couldn’t chastise her for refusing to tell the truth and then do the same thing himself. ‘Because I was going to suggest taking our relationship to the next level,’ he said, his words deliberately flat, as if that would take the emotional sting out of them. ‘I thought I was in love with you.’
Surely that was the key in getting her to leave. The deliberate use of the past tense, indicating he felt that way no longer. Surely she would be too proud to want him to witness the tears which were currently filling her beautiful grey eyes. But no. It seemed he had underestimated her tenacity, for she drew her shoulders back as if she were squaring up to him in a boxing ring.
‘Ah, so now I understand,’ she said. ‘You didn’t want to fall in love, did you? Not with me and not with anyone. You told me that right from the start. But emotions are messy things, aren’t they, Leon? Sometimes they creep up on you when you’re least expecting them. So I imagine finding out about my hidden past must have come as a huge relief to you. It gave you all the ammunition you needed to shoot our relationship down in flames. You could classify my behaviour as an abuse of trust when the reality is that it presented you with a handy get-out clause from having to commit.’
She sucked in a shuddering breath. ‘And you want to know something, Leon?’ she continued. ‘I understand. In a way, I almost expected it. I mean, who would ever want to get involved with a woman like me? I know I’m not good enough. Don’t you think I’ve always known that? But please don’t make out that I’m the only one of us who resorted to subterfuge when it suited them!’
‘Marnie—’
‘No!’ She dabbed a furious fist against each wet eye before fixing him with a glare. ‘You make a big deal about me keeping parts of my life secret, but didn’t you do exactly the same when we first met? Pretending to be some boho biker, rather than a billionaire tycoon?’
‘You know why I did that,’ he growled.
‘I know what you told me. That you didn’t want people muscling in on you and knowing how rich you are and that’s why you keep a beaten-up old car in every place where you have a home. You had your reasons, Leon, just like I had mine. Do you really think yours are somehow more valid because you’re so powerful?’
‘You’re twisting this, Marnie.’
‘No. I’m telling you how I feel, but it’s done now. Don’t worry. I get it. It’s over. It should never really have begun. And I’m out of here.’
She moved towards the door and instantly he slid from the desk. ‘Where are you going?’
‘That’s none of your business.’
‘It is my business if you’re being hounded by journalists because of your association with me.’
‘But I live in Acton and nobody knows that.’ She gave a laugh which was edged with hysteria. ‘Because I am a nobody!’
‘Don’t be so naïve, Marnie,’ he snapped. ‘Finding out where you live will be a piece of cake and if you try to use public transport you’ll be a target. My driver will take you anywhere you need to go. If you like, I can send someone from my security team to keep their eye on you. And I’ll leave a credit card on the side. Use it for whatever you need.’
She shook her head in disbelief. ‘Have you even listened to a word I’ve been saying?’ she demanded. ‘Do you think that’s the answer to everything—that you can just buy your way out of things, when the going gets tough? I don’t want your damned money, Leon, and I don’t want your damned driver—or your security team!’
And Leon was left with nothing but the sound of loud slamming as she stormed her way out of his office.
