‘Classy, stylish, sexy clothes. Good value. A label with cachet. You don’t need a focus group to tell you that,’ he said.
‘No, but they were surprised to discover that concerns were raised about sweatshop labour. And then someone said wouldn’t it be great if they used an ordinary girl, someone like them, rather than a celebrity to be the face of the store.’
‘What they meant was one of them.’
‘Undoubtedly,’ she said. ‘But it gave the PR firm their hook. Their media campaign. All they needed was an ordinary girl.’
‘So how did they find you, Miss Ordinary?’ he asked.
‘They advertised for a junior clerical assistant.’
‘Interesting approach,’ he said dryly. ‘You ticked all the boxes?’
‘Good grief, no. I wasn’t thin enough, tall enough, pretty enough or even smart enough.’
It was all there in the file. Painful reading.
‘I thought they wanted ordinary.’
‘Ordinary in quotes,’ she said, using her fingers to make little quote marks.
‘You must have had something.’
‘Thanks for that,’ she said, waving towards the road, where the cars were moving slowly past in the slushy conditions.
‘Who are you waving to?’
‘My ego and yours, hand in hand, hitching a ride out of here,’ she said, her breath smoking away in the cold air. Her mouth tilting up in a grin. Because, honestly, standing here with Nathaniel, it did all seem very petty. Very small stuff. Except, of course, it wasn’t that simple.
‘Actually, I happen to think you’re pretty special,’ he said, capturing her hand, wrapping it in his. ‘But we both know that you’re not classic model material.’
‘You’re right. I know it, you know it, the world knows it. But I had three things going for me.’ They’d handily itemised them on a memo. ‘First, I had a story. Abandoned as a baby-’
‘Abandoned?’
‘The classic baby in a cardboard box story, me.’
He made no comment. Well, what could anyone say?
‘I had a dozen foster homes,’ she continued, ‘a fractured education that left me unqualified to do anything other than take care of other people’s children. Not that I was qualified for that, but it was something I’d been doing since I was a kid myself.’
‘You truly were Cinderella,’ he said, getting it.
‘I truly was,’ she confirmed.
The hot dog was gone and she reached for her coffee. Took a sip. It was hot.
‘Second?’ he prompted.
‘I had ambition. I worked in a day-care nursery from eight-thirty until six, then evenings as a waitress to put myself through night school to get a diploma in business studies.’
‘Cinderella, but not one sitting around waiting for her fairy godmother to come along with her magic wand.’
He was quick.
‘Cinderella doing it for herself,’ she confirmed. ‘Not that it did me much good. I didn’t get a single interview until I applied for the Henshawe job.’
‘It’s tough out there.’
‘Tell me about it. I really, really needed that job and when they asked me why I wanted to work for the company I didn’t hold back. I let them have it with both barrels. The whole determination to make something of my life speech. Oscar-winning stuff, Nathaniel. They actually applauded.’
‘They were from the PR company, I take it?’
‘How did you guess?’
‘HR managers tend to be a little less impressionable. You said you had three things.’
‘My third lucky break was that some woman on the team was bright enough to realise that I was exactly the kind of woman who would be walking in off the street, desperate for something to make her look fabulous. Let’s face it, if the gold-standard was a size-zero, six-foot supermodel, the reflection in the dressing room mirror was always going to be a disappointment.’
‘But if they compared themselves with you… Who is this PR company? I could use that kind of out of the box thinking.’
‘Oh, I don’t deny they’re good.’
‘Sorry. Your story. So, having applauded your audition, they told you what the part would be?’
‘No.’
‘No?’
‘You’re missing the point. I was going to be a genuine “ordinary” girl who had been picked from among his staff. I had to believe in the story before I could sell it.’
‘Did I say they were good?’
‘Oh, there’s more. Someone added a note on the bottom of their report to the effect that this was going to be a real fairy tale. And then they started thinking so far out of the box they were on another planet.’
His hand tightened on hers. ‘It was all a set-up? Not just the job, the discovery…’
‘I had a phone call the day after my interview, offering me the job. I started the following week and I have to tell you that it was the most boring week of my life. I was climbing the walls by Friday afternoon, wondering how long I could stand it. Then I was sent up to the top floor with a pile of files, got knocked off my feet by a speeding executive and there was Rupert Henshawe, perfectly placed to pick me up, sit me in his office, give me coffee from his personal coffee-maker while his chauffeur was summoned to take me home. And, while we waited, he asked me about my job, whether I liked working for the company. I’d heard he was as hard as nails. Terrifying if you made a mistake. But he was so kind. Utterly…’ she shrugged ‘…charming.’
‘I’d heard he was a smooth operator.’
‘I had flowers and a note on Saturday. Lunch in the country on Sunday. Picture in the tabloids on Monday.’
CHAPTER NINE
‘ARE you telling me that you didn’t have a clue?’
‘Not until today,’ she admitted. ‘Dumb or what?’
‘Don’t be so hard on yourself. You saw what he wanted you to see.’
‘What I wanted to believe. Until today. I was late and, since I didn’t have time to go home and pick up my copy of the wedding file, I decided to borrow the one in Rupert’s office. That’s when I stumbled across the one labelled “The Cinderella Project”.’
She still remembered the little prickle at the base of her neck when she’d seen it.
‘But the romance, the engagement?’
She understood what he was asking. ‘There is no sex in fairy tales, Nathaniel. My Prince Charming okayed the plan, but only with the proviso…’ written in his own hand ‘…that he didn’t have to “sleep with the girl”.’ More of those quote marks.
‘So he’s gay?’
She blinked. ‘Why would you say that?’
He shook his head. ‘Just thinking out loud.’
She stared at him for a moment. Was he saying what she thought he was saying? That the only reason a man wouldn’t want to sleep with her was because…?
‘No…’
He responded with a lift of those expressive eyebrows. ‘You’d have thought someone so good at the details would have made a little more effort. That’s all I’m saying.’
