Ella and the Billionaire's Ball
A Once Upon a Billionaire Romance
Catelyn Meadows
BOOKS BY CATELYN MEADOWS
ONCE UPON A BILLIONAIRE SERIES
Goldie and the Billionaire Bear
Ella and the Billionaire’s Ball
Alice and the Billionaire’s Wonderland
Rosabel and the Billionaire Beast
Hazel and Her Billionaire Tower
Aaliyah and the Billionaire’s Lamp
MAGIC VALLEY ROMANCE
Billionaires and Big Deals
CLEAN CHRISTMAS ROMANCE
All I Want for Christmas
Copyright © 2019 Cortney Pearson
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, printing, recording, or otherwise—without the prior permission of the author, except for use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, incidents, or events are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Beta Read by Scarlett West
Copy Edited/Proofread by Sara Olds with Salt & Sage Books
Proofread by Lisa Lee
Cover Design & Interior Formatting by Qamber Designs and Media
Author Photo by Clayton Photo + Design
www.catelynmeadows.blogspot.com
CHAPTER ONE
Ella Embers wasn’t sure how anyone had ever survived without earbuds. She’d thought it over a hundred times as she emptied garbage cans she hadn’t filled, vacuumed bits of popcorn and paper she hadn’t spilled, or cleaned bathrooms she’d never used. She’d never make it through such menial tasks without music or a decent podcast.
Cleaning had to be done before Ever After Sweet Shoppe’s business hours blinked awake, before consultants and marketing gurus, accountants, and who knew who else worked here decided to trudge more dirt on the carpet for her to take care of the next day.
Not seen. Not heard. Just clean. That was the company’s motto, coined by Stina, Ella’s ever-diligent stepmother who also happened to own the company hired by Ever After to keep its corporate offices clean. The motto didn’t always apply, not when many times she and the others on the crew had varying schedules and some ended up staying until closer to lunch time to finish their tasks.
Usually, Ella didn’t mind that she was nothing more than a glorified maid. She got paid better than a maid—that was a perk. Money and earbuds made this otherwise tedious occupation tolerable.
Ella sang in time to Blue Christmas as Michael Bublé crooned straight into her ears. She didn’t care about being overheard, not at such an early hour and not in Hawk Danielson’s office. He wasn’t likely to be there before noon. Plenty of time for her to clean what she needed to and duck out.
Situated on the top level of his billion-dollar, corporate office building, Mr. Danielson’s suite was more like a hotel suite than a stuffy workplace. Her entire apartment could fit into the main area, where she was pretty sure no one needed that much space to sit and stare at a computer screen.
Another room adjoined, complete with a futon and a closet stuffed with clothes in case Mr. Danielson decided he loved work so much he didn’t want to go home. And the bathroom could accommodate enough cots to provide living quarters for an entire family.
Still, she was the only one up here, and she belted out Bublé in her jazziest impersonation as she dipped her mop into the sudsy water, then pulled the handle on the yellow bucket’s squeegee, and wrung the extra water from the mop’s stringy head. Just as Ella was ready to swab the already sparklingly clean bathroom tile, her earbud was unceremoniously plucked from her ear.
Ella spun, losing her grip on the mop handle. The wood smacked against the mirror, and she jerked a look of panic toward the glass. That was all she needed, to break the billionaire’s mirror.
The appearance of Pris, her stepsister, had all the effect of a dozen Red Bulls on her concentration.
“Clumsy, aren’t we?” Pris said, tossing the loose earbud in Ella’s direction. It hit her cheek.
Ella removed the other earbud in exasperation. “Did you need something?”
Pris folded her arms over her matching gray jumpsuit with her mother’s company logo on the breast pocket. Malus Custodial Management. She’d swept her dark hair into a ponytail. “Mom sent me to tell you to hurry up. She wants everyone to finish early today.”
“She does? Why?”
Pris rolled her eyes. “I’ve already delivered the message. I guess you’ll find out with the rest of us—assuming you don’t break anything in the meantime.”
Pris skewered a glare at the mop bucket as though it had caused her some personal offense before adding, “And keep it down, would you? You’re as bad as Charlotte. I heard you all the way in shipping.”
Charlotte, Pris’s “other” (real) sister, tended to crow her own rendition of whatever song had just played on the radio whenever she felt like it. Maybe that was when Ella had started wearing earbuds…
Somehow, Pris managed to swagger even in her baggy jumpsuit and sneakers, as though she wore elegant heels and a businessy pencil skirt and top instead as she sashayed from the room.
“Glad we had that little chat,” Ella said in her stepsister’s wake.
They’d never gotten along from the time Pris’s mom had married Ella’s dad, but the whole mess with Derek—a friend Ella had been seeing two years before—had really put Ella on Pris’s hit list. No matter what her stepsister thought, Ella hadn’t done anything to encourage Derek’s attention. And she’d broken it off with him for Pris. What more did she want?
Ella finished mopping the luxurious bathroom, set the mop in the bucket, and braced the handle to roll the entire contraption from tile to carpet. She took care in double-checking areas, ensuring no rags or spare garbage bags had been left behind before heading toward the set of light switches by the door.
A patch of dust on the shelf caught her eye. Ella moved the picture frame aside, swiped the dust with the cloth dangling from her pocket, and allowed herself a few fleeting
