A Cinderella for the Greek

  Fairy tale for just one night?

  Cruelly mistreated by her stepfamily, Ellen Mountford retreated to the shadows of her father’s home, feeling unworthy and unloved. But when powerful tycoon Max Vasilikos wants to buy the glorious English country estate, Ellen can hide no longer…

  Under the scrutiny of the Greek’s arrogant stare, Ellen fights the urge to retreat further and stands up to him, yet Max is relentless. He tempts her out to a glamorous charity gala, where Ellen is transformed from dowdy recluse to belle of the ball. Now there is a new glint in Max’s eye that is even more devastating…seduction!

  ‘Take a look, Ellen,’ Max instructed softly.

  Ellen looked.

  And made no response.

  She could have made no response even if someone had held a gun to her head, or shouted ‘Fire!’ She could only do what she was doing—which was staring. Staring, frozen, at the couple reflected in the mirror. At the tall, superbly elegant and dashing figure of Max Vasilikos...

  And the tall, superbly elegant and stunning female at his side.

  Dark ruby-red gown in lush moiré silk, wasp-waisted, flaring over her hips to flow in a waterfall of colour the full length of her legs and out into a sweeping train, its body-hugging bodice boned and darted to lift her breasts and reveal a full, generous décolletage, before fanning out over each shoulder in a splay of feathers. Curling tendrils played around her face—a face whose eyes were huge, thickly lashed and fathoms deep, whose cheeks were sculpted as if from marble, whose mouth was as lush and richly hued as damsons...

  Emotion swept through Ellen. She couldn’t give a name to it—didn’t need to. She needed only to feel it rush through her, like a tide, like a river sweeping her upstream, unstoppable, irreversible, pushing everything that had been inside her head simply...out.

  Because how could everything she’d thought about herself...everything that had been ground into her painful, mortified consciousness with sneering jibes and contemptuous looks...how could any of that stay now?

  He turned her back to her reflection. ‘That is who you are, Ellen Mountford—you are beautiful.’

  JULIA JAMES lives in England and adores the peaceful verdant countryside and the wild shores of Cornwall. She also loves the Mediterranean—so rich in myth and history, with its sunbaked landscapes and olive groves, ancient ruins and azure seas. ‘The perfect setting for romance!’ she says. ‘Rivaled only by the lush tropical heat of the Caribbean—palms swaying by a silver sand beach lapped by turquoise waters...what more could lovers want?’

  Books by Julia James

  Mills & Boon Modern Romance

  A Tycoon to Be Reckoned With

  Captivated by the Greek

  The Forbidden Touch of Sanguardo

  Securing the Greek’s Legacy

  Painted the Other Woman

  The Dark Side of Desire

  From Dirt to Diamonds

  Forbidden or For Bedding?

  Penniless and Purchased

  The Greek’s Million-Dollar Baby Bargain

  Greek Tycoon, Waitress Wife

  The Italian’s Rags-to-Riches Wife

  Bedded, or Wedded?

  Visit the Author Profile page at millsandboon.co.uk for more titles.

  A Cinderella for the Greek

  Julia James

  www.millsandboon.co.uk

  To my younger self.

  Contents

  Cover

  Back Cover Text

  Introduction

  About the Author

  Title Page

  Dedication

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  EPILOGUE

  Extract

  Copyright

  CHAPTER ONE

  MAX VASILIKOS LOWERED his tall frame into the leather chair by the desk and relaxed back into it, his long legs stretching out in front of him.

  ‘OK, what have you got for me?’

  His UK agent handed him a set of glossy brochures. ‘I think there are some good contenders here, Mr Vasilikos,’ he said hopefully to this most demanding of clients.

  Max’s dark eyes glanced briefly, and then he found his gaze lingering on only one of the properties.

  An English country house, in warm honey-coloured stone, with wisteria tumbling over the porch, surrounded by verdant gardens and sheltering woodland, with a glimpse of a lake beyond the lawn. Bathed in sunshine, the whole place had an appeal that held his gaze, making him want to see the real thing.

  He picked up the brochure and shifted his gaze to his agent.

  ‘This one,’ he said decisively.

  * * *

  Ellen paused in the hallway. She could hear her stepmother’s sharp voice coming from the drawing room.

  ‘This is exactly what I’ve been hoping for! And I will not have that wretched girl trying to spoil it—again!’

  ‘We’ve just got to hurry up and sell this place!’

  The second voice came from Ellen’s stepsister, Chloe, petulant and displeased.

  Ellen’s mouth tightened. She was all too aware of the source of their displeasure. When Pauline had married Ellen’s widowed father she and her daughter, Chloe, had had only one aim—to spend his money on the luxury lifestyle they craved for themselves. Now all that was left, after years of their lavish spending, was the house they had jointly inherited with Ellen after her father’s sudden death last year from a heart attack—and they couldn’t wait to sell it. That it was Ellen’s home, and had been in her family for generations, bothered them not in the slightest.

  Their hostility towards her was nothing new. From the moment they’d invaded her life Pauline and her daughter had treated Ellen with complete contempt. How could Ellen—tall and ungainly, clumping around ‘like an elephant’, as they always described her—possibly compare with slender, petite and oh-so-pretty Chloe?

  She clumped down the rest of the stairs deliberately now, to drown out their voices. It sounded, she thought grimly, as if her stepmother had hopes of a potential purchaser for Haughton. Despite knowing she would need to resort to legal action against her stepdaughter in order to force a sale through, Pauline obdurately kept the house on the market, and relentlessly went on at Ellen to try to wear down her resistance and force her to agree to sell up.

  But Ellen’s heart had steeled in that first winter without her father, when her stepmother and Chloe had been disporting themselves expensively in the Caribbean. She would make it as difficult as she could for Pauline to sell her beloved home—the home Ellen had been happy in until the terrible day her mother had been killed in a car crash, sending her father spiralling into a grieving tailspin of loneliness that had made him so dangerously vulnerable to entrapment by Pauline’s avaricious ambitions.

  As Ellen walked into the drawing room two pairs of ice-blue eyes went to her, their joint expressions openly hostile.

  ‘What kept you?’ Pauline demanded immediately. ‘Chloe texted you an hour ago saying that we needed to talk to you.’

  ‘I was taking lacrosse practice,’ Ellen returned, keeping her tone even. She sat down heavily on an armchair.

  ‘You’ve got mud on your face,’ Chloe informed her sneeringly.

  Her gaze was not just hostile, but contemptuous. Ellen could see why. Her stepsister was wearing one of her countless designer outfits—a pair of immaculately cut trousers with a cashmere knit top—her nails were newly manicured and varnished, her freshly
cut and styled ash-blonde hair and make-up perfect.

  A familiar silent sigh went through Ellen. Chloe was everything she was not! Petite, with a heart-shaped face, and so, so slim! The contrast with her own appearance—she was still wearing the coaching tracksuit from the nearby private girls’ school where she taught Games and Geography, with her thick, unmanageable hair gripped back in a bushy ponytail and her face devoid of any make-up except the streak of mud on her cheek that Chloe had so kindly pointed out!—was total.

  ‘The estate agents phoned this afternoon,’ Pauline opened, her gimlet eyes on Ellen. ‘There’s been another expression of interest—’

  ‘And we don’t want you ruining things!’ broke in Chloe waspishly, throwing a dagger look at her stepsister. ‘Especially with this guy,’ she continued.

  There was a note in her voice that caught Ellen’s attention. So, too, did the discernibly smug expression in Pauline’s eyes.

  ‘Max Vasilikos is looking for a new addition to his portfolio—he thinks Haughton might be it.’ Pauline elucidated.

  Ellen looked blank, and Chloe made a derisive noise. ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, don’t expect her to know who Max Vasilikos is,’ she said. ‘Max Vasilikos,’ she spelt out to Ellen, ‘is a stinking rich property tycoon. He’s also just had an affair with Tyla Brentley—you must have heard of her, at least?’

  Ellen had, as a matter of fact. She was an English actress who’d found fame in Hollywood in a hugely successful romantic blockbuster, and the pupils at her school were full of her. But as for this Max Vasilikos... Apart from surmising that with a name like that he must be of Greek origin—well, ‘stinking rich’ property tycoons were nothing to do with her.

  And they would be nothing to do with Haughton either, please God! A cold shiver went down her spine. Someone like this Max Vasilikos would sell it on for a huge profit to a Russian oligarch or a Middle Eastern sheikh who would spend a week or two in it, at best, every year or so. And it would languish, unloved and unlived-in...

  Pauline was speaking again. ‘Max Vasilikos is sufficiently interested to come and view the property himself. As a courtesy I have invited him to lunch with us.’

  That smug expression was in her eyes again. Ellen just looked at her. ‘Does he understand the ownership structure of Haughton and that I am unwilling to sell my share?’ she asked bluntly.

  Pauline waved a hand to brush aside this unpalatable detail. ‘What I understand, Ellen,’ she said bitingly, ‘is that if—if—he expresses an interest, we will be very, very fortunate. I do not,’ she emphasised, ‘want you rocking the boat. Moreover—’ she glared at her stepdaughter ‘—if nothing I can say will make you see sense about selling up, perhaps Max Vasilikos can.’

  There was an explosive, choking half-laugh from Chloe. ‘Oh, Mummy, don’t,’ she jeered. ‘You simply can’t inflict her on him!’

  Ellen felt the jibe, flinching inwardly and yet knowing it for nothing but the truth. No man—let alone one who dated film stars—could look at her with anything but complete indifference to her appearance. She had nothing to attract a man in her looks. Knew it...accepted it. At least, though, she wasn’t cruel like her stepsister.

  Pauline had turned to Chloe. ‘Nevertheless, that’s just what we are going to have to do,’ she continued. ‘Ellen has to be there.’ Her gaze went back to her stepdaughter. ‘We’ll present a united front.’

  Ellen stared. United? A more fractured family was hard to imagine. But, although it would be gruelling to endure, it would at least, she realised grimly, give her the opportunity to make it clear to this Max Vasilikos just how unwilling she was to sell her share of her home.

  With reluctant acquiescence she got to her feet. She needed a shower, and she was hungry, too. She headed for the kitchen. It was the part of the house she liked best now—the former servants’ quarters, and the perfect place for keeping out of Pauline and Chloe’s way. Cooking was not a priority for either woman.

  She’d moved her bedroom to one of the back rooms as well, overlooking the courtyard at the rear of the house, and adapted an adjacent room for her own sitting room. She ventured into the front part of the house as little as possible—but now, as she headed back across the hall to the green baize door that led to the servants’ quarters, she felt her heart squeeze as she gazed around her at the sweeping staircase, the huge stone fireplace, the massive oak doorway, the dark wood panelling and the ancient flagstones beneath her feet.

  How she loved this house. Loved it with a strong, deep devotion. She would never willingly relinquish it. Never!

  * * *

  Max Vasilikos slowed the powerful car as the road curved between high hedges. He was deep in Hampshire countryside bright with early spring sunshine, and almost at his destination. He was eager to arrive—keen to see for himself whether the place that had so immediately appealed to him in the estate agency’s photos would live up to his hopes. And not just from an investment perspective. The encircling woods and gardens, the mellow stonework, the pleasing proportions and styling of the house all seemed—homely. That was the word that formed in his mind.

  In fact... It’s a house I could see myself in—

  The thought was in his head before he could stop it, and that in itself was cause for surprise. He’d always been perfectly happy to live a globetrotting life, staying in hotels or serviced apartments, ready to board a plane at any moment.

  But then, he’d never known a home of his own. His eyes shadowed. His mother had always been ashamed of his illegitimacy, and that was why, Max thought bleakly, she’d married his stepfather—to try and disguise her child’s fatherless status.

  But the very last thing his stepfather had wanted was to accept his wife’s bastard into his family. All he’d wanted was a wife to be a skivvy, an unpaid drudge to work in his restaurant in a little tourist town on a resort island in the Aegean. Max had spent his childhood and teenage years helping her, keeping the taverna going while his stepfather played host to his customers, snapping his fingers at Max to wait at tables while his mother cooked endlessly.

  The day his mother had died—of exhaustion as much as the lung disease that had claimed her—Max had walked out, never to return. He’d taken the ferry to Athens, his eyes burning not just with grief for his mother’s death, but with a fierce, angry determination to make his own way in the world. And make it a glittering way. Nothing would stop him. He would overcome all obstacles, with determination driving him ever onwards.

  Five years of slog in the construction industry and finally he’d saved enough from his wages to make his first property purchase—a derelict farmhouse that, with the sweat of his brow, he’d restored and sold to a German second-home-owner, making enough profit to buy two more properties. And so it had begun. The Vasilikos property empire had snowballed into the global enterprise it now was. His tightened mouth twisted into a caustic smile of ruthless satisfaction. It even included his stepfather’s taverna—picked up for a song when his stepfather’s idleness had bankrupted him.

  Max’s expression changed abruptly as his sat-nav indicated that he’d arrived at his destination. Manoeuvring between two large, imposing stone gate pillars, he headed slowly along a lengthy drive flanked by woodland and massed rhododendrons that in turn gave way to a gravelled carriage sweep alongside the frontage of the house. He slowed down, taking in the vista in front of him, feeling satisfaction shaping inside him.

  The photos hadn’t deceived—everything they’d promised was here. The house was nestled into its landscaped grounds, the mellow stonework a warm honey colour, and sunshine glanced off the mullioned windows. The stone porch with its gnarled oak door was flanked by twisted wisteria, bare at this time of year, but with the promise of the show to come. Already in bloom, however, were ranks of golden daffodils, marching thickly along the herbaceous borders on either side of the porch.

  Max’s sense of satisfaction deepened. It looked good—more than good. Not too large, not too grand, but elegant and gracious, and
steeped in the long centuries of its existence. An English country house, yes, built for landowners and gentry, but also inviting, its scale domestic and pleasing. More than a grand house—a home.

  Could it become my home? Could I see myself living here?

  He frowned slightly. Why was he thinking such things?

  Have I reached the age where I’m starting to think of settling down? Is that it?

  Settling down? That was something he’d never thought of with any woman—certainly not with Tyla. She was like him: rootless, working all over the world.

  Maybe that’s why we suited each other—we had that in common.

  Well, even if that had been true enough at the time, it hadn’t been sufficient to stop him ending things with her. Her absorption in her own beauty and desirability had become tiresome in the end—and now she was busy beguiling her latest leading man, a Hollywood A-lister. Max wished her well with it.

  So maybe I need a new relationship? Maybe I’m in search of novelty? Something different—?

  He gave himself a mental shake. He wasn’t here to ponder his private life. He was here to make a simple business decision—whether to buy this property or not for his extensive portfolio.

  Engaging gear again, he crunched forward over the gravel, taking the car around to the back of the house. He drew to a halt and got out of the car, again liking what he saw. The rear façade, built as servants’ quarters, might not have the elegance of the front section of the house, but the open cobbled courtyard was attractive, bordered by outhouses on two sides and prettied up with tubs of flowers, and a wooden bench positioned in the sunshine by the kitchen door.

  His approval rating of the house went up yet another notch. He strolled towards the door, to ask if it was okay to leave his car there, but just as he was about to knock it was yanked open, and someone hefting a large wooden basket and a bulging plastic bin bag cannoned straight into him.

  A Greek expletive escaped him and he stepped back, taking in whoever had barged so heavily into him. She was female, he could see, and though she might be categorised as ‘young’ she had little else that he could see to recommend her to his sex. She was big, bulky, with a mop of dark bushy hair yanked back off her face into some kind of ponytail. She wore a pair of round glasses on her nose and her complexion was reddening unbecomingly. The dark purple tracksuit she wore was hideous, and she looked distinctly overweight, Max decided.

 
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