A Reluctant Cinderella Page 2

  ‘Exactly.’

  One night they were told, calmly and compassionately, by the kind-hearted woman they had grown to love, that Samantha’s dreams of being a family again one day were over.

  ‘Liver failure,’ she said, her gentle arms reaching out instinctively for the little girl who’d just lost her mummy.

  She tensed in the embrace. She wasn’t that little any more. She was old enough to know this meant their mother had drunk herself to death.

  So that’s it then.

  She should probably be howling or something, but felt far from tears. The arms round her felt odd, not comforting, just cold. The only word that presented itself in her head was, pathetic. That wasn’t right. It was disrespectful.

  She must be a terrible person.

  A quick glance at Liam. His face was cold and hard as stone.

  After it got dark they shared two enormous plastic bottles of cider amongst the trees at the bottom of the park across the street. The irony of getting drunk that night was lost on both of them.

  She was fourteen.

  ‘Am I supposed to care?’ asked Liam repeatedly. ‘Cos I don’t. I don’t give a fuck. She didn’t, did she?’ He tugged at his thick, dark hair, the exact same colour as her own.

  She twisted the cheap earring in her left ear and didn’t reply. She could see the pain behind his teenage swagger, could sense that like her he was confused by a crushing feeling of desertion that made very little sense.

  ‘Take care of each other.’ That was how Mum always said goodbye.

  And Samantha had tried, she really had tried. But perhaps not hard enough.

  3

  Thirty million pounds.

  The haze of dawn was creeping in at the edges of the thick damask curtains and she lay in bed smiling. Not because she had slept well – she had not slept at all. Not because the aftershocks of her last orgasm were still making her twitch between her legs. Not because the Egyptian cotton she lay upon was so crisp and cool, or the duck-down duvet was so soft, or this Westminster penthouse was so in-your-face-so-there flash. She smiled because the deal she had closed a few hours before made her happy.

  Thirty.

  Three zero.

  Jackson Ramsay, her boss and mentor, would make her partner at Legends now for sure. It was the second-biggest deal in the history of his company. He had to. The only deal bigger had of course been one that Jackson had made for his star player Salvatore Salva. She had wanted to match it, and nearly succeeded. She smiled again at the thought. That would have made Jackson mad; the Salva deal was his crowning achievement.

  Thirty million for the clients …

  It was early. She had plenty of time to review some paperwork in her home office before she saw Liam.

  So that’s six million in commission …

  She always took Thursday mornings off to hang out with him. Luckily she was far too valuable to the company for this personal arrangement to be an issue. Besides, she worked more than enough hours late and at the weekend to make up the time.

  And a million for me.

  In a few months, when they handed out the bonuses, she would be a millionaire.

  Gently, oh so gently, she eased herself out of the kingsize bed.

  But he heard her.

  ‘Darling?’ He pulled her back down and into the curve of his body. ‘Don’t go,’ he said.

  She paused.

  His warm flesh against hers made her want to stay. The feel of the coarse hairs on his chest brushing the soft, smooth skin of her back tickled her to a state of drowsy acceptance, his hand lightly stroking her shoulder blade. It would be so easy to fold herself into him and sleep. ‘Shh,’ she said, swinging her feet onto the floor more quickly, determined to get away.

  ‘Must we go through this every time,’ he said wearily. Awake now, and sounding angry. ‘I’d like, just once in a while, to wake up with you by my side.’

  ‘Jackson, please, you know why.’

  She avoided his accusing steel eyes. Even out of the boardroom her boss was still intimidating. His broad chest and shoulders never failed to make her feel feminine and oh-so-slightly helpless. Of course she wouldn’t admit this in a thousand years.

  ‘Because you like waking up alone? Sweetness, I’ve seen you without your make-up and I’m not that scared.’ He grinned and she was impelled to lean forward and lick the cleft in his chin, but she resisted.

  ‘Don’t be sarcastic,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t suit you.’

  She stepped into her knickers and wriggled into her pencil skirt, ignoring his groan of desire when she bent forward to put on her bra.

  ‘This is unfair,’ he said. ‘You’re a cocktease, you know that?’

  ‘I’m not sure you can say that after what we just did.’

  ‘So come back to bed and we can do it again.’

  She searched the room for her other shoe, knocking over his precious cricket bat, which made him even grumpier than he was before, and when she found her shoe she was ready. She sat down on the bed to kiss him goodbye, wanting to part on good terms and not have another one of the rows that blighted this otherwise perfect relationship.

  Great sex. No ties.

  She worked so hard she deserved to succeed, and she knew what would be said if people found out that she was sleeping with the boss. She would stop being a force to reckon with and become a sleazy joke. They would say that she’d shagged her way to the top, that it wasn’t her brilliant mind, but another piece of her anatomy altogether that had taken her so far.

  ‘I still don’t see what difference it makes,’ he said. ‘Sleeping over, not sleeping over. It doesn’t change a thing. Sam, it doesn’t change how I feel about you.’

  Don’t say it.

  ‘I love you, I adore you,’ he said. ‘Now I’m asking you nicely: please will you stop being a bitch and come back to bed.’

  ‘No,’ she said. And then she left.

  She had arrived in a cab, but it was shortly after 5 a.m. now and there were none to be seen on the streets in this part of town. It was too early for politicians and the like to be getting to work, and too far off the track for the last of the late-night clubbers. She belted her trench coat tightly against the dawn chill and started to walk towards the tube. She left Jackson’s penthouse in the small hours at least twice a week, often more, and so she knew well the time of the first Jubilee-line train.

  Logically he was right. What difference would it make to snatch a few hours’ sleep together? It shouldn’t mean anything. But to Samantha it meant the world. She had to be more than the boss’s girl, especially at Legends where being any kind of girl was bad enough. She was so determined that their secret should remain so that she didn’t even like to be alone with him in the office for more than five minutes in case someone talked. Jackson said that if they avoided each other so blatantly then that would be even more cause for gossip, but she didn’t care. So far, impossible though it seemed, their affair was private, even after four years. And if leaving at dawn helped her to keep her feelings where they belonged, behind the line she drew between her personal life and her professional life, then she would leave at dawn.

  Many times she had tried to end things between them.

  And failed.

  She smiled, thinking about him. Every month that passed she found herself becoming closer to him; he was able to pull her in, so that what was once easy was getting more and more complicated.

  Jackson Ramsay understood her. He knew how low she had been one time long ago. He had watched as she pulled herself up with gritty determination, devouring opportunity and never wasting a morsel. They both found naked ambition sexy; they both craved the next deal like an addiction. When they were together the chemistry was explosive.

  She couldn’t leave him. But she had never told him so.

  A power nap and then a few hours’ work at home and she was back on the tube again. The underground system swept her beneath eminent London streets in a flash, the white noise slowing h
er thoughts of work and Jackson and millions and partnership like a meditation.

  She waited impatiently for every Thursday to come round, and yet when it did she felt depressed. She forced herself to focus on how much fun it was going to be to tell Liam all about the thirty million.

  The tube was dejected and deafening and kept the city and any beauty to be found there obstinately concealed from view. The people in the same carriage that noticed Samantha wondered why she was smiling. Some of them even created a story for her in their heads. None of them would have been close to the truth.

  This time the train emerged somewhere past Hammersmith, thrusting her once more into the wintry daylight, where the rooftops were dusted with snow, the gutters clogged with grey slush.

  She walked the rest of the way. A kind of gloom settled over her as she neared, as it always settled when she was on her way to see Liam. It was a miserable part of town. Yet every Thursday, unless she was many miles from home, she made this journey, because he was family.

  And this is what family do.

  Even if it made her downhearted. He was her brother and she loved him.

  No matter what.

  A huddle of people still stood outside a set of enormous iron gates, smoking furiously, silently, ignoring each other even though they were all here for the same reason. They were all here on a Thursday morning because someone they knew had landed themselves an extended spell in Her Majesty’s Prison.

  They were criminals. Just like Liam.

  ‘Hey, Sharpie. Your sister coming today?’

  He loved and hated visiting hours with equal measure.

  ‘I think she is, yeah,’ he replied. There weren’t any international football matches or European ties. So she should be.

  There were no surprises in prison, only disappointments. Liam Sharp’s visits list only had one name. Sammy. His kid sister. The only person in the world that mattered to him.

  In the beginning a few friends made the effort to visit Liam in prison, but fourteen years is a long time and of course they fell away. Now there was only Sammy keeping him sane.

  He kept a close eye on the football fixtures to try to predict whether or not she’d show. But really all he could do was wait with the rest of them, try to hide his nerves and hope that his name was called. Inevitably, she failed to arrive from time to time, and he panicked for the rest of the week, worried that he had been forgotten, that she had finally tired of her brother, the convict. Until the next week when she was there, smiling even though he could tell she felt shit. They both did. It wasn’t the way they had planned it.

  ‘Tell her I said hiya.’

  Liam nodded, like he would do that, but of course he wouldn’t. Maybe he saw more of this bloke than some wives see of their husbands, but his sister wouldn’t be able to pick him out of a line-up. Which, given Moz’s propensity for re-offending, was probably a good thing.

  ‘Will do, Moz,’ he said.

  They loved his sister, the guys in here. He boasted about her, far too much probably, but it was like currency: a sister close to the teams that many of them idolized.

  It helped that she was gorgeous, the guys liked that about her too, but he tried not to dwell on this.

  Moz, Chalkie, Bazza, Sparks, Sharpie. Nobody used the name their mothers had given them on the inside. It made it easier to pretend you were someone else, that this wasn’t happening, not to me, no way. Nicknames didn’t imply friendship. These men were not his friends. On release none of them would ever see each other again.

  They called out his name. She was here. And again he had those mixed feelings, which made his head ache like a migraine. She was here, but she shouldn’t be.

  The visiting room reminded him of a classroom. Metal and plastic, everybody on their best behaviour, fearful of being sent from the room if they played up. Liam had been sent out of plenty of classrooms in his time.

  His beautiful, sophisticated sister walked across the cheap linoleum floor and dragged the plastic chair out to face him across the chipped wooden table. A sense of deep shame washed over him. He would always be dragging her down, reminding her of a life she might have been able to forget were it not for him.

  ‘You came,’ he said.

  ‘Course I did.’

  ‘I wasn’t sure.’

  ‘Highlight of my week,’ she said.

  He looked well, she thought. Pale as usual, as thin as a greyhound, but well. It was always a relief to see him. A few months ago she had found him sporting a black eye, which he was unable to explain.

  ‘I wasn’t sure,’ he repeated, wondering why he couldn’t just say that he was happy to see her. He stood up to hug her briefly, his chair scraping loudly across the burn-scarred floor.

  She hugged him back, hoping that he couldn’t sense her discomfort. Even after all these years she still felt awkward in this room. Today she thought she noticed more stares than usual.

  ‘They saw you in the newspapers this morning,’ said Liam, by way of explanation. ‘My sister, the celeb.’

  ‘I wasn’t in the newspapers.’

  He blushed. ‘Yeah, you know, maybe not you, but your deal. Those brothers you sold to Chelsea. I might have told a few people. Word gets around.’

  ‘I thought you hated Chelsea?’ she said, and was disproportionately delighted at how quick he was to smile. Liam’s smile was one of the small joys of her life.

  She knew he thought she hated it here, but he was wrong. As uncomfortable as it was, she looked forward to seeing him and was unhappy when unbreakable work commitments kept her from him. Seeing him reminded her of the life that she had left behind, of the effort she had made to drag herself to where she was now. Without these Thursday mornings, without Liam to keep her real, she might allow herself to be carried away on the glittering London scene. She might lose herself for ever and never return.

  She talked to him about the deal, all the little titbits they never put in the newspapers. She told him about her promotion, that she was thinking of getting a new car. She talked of inconsequential things, light aimless chatter that was supposed to distract him for an hour, and he was grateful.

  Their time nearly up, he grabbed her hand. ‘I have some news,’ he said.

  Her face lit up.

  ‘It’s not good,’ he added quickly. ‘My parole hearing has been delayed again.’ His lips curled in on an uncomfortable smile that was more of a grimace.

  ‘That’s not fair,’ she said.

  Her eyes brimmed with tears and she fought to keep them in check. For years now it had seemed that Liam might be on the brink of release, but after one denial his parole hearing had been subject to an endless string of convoluted postponements. ‘Please let me get you a better lawyer, just to look into it. If he thinks there’s something to be done, where’s the harm?’

  ‘The last guy you found for me was useless,’ he said.

  She bowed her head. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘No,’ said Liam, ‘don’t be. I wasn’t trying to make you feel bad, I was just joking.’

  ‘Funny,’ she said dryly.

  ‘If you can find someone willing to look into it, that’d be great – more than great. Though why anyone would want to bother …’

  It’s called money, Liam, and lots of it. Lawyers like money.

  ‘I’ll find someone,’ she said. ‘Leave it with me.’ She usually felt so powerless to help him it was a comfort to have a situation she could throw some cash at.

  ‘How’s your boyfriend?’

  Liam was the only person she’d ever told about Jackson.

  ‘He’s fine,’ she said.

  ‘Wedding bells?’

  ‘You know it’s not like that.’

  Liam winced. ‘You’re my little sister. I like to think of him as marriage material, okay?’

  ‘Whatever,’ she said. ‘But he’s fine.’

  ‘Tell him I said hello.’

  She said she would, but of course she wouldn’t. At some point she might have to
explain to Liam why Jackson knew nothing about him, or explain to Jackson that she had a secret.

  Their time was up. Both siblings felt the usual peculiar combination of regret and relief. They could only dream of one day in the not too distant future when they could be together without time limits, without guards, without the awful sense of shame that filled every inch of this cold room.

  ‘Take care,’ he said.

  ‘You too.’

  ‘They say you’ll be a millionaire.’

  She shrugged. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Lend us a tenner?’

  She laughed, glad to end the visit on a high, glad his sense of humour had not deserted him today as it sometimes did.

  ‘Love you,’ she said.

  ‘What’s not to love?’ He winked and waved and then he was gone.

  The Legends office throbbed with activity. She liked it; she craved it if she was away for too long. Her idea of hell would be a day under the duvet with a good book or a week on the beach. Time not working was time wasted. There was always another deal to be done, another career to launch or trade.

  There was always more money to make.

  She was alone in the lift but just as the door was about to close a hand reached in, the doors sprang open again and in came Jackson.

  The doors closed on them alone. Immediately he grabbed the nape of her neck and pulled her to him for a hungry kiss. She shoved him away, ignoring the darts of pleasure that fired when he touched her.

  ‘Relax,’ he said. ‘We have eleven floors.’

  She pretended to be angry but she knew he wasn’t fooled. They stood like polite acquaintances and she ignored the smile that played across his face.

  ‘How was it?’ he asked.

  ‘Not bad,’ she said.

  Like everyone else at Legends, Jackson assumed that Samantha missed Thursday mornings because she was in therapy.

  A brother? No. Samantha Sharp didn’t have any family. That’s what she said at the beginning and that’s the way it stayed. She didn’t see it as a lie so much as an omission. It was private, nobody’s business but hers.

  Was she ashamed of him?

  Perhaps.