‘Ellie—’
She stalked off into her room and slammed the door very noisily, but when she came out again sometime later it was to find him still sitting there—the pile of newspapers almost completely read.
‘I thought you were going into the office this morning,’ she said.
‘Not any more,’ he said. ‘I’m taking you shopping.’
‘I don’t want you to...’ Her voice faltered, because when his blue eyes softened like that, he was making her feel stuff she didn’t want to feel.
‘Don’t want me to what?’
She didn’t want him standing on the other side of a curtain while she tried to cram her awkward-looking body into suitable clothes. She didn’t want to see the disbelieving faces of the sales assistants as they wondered what someone like him was doing with someone like her. Shopping for clothes was a nightmare experience at the best of times, but throwing the arrogant Alek into the mix would make it a million times worse. ‘Hang around outside the changing room,’ she said.
‘Why not?’
She shrugged. Why not tell him the truth? ‘I’m self-conscious about my body.’
He poured himself a cup of coffee. ‘Why?’
‘Because I am, that’s why.’ She glared at him. ‘Most women are—especially when they’re pregnant.’
His gaze slid over her navel, his expression suggesting he wasn’t used to looking at a woman in a way which wasn’t sexual. ‘I should have thought that my own reaction to your body would have been enough to reassure you that I find it very attractive indeed.’
‘That isn’t the point,’ she said, unwilling to point out that lately he hadn’t shown the slightest interest in her body, because wouldn’t that make her seem vulnerable? ‘I’m not willing to do a Cinderella transformation scene with you as an audience.’
He opened his mouth and then, shutting it again, he sighed. ‘Okay. So what if I act as your chauffeur for the day? I’ll drive you to a department store and park up somewhere and wait. And you can text me when you’re done. How does that sound?’
It sounded so reasonable that Ellie couldn’t come up with a single objection and soon she was seated beside him in the car as he negotiated the morning traffic. She was slightly terrified when he dropped her off outside the store, but she’d read enough magazines to know that she was perfectly entitled to request the services of a personal shopper. And it didn’t seem to matter that she was wearing jeans and a T-shirt or that her untrimmed fringe was flopping into her eyes like a sheepdog—because the elegant woman assigned to her made no judgements. She delicately enquired what Ellie’s upper price limit was. And although Ellie’s instinct was to go for the cheapest option, she knew Alek wouldn’t thank her for shopping on a budget. He’d once drawlingly told her that it was the dream of every woman to get her hands on his credit card, so why disappoint him? Why not try to become the woman that he and his fancy friends would obviously expect her to be?
She quickly discovered how easy shopping was when you had money. You could buy the best. You could complement your outfits with soft leather shoes and pick up a delicate twist of a silk scarf which echoed the detail in a fabric. And expensive clothes really could transform, she decided. The luscious fabrics seemed to flatter her shape, rather than highlight her defects.
The shopper persuaded her into the dresses she usually rejected on the grounds that jeans were more practical, and Ellie found she liked the swish of the delicate fabrics brushing against her skin. She bought all the basic clothes she needed and then picked out a silvery-white wedding gown which did amazing things for her eyes as well as her figure. On impulse, the personal shopper draped a scarlet pashmina around her shoulders—a stole so fine it was almost transparent, and it was that addition which brought glowing life to her skin. Ellie stared at herself in the long mirror.
‘It’s perfect,’ she said slowly.
By the time she emerged from the store wearing some of her purchases, she felt like a new woman.
She saw Alek’s face change as she approached the car, accompanied by two doormen who were weighed down with armfuls of packages. His arm brushed over her back with proprietary courtesy as he held open the car door for her and she stiffened, because just that brief touch felt as if he’d branded her with the heat of his flesh. Was that why he stiffened, too? Why his eyes narrowed and a nerve began to work at his temple? She thought he might be about to touch her again—and wasn’t she longing for him to do just that?—but some car had begun sounding its horn and the noise seemed to snap him out of his uncharacteristic hesitation.