Invitation to the Boss’s Ball
Fiona Harper
Table of Contents
Dear Reader
I’ve always loved fairytales. I used to act them out with my grandma and my younger sister when I was a child. Granny was always the wicked witch or the woodcutter. My poor younger sister was only ever allowed to be a dwarf or an ugly relation of some sort. As older sibling, I claimed the right to be the heroine, the princess. (Sorry, sis!) Cinderella was one of my favourites. Rags to riches, living the dream, falling in love with a handsome prince—what’s not to like?
And that’s why we like reading romance, isn’t it? We like to identify with the heroines and fall in love with tall, dark and handsome strangers. We want to walk in the heroine’s shoes for a few hours and live the fantasy.
Alice, in INVITATION TO THE BOSS’S BALL, has the most fabulous pair of shoes. I would literally love to strut around in them for a while. What a pity she doesn’t believe she’s princessy enough to wear them—that is until she meets the yummy Cameron! In fact, I wouldn’t mind stealing him for a few hours myself too…
This book is my modern-day take on the classic Cinderella story. It has a downtrodden heroine, a suitably remote and regal prince, and it even has versions of the ugly sisters and the fairy godmother—who actually waves a wand at one point. See if you can spot it!
Love and hugs
Fiona Harper
As a child, Fiona Harper was constantly teased for either having her nose in a book or living in a dream world. Things haven’t changed much since then, but at least in writing she’s found a use for her runaway imagination. After studying dance at university, Fiona worked as a dancer, teacher and choreographer, before trading in that career for video-editing and production. When she became a mother she cut back on her working hours to spend time with her children, and when her littlest one started pre-school she found a few spare moments to rediscover an old but not forgotten love—writing.
Fiona lives in London, but her other favourite places to be are the Highlands of Scotland, and the Kent countryside on a summer’s afternoon. She loves cooking good food, and anything cinnamon-flavoured. Of course she still can’t keep away from a good book, or a good movie—especially romances—but only if she’s stocked up with tissues. Because she knows she will need them by the end, be it happy or sad. Her favourite things in the world are her wonderful husband, who has learned to decipher her incoherent ramblings, and her two daughters.
For my grandmother, Alice Johnson, who always encouraged me to daydream, and helped make some of my early ones became reality.
CHAPTER ONE
THE old oyster-coloured satin had the most wonderful texture—smooth, but not slippery like modern imitations, stiff and reassuringly heavy. Anyone who saw the cocktail dress would just itch to touch it—and that was what Alice did, letting her fingertips explore it fully, lingering on the crease of the sash as it folded into a bow just under the bustline. This wasn’t just a dress. It was a piece of history—a work of art.
She placed it carefully on a padded floral hanger, then hooked the hanger on a rickety clothing rail at the side of the market stall. The next item she took out of the crate was totally different but just as fabulous: a black seventies maxi skirt—a good label—with velvet pile deep and soft enough to get lost in and just not care.
‘We’re never going to get the stall set up if you don’t get a move on.’
She looked up at her best friend and soon-to-be business partner Coreen.
Today Coreen looked as if she’d stepped right out of the pages of a nineteen-fifties ad for washing machines or toasters. She wore a red and white polka-dot dress with a full skirt, her dark hair was coiled into a quiff at the front, and a bouncy ponytail swished at the back as she carefully arranged gloves, little beaded evening bags and shoes on the velvet-draped trestle table that made up the main part of Coreen’s Closet—vintage clothing stall par excellence.
In comparison, Alice looked positively ordinary. Like many of the other market traders, she’d gone for warmth and comfort over style. Her legs, as always, were covered in denim, and an old, battered pair of trainers graced her feet. Coreen had already made fun of the oversized bottle-green fleece she’d stolen from one of her older brothers. Okay, so she wasn’t the epitome of style, but she didn’t stand out either. She was ordinary. Completely average. No point trying to kid anyone any different.
‘Hey, Gingernut!’
Alice sighed and looked up to find the man that everyone at Greenwich market knew only as ‘Dodgy Dave’ grinning at her.
‘Cheer up, love. It might never happen!’ he said in his usual jolly manner.
Too late. It already had. Exactly six weeks and two days ago. Not that she was going to tell Dodgy Dave all about her broken heart.
‘I wasn’t…I was just…’
She waved a hand. Ugh—who cared? It was easier to play along than to explain. She beamed back at Dave, and he gave her a thumbs up sign and carried on wheeling his stash of ‘antiques’ to his stall.
Okay, there was one thing about her that wasn’t ordinary—her hair. And though that sounded as if it was a good thing, it really wasn’t. Some people were kind and called it red. The