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A Girl Less Ordinary
Leah Ashton
Can a leopard really change her spots? Eleanor worked hard to transform herself into Ella – switching braces for a breath-taking smile, dowdy clothes for fabulous dresses, and heartbreak for flirty, fun-only dates. Her extraordinary transformation became her profession – and as an image consultant she’s hired to prep fiercely private billionaire Jake Donner for a series of press interviews.Jake Donner has never forgotten his childhood friend Eleanor – and he’s shocked to see how she’s changed into Ella. Once, dorky Eleanor and geeky Jake were each other’s only support… Could their once-innocent childhood love spark into a fully grown-up attraction?If you like Carole Matthews or Sarra Manning, you’ll love this.
About the Author
About Leah Ashton
An unashamed fan of all things happily-ever-after, LEAH ASHTON has been a lifelong reader of romance. Writing came a little bit later—although in hindsight she’s been dreaming up stories for as long as she can remember. Sadly, the most popular boy in school never did suddenly fall head over heels in love with her …
Now she lives in Perth, Western Australia, with her own real-life hero, two gorgeous dogs and the world’s smartest cat. By day she works in IT-land; by night she considers herself incredibly lucky to be writing the type of books she loves to read, and to have the opportunity to share her own characters’ happy-ever-afters with readers.
You can visit Leah at www.leah-ashton.com
Also by Leah Ashton
Secrets and Speed Dating*
*Published as part of the
Mills & Boon Loves … anthology
Did you know this is also available as an eBook? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk
A Girl Less Ordinary
Leah Ashton
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
PROLOGUE
Fremantle, Western Australia. Thirteen years ago
NOT EVEN AS she stood outside Jake Donner’s bedroom window, watching the flimsy and slightly askew aluminium blinds smack rhythmically against the glass in the gentle breeze, did Eleanor Cartwright—even for a moment—have second thoughts.
Which wasn’t to say she wasn’t nervous. Of course she was. Declarations of love, she imagined, were always at least slightly nerve-racking.
But tonight, nerves didn’t matter.
She had to do this.
You should tell him, honey. Love shouldn’t be kept secret.
She hadn’t paid much attention to her mum when she’d said that a couple of months ago. She thought maybe she’d even laughed?
I don’t love him, Mum, don’t be stupid. We’re just friends.
And her mum had done that annoying thing where she raised her eyebrows as if she were the all-knowing, and gently shook her head. It had made Eleanor feel about twelve, not sixteen.
Whatever, mum. He’s leaving anyway. There’s no point.
And maybe there still wasn’t.
But the pointlessness—or not—didn’t matter any more.
Since exactly twenty-nine days ago, a lot of stuff didn’t matter any more.
Eleanor took a deep breath. She could do this.
Letting Jake leave Fremantle—and her—without knowing how she felt was no longer an option.
A larger pre-dawn gust of air made Eleanor shiver, and it slipped through the opening in Jake’s window to make the blinds rattle loudly.
No sound came from his room. Which wasn’t all that surprising, given it was about three o’clock in the morning. Plus, Jake slept like a log.
She stepped closer, the dew that coated the long, unmown grass around his house damp against her legs. Jake’s bed was right below the window, so, on tiptoe, she slid it open. The window—and the house—were old, and it gave its usual shriek of protest.
‘Jake?’ she said, hoping the sound had woken him.
No such luck.
So she continued with her plan, gripping the edges of the window, and hoisting herself upwards. Then she would perch on the window sill, reach for Jake, and gently shake him awake.
This, however, was not what happened.
Instead, her momentum propelled her upwards—and inwards—not at all in the way she’d imagined. In the cacophony of the blinds, her own surprised yelp, and then Jake’s much louder shout, she found herself bounced from the bed and onto the floor, Jake’s body pressed against hers from chest, to hip, to toes. Her glasses had parted ways with her face, but even so Jake’s confusion was apparent even in the—slightly fuzzy—moonlight.
‘What the hell? Eleanor?’
She nodded, temporarily incapable of speech for two reasons: the impact of hitting the worn carpet, and the realisation that Jake was only wearing boxer shorts.
But then he was up, and away from her, the overhead light coming on a second later. She stared at the naked bulb, doing her best to breathe and think at the same time.
‘Eleanor,’ he said, ‘why are you here?’
He crossed to her, reaching out and pulling her to her feet. He met her gaze with confusion. ‘Why are you still in your uniform?’
She looked down, taking in her crumpled white shirt and knee-length tartan skirt. She’d barely registered what she was wearing. That day, the week—the past month—it had all been a blur.
‘I couldn’t sleep.’
‘So you decided to jump in my window?’
Eleanor just looked at him.
Jake sighed, and he scratched at his belly absently. That belly had changed a lot since their many trips to the beach last summer. Now it was firmer, leaner—she could see the angular jut of his hipbones just above where his boxers hung low on his body.
Following her gaze, he hooked a finger in the waistband and tugged them a little higher. But he didn’t look embarrassed.
He never did.
In contrast, Eleanor usually felt like a walking bundle of self-consciousness.
His dark hair was a mess, but he still looked really, really great.
Eleanor knew she didn’t look great. But at least she’d washed away the evening’s worth of dried tears on her cheeks. Besides, her mum had always told her that it didn’t matter what she looked like. It was what was inside that counted.
‘I wanted to talk to you,’ she said softly.
Jake’s gaze darted away. ‘About your mum?’
‘No,’ she said. And did he look—relieved?
In the almost month since her mum had forgotten to look before stepping out onto a busy Fremantle street, Eleanor had barely seen Jake.
That had been her choice—hadn’t it? For the first few days she’d left the house for nothing but the funeral—the oblivion of sleep the only relief from the indescribable pain of loss.
And then, finally, when she’d returned to school, it’d been alone. Jake’s final year exams were already over and so, for the first time in four years, she’d walked to and from school without him.
She hadn’t wanted company. Not even Jake.
But now she did. Now she needed him.
And yet he was shifting his weight from foot to foot—like an Olympic runner settling into his starting blocks, mere milliseconds from sprinting away.
No. That couldn’t be right. Jake had always been there for her.
She needed to sit, so she did, perching on the edge of his bed. Amongst the bunched-up fabric she found her glasses, and she put them on with hands that shook just slightly.
He eyed her warily.
This wasn’t at all how she’d expected this would go.
‘I wanted to talk to you before you left.’
‘I don’t fly out until Monday, Eleanor. That’s two perfectly good days you had to come knock on my door at a time I wasn’t—you know—sleeping.’
She narrowed her eyes. ‘I didn’t think you’d mind.’
But obviously, he did.
Just three weeks ago he’d held her hand at the cemetery, his pockets stuffed full of tissues for her—and now he couldn’t even look at her?
Jake crossed his arms. Not exactly the body language of someone open to a declaration of love.
Not that it was going to stop her. She’d come this far. Jake acting strange didn’t make a difference.
She understood strange, anyway. She could barely remember what it felt to feel normal—to feel like herself. All she had was little pinpricks of the normal and familiar amongst a near blackout of grief.
And this thing with Jake—well, she wasn’t stupid. She’d seen the way he looked at her sometimes. She wasn’t imagining it. Something had changed. She was sure of it.
Maybe she just needed a different plan of attack.
She shot across the room before her nerves got hold of her. Jake’s eyes widened as she came closer, but he didn’t move.
A ruler length away from him, she stopped, and had to tilt her head upwards to meet his eyes.
She considered reaching out to touch him. The popular girls at school made it look so easy—they’d absently hook an arm over their boyfriend-of-the-moment’s shoulder at lunchtime, or wrap themselves around him at the bus stop.
But she wasn’t one of those girls. And she didn’t know what to do.
Frustration made her talk quickly. ‘I love you.’
It ended up being more a mumble, but that Jake heard every word was obvious in the way his body jerked away from her.
Not the reaction she was after. The churning in her stomach stopped dead.
‘No, you don’t,’ he said. As if that were a fact.
‘Yes,’ she said, more clearly this time. ‘I do.’
He shook his head. ‘You’re just confused because …’
‘Of my mum? No. I knew before. It was her idea I tell you.’
Now he walked away, just a few paces. He turned his back to her, resting his hands on a desk covered in keyboards and hard drives and floppy disks—and a lot of stuff Eleanor couldn’t possibly name.
At the back of her mind, she had the feeling she should be crying. But instead, she felt oddly still. Calm.
She needed to walk away, straight across to the fence that separated their houses, then through the three-paling-wide gap they’d used to cross back and forth for years. Back to her room. Tomorrow morning she could come back here, pretend she hadn’t meant it, and things could go back to normal.
But Jake was about to leave. Things were never going to be normal again.
‘I think,’ she said, her heart pounding, ‘that you might love me, too.’
This made him spin around, and suddenly he was right in front of her. Crowding her.
‘You need to go, Eleanor. Your dad will be worried.’
No, he wouldn’t. Her dad wouldn’t notice if she stripped naked and ran laps down at Port Beach.
Jake was so close.
She liked the width of his shoulders, and his chest, too. Some of the pretty girls had noticed, but Jake hadn’t been interested. And she’d been glad—really glad—when he’d shut them down. Actually, he’d laid his geek act on pretty thick—thick enough that, if anything, his weirdo label had been even more firmly reapplied, which was of course exactly what he’d wanted.
The guy standing right in front of her now, in his bedroom, with his shirt off, was definitely not a weirdo in her book.
He was her best friend. The guy who made her laugh, and helped her with maths—which she hated—and that she helped with his English—which he hated. They were a team.
