A Fairytale Night

MAX VASILIKOS sat down in the leather chair behind his desk, leaned back, and stretched his legs. "So, what do you bring me?" he asked his UK real estate agent. He handed her a stack of color brochures. "I think there are a few properties here that will interest you, Mr. Vasilikos," he said hopefully. Of all his clients, Max Vasilikos was one of the most demanding. Max briefly glanced at the covers of all the brochures, but his dark eyes They stopped at one in particular. It was a house in the English countryside, built of warm honey-colored limestone, with purple wisteria hanging over the porch. It was surrounded by green gardens and woodland, and a lake could be seen in the distance. Bathed in sunlight, the whole place had a special appeal that made him want to go and inspect it for himself. He held up the brochure to his agent and said decisively: –This one; I want to know more about this property. Ellen stopped at the top of the stairs. From the floor below, the high-pitched voice of her stepmother, Pauline, reached her. "This is just what I've been waiting for!" he was saying. "And I won't let that damned girl try to ruin it again." –What we have to do is hurry up and sell the house! That second voice, petulant and obfuscated, belonged to her stepsister, Chloe. Ellen pursed her lips. Unfortunately, she knew only too well what they were talking about. From the day Pauline married her widowed father, she and her daughter hadn't had the slightest qualms about spending their money lavishly to live, as they liked, in all kinds of luxuries. Now, after years of happily throwing away money, all they had left was the house, which the three of them had inherited jointly upon the death of their father from a heart attack the previous year, and their stepmother and stepsister. They were eager to sell it. The fact that it was their home and had belonged to their family for generations didn't matter in the least. Of course, their hostility toward her was nothing new. From the day they'd invaded her life, they'd treated her with utter contempt. How could she, tall and lanky, even compare to her stepsister, the slender, delicate, and charming Chloe? They were always mocking her, calling her an "elephant," because they said she walked like them. She stomped down the stairs to annoy them and drown out their voices. From what she'd heard of their conversation, it seemed her stepmother had found someone interested in acquiring Haughton. She'd been pestering her for months to get her to bend, to break her refusal to sell. She knew she'd have to take legal action against her to force her to do it, but she was sure she didn't care. However, she wasn't about to give in. Her heart had hardened last winter, when her stepmother and Chloe, still fresh in the memory of her father's death, had spent a fortune on a trip to the Caribbean. She was going to make it as difficult as possible for them to sell their beloved home, where she had been happy until the fateful day her mother lost her life in a car accident. Her death had plunged her father into such deep sadness that it had made him incredibly vulnerable, and he had fallen prey to the ambitious Pauline. As she entered the living room, the icy blue eyes of her stepmother and stepsister fixed on her in open hostility. "What took you so long?" Pauline wanted to know. "Chloe texted you an hour ago to say we needed to talk to you."