The Cinderella Reflex Read Online Free PDF

and she doesn’t know what to do with herself. She says the surgery makes her feel better about herself but I think it’s a distraction because she’s dreading the time when David and Anna leave home and she will be left facing an empty nest.”
    Like that was going to happen any time soon, Helene thought crossly. And Louisa could have her career, if she wanted one so badly. See how she felt about it after a week in charge of Ollie Andrews.
    Helene would quite like to be able to pick and choose whether she worked or not. She’d like to ramble along to a quiet gym at eleven in the morning instead of having to squeeze into the overcrowded, sweaty after-work classes. She’d like to indulge in leisurely lunches that didn’t involve endless brainstorming for ideas and … and … Helene searched her mind for what else she would like to do as a lady of leisure. She would go to art galleries or those lunchtime plays she was always seeing being advertised – something like that, anyway.
    But when was that ever going to happen? Normally she ignored this small voice inside her. But today it was more persistent, grabbing at the sides of her mind, forcing her to pay attention to her own intuition. And the fact was that she had begun to have a distinctly bad feeling where Richard was concerned. For one thing, he had started to hint recently about the possibility of being taken to the cleaners if he left Louisa. If he left Louisa!
    Now he fucking tells me! she’d thought in a rage when he’d come out with that one night at her apartment after an evening “working late” together. Now, when the crow’s feet are crawling all over my face, and I’m worn to a thread between work and sweating it out at the gym three times a week, trying to keep my figure. And do I have the money for new boobs, if I needed them? No!
    But Helene had forced all those feelings to the back of her mind, and lay down and invited Richard to inspect her new Brazilian wax. Afterwards she’d convinced herself they were back on track again. Richard was feeling edgy, that was all. But sooner or later, he was going to leave Louisa for her.
    He had better, Helene thought now, a feeling of fury sweeping over her suddenly. She banged her coffee cup down on the saucer with such force it should have broken. She stared at the overturned cup, vaguely alarmed at both the force of her feelings and the way the coffee splattered all over everything: the table, her handbag, her shoes, the flagstones on the floor. It was the thought that somehow, after everything, she might actually have to continue to make her living in this job for the next two and a half decades that made her want to break something. Or else curl up and cry with exhaustion.
    “Are you okay?”
    Helene looked up to see the café owner hovering over her, concern in his eyes. She came back to the present with some difficulty. What had he said his name was again? Matt … yes, that was it.
    “I’m fine …” Helene’s hands fluttered vaguely in the direction of the china cup she’d just overturned.
    “Your coffee – you’ve spilt most of it.” Matt wiped a cloth over the table, mopping up the liquid. “Here, let me get you a refill.” He reached over to take the cup.
    “No. No more coffee. I have to be going anyway,” Helene protested, but Matt had crossed the room and was back in no time with a fresh cappuccino and a pile of white napkins for her to dry off her bag and shoes. Helene was surprised to see her hand was shaking slightly as she shoved her notebook and biro back into her bag. “Thanks,” she said and meant it. She felt slightly guilty now for snubbing him earlier. She looked around the café. “It looks as if you have a lot of work to do here still?”
    “I have … but it will be worth it.” Matt’s face lit up as he started to tell her about his ambitions for the café. “I’m going to call it the Travel Café and I’m hoping backpackers and gap-year people –