The next morning she was rudely awakened by a loud knock on her door. It was Lenore and Grazia with a dozen gowns. If she hadn’t already felt like the ugly sister, she sure felt like it now. All the gowns were made for women like Lenore and Grazia who were tall and shapeless. There was nothing there that suited a woman like Eloise who had hips and shapely breasts. Finally they settled on a green gown that was so low cut that Eloise was convinced that people would be able to see her nipples. The colour did nothing for her eyes, in fact, it left them looking dull and grey. Grazia took it away to have it slightly altered and Lenore smiled at her sister.
“That was lucky. You don’t have to pay for the dress since it was a freebie that Grazia had left from a big and beautiful photo shoot.”
“Gee. Thanks.”
“Now, do you have anything suitable to wear this afternoon? Marco’s family is arriving and I want to introduce my sister to them. They’re all very stylish, but I’ve warned them that you’re a PA and a bit on the heavy side so they know what to expect. ”
Eloise resisted the urge to punch her sister and pulled a pink dress out of the wardrobe. She’d bought it for a company picnic shortly after she started working for Peter and she’d been complimented numerous times on how it flattered her figure.
“Not bad, sis,” Lenore said with surprise. “But then you always did like vintage clothes and you were always good at picking out the good pieces. Everybody will think that you have a quirky fashion sense. That’s good.”
Eloise snorted at her sister’s comments and watched her leave. Shortly afterwards there was a knock on the door. She opened it to find a room service waiter outside.
“Complimentary breakfast, signorina,” he smiled at her and proceeded to serve it on the balcony.
Eloise sat down and started sipping the caffe latte when she noticed a note with her name on it. It read “Please forgive me for being so eager last night. I very much enjoyed spending time with you and will meet you at the same place after your rehearsal dinner tonight. I hope you’ll be there. Vincenzo.” A tingle spread inside her body. She knew that he wasn’t the kind of man who was looking for 22-year old virgins to marry. But he made her feel good, and she needed that to get through this wedding. Besides, she enjoyed their conversations last night. It couldn’t hurt to spend a little bit of time with him, could it?
Eloise shivered as she headed down to the rehearsal reception. She hardly ever wore any makeup, but she was determined not to make herself stand out more than she had to at this shindig. She’d tamed her unruly hair with a clip and added a thick belt around her waist to accentuate her hourglass figure. She didn’t normally wear heels, but in this company she’d felt that she’d disappear in flat shoes so she was balancing on 3-inch heels. It felt OK, as long as they’d sit down to eat quickly. As she passed reception she looked over at Vincenzo who was busy with some paperwork. He looked up at her, winked and then did a very Latin hand gesture to tell her that she was looking gorgeous. It boosted her confidence as she walked into the restaurant that Lenore and Marco had booked for their rehearsal dinner.
As soon as she walked in, Lenore squealed and ran up to her to hug her. Eloise wondered what had happened as she’d hardly had a kind word from her sister since she’d arrived. Then she looked over at the people Lenore had been talking with. She recognised one as Lenore’s fiance and the other two must be his parents. It all started to make sense now. Lenore grabbed Eloise’s hand and led her to her fiance’s family.
“Marco, caro,” she cooed. “This is my baby sister, Eloise.”
“I’m so happy to finally meet you,” he said in a heavily accented English and kissed her on the cheeks.
Then Lenore spoke Italian to Marco’s parents, who in turn shook Eloise’s hand and kissed her cheeks while saying something in Italian.
“They don’t speak English,” Lenore stated the obvious. “Ah, here’s Marco’s younger brother, Paolo. He’s also a footballer.”
Paolo was as tall and good looking as his brother and he immediately turned on his charm and whisked Eloise away to introduce her to more people. Marco had a big family and Eloise felt like a little bit of an impostor. There was only she and Lenore left of their family and Lenore fit in very well with Marco’s family. She soon found out that Marco’s dad had been a footballer in his day and his mum was an ex-model, so it explained why everybody were so tall, skinny and attractive. Unfortunately they were also terribly boring.
Paolo had obviously been made in charge of keeping Eloise company that evening, probably since he was one of the few guests who spoke any English. His poor command of the language aside, Eloise could forgive that since she didn’t speak any Italian at all, he was one of the dullest people she’d ever met. He was obviously expecting her to be impressed by the enormous amounts of money he earned as he listed his various sponsorship deals and fan clubs and whatnot. Eloise couldn’t care less. By the end of the evening Paolo still didn’t know the first thing about her and she’d already forgotten most of what he’d told her.