she’d never really thought of herself as very attractive. She’d never really thought about her appearance one way or another since she’d been a teenager and heard….Helen pushed that thought aside, not wanting to go back to that painful period in her life. She’d overcome that aspect of her life, she told herself. She might not be any man’s dream woman, but she was smart and efficient and she loved her job, finding fulfillment in doing it well.
Taking a deep breath, she stood up and wiped her tears away, forcing the silly, ineffectual wetness to stop. She was angry with herself for letting those catty women get to her. So what if they were right about her appearance. There was nothing wrong with her life and she had dreams just like any other woman.
Helen considered her life objectively. She might not be drop dead beautiful, but in the opposite way, she’d never considered herself dowdy either. Until now, she grimaced inwardly. She loved this job, loved working for Dimitri Theopolis. He was incredibly intelligent and ran the Theopolis shipping empire with a genius financial mind. Helen worked out of the London office but the headquarters was in Athens. Dimitri was spending more time here in London lately and Helen felt as if she were on cloud nine each time he called or walked through the executive suite.
It wasn’t that she had any personal feelings for the man. No, Helen wasn’t stupid enough to fall into that category. Dimitri Theopolis had enough women throwing themselves at him, he didn’t need his personal assistant to do the same. She wasn’t even in a class to attract him. The man generally dated sophisticated women who spent their days primping and making themselves beautiful for their evenings with Dimitri.
Helen knew that she’d never be acceptable in any kind of personal capacity so why even try? She’d only come up short in the end and feel the crushing pain of disappointment as a reward for her efforts. Because if she ever thought she had a chance with Dimitri, she only had to remind herself of her deficiencies or open up the newspaper to see the kind of woman that piqued his attention. And it definitely wasn’t a short, mousy female with ordinary brown hair and blue eyes.
Oh, she could look nice, she knew. She had a decent enough figure with slender hips and more than enough up top. Probably too much up top, she thought as she pulled the brown tweed down to cover her slim hips more smoothly. When she let her hair loose, it was long, and a deep chocolate brown that curled softly at the ends and small little wisps that curled about her temples unless she smoothed them down with hairspray, as she usually did for work. It would probably curl more if she took the time to get it trimmed, but it was so much easier to just pull it into a bun each morning. Helen thought it looked more professional as well.
Her eyes were a pretty blue, but since she had stopped wearing makeup, there was nothing to enhance their color. She used to at least wear mascara and powder, but now, she probably needed a good bit of concealer just to cover the dark circles under her eyes from working late each night.
Oh, who was she kidding, she thought sadly, her shoulders slumping in defeat. No matter how much makeup she wore or how perfectly coifed her hair, she could never be in the same league as the women Dimitri dated.
All the women Dimitri spent time with were tall, sultry blonds or stunning red-headed women. Actresses, models, society women who could shine as brightly as he did. He definitely didn’t date personal assistants who had scrimped and saved just to put herself through university.
Helen wiped her eyes one more time and pinched her cheeks, hoping to get more color back into them. Thankfully, Dimitri was not in the office today. He wasn’t expected back in London for several more days and she had many reports to finish up before he returned.
“Just one step at a time,” she said to herself. That old phrase had gotten her through many painful years. Although they were spoken by a physical therapist at the time, they applied to every aspect of Helen’s life.
With those words ringing through her mind, she made her way slowly back to her desk. Her computer was still humming along but she had several more contracts and reports