The Reluctant Cinderella Read online

  Understatement of the year. “Very, very badly.”

  “I’ll bet she needs a friend right now….”

  “I know she needs a friend right now. And I was wondering—”

  “I hear you. And I’m on my way over there.”

  “Oh, Molly. Thanks—and can you maybe not tell her that I called you and asked you to check on her? I’ve got a sinking feeling that would only make things worse.”

  “Gotcha.”

  “And will you just, you know, give me a quick call after you talk to her?” She rattled off her cell phone number. “Just so I know she’s all right.”

  “Will do. And Megan?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Good luck. I have a feeling you’re gonna need it.”

  Megan thanked Molly again and said goodbye and then sat there a little longer, staring out the window, wanting her sister beside her.

  And more than her sister, Megan wanted Greg. In spite of everything, she still wanted Greg.

  Eventually, she got up and went to work. For much of the day, her killer workload distracted her. Somewhat.

  Still, somehow, in every relentless beat of her heart, it was there—her longing for Greg. She told herself she only had to hold out. Over time, the longing was bound to fade.

  Molly called in the afternoon to say that Carly was all right. Her neighbor seemed reluctant to say more and Megan didn’t push her.

  As always, Megan picked the kids up at four and watched them until Angela got home. The sisters stole a moment in Angela’s room with the door shut. Megan reported that she’d done what she had to do, that Carly knew about her and Greg.

  Angela gave her a hug. “I know it was hard, Meg. But you did the right thing.”

  And then Michael pounded on the door crying that Anthony wouldn’t play with him. Angela had to go sort out the dispute.

  Megan rushed back up to Poughkeepsie, where she worked until after ten, getting ready for the trip into the city the next morning. Strictly speaking, the meeting tomorrow would be to agree on terms. But the marketing execs would be there. They’d want to see progress on the Banning’s campaign. Megan was determined they would have it—and then some.

  When she finally got home that night, it was well after eleven and the lights were off in the main house. So much for her opportunity to have a long heart-to-heart with her sister. Megan dragged herself up to her apartment, put on her pjs and climbed into bed—where her longings and her worries took over and wouldn’t let her rest.

  After an hour of tossing and turning, she threw back the covers and padded into her tiny kitchen. She heated up a little milk, added some honey and sat down at the table to drink the age-old sleeping aid.

  Her purse was right there on the table where she’d left it. She dragged it over in front of her, popped the clasp and slid Greg’s card from the inside pocket.

  Yep. There it was, his home number: 555-8346.

  And wouldn’t you know it? The phone was right there on the table, not two inches away from her steaming mug of restful hot milk. She picked it up.

  Not that she would actually call him….

  At a quarter of one in the morning? No way. Only stalkers and hopelessly lovesick fools did things like that. She set the phone back on the table. And then, just as she was giving it a small extra push, to send it out of easy reach, the darn thing rang.

  The sound was shrill and strange in the quiet darkness of her kitchen. She let out a little gasp of surprise and then snatched it up and pressed the talk button. “Hello?”

  “It’s twelve-forty-five at night and I can’t sleep. I know the last thing I should be doing is bothering you. So call me a stalker and hang up the phone. That should do it, shame me into keeping my promise and leaving you the hell alone….”

  Her throat tightened up. She gulped to loosen it and then whispered, “Oh, Greg…”

  A moment of taut silence passed, then he murmured, “Did I wake you?”

  She shook her head, though she knew he couldn’t see her do it. “I’m sitting here at my kitchen table with a mug of hot milk and honey—and that card you gave me with your phone number on it.”

  “You were going to call me?” The joy and triumph in his voice made her heart feel too big to fit in her chest.

  She confessed, “Well, no. I’ve just been promising myself that I won’t.”

  Another silence was followed by a bleak, “I understand. Well. Goodbye, then…”

  “Greg, wait!”

  More silence. She started to think she’d lost him, that he’d hung up. But then he asked gruffly, “What?”

  “Don’t go. Please….”

  He paused, chuckling deeply. “Well, all right. You’ve convinced me.”

  “I can’t stop thinking about you.” The damning words just sort of popped out. And she found she couldn’t regret saying them.

  Gently, he asked, “And is that such a bad thing?”

  “No…” She traced the handle of her mug with a careful finger. “Yes. Oh, I don’t know.”

  He chuckled again. “Well. At least that’s one thing you’re sure about.”

  She chided, “You think this is funny?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Good. Because it’s not—not in the least….”

  “I know.” His voice was soft and low. Intimate. Tender. “I’ve been thinking….”

  She found she had to swallow again before she could speak. “About?”

  “You.”

  She dragged in a long breath and let it out slowly as something moved through her—something warm and good. Maybe it was happiness. She heard herself whisper, “Oh.”

  “I don’t know what it is about you, Megan. But from that first day, when you bowled me over with your ideas for Banning’s…” The words trailed off.

  She prompted, “What about that day?”

  “Right from the first moment, I felt as if I knew you. As if I’d always known you. As if I’d only been waiting, forever, for you to show up, so the two of us could get on with the rest of our lives. Is that crazy?”

  She couldn’t help sighing. “Well, yeah. Pretty much.”

  He laughed again. “Then go ahead. Call me crazy. That’s okay. Call me whatever you want. Just tell me you’ll give it—give us—a chance.”

  She admitted the truth. “I can’t stop thinking about you, either.”

  “Good.” His voice was a rough whisper, one that sent a hot shiver running under her skin. “So then. What else is there to do but go for it?”

  “Greg?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I, um, well, I talked to Carly.”

  He knew what she meant. “About us.” He didn’t sound upset.

  “Yes. This morning. I felt like such a cheat and liar, you know?”

  “You weren’t. You aren’t.”

  “Well, I sure feel like one. I talked to my sister about it, about us, about how guilty I felt. Angela said I needed to get it out there, to tell Carly the truth. So I did. Finally. I told her…how you asked me out and I turned you down. How you showed me your house on Sycamore Street. And how I kissed you, even though I’d told you I wouldn’t go out with you. She was…it really hurt her, Greg. She kicked me out of her house and told me never to come back.”

  “Megan. Damn it. I’m sorry.”

  “Me, too. But that’s not going to make Carly feel any better. She just won’t give up hoping that you’ll go back to her.”

  “But I’m not going back to her.”

  “Maybe not…”

  “No maybe about it.”

  “She didn’t know about the house. I’m sorry if you didn’t want her to know.”

  “Megan. There is nothing for you to be sorry about. Look. Do you want me to have a talk with her?”

  “Do you…want to have a talk with her?”

  “Not really. But I will, if you think it’ll help.”

  Megan considered the idea—and rejected it. “No. You’re divorced. You can date whoe
ver you want, and Carly doesn’t have any right to be upset about it. I think, in her heart, she knows that. On the other hand, she considered me a friend. And I betrayed our friendship.”

  “That’s not true.”

  Megan felt a sad smile tug at the corners of her mouth. “Well. Thank you for defending me.”

  “We both know you’ve been trying like hell to shake me. You wouldn’t have ‘betrayed’—your word, not mine—Carly if I hadn’t pushed you to see me.”

  “Whether you pushed me or not, I did go to lunch with you. Twice. I went with you to see your house. I kissed you.”

  “No. I kissed you.”

  “And I kissed you back.”

  “Megan.”

  She made a low noise in her throat. “What?”

  “It’s done. Carly knows. You were honest with her. Over time, she’ll see that it’s not fair to blame you.”

  “I hope so.” Megan sat a little straighter in the kitchen chair. “And as for you and me…” She hesitated.

  He didn’t. “Dinner,” he said. “Tomorrow night. I’d say we could start with lunch, but I heard a rumor that we’re having it catered in the conference room. The place will be crawling with executives. No privacy at all.”

  “Dinner,” she repeated, and realized she was on the verge of telling him yes. Then she thought of the kids. “I usually pick up my sister’s kids from summer camp at four….”

  “Can you get out of it, just this once?”

  “I’ll check with her. But Greg, I don’t want to…rush anything, you know?”

  “No problem. We’ll take it nice and slow.”

  Did she believe him? Not really. Still, she agreed. “Yeah. Okay. Slow is good.”

  They were quiet. It was nice. Kind of easy and companionable. But exciting, too. At last, he asked, humor warming his deep voice, “You still there?”

  “Yeah—and we should hang up, don’t you think? Try to get some sleep….”

  “I’m afraid to let you go. What if you change your mind?”

  “I won’t.”

  “Say that again.”

  Obediently, she vowed, “I promise. I’ll have dinner with you tomorrow. If I can find a babysitter.”

  “All right, then. Good night, Megan.”

  “Good night.” She heard the click on the line and he was gone.

  She missed him already. How hopeless was that? She smiled to herself, a woman’s dreamy smile, as she finished her lukewarm milk.

  So what if Rhonda and Irene told tales about her, if Molly Jackson disapproved of her, if Carly told everyone what a terrible person she was? Megan was taking this chance with this special, terrific guy, no matter what anyone in the neighborhood said….

  Still, when she went back to bed, she found sleep impossible. Maybe because in the end, she really did care if everyone in the neighborhood hated her.

  Chapter Eight

  Through the morning meetings and lunch in the conference room, both Megan and Greg took special care to keep things strictly professional. More than once, though, she glanced his way and found him glancing back and…

  Well, okay. For the first time in her life, Megan Schumacher was beginning to understand what all the shouting was about when it came to romance. Once she’d thought kind of wistfully that it might be nice to have a boyfriend, someone to go out with now and then, someone to take to holiday parties, someone to maybe get flowers from on Valentine’s Day.

  But this, with Greg—this whole heat thing, this warm-shivers-all-through-your-body thing, this weak-in-the-knees thing, well, she just hadn’t known that romance could be like that.

  After lunch, there was one more long meeting, with the lawyers included. And finally, at three in the afternoon, the deal was signed. The lawyers, including the one representing Design Solutions, took their leave.

  Megan thanked her Web guy and Anita, the graphic artist she’d brought with her, and sent them both home. They’d worked their fannies off and deserved a head start on the weekend. She spent a few minutes wrapping up loose ends with the marketing people. By then, Greg was nowhere in sight.

  She headed for the elevator. There were, after all, hours to kill before dinnertime. She would call him later, find out where to meet him. In the meantime, she was thinking maybe she’d go on home, after all, see how the kids were doing with the babysitter she’d hired. At home, she could freshen up a little, too, put on something more right for evening.

  Her phone rang just as the elevator doors slid wide. She looked at the display as she was stepping into the car. Greg. With her heart doing flip-flops and a silly grin on her face, she answered, “What?”

  “I left you alone in that conference room for ten minutes—and you disappeared.”

  The door slid shut. She pushed the button for the lobby. “It’s hours until dinner. I thought I’d just go on home in the meantime.”

  “Don’t. Stay.”

  She giggled. She couldn’t help it. There was a guy in a gray suit in the car with her. He sent her a frown. What? He didn’t approve of giggling? She shrugged, turned toward the wall and spoke more softly. “Greg. I’ve got my briefcase and my laptop. I don’t want to carry them around with me.”

  “It’s not a problem. You can stash them at my place.”

  “I’m in the elevator.”

  “Don’t go….”

  The car stopped. “I’m at the lobby.”

  “Have a seat on that marble bench by the security station,” Greg instructed as the doors slid wide again and the guy in the gray suit rushed out, in a big hurry to get wherever he was going. “I’ll be right down.”

  “But—”

  “No buts. Be there.” The line went dead.

  “Well, okay,” she said to no one in particular as she put her phone away and edged around the three people who’d just gotten on the elevator. She found the bench and dropped down onto it, sending a smile and a nod at the guy behind the security desk.

  Three minutes later, Greg came striding toward her. When he got there, he took her briefcase. “Let’s go.”

  “Where?”

  “My place.”

  “Honestly. I don’t want to drag you away from work.”

  He gave her that half smile that made her heart do flip-flops. “You aren’t dragging me. I’m going willingly.”

  “Have a great afternoon, Mr. Banning,” said the guy at the security desk. Was that a knowing gleam Megan saw in his eye?

  What did he think? That they were heading to Greg’s for a…nooner?

  Well, of course not. It was much too late for that. Noon was more than three hours ago—and it wasn’t about the time of day, anyway.

  They just weren’t, that was all. Not…yet, anyway. Megan might be crazy about the handsome man at her side.

  But the whole getting naked thing…

  Nope. Not today.

  She gave the guy behind the desk a quick, nervous smile. He tipped his hat at her as Greg led her away.

  Greg paused inside the doors of his apartment building. He set down her briefcase and took her by the shoulders. “One thing…”

  At that moment, with a whole afternoon and evening of just the two of them stretching gloriously ahead of her, she might have promised him anything. “Name it.”

  “Today. And tonight. Let’s have it be just the two of us. Yes, I was married. I have an ex-wife. But for now, for today, can we just leave all that behind?”

  She thought of Carly, wished things could be different, that Greg might be someone other than Carly’s ex. But he wasn’t. And Greg was right. They needed to let all the baggage go, share a day without shadows and guilt. “I’d say that’s doable.”

  “Good. Then today, it’s just you and me. No other woman will even be mentioned.”

  “Agreed.” She smiled and tried not think that if there was an other woman here, she was it.

  His apartment was gorgeous, so open and bright. Your classic downtown corner loft. Acres of hardwood floor and high, arched windows
overlooking Broadway to the east and Warren Street on the north.

  He offered a drink. “Ice water,” she said, recalling the gleam in the security guard’s eye. No liquor. Uh-uh. That could lead to…loosening up. And loosening up could take her to places she might very much enjoy going.

  But she wasn’t going—not so soon, anyway.

  He got them tall glasses of water and they sat in his living area on the leather-and-chrome sectional. She kicked off her high heels.

  Why not? Maybe she wasn’t doing anything wild and dangerous this afternoon. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t get comfortable. She turned to him and tucked her legs to the side.

  He offered a toast. “To Design Solutions. And Banning’s. And a very profitable business arrangement.”

  “I’ll drink to that.” Ice cubes clinked as they tapped their glasses. She sipped. “Delicious.”

  “Straight out of the tap.”

  “There’s just something about the water in Manhattan.”

  He set his water on the glass coffee table. “I take it you did find that babysitter.”

  She nodded and set her glass beside his. “She’s sixteen and she lives around the corner. I had to pay her a bundle, but it was worth it. A whole afternoon of freedom. Every girl should have one now and then….”

  He’d taken off his jacket and loosened his tie. He leaned a little closer and it only seemed natural to lean closer, too. “I love that dimple, right there—” with his thumb, he brushed the curve of her cheek, setting off a lovely series of tingles “—when you smile.” He looked at her as if she were the most beautiful woman on earth.

  “Greg?”

  “Anything.”

  She couldn’t help laughing. “Oh, come on. Please…”

  He frowned. “What? I’m coming on too strong?”

  “Well, maybe a little.”

  “Damn. I can’t help myself.”

  “I admit it’s very flattering….”

  “But?”

  “You know what? On second thought, go ahead. Adore me if you must.”

  He laughed then, too, a deep, rich wonderful sound. “All right, I will.”

  “But I’m not going to bed with you—not today, anyway.” The words got out and she realized how abrupt they sounded—which had her letting out a tiny groan and clapping her hand over her mouth. “I can’t believe I said that.”