Overnight Cinderella (4 page)

“How can I tempt you?” she asked, tears thick in her voice.

He crouched next to her open door, bringing their faces on a level. “To me you're sexy legs, sweet smiles and sassy intelligence. The most tempting combination a woman can be.”

He stood and walked away before she could reply. As if she could have. Closing the door blindly, she blinked back tears. Duke had all the right lines and the right moves, she thought, and her mind tried to tell her heart that they were practiced. But her heart wasn't buying. There was more to Duke Merchon than a set of patented moves, and she was going to dig deeper to find out what.

D
uke skipped dinner and his evening run so he could stay late to finish a report that had to be on Max's desk first thing in the morning. The office was quiet now—just the way Duke preferred it. Though Cami had called twice to talk about his security team and her caterer, he still hadn't had time to talk to her. Actually, he was still avoiding her.

He didn't have time for this Gala and Max knew it. Getting involved with Cami had been a stupid thing to do. He didn't want to work with her on a daily basis and after his behavior last night he didn't know how she'd treat him today. After the way she'd been with him, all that energy and passion from one kiss…

Cami had gotten under his skin. He started to remember the things he'd longed for as a boy. Things he'd thought money and prestige had taken the place of. But as he stood staring out his office window at the Atlanta skyline, he realized they hadn't.

He still craved respectability, acceptance and family the way a homeless beggar craved warm clothes and shelter in winter. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out Rebecca's ring and held it up to the light. It sparkled just the tiniest bit as he rotated it between his fingers. She was still a big part of the boy he'd been and the man he'd become.

Her death had taught him he was too dedicated to his job for a life outside of work. Her death had shown him his parents' death early in life hadn't been fate but a reality he'd never thought to face. Her death had driven home the fact he was meant to live alone.

He reread the inscription on the inside of the band.
Two against the world.
They'd been each other's only family. But now only one remained. He'd lost her. The darkness inside him ensured he'd never have anything lasting with sweet little Cami Jones. She was too soft for the hardness inside him. The man who'd worked vice and then spent years hiring himself out to corporate execs had seen the seamier side of life. Cami Jones hadn't.

He'd seen the tears in her eyes last night. It had put a chink in the armor he wore around his heart to see her so sad. To see her frenetic energy replaced by a solemn air was disheartening.

It reminded him of the orphanage. The one he'd never left. First, because he'd been unable to talk for the initial six years of his life and second, because he'd become so reclusive that prospective adoptive parents seemed almost afraid of him and his silence. On the outside the group home looked like a nice house, blending well on the outside with the neighborhood in which it was situated, but inside were only cold rooms and quiet hallways. No laughing and loving mother and father, and no siblings with whom to share memories.

Whatever small hope he'd harbored of trying to have an affair with Cami Jones died with that memory. He didn't want to take away her belief in the world she'd created for herself through the books she read—and he would. His reality and hers could never mesh. They were pale opposites of each other, and she deserved better.

Though he'd known from the beginning that the quiet, sweet, trying-to-be-plain woman wasn't for him, he'd been tempted. He'd thought maybe it was the very homey feeling she evoked in him. The very homey feeling she projected to the world. The very homey feeling he craved as he had craved little else in this cold money-driven world.

The knock on his door startled him. He shoved Rebecca's ring into his pocket as quick as a street hustler hiding his loot. “Come in.”

Cami stood in the doorway, backlit by the muted light his secretary always left turned on on her desk. She looked different.

The vibrant red dress made her skin seem pale,
and the fact that it was plain bothered him. She should have geometric designs crazily swimming around each other or some busy pattern. Her wild curly hair was tamed into a clip at the back of her neck, but that wasn't what bothered him. Her energy level, which had always been off the wall, was very subdued.

“Cami?”

“Have you eaten?” she asked.

He shook his head. He didn't want to think about food because crazily all he could think about was her berry-like lips and the creamy smoothness of her skin.

“I brought some sushi and the layout of the banquet rooms at the Seashore Mansion. I thought we could work on the plan for these security men of yours and the catering detail. I don't want them tripping over each other.”

She moved to the conference table and set out dinner and a CAD, computer-aided design, drawing of the hotel's grand ballroom. She moved like a woman with quiet confidence, not a small tornado. Where had the tornado gone?

He held her chair out for her, and they ate dinner and talked about the Gala. The rolls of vegetables, rice and shrimp reminded him of the aesthetic life he'd created in Japan, surrounding himself in a foreign culture and language until he'd become isolated from others around him. It reminded him of all the things he'd done without since Rebecca's death, a stark contrast to what he had in front of him now.

“I see you decorated your office,” she said.

“It was either that or be at your mercy.”

She lifted one eyebrow in question. “You don't like my taste?”

“It's a bit girly for me.”

“Motivation is girly?” she asked as she pointed to her motivational poster.

She was sassing him. He knew it and loved it. This was the real Cami. Not the polite stranger who'd been going over charts with him. Here was the woman who'd fought him for control over the Gala and probably was still planning on wresting it from him.

“No, but whatever you had planned next might be.”

“Well this is very nice—downright masculine.”

She toured the office, looking at the details he'd brought in from his life. A replica of an ancient Japanese sword hung in a place of honor. The folding screen, also from Japan, had taken three men to mount on the wall. The small Zen rock garden he used to keep his temper in line.

“You have a lot of Japanese influences,” she said.

“I spent four years there.”

“Really? Doing what?”

“Protecting executives.”

She looked thoughtful. “For Pryce?”

“Yes. Max and I go back a long way.”

She wanted to ask more questions, but he didn't want to talk about his past. Instead he pointed to a print of the Temple of the Silver Pavilion in Kyoto.

“I spent time at that Zen temple.”

“This is nice, but where are your pictures?”

“What pictures?” He was not a shutterbug, and he'd never felt the need to hold on to the past. He'd been trying to distance himself from it every day of his life.

“Of your family and friends.”

He gathered the trash and cleared the table. “I don't have any.”

“Pictures or friends?” she teased, still sassy, but he wasn't interested in this line of teasing.

“Neither.”

“What about family?” she asked, her face serious and pale.

“Nope,” he said, trying to be light when he felt as if the darkness inside him was rising up and swelling to encompass the entire room.

“You have no family. How can that be?”

“How do you think, Cami? I'm an orphan.”

She was serious, and it bothered him because he knew what she was thinking. He felt raw as only revealing the past could make him. He didn't want to talk with this perceptive woman about all he'd lacked through the years.

This woman with the ability to see past all his layers and into his soul. This woman who'd kissed him as though he were the first man to have unlocked her passion. This woman who was coming to mean more to him than anyone in recent memory.

“Were you adopted?”

“No.” At times it seemed as if everyone else in his home had been but Duke always remained.

“Why not?”

“How the hell should I know? Part of it was the fact that I didn't talk until I was seven.”

Her mouth turned down at the corners and her eyes were glassy. She looked as if she was going to cry. He didn't want her to cry for him.

“That must have been tough,” she said at last.

“Only someone who's lived through it would understand.”

She nodded, then gave him the grin that had enchanted him from their first meeting. “I'm guessing you weren't an Orphan Annie type kid singing about sunshine.”

He let her lead him back onto safe ground. It was where he wanted to go, and he had no idea how to get there. He owed her, and he made a mental note to return the favor soon.

“No, I wasn't. And I didn't want Daddy Warbucks to rescue me. I wanted to
be
Daddy Warbucks.”

“Are you?” she asked.

He thought about the money he earned consulting, and his career with Max in Japan. He'd teamed up with Max to save Pryce from fraud. They'd spent several years there. He had more money than most people. He lived well and from where he'd started that was enough. It sure was a hell of a lot more than he'd have made as a cop. “I'm closer than I ever was.”

She nodded and turned to leave. “Do you know what Daddy Warbucks's real treasure was?”

Yes, but he wasn't going to admit it. He thought she'd led him to safe ground but saw that there was a looming pothole in the middle of the safety.

“Family,” she said and left.

 

Cami was shaking by the time she reached her office. Even though it was after hours, most of the offices were still occupied. The employees at Pryce were dedicated to the success of the company.

No family.
She couldn't imagine it. Her mom was Italian, and Cami had so many cousins she sometimes couldn't keep them straight. Her dad was a Jones, one of the most popular names in the United States and a friendly group who claimed everyone for their own.

Yet Duke had no one. She wanted to know more. Had he been abandoned as a child? Or were his parents taken away from him? Was he taken away from them for abuse? But she'd looked into his frozen gray eyes and known she couldn't ask any questions. In what he'd tried to hide he'd revealed his inner skin. It was like the soft underbelly of a turtle—a part not protected by his tough outer shell.

She was out of her league with Duke, yet helplessly fascinated. She couldn't help wanting to know more about him, but he wasn't ever going to tell her. Honestly, she didn't think she had a right to know. Though it would make it easier to really decide if they had a chance. Which she realized she wanted more than anything else.

Common sense said that this sophisticated man couldn't be interested in her, but that kiss had convinced her heart of something else. Especially the way he'd acted toward her afterward.

Her computer was still on so she checked her e-mail. Then, out of curiosity, she ran Duke's name and the key words “car accident” through the databases to which she had access. She came up with four different sites. The first was a newspaper source data archive she had an account with. She quickly purchased the article and downloaded it.

Ray and Sylvia Merchon of Dunwoody, Georgia, had been killed in a car accident, leaving behind their two-year-old son. He'd been asleep in the back of the car and survived the tragic accident. She read the story again and again, and knew what Duke needed.

She knew in an instant why she'd been placed by fate in his path. She needed to share her family with him. Serendipity was more than opportunity. It was the window to which the world unfolded if you were bold. Seeing her reflection in the computer screen, she knew she wasn't bold. She knew she was the gal with the heavy fantasy life and the slim reality touch.

Could she be bold?

Could she be bold enough to help Duke?

Could she be bolder than she ever had been before and take a chance on a man?

She needed to go home. She printed out the article and shut down her computer. There wasn't time to answer the questions spinning in her head.
She slid her shoes on and picked up the article, preparing to leave.

She'd been subdued today. Trying so hard to be the restrained lady that would look right on Duke's arm, but it wasn't her. And she didn't believe a subdued woman was what Duke needed. His life had too many neat corners as it was.

“Cami?”

Duke stood in the doorway. In the dim hallway he looked like a warrior from days of old. A battered man who'd fight for honor and dignity until there was no fight left in him. It took very little perception for her to know he'd fought in such a way.

“Yes?”

“Here's a copy of the report I sent to Max.”

“Oh,” she said, feeling like an idiot but not sure how to act now that she knew about his past and held a deep sadness for him. But she didn't want him to know she knew.

When she took the notebook from him, her fingers brushed his. A small tingle shivered down her spine. She liked the way he felt, warm and solid, yet danger lurked beneath. A danger to her she'd never experienced before because men always thought of her as a buddy.

Did he?

“What do you think of me?” she asked, then wanted to call the words back. God, she hated it when she spoke before thinking.

“Ignore my question,” she said. “I'm tired and not thinking straight.”

She tried to brush past him but he caught her shoulders and turned her to face him. His hands on her shoulders were firm, and he kept a polite distance between them. His gray eyes were frozen, but she could sense some emotions seething underneath. His breath smelled of the coffee they'd shared just hours earlier, and his mouth bore the trace of a half smile. Not the real smile she'd like to see on him but the beginnings of one.

“I think…”

“Yes?” she asked, breathless.

He bent and brushed his lips over hers. The very barest of touches—mouth-to-mouth yet so soft a butterfly's wings would have felt harsh in comparison.

“I think you are ethereal,” he said before he took her mouth in a kiss she felt all the way to her soul.