Overnight Cinderella by Katherine Garbera Read Free Book Online Page A

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.
    â€œCami?”
    â€œHave 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.
    â€œI 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