Overnight Cinderella by Katherine Garbera Read Free Book Online Page B

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.
    â€œI see you decorated your office,” she said.
    â€œIt was either that or be at your mercy.”
    She lifted one eyebrow in question. “You don’t like my taste?”
    â€œIt’s a bit girly for me.”
    â€œMotivation 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.
    â€œNo, but whatever you had planned next might be.”
    â€œWell 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.
    â€œYou have a lot of Japanese influences,” she said.
    â€œI spent four years there.”
    â€œReally? Doing what?”
    â€œProtecting executives.”
    She looked thoughtful. “For Pryce?”
    â€œYes. 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.
    â€œI spent time at that Zen temple.”
    â€œThis is nice, but where are your pictures?”
    â€œWhat 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.
    â€œOf your family and friends.”
    He gathered the trash and cleared the table. “I don’t have any.”
    â€œPictures or friends?” she teased, still sassy, but he wasn’t interested in this line of teasing.
    â€œNeither.”
    â€œWhat about family?” she asked, her face serious and pale.
    â€œNope,” 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.
    â€œYou have no family. How can that be?”
    â€œHow 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.
    â€œWere you adopted?”
    â€œNo.” At times it seemed as if everyone else in his home had been but Duke always remained.
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œHow 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.
    â€œThat must have been tough,” she said at last.
    â€œOnly 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