A Millionaire for Cinderella (7 page)

They kept walking until they reached the State House, the moon reflecting off its golden dome. Around the corner, Stuart spotted a trio of staggering silhouettes making their way from Park Street station. Patience was walking a few feet ahead. Her curves made her the perfect target for drunken comments. Stepping up his pace, he positioned himself on her right, creating a buffer. The group came closer, and he saw that two of the three were women teetering on high heels. The pair clung to the shoulders of the man in the middle, a pasty-looking blond who looked like he spent most of his time in dimly lit places. Their raucous laughter could be heard from ten feet away.

Stuart stole a look in Patience’s direction before slipping his arm around her waist. She looked back, but didn’t say anything.

As luck would have it, the trio reached the signal light the same time as they did. The man made no attempt to hide his ogling. “Come join the pah-ty, baby,” he slurred, alcohol making his Boston accent thicker. “We’re gonna go all night.”

Patience’s body turned rigid. He tightened his grip on her waist, letting her know he’d keep her safe.

The drunk slurred on, oblivious. “This dude knows what I’m talking about, doncha? Life’s too short. Gotta grab the fun while you can. I did.” He slapped one of the women on the rear, and she let out a giggly yelp. “Me and these ladies are just getting started.”

Just then, a public works truck drove up, its bright headlights lighting their slice of the street.

“Oh, my God,” one of the women cried out. “I know you!” Pushing herself free, she stumbled closer, her oversize breasts threatening to burst free from her tiny camisole top. “You work at Feathers. I danced right after you. Chablis, remember?”

Patience didn’t reply. She stared straight ahead. When the light changed, she stepped off the curb and started walking. Stuart had to step quickly to keep up.

“What’s the matter, you too good to talk to me now? That it?” Chablis asked as she followed. “Hey, I’m talkin’ to you.”

A crimson-nailed hand reached out to grab Patience’s shoulder, but she quickly turned and dodged the woman’s touch. “You have the wrong person,” she hissed.

When they reached the opposite side of the street, Chablis looked to make one more attempt at conversation only to have her friend tug her in the opposite direction. “Come on, baby,” he slurred. “We don’t need them. We got better things to do.”

“Yeah, Chablis,” the other woman whined. “Give it up. That witch ain’t owning up to nuthin’.”

“But I know her,” Chablis insisted, as if her knowledge was the most important discovery in the world. As she let her friends drag her away, she continued to swear and complain about being ignored. “She always did think she was better than us,” Stuart heard her mutter.

“Sorry about that,” he said to Patience.

“It’s no big deal. They’re just a bunch of drunks.”

Perhaps, but the pallor of her skin said they’d upset her more than she let on. Poor thing had probably had her fill of drunks by this point.

A beer can came hurtling in their direction, rattling the sidewalk a few feet shy of where they stood. “Hey!” Chablis yelled, her voice sharp in the night. “Does your boyfriend know he’s dating a stripper?”

Stuart might have laughed if Patience hadn’t stopped in her tracks. When he looked, he saw the color had drained from her face.

A sick feeling hit him in his stomach. “She’s got you confused with someone else, right?” he asked.

Even in the dark of night, Patience’s eyes told him everything he needed to know. There was no mistake.

Chablis was telling the truth.

CHAPTER SIX

“I
T
’
S
TRUE
,
ISN
’
T
IT
?
” he asked. “You were a—a...”

Stripper?
He couldn’t even say the word, could he?

Stupid Chablis. Patience never did like the woman. For a second, she considered blaming everything on the rambling of a drunken trio, but one look at Stuart’s face snuffed that idea. The thought had been planted in his head, and no amount of denial would chase it away. Eventually, he would dig up the truth. No reason to drag the ordeal out longer than necessary.

How stupid for her to think the night would end on a good note. Like she would ever earn a fairy-tale ending.

Folding her arms across her chest, Patience held on to what little dignity she could. “We prefer the term ‘exotic dancer,’” she said, pushing her way past him.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“Where do you think? To the brownstone to pack my things.” With luck she would get there before the tears pressing the back of her eyes broke free. Now that Stuart knew about her background, he was bound to ask her to leave her job with Ana. Hadn’t he said that he didn’t want Dr. Tischel anywhere near his aunt. Surely he would feel the same about Patience.

Well, she might have just lost her job, and her home, but she would not lose her composure—not on the streets of Boston and not in front of him.

There were footsteps, and Stuart was at her shoulder, grabbing her arm much like Dr. Tischel had. With a hiss, she pulled away. The look of regret passing over his features was small compensation.

“You’re not even going to try and explain yourself?”

Patience had never felt more dirty and exposed as she did under his stare, but she managed to hold herself together. “Why should I? You don’t want to listen.” No, he would judge her like everyone else had. The same way she judged herself. Why stick around to listen to condemnations she’d said to herself?

Stuart blocked her path. “Try me.” Between the shadows and his stony expression, it was impossible to read his thoughts

They weren’t the words she had expected to hear, and Patience hated how they made her heart speed up with hope. “You’re really willing to listen?”

“I said I would. Don’t you think you owe us an explanation?”

Us, as in him and Ana. With the shock of discovery wearing off, guilt began to take hold. She owed Ana way more than an explanation, but the truth was a good place to start. “Fine, but not here. Please.” Out of the corner of her eye, she caught the silhouette of a person standing in a window. “I’ll tell you everything when we’re at the brownstone.” Then she’d move out and never bother him or Ana again.

* * *

Neither said a word the final few blocks. Such a different silence compared to when they had left the hotel. Then, the air had hummed with romantic possibility. This long walk was nothing but cold.

Naturally Nigel was waiting for their return, meowing and running back and forth for attention. Without a word, they walked into the kitchen so she could give Nigel his midnight snack. Attending to a cat’s needs had never taken so long.

“You ready to talk?” he asked when she’d finished rinsing the can.

“Not much to say.” She’d already decided to give him the shortest version possible. Less misery that way. “I needed money and dancing was the only job I could find that would pay me enough.”

Minus the part where she turned down the offer twice before finally giving in, and only then because her creepy boss at the burger place wouldn’t give her more hours unless she slept with him.

“Interesting.” He pulled out a chair and motioned for her to take a seat. “Now how about you give me the full version?”

The full version? Her heart hitched. She’d never told anyone the
whole
story. “Why do you care about the details? It is what it is.”

“Because I care.” The words warmed her insides, until she reminded herself he meant “about the details.” He was, after all, a lawyer. Naturally, he’d want to collect all the facts.

Question was—how many facts did he need? She’d buried so much of her story that even she wasn’t sure of everything anymore.

Taking a seat, she wiped the dampness from her palms on her dress. “Where do you want me to start?”

“Try the beginning.”

“I was born.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.” Where
did
she begin? “I suppose everything really started when Piper was born. My mom—don’t get me wrong, she wasn’t a horrible mother. I mean, she didn’t beat us or let us starve or anything like that. She just wasn’t into being a mom, you know?”

A quick look across the table said he didn’t, but she plowed ahead. “I think she thought a baby would keep Piper’s dad around, but...”

She shrugged. That was her mother’s pipe dream, not hers. “Anyway, as soon as I got old enough, she left taking care of Piper to me. But I told you that already.”

“‘A fancy cake for Mrs. F,’” he recited. “How old were you?”

“Twelve or thirteen? Thirteen, I think. It wasn’t that hard,” she added quickly. As was the case whenever a person looked askance at the arrangement, her defensiveness rose up. “Piper was a good kid. She never caused trouble, always did her homework. Plus, she could cook.”

“A thirteen-year-old taking care of a five-year-old. You didn’t resent it?”

Her automatic answer was always no. For some reason—the way Stuart looked to be reading her mind maybe—the answer died in favor of the truth. “Sometimes, but I didn’t have a choice. She was family. I had a responsibility.”

From behind his coffee cup, she saw Stuart give a small nod and realized if anyone understood the importance of family responsibility, he would. After all, wasn’t his devotion to Ana the spark that had led to this conversation?

She continued. “When my mom died, Piper and I were left alone. I promised her we would stay together no matter what.”

“And that’s why you needed the money? For Piper?”

“Yeah.” She stared into her cup, unsure how to continue. Talking about Piper was the easy part. It wasn’t until after their mom died that the story turned bad. “My mom left us broke. Worse than broke. Actually. I didn’t know what else to do.”

“What about assistance? There are programs...”

“You don’t understand. It wasn’t that easy.” How could he? Man like him, who never wanted for anything.

“But surely—”

“We were living in our car!” She hurled the answer across the table, the first time she’d ever acknowledged what happened aloud. “We were afraid if we told anyone, Piper would end up in child services, and I swore that wouldn’t happen.” In her mind, she saw her sister’s frightened face, heard the desperation in her voice. She squeezed her eyes shut, but the memories stayed all the same. “I couldn’t break my promise to her. We were all each other had. Losing her would have been like...like...”

“Losing your own child.”

“Yes.” His answer gave her hope that he understood. Opening her eyes, she stared across the table, silently pleading her case. “I would have done anything to keep her safe. Anything.”

This was the place in the story where she should stop. Having justified her actions, there was no reason to share any more. The problem was that talking about the past was like cracking a glass. Once begun, the crack didn’t stop spreading until it reached its natural end. And so the words continue to flow. “There was this guy who lived near us. Named Ben. He was always hitting on me, telling me how hot I was. Used to tell me a girl built like me could rake it in at the club where he worked. I always ignored him. Until I didn’t have a choice anymore.”

Unable to sit still any longer, Patience pushed herself away from the table and crossed to the back window. Her distorted reflection stared back at her in the glass. “It was January. We hadn’t eaten all day. I’d lost my job—we didn’t have money. Piper had a cold. Sounds like one of those over-the-top TV movies, doesn’t it?” she said with a hollow laugh.

“Go on.”

“I didn’t know what else to do,” she whispered. The desperation and shame she’d felt that fateful day returned as fresh as ever, rising up to choke the air from her lungs. “I told myself it was only for a little while. Until Piper and I were on our feet.” The delusion of youth and hopelessness.

“How long did that take?”

Why was he asking? He could guess the answer. Until she went to work for Ana.

“That’s the trick life plays on you,” she said, resting her head against the glass. “You tell yourself it’s only for a few weeks, a few months tops. Next thing you know, a few months turns into a year. Two. After a while, you start to think maybe you can’t do any better. I mean, you’ve got no experience, so any job you can get doesn’t pay nearly as much and that’s assuming you could even get another job. Who’s going to hire someone who danced on a table?”

“Table? Is that—?”

“Yeah. A drunk grabbed my ankle.” Her breath left a smudge on the pane. Using her scarf, she wiped the mark away. If only life could clean up so easily. “Sometimes I think, if only I’d held out one more day...

“I can still feel their eyes on me,” she whispered. “At night. Watching me with their dull, glassy eyes. Fantasizing about what they want to do with me.” She slapped a hand against her mouth to keep from gagging as the memories began to choke her. A sob broke through anyway. “They made me feel so dirty.”

“Shh.” Once again Stuart was there, his face joining hers in the glass. Didn’t matter that he wasn’t touching her, his proximity was good enough.

“But I kept my promise,” she said. “I kept us off the streets and I gave Piper a normal life.” Of all the regrets she had in her life, keeping Piper safe wasn’t one. “Whenever things got really bad, that’s what I would tell myself.
I kept my promise
.”

Behind her, Stuart let out a long, loud breath. An echo of her own exhaustion. She hadn’t expected to share so much. Telling Stuart details she’d never told anyone...the ordeal left her raw and exposed. “You said you wanted the long version.”

“Yes, I did.”

There was another sigh. Patience imagined him washing a hand over his features as he tried to digest everything. What would he think if he knew the one detail she’d kept back? But how could she tell him when she could barely admit the secret to herself?

“I know you think I had some big agenda, but I didn’t. I ran into Ana and she confused me with a job applicant. I let her believe that’s who I was and interviewed for the job.” She turned so he could see she was being as honest as possible. “Ana was the first person besides Piper who ever treated me like I mattered. I swear I would never hurt her. I just needed to get out.”

“You do matter,” Stuart whispered.

She hated the way his words warmed her from the inside out. More so, how she couldn’t help following them up with a pitiful “I do?”

“Yeah, you do.” His thumb brushed her cheek, chasing away tears she didn’t know had fallen. “And you deserved better.”

She was too tired to argue otherwise. He’d asked for her story and she’d told him. “If you want me to leave, I will,” she told him. She’d lied, and deception came with a price. Thankfully she’d squirreled away enough money so she wouldn’t have to worry about living on the streets this time around. If she kept her expenses low, she’d be all right. She was a survivor.

“You don’t have to leave,” Stuart told her. “We all have things in our past we regret.”

Tears turned her vision watery, but they were happy tears this time. “Thank you...I know I should have told the truth from the start, but I was afraid if Ana knew what I was, she would want nothing to do with me. And then, of course, you arrived, talking about how you didn’t trust me and...”

“I was pretty inexorable, wasn’t I?”

“If that’s your way of saying you were acting like a jerk?” She was finally beginning to relax. “Then yeah.”

“I’m sorry about that. You can blame Gloria.”

Right. The step-grandmother. “I think I’m beginning to dislike her as much as you do.”

“Trust me, that’s not possible.”

It was, once again, a comfortable silence wrapping around them. Patience felt lighter than she had in months—since the day she accepted the job, really. It was as if a thousand pounds had been lifted from her shoulders. Maybe, if she was lucky, the rest of her story would die a silent death, and she could enjoy that relief, as well.

“It’s late,” Stuart said. “You look exhausted.”

She was drained. And sad, in spite of her relief. This wasn’t how she’d expected the night to end. There had been magic in the air on that dance floor. For a little while she’d felt like Cinderella at the ball. But it was time to come back to reality. Having told her story, there was no way Stuart would ever look at her the same way again.

How could he? She was no longer a housekeeper; she was a housekeeper who used to take her clothes off for money.

“If it’s all right with you, I think I’m going to go to bed.”

“Yes, of course. I’ll see you tomorrow. Good night.”

“Good night.” She had moved to leave when the need to say one last thing stopped her. “Thank you again for understanding.” He’d probably never know how much it meant to her. On so many levels.

She expected a simple
you’re welcome
in return, mainly because there didn’t seem to be anything more to say. But Stuart didn’t utter a word. Instead, his hand reached out to cradle her cheek. Patience’s breath caught. How could a man’s touch be so gentle and yet so strong? Her body yearned to lean into his hand. To close her eyes and let his strength hold her up. He swept his thumb across her cheekbone, stopping at the top of her scar. After what felt like forever, his hand dropped away. “Good night.”

Patience’s heart was racing so fast she was convinced it would reach her bedroom first. Twice in two nights, she’d come dangerously close to breaking the rules when it came to keeping her distance. The third time, she might not be able to walk away.

* * *

He’d wanted to know her secret. He finally did and, man, was it a doozy. Never in a million years would he have imagined Patience was...had been...he couldn’t even think the word. That she’d been forced to make those kinds of choices... It made him sick to his stomach to think that in this day and age she’d felt there was no other way.