Cinderella Wore Tennis Shoes: A Novella (8 page)

Charlie liked Molly on sight. There was something comfortable, something confident, that radiated from her. From her mile-high red hair to her cat-eye-shaped glasses, Molly just felt like someone who could be a friend.

“Dan-some?”
Charlie asked.

“Well, Con has always been Prince Charming. Have you met him yet?”

Charlie shook her head.

“Molly,” Dan warned.

Obviously not in the least intimidated, the receptionist continued, “Dan plus handsome. I just sort of merged the words. He’s definitely got the looks. It’s the personality that’s lacking. No one would call Dan charming—you might have noticed that.”

“I can’t say I have. Dan’s been very charming and very”—she searched for some princely word—“gallant. Dan’s been very gallant.”

Handsome. Yes, that was accurate too, though she wasn’t going to admit it. And he’d been charming on occasion, just not recently.

Last night’s dinner had been agonizingly stiff. They’d sat at Dan’s table, all their previous comfort suddenly evaporated. When they’d both reached for a piece of pizza and their hands had brushed, Dan had jumped back as if she had burned him.

No, she might not want to let anyone talk Dan down, but she wasn’t going to admit any more than she had to.

“Oh, that sounds like a story.” Molly rubbed her hands together, obviously looking forward to the telling.

“I’m going back to my office,” Dan growled. “Charlie’s working here, find her something to do, and put her on the payroll.” Dan stalked down the hall, leaving the women to themselves.

“So your name’s Charlie. Tell me how you came to know our Dan,” he heard Molly bubble.

What the hell had he been thinking, bringing Charlie here?

He rearranged the papers on his desk for over half an hour, rather than dealing with them.

Charlie was innocent. It had taken her twenty-seven years to declare her independence from her mother. She was on the rebound, looking for some affirmation, looking for something new and exciting.

Well, she didn’t belong here. Molly could corrupt a saint, and Con . . .

He hadn’t been thinking when he’d offered to let her work for him. Charlie didn’t know the first thing about men. Look at the man she’d almost married. Anyone with half a brain could see Winslow the fop was a worm.

She’d take one look at Con and fall all over him, just like every other woman in the city had.

Molly shouldn’t call Con Prince Charming, she should call him
Con Juan
—his own personal nickname for his friend. Con’s reputation with women was almost as legendary as the literary figure’s.

Dan had left Charlie, vulnerable Charlie, out there with Molly. Out in the main office, where Con was bound to show up.

He bolted from his desk.

Dan could hear Charlie’s voice. “. . . and then he swooped in like a knight on a charger and rescued me.”

Molly lifted her glasses and dabbed her eyes with a tissue. “I guess maybe you’re right. Dan can be charming, though none of us here have seen it.”

“Honey, if you’d like to learn about charming, I’d be happy to teach you.” It was Con’s voice.

Dan realized that he was too late.

Charlie apparently didn’t hear Con’s offer, because instead of falling at his feet the way the rest of the female population did, she said, “And after Dan rescued me, he rescued Ida—”

Dan hadn’t seen Con standing in the corner, but he saw him as he stepped forward. “Con, you don’t have to teach her a thing. Charlie, I need you back in my office. The first door on the right.”

“Dan?” Charlie’s smile slowly melted into a nervous frown.

“Go on, Charlie.” Dan nudged her toward the hall. “Go on. I’ll be right there.”

Charlie shrugged, gave Molly and Con a little wave, and walked past him down the hall.

As soon as he heard his office door shut, Dan walked up to his partner. Conrad Estoban was everything Dan wasn’t. Smooth, articulate, engaging. Add to that, he came from money. Con was everything Charlie needed in a man.

Con might have been born into a prestigious family like Winslow, but he didn’t live on the family money or reputation. He’d walked into a partnership with Dan, pulling his own weight, doing the dirty work.

Dan had never envied Con’s background or his looks or even his way with women. Con wasn’t just a partner, but a best friend, and there was no place in a friendship for jealousy. “We’re friends, Con. And as a friend, I’m warning you to leave Charlie alone.”

“Does she have some disease I should know about?” Con’s startlingly blue eyes blazed with humor from beneath his dark brows.

“No, she doesn’t have a disease. She’s vulnerable, that’s all.”

“And?” Con didn’t shift from his lazy stance against the filing cabinet.

Dan wished he felt so relaxed. He hadn’t felt the least bit relaxed since Charlie had crawled into his truck. “And she’s not for you to use and lose, like all the other women who you date. She’s off-limits.”

Con’s eyes narrowed a moment, and then he nodded. “So that’s how it stands?”

Dan shook his head, knowing and denying what Con was thinking. “It’s not what you think. I’m responsible for her and I don’t want her hurt. She’s been through enough already.”

Con smiled, but it wasn’t a comforting sight. “That’s all?”

“That’s all.” That was all it could be. He might be physically attracted to Charlie, but she wasn’t for him. She was still recovering from her almost-wedding. “She’s confused, and innocent. She’s not like one of your women.”

“Boys.” Molly’s voice was sharp.

Boys. Molly would never think of either of them as her boss, both Con and Dan realized that. She’d joined them when the company was new and struggling. She’d stood by them in all their rough times and had become their mother as well as a partner in the business.

“That’s enough strutting like two preening peacocks,” Molly said. “Charlie struck me as a girl who can stand up for herself.”

An image of Charlie hitchhiking in her wedding finery came to mind, and Dan smiled despite his annoyance. “She can. She’s just going through a rough time now. Back off.” He stalked down the hall and slammed into his office.

Charlie was simply standing in the middle of his office, waiting. “Dan?”

“Here.” He shoved a pile of papers her way. “File these there.” He pointed to an oversize filing cabinet that took the entire east wall of his office.

“That’s it? No explanation why you rushed into the room like some outraged father?”

“No.”

He picked up a file and flipped it open, pretending to study it, ignoring Charlie’s glare.

“I didn’t exchange an overbearing mother for an overbearing . . .” She left the sentence hanging as if she couldn’t figure out the appropriate description.

“Overbearing what, Charlie?” Dan’s voice was soft. His work was all but forgotten.

“Boss,” she suddenly blurted out. “An overbearing boss.”

Dan wouldn’t have admitted it to anyone, but he was disappointed. He wasn’t exactly sure how he wanted Charlie to describe their relationship, but he was sure
boss
wasn’t the word he wanted her to use.

Charlie didn’t look particularly happy with him. “I’m going out for lunch.”

Dan glanced at his watch. “It’s only ten o’clock.”

“And it will be eleven o’clock before I come back. Employees get an hour for lunch. Well, I’m taking mine now.”

He stood. “I’ll come with you.”

“No you won’t.” She glared at him. “I need to think.”

“About what?” Dan didn’t like her expression. She’d had the same look on her face when she’d climbed into his truck for the first time.

“About if taking this job—”

“Begging for this job.”

Charlie’s eyes narrowed and Dan suddenly believed in the old adage about looks killing. If they could, he’d be dead right now. No, her expression didn’t bode well at all for Daniel Ferguson Martin.

“Taking,” she said firmly. “Not begging. I want to think about whether taking this job was a mistake.”

“It wasn’t a mistake,” he said, though he himself had doubted the wisdom of her working for him. But when she’d asked, not begged, for the job, he couldn’t say no.

“What would you call it? I obviously embarrass you so much you have to hide me away in your office. I seem to be embarrassing men all over Erie lately.”

Dan didn’t say a word. It was easier if she thought he was embarrassed, because if she knew he’d felt . . . well, he’d felt jealous, she’d take it as an indication that he cared. And he didn’t, at least not any more than any friend would care.

“I need a job,” she continued. “But I’ve got almost five years’ experience at the museum, that must count for something somewhere. And who says I have to stay in Erie? Why, I could head to DC and apply at the Smithsonian, I’ve always loved those museums, or maybe New York. Working at the Met wouldn’t be a job, it would be a joy.”

Charlie took a breath and Dan could sense that she was building up to another verbal roller coaster. Rather than try to reason with her, he stood and walked around the desk.

Charlie backed up. “Dan?” she asked weakly.

“I’m not hiding you because I’m embarrassed,” he said as he continued to approach.

Charlie couldn’t continue to back up. She ran into the file cabinets and was stopped cold.

“And you’re not going to DC or New York,” he continued.

“No?” she whispered.

“No. I’m not embarrassed, I’m just . . .” He paused.

CHAPTER SIX

Dan was jealous, but knew he had no rational reason to be.

He hardly knew Charlie. She wasn’t his. He didn’t have the right to kiss her, and he had every reason in the world not to kiss her.

But right or not, he was going to kiss her again.

He moved toward her, before he thought better of it. Kissing Charlie was like licking a battery when he was a kid. It sent tiny jolts of electric current racing through his body. Not quite pain. Her kisses were exciting, addictive, even.

Gently he nudged her lips apart and investigated the contours of her mouth. She met his kiss without hesitation.

“Charlie,” he gasped as he forced himself to draw away. “Go to lunch.”

He needed space.

“Lunch?” she murmured, still in a passion-filled daze. Slowly her eyes cleared and narrowed.

“Lunch,” she repeated flatly. “I’ll be back in an hour.” She turned and made her way out of Imperial Shipping.

Lunch? The only thing she was hungry for was a cantankerous trucker who’d turned out to be the company’s owner. She was aching for a man who’d shown her a slice of heaven, then ripped it away from her.

The crowned prince of Imperial Shipping was a wolf in a trucker’s clothing. No, if he’d been a wolf, then she wouldn’t be feeling so frustrated. He was a sheep, running away from . . . she had no idea exactly what he was running from.

She scanned the small lot for her gold Blazer. Gold, that was easy enough. But even once she found the car, walking away from the building and walking toward it was hard. She wanted to run back into the shipping office, right into Dan’s office, bolt the door, and step back into his arms.

She was twenty-seven years old and had thought she’d experienced passion. But one failed love affair and then the lukewarm kisses she’d exchanged with Winslow hadn’t even come close to what she’d felt in Dan’s arms.

Lukewarm, at best. That’s what Winslow had been.

Charlie knew she’d never be satisfied with lukewarm again.

“Charlie?”

She’d almost reached her car. She turned and saw Dan’s partner closing the distance between them. What was his name?

“What?” Realizing how abrupt she’d sounded, she smiled. “I’m sorry. I work for you too now, don’t I?”

The man smiled. “Do you? With the way you stormed out of the office, I wasn’t sure.”

“It’s just that man . . .” She shook her head. “Never mind. Was there something I could do for you, Mister . . . ah, I hate to admit, I can’t remember your name.”

Rather than look insulted, Dan’s partner smiled. “Con. Con Estoban.”

“Con Estoban. Your name rhymes. That must be a burden.” Charlie stopped, aghast at what she’d said.

That’s it. Dan had reduced her to sounding like a fool. “I’m sorry, Mr. Estoban,” she apologized. “Was there something you wanted?”

“Call me Con. I wanted to know if you’d like to join me for lunch? We can talk about your position in the company.”

She frowned. “Mr. Estoban, if you want to talk about my job, I think it would be better if we did it in the office. We can do it now. I can take a later lunch.”

He just shook his head, still grinning like a fool. Maybe Dan’s partner had some mental problem Dan hadn’t mentioned? Suddenly she felt ashamed for barking at the simple man. “Are you sure?”

“Go.”

Charlie didn’t need a second invitation. Imperial Shipping was run by a bunch of insane . . .
men
. It was the biggest insult she could think of.

Charlie climbed into her Blazer and gunned the engine, roaring out of the parking lot.

What on earth was going on with her?

What on earth was going on?

Dan stood in his office window and watched Con talking to Charlie.

What was Con doing? Dan had specifically told him that Charlie was off-limits. The man had a harem. Couldn’t he leave one poor, confused girl alone?

Charlie practically ran to her car and tore out of the lot. Moments later Con opened Dan’s office door.

“What did you say to her that sent her barreling out of the parking lot like that?”

Con smiled an enigmatic smile. “I asked her to lunch.”

Dan slammed the wall with his fist. “I wanted that to be your face.”

Con ignored Dan’s outburst and sank nonchalantly into the chair. “I know.”

“I might be doing you a favor. Maybe if you weren’t so pretty, the women would leave you alone.”

“It has nothing to do with looks, my friend, it’s the attitude. It drives the women wild.” He paused. “Except . . .”

“Except what?”

“Except for your pretty girlfriend. She seems to be immune to my attitude and my looks.” He shook his head. “Can’t say that finding an immune woman happens often.”

“What do you mean immune?”

“I flashed her my award-winning smile, batted my blue eyes at her, and asked her to lunch. Dan, my friend, that’s all it generally takes to get a woman in bed, much less a simple lunch. But your Charlie wasn’t biting.”

“She’s not
my Charlie
.” Dan was having a hard time remembering that one tiny point.

Charlie Eaton wasn’t his, and wasn’t going to become his.

“No?” Con’s skepticism was evident in his expression.

“No.”

“Then I can ask her out to dinner tonight?” Con kicked his feet onto the edge of Dan’s desk, apparently totally relaxed.

Dan wanted to wipe that knowing smirk off his friend’s face but settled for slamming the wall again. “No.”

Con nodded. “I thought as much. Molly’s often said that when you fell it would be hard and fast. Looks like she’s right.”

“I haven’t fallen anywhere except into an insane asylum.”

“Hard and fast,” Con said again. He stood and walked out of Dan’s office, leaving Dan standing alone behind his desk.

He stared at the dent in his wall, and then down the road where Charlie had fled.

No. He hadn’t fallen anywhere but into a slight case of lust. But he was done lusting after Charlie. He’d had that last kiss and now he was over it. Oh, he was so over it.

Charlie banged her knuckles against the floor for the umpteenth time, but she didn’t care. Scrubbing the floor was more therapeutic than she’d ever imagined.

After spending the rest of the day listening to Dan bark orders, banging the brush against the linoleum was quite satisfying. Charlie vented her frustration while keeping her little place clean. Both were strangely satisfying.

Scrubbing the floor wasn’t exactly how she’d like to satisfy herself over Dan Martin, but for the moment it looked like her only option.

She stood and surveyed the small kitchen area that joined the combination living room and bedroom. Everything was neat as a pin. Except that one little mark to her left. She knelt back down and attacked it with gusto.

Charlie wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead. She might not have a lot of practical knowledge, which was absurd considering it was the new millennium and she was twenty-seven years old.

“Oh, my God. This is what you’ve been reduced to? Scrubbing floors? You could be living in Winslow’s new house and have a maid to do this.”

Charlie was pulled from her fantasies back into the real world. She would know that shrieky voice anywhere. She turned and there stood Harriet Eaton, a shocked look on her plastic surgeon–sculpted face.

“Mother,” Charlie said as she stood.

“You should be on your honeymoon, not scrubbing a floor.” Harriet stepped daintily into the kitchen, taking in the small space.

Charlie wiped her hands against the back of her jeans. “It’s my house, at least for now, so I can hardly be a servant. Would you like a seat?”

Harriet wrinkled her nose, as if she was too good to sit on metal chairs. She remained standing. Her delicate sensibility might have appeared genuine to anyone else, but Charlie knew that Harriet Eaton had grown up Harriet Wisniewski, a girl who considered marrying Charlie’s decidedly middle-class father a step up in the world and was now determined to step even higher with Charlie’s marriage.

“Winslow hires someone to come in and clean,” she said with a sniff.

Charlie pulled out a chair and sat. “I don’t mind scrubbing a floor. You could spit across the room and hit the other wall. But I don’t imagine spitting across a kitchen is what you’re here to talk about.”

“No, I don’t suppose it is.” Disapproval etched on her face, Harriet took the seat opposite Charlie. “When are you going to stop this foolishness? Winslow said he came to bring you home and you told him some absurd story about working for that . . .”

“Ruffian was the word you used last time.”

The memory brought a smile to Charlie’s face. Her mother put on airs with the casual ease that anyone else might use put on their pants in the morning.

“Yes.” Harriet nodded. “Ruffian.”

“I’m sure Winslow told you more than that.” Charlie could almost imagine their conversation. “I’m working for Dan both in his office . . . and in his bedroom.”

The lie rolled easily off her lips. And Charlie hoped that soon, very soon, it wouldn’t be a lie at all. Her growing attraction to Dan was like an itch, just begging to be scratched. And if she didn’t take care of it soon, she’d be the one begging, begging Dan to . . .

Harriet’s angry sputtering shook Charlie from her sweet reverie.

“You’re—”

“Yes, Mother. I’m sleeping with him and working for him. My job at the museum’s gone, and I needed to make some money. And you might not have noticed, but my art degree doesn’t have employers flocking at my door. Dan got me a job at the trucking company he works for.” She didn’t mention he owned the company . . . or at least owned part of it.

“So, I work with him and sleep with him.”

“Winslow said that, but I don’t believe a word of it. You wouldn’t even sleep with Winslow, and you’ve been with him a year. Why would you sleep with a man you’ve only known for days?”

Maybe Charlie should be shocked that Winslow and her mother had discussed their sexual, or lack thereof, relationship, but she wasn’t. Nothing either of them did had the ability to shock her anymore.

“Dan is a real man who can spark the most delicious feelings in me. When he touches me it’s like a forest fire ignites in my body. The only light Winslow could ever light was a candle on the table.” She hoped Harriet ran back and tattled that to Winslow. Maybe it would put a dent in his canyon-size ego, but she doubted it.

“Your manners are severely lacking, young lady.”

“But I’ve learned from a master, Mother.” Suddenly her annoyance faded. All that was left was a deep sadness. “Please, go home. And understand this, there is no way I’m ever going to marry Winslow. There’s nothing you can do, or he can do, that will change my mind. I’m finally grown up, and having the time of my life. Good-bye, Mother.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“I’m afraid you are.” Suddenly Dan shadowed the door of the small apartment.

“You,” Harriet Eaton hissed as she sprang from her chair to face Dan. “You’ve ruined her.”

“Thank you, ma’am. I came home early from work in hopes of ruining her a little more.” He winked at Charlie as Harriet turned a dozen brilliant shades of red. “Your place or mine, honey?”

“You, you . . .” Harriet didn’t seem to be able to squeeze any other insult out.

“Good-bye, Mother.”

“Good-bye, Mrs. Eaton.”

Harriet stomped toward the door and Dan moved to one side to allow her to pass. She turned in the doorway. “Charlotte, get in the car.”

“Mother, I’m a big girl. And I’d like to think that your tone wouldn’t have intimidated me even if I weren’t. I tried to live your life, but it didn’t work. This time, I’m living mine.”

“And that new life includes scrubbing floors and sleeping with the likes of him?”

“
The likes of him
is definitely preferable to the type of man you’d saddle me with. Winslow didn’t love me, Mother. He was never the man of my dreams—he was the man of yours. Maybe you should see if he’d marry you.”

“You’re telling me this man loves you?”

The look of horror on Dan’s face would have been humorous if the subject weren’t so serious.