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Authors: Katherine Garbera

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BOOK: Overnight Cinderella
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Max's dark gaze bore into him. But the interest was friendly not censuring. Duke hadn't really dated in the years he'd known Max. One-night stands, short-term affairs he had, but relationships—
never.

“With whom?”

“Cami Jones.”

Max's wise eyes surveyed him. Then he nodded.

“No problem.”

“I have to be honest here and tell you that even if there were a problem, I might not break it off.”

“Do you two have plans for tonight?” Max asked.

“Why?”

“I have tickets to the Braves game and can't make it.”

“I'll take them,” Duke said.
And Miss Jones, too.

Though he was uncomfortable encouraging Cami to deepen her emotions for him, he wanted to take her to the baseball game. He wanted to see her relaxed and having fun. Sitting next to him and driving his hormones crazy. Suddenly he could think of no other way to spend the evening.

Max smiled, an expression of masculine understanding. A knock at the door interrupted his next comment. Duke beckoned the person to enter.

Cami strode into the room with her usual energy. Face flushed, her dress design bustling with activity, she held a piece of paper crushed in her grip. Her glasses were slightly askew, and her hair strained to escape the barrette she'd used to confine it.

“Duke, we've got trouble—”

“Good afternoon, Ms. Jones,” Max said. “I'll leave you to discuss this new crisis.”

Max left quietly, with a dignity Duke had often tried to imitate. He remained standing and Cami rushed to his side. “What's up?”

She explained the problem with the florist she'd arranged to create the centerpieces for the Gala and the fact that two florist employees hadn't passed the security requirement. Duke listened to her talk a mile-a-minute and watched her gesture frantically.

She enchanted him, he realized. How was he ever going to keep his emotions uninvolved with her?
How was he going to keep her safe from whatever it was inside him that drove the people he needed the most away? How was he going to make love to her then walk away?

And he knew he must walk away. If he didn't, Cami would, and though he didn't want to admit it, he thought watching her leave him might destroy him in the process.

She wound down and Duke found himself wanting to comfort her. No, he thought. Stop it now. Cami Jones was involved in his life for one reason and one reason alone.
Sex.

Even as he told himself those harsh words, he reached out and gave her shoulder a quick squeeze. It was less than she needed at this moment but more than he'd wanted to give. “I trust you to take care of it.”

Her brown eyes were weary and strained when she looked at him. “What if this whole thing falls apart?”

“It won't.”

“I don't know if I'm the right woman for this job.”

“I couldn't have handled the event any better than you are.”

She lit up from the inside, a brilliant fireworks display of joy. “Really?”

“Really,” he said, biting back a smile. Something he found himself doing more and more often. In his entire life, he'd never really found too much to smile about until he'd met this woman.

“I saw that,” she said with a cheeky grin.

“Saw what?”

“You almost smiled.”

“You're right. I almost did.”

“Why didn't you?”

“I'm saving my smile for a special occasion.” Reaching out, he pulled her close to hug her. Though he'd promised himself he'd keep his distance. Though he knew that his emotions couldn't be involved. He also knew it was too late. Already he cared deeply for this woman.

 

The crowd at Turner Field surged to its feet and cheered on a player but, for the life of him, Duke couldn't have said what was going on. After years in Japan watching Japanese baseball, the Braves games were a reward he'd promised himself. Tonight he couldn't say who was at bat and who had the field.

The only details he knew for certain were that Cami Jones sat next to him, bra-less and sexier than any average woman had a right to be.

Her long bare legs tempted the hell out of him. From the tips of her blood-red toenails visible through her sandals to her barely-touching-the-top-of-her-thighs white denim shorts. When he'd followed her up the steps to their seats he'd gotten hard. Her bottom was first-class. In fact her entire body was first-class when she wore clothes that didn't cover her like a bag. She was a knockout.

Her T-shirt looked respectable with a discreet monogram of the Atlanta Braves in the center, but those two tiny straps holding the material up ruined
the image. There was no way she wore a bra. All he could think about was lifting her shirt, teasing her nipples and then tasting them as they hardened.

Cami wasn't comfortable as the femme fatale though. She continuously tugged at the hem of her shorts, trying to get a few more inches of coverage out of fabric that wasn't going to move. When she forgot about her shorts, she remembered the shirt and kept her arms crossed over her chest.

Her actions endeared her to him, and he fought against the rush of feelings flooding through him. She tried to be what he'd requested and exceeded his imagination, but she'd lost herself in the process. He was riding the knife edge of desire and she wasn't.

He wondered why. The answer came to him in a rush. She didn't believe she was attractive to men or to him. He'd known that already, but her actions really drove home what that meant to Cami.

He tugged on the bill of her baseball cap and she peeked up at him. The star-shaped sunglasses hid her face and her expression was unfathomable but he knew from the way she bit her bottom lip that she was out of her element.

“Having fun?” he asked.

He tried to find the light banter they'd always had, but desire coursing through his veins made lightness impossible. He wanted her wild for him and forgetting about her worries.

“No,” she said too quickly.

He dropped his hand to her thigh and slid his fingers across the white skin revealed there. She had
the sweetest skin. Images of her kept him up nights wondering how she'd taste and feel. Touching her now confirmed that dreams paled in the harsh light of day.

She was everything he'd ever wanted rolled into one. She was just what he'd told her—Sunday picnics, apple pie and every
Saturday Evening Post
Norman Rockwell picture of American life rolled into one. She was everything he'd never had and she was within his reach.

He slid his finger under the hem of the white denim. Her soft skin beckoned him deeper. He reached farther and touched the lacey edge of her panties. Her breath caught and she clapped her hand over his.

“Want to stop?” he asked, knowing without her answer that he should. He needed his head examined for starting something this hot and out-of-control here. At the same time, he rubbed his finger across the edge of skin and lace and was rewarded by the slight movement of her hips toward him.

“No, but I'm not into exhibition.”

“Hot damn,” he said, leaning over to kiss her. He kept it quick and light because he really wanted to taste all of her. And if he did, he wouldn't stop.

“Let's go find a private room then.”

She shook her head. “I'm not ready for that.”

“Why not?” he asked, teasing her again. He knew why. Cami needed romance and fantasy, she needed a white knight and lots of time to prepare herself for giving her body to a man.

She smiled at him and pushed his hand off her
leg. He let her think she'd moved him but he knew it was time to stop teasing. “You promised me an all-American good time.”

“What's more American than fun between the sheets?” he asked. The rough-around-the-edges part of him couldn't keep quiet. He wanted to needle her to make her squirm. Though anything he shared with her would have an emotional impact, he didn't want her to know that.

When she looked at the field for a moment, Duke wondered if she'd let him get away with his smokescreen or if she'd call him on it.
One time, God,
he thought,
just one time let things go my way.

“Only a man would ask that.”

She'd given him a reprieve and shameless man that he was he latched on to it. “Only a woman would hedge the answer.”

But he'd pushed her too far, he realized as she removed her sunglasses and met his gaze squarely. “I want what happens between us to be more than
fun between the sheets.

He reached under his seat for his beer then drained it in one long sip. He didn't know why he'd started something he couldn't finish. Though she'd seemed quiet and average at their first meeting, she was a spunky woman. She'd turned his words back on him. He'd thought he'd successfully navigated himself through dangerous curves but more lay ahead.

“It is more than fun between the sheets,” he said, and turned away.

Eight

W
hen Cami walked into the room, she looked like every dream of a woman he'd fantasized about.

The large banquet room had been transformed into a mystical world for the Gala, and the perfect setting for the ethereal Cami Jones. The mirrored ball suspended from the center of the ceiling painted the ballroom in soft tiny lights that resembled the stars dusting the September sky. Cami fit into the elegant white-and-silver room in a way he never would because he hadn't been born to it. The Grecian columns and long buffet tables welcomed the Pryce Enterprises employees and celebrities from the news network. But the V.P. of security felt out of place.

He'd picked out the dress she wore and had it
sent to her room, but she put the catalog model to shame. The silk skimmed her curves, revealing the knockout body she'd always concealed—except from him. He'd seen most of her body the night of the Braves' game.

He knew with gut-deep instinct that she put the underwear model to shame, as well. He imagined her in the thigh-high hose and the thong panties he'd included in his gifts to her and couldn't wait to see her later this evening wearing nothing but those undergarments.

A few other men around the room were staring at her. He started forward only to be stopped by one of his security men and, as he dealt with the issue, he watched the wolves move toward his little lamb.

He was angry with the men for noticing her now when they hadn't before. He'd looked at her employee file and knew she'd been with Pryce for four years. More than long enough for some of these young bucks to have made a play for her.

Except they hadn't been smart enough to see past the facade she'd presented to them. They hadn't seen beneath the surface to the “real” woman underneath. The woman of fire and passion who'd been blossoming since they'd met and was in full bloom tonight. Now these randy executives wanted to reap what he'd sown.

He'd be damned. Though he wasn't promising her forever, he knew in his soul he was forming a bond with her. Had already laid the groundwork for a deeper connection than he'd ever had with any
woman. Even Rebecca, whom he'd considered his “perfect” mate, hadn't complemented him the way Cami did. Cami was his opposite and that made all the difference in the world because Cami knew how to love.

Yet those same elements that made her his opposite made her impossible for him. Duke wasn't a safe and steady guy. Cami needed a nine-to-five man to settle down with. Some man who could cherish her and keep her safe. Some man who would give her children. Some man who knew how to raise children.

He dismissed his subordinate and cut a path to Cami. Maneuvering through the banquet tables, he stopped to answer a question from one of the caterers. The strikers had reached a settlement the day before, and Duke knew he should be enjoying the evening. But all he could think about was getting Miss Cami Jones into his arms.

Several corporate climbers tried to stop him, but Duke put on his best I'm-a-badass expression and forged ahead. When he finally made it to her side, she was talking to her boss and two human resources executives.

Duke felt like a fraud in his custom-made tuxedo. He'd tried to be her white knight for this evening by dressing the part and planning a romantic interlude in his suite after the event. But at heart he was a basic man. He preferred to survive on gut and instinct instead of polished preplanning.

Cami had the knowledge of someone who'd been taught to believe what they had to say was impor
tant and valued. He listened to her argue with one of the human resources managers. He wanted to protect her from the man's roving gaze.

He stepped back, bumping into a passing waiter. Protecting someone he cared for had led to nothing—
nothing
but pain the last time. Could he do it again? Should he risk it?

Suddenly he knew all the physical arguments he'd used to convince himself he needed Cami in his bed tonight weren't good enough. He wasn't the man he'd once been. The man he was today had learned a harsh lesson from his last caring encounter with the opposite sex. An encounter that had left him standing alone by his deceased wife's grave in the middle of winter. Watching the sleek hearse pull away after leaving behind Rebecca's coffin.

And what you feel for Cami is even more intense.

She glanced up and smiled at him. He thought about smiling back, but he wanted her to see him smile when they were alone. He planned to tease her about her bet then take her to bed. He wanted the smile to be an intimate moment between the two of them.

“Cami did a great job with the party, Duke. Did you help her?”

Max Williams moved to stand beside him with a glass of beer in each hand. He offered one to Duke. Duke took a long swallow. “According to certain sources, I played a minor role in the event.”

“Really?”

“Yes, but I kept the security guys on their toes.”

Max smiled at him. No one had ever really
smiled much around him. Duke fancied himself kind of an emotional black hole sucking feelings in and then watching them collapse. But Max was joking with him in a new way.

Duke realized that Cami was responsible for his own new attitude. He wasn't cheery. That would be asking too much, but the dark edges of his personality had been receding. He wasn't sure he liked it.

Max broke off what he'd been saying. Duke looked up and watched Cami move toward him. She walked like sin. Her hips swaying, her hair swinging, and an Eve-to-Adam smile on her face. Where had she learned to move like that?

Her breasts bobbed gently under her dress and the tight skirt pulled even tighter across the span of her legs with each step. For a moment everything stood still. The music receded and the people milling around him disappeared.

“Good evening, Miss Jones. Excellent work on the Gala.”

Cami flushed, bringing a flattering pink to her cheeks. “Thank you, sir.”

He looked into her dark brown eyes and felt her reach out to him. Felt her reach through the distance between them to the wall he'd always hidden behind. Felt her reach in and touch the lost boy hiding there.

The man who'd been passed from one foster home to the next before landing himself at the Sixth Street Orphanage. The little boy who'd stood Christmas morning with his face pressed to the glass window wondering why Santa hadn't brought
him a mother. The man who'd watched everyone he'd ever cared about abandon him.

And then she comforted him.

He wanted to do the same to her. “Dance?”

She nodded as if afraid to speak. For once he forgot about security and responsibility. For once he put the past out of his mind and lived fully in the present. For once he felt as if everything he'd ever secretly dreamed of was his for the taking.

He set his empty glass on a nearby table, leading her to the dance floor and sweeping her into his arms. She held tight to his shoulders, and her gaze never left his. Her hips under his hands were soft, resilient—womanly, and he wished he hadn't touched her here. Because one touch wouldn't be enough. He wanted—no, needed—more. And he needed it now.

His body hardened painfully as she brushed against him. Hips swaying in time to the music as her breasts touched his chest. She was seducing him with her body.

“Uh, Duke?”

He grunted. Forming words was beyond him now. His base instincts had taken over and they called for him to mate with Cami.

“I don't want to sound silly saying this but…”

Damn, she'd changed her mind, he thought. But as he looked into her eyes he knew she hadn't.

“What, sweetheart?”

She stopped dancing and pulled his head toward her. Standing on tiptoe, she leaned closer.

“I'm very excited about tonight,” she whispered in his ear.

Her hot breath seared him, arousing him further, but her words cut right to his soul. They made him realize how special Cami was to him. One in a million, he thought. She'd chosen him to be her first man.

“Yeah, sweetheart. Me, too. It's perfect.”

The music ended and he escorted her off the dance floor. Her assistant beckoned to her from across the room, and Duke watched her walk away.

“When I'm finished dealing with the crisis of the moment, I'm going to try to eat. Want to join me?”

“Sure.”

Cami was more dangerous than a .357 Magnum at close range because she was going to tear the soul from his body when she left. And he knew that she would leave. Because he couldn't say the words that would make her stay.

 

The difference between Duke and Max struck her. Duke exuded masculinity with an uncivilized grace that most men couldn't match. Max was civilized from his French cuffs to his wing tips and, though Duke was dressed the same, Max carried the clothing with an air of having been born to wear them.

Cami observed the two powerful men interacting and marveled that Duke wanted her. He could have any of the glittering women in the room tonight but he'd chosen her. She'd joined up with him to eat
dinner. Most of the people in the room were seated at the round tables draped in white and silver.

Cami had been a little intimidated when Duke had rejoined her with Max and his date, Misty. But Max had gone out of his way to put her at ease, and she was enjoying eating with them. Before long they found themselves sitting alone at the table as Max and his date left the table to search for dessert.

“Thanks for signing the food and beverage invoice when we checked in.”

“It's nice to know I'm needed,” Duke said.

Of course he was needed.
Not only needed but necessary—to her. She'd never needed a man before and it scared her. But with Duke she
wanted,
wanted his life enmeshed with hers. The sentiment was new to her. A new level of life she couldn't wait to explore.

Duke was the man who could take all the love she'd been storing inside and use it to fill every empty corner of his life. A man who'd appreciate her intelligence and spar with her wit. A man who'd set her heart to beating in a way no man had before.

He was the most efficient man she'd ever met. The staff jumped to do his bidding whenever he spoke and he only had to ask for something one time before it was completed.

Duke gave her one of his almost-smiles, his eyes glittering with promised retribution at her small gibe. She wasn't worried. Any man who'd sent her risqué panties she could tame. Because Duke had chosen clothes only a sexy woman could wear, she found herself believing in the fantasy.

Tonight.

Tonight she was the belle of the ball. Tonight she was the princess of a fairy kingdom. Tonight Duke was her White-Knight-Prince-Charming, and she planned to savor every moment.

The sexy lingerie Duke had sent to her along with the dress made her feel like a siren from the black-and-white classic films of the forties. She felt like one of those glamorous women made up by Max Factor. And she had Duke to thank for it.

Cami realized he was her mate. The other half of herself. That only together did they make a whole person. He needed family and love, and she'd been waiting for years to find someone she could shower with her pent-up affection. But not just any man would do.

She'd needed a man who could see the real Cami Jones—not the surface facade she presented to the world. She needed a man who'd look beneath her glasses and baggy dresses. She needed Duke.

Scared, she backed away. She didn't want to have to acknowledge that this man, this very dark man, had elements of her soul in him. But the truth faced her down. Only someone with a battered past could understand how events that happened long ago would haunt you forever unless you put them to rest.

Only Duke.

She'd never told him about her humiliating senior year in high school. Never told him she'd been the butt of too many jokes. Never told him that just once she'd like to be the sun instead of the moon.
Full shining glory instead of reserved and stated sameness. But he'd known.

Unable to resist a moment longer, she touched his hand. She wanted to pull him to her, to take his strong mouth under hers and own him. To reassure herself that he felt something for her even if it was only lust. Because right now in the ballroom crowded with sophisticated, beautiful people she still felt a little like the ugly duckling deep inside. Even though she'd been transformed, part of her feared the magic would wear off and she'd be standing there in a hideous dress and hideous glasses.

“Well, we did okay,” he said, snatching two glasses of champagne from a passing waiter.

“I'm not surprised,” she said as she accepted her glass.

He clinked the lip of his glass to hers and took a sip. Cami did the same. Since she felt like a beauty tonight, she figured she didn't have to acknowledge reality.

“I've been watching you instead of the party,” he said.

His tone sent delicious tingles down her spine. Duke had been watching her.

“Did you see anything you liked?” she asked, focusing on him and what he made her feel rather than her own failings.

“Yes.”

Taking her courage in both hands, she asked, “What?”

Deliberately, she was sure, he sipped his cham
pagne. His gaze roamed over her body and she stepped closer to him. Heat radiated from him in waves and she wanted to immerse herself in it.

“Are you sure you want to know?”

“Yes, but not now. The look in your eyes is sending tingles throughout my body and if you start saying provocative things to me in that deep voice of yours, I might throw you down and have my wicked way with you.”

He held his arms wide. “I'm all yours.”

I wish, she thought. She wished he really was hers because she'd cradle him in her arms and never let him go.

Unable to resist, she leaned forward and brushed her lips against his. He took possession of her mouth and she shivered. If one kiss, one small kiss could affect her this much, what would it be like to make love to him? How was she going to control her own reactions and keep him from realizing how much she loved him?

BOOK: Overnight Cinderella
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