Runaway Cinderella Read online

  What did he want from her?

  Not sex. Not with a virgin.

  She stomped off to her room, stripped off her clothes and stood under a stinging cold shower. If the laws of physics had obeyed the laws of emotion, the water would have steamed as it hit her skin. She was passionately angry and passionately aroused.

  “That man!” How dare he question her sexuality, her desire? Was it a crime to be a virgin? A crime to surrender that virginity?

  “If I want to make love, it’s my decision.”

  Daniel stirred her hormones. So what if there might be an element of teenage experimentation six years overdue? He had wanted her, still wanted her unless his body was a liar. She wanted him. They were consenting adults, without commitments to anyone else.

  “He doesn’t have to protect me from myself.” Six years ago she’d been little more than a child and unable to fight for what she wanted. But times had changed. She had changed. These days she took what she wanted from life.

  “I’m not vulnerable any more. I’ll never be vulnerable again.” It was her deepest vow. Never again would she let someone use her love against her, as her dad had tried to do. Her independence kept Cate safe.

  And if she wanted sex, she would have it. Just because she hadn’t wanted to share her body before, was no reason to make a big deal of it now.

  How dare Daniel make decisions for her! If she wanted to lose her virginity, then she would.

  Even if he continues to say no? Do you want to make love with someone else? whispered a sly voice in her mind.

  No! The rejection was immediate, visceral. She wanted to make love with Daniel.

  “But that’s reasonable.” She turned off the shower and began towelling herself dry. “My hormones are imprinted with him. He’s unfinished business.” And being with him felt wonderful.

  She dragged on her pyjamas and crawled into bed, snapping off the light. Then she cuddled a pillow and wished it was him.

  In the darkness she could admit that his rejection hurt.

  What sort of man suspected her desire for him to be an attempt to extract a sexual revenge for a six year old hurt?

  A man with vulnerabilities and sensitivities hidden from the world?

  “As if!” Cate rejected the rational voice whispering in her heart. “I’m not that petty.”

  But when he’d asked why she wanted to have sex with him, why hadn’t she simply said, because I want you?

  Coward. When he’d pulled away, she hadn’t wanted to put into her words her need for him. Instead, she’d used words to hide that basic truth: woman to man, she wanted him.

  In the morning…in the morning she’d take responsibility for that desire.

  She heard him return at one o’clock.

  He walked quietly down the corridor, his footsteps slowing by her door but not stopping.

  Was he regretting his decision? Sleepily, Cate hoped it ate at him all night. Let him burn for her. In the morning, she’d apply the match.

  Cate brushed her teeth vigorously and looked at her bright-eyed image in the mirror. If Daniel thought that last night he’d seen sex used as revenge, wait until he saw her now.

  He wouldn’t ignore her, or walk away from her, this time.

  She combed out her hair, and left it free and curling around her shoulders. Then she took off her pyjamas and shrugged on her satin robe, belting it loosely. Deliberately, she mussed her hair.

  The kitchen was dark and empty. She put on coffee to perk and waited.

  The coffee was ready when Daniel showed up, shaved and suited and on his way to work. The bright morning sunlight showed lines of strain at the corner of his eyes.

  “Coffee?” she offered and smiled.

  “Thank you.” He watched her warily as he took the cup. “About last night.”

  “Hmm?” She sipped her coffee. How do you seduce a man over breakfast?

  He put down his cup. “Learning you were a virgin, it startled me. I didn’t respond very well.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” She hoped she sounded blasé. Her fingers shook. Maybe she wasn’t a natural seductress? She felt the sexy irresponsibility of last night slip away at the concerned expression on his face.

  “It does.” He took the cup out of her hands. His expression gentled, beguiled. “A woman’s virginity is a gift and a responsibility. Her first time should be special. I want your first time to be special, Caty.”

  “So do I.” She shivered as his hands slid up her arms under the wide satin sleeves of her robe. She gathered her dignity, remembering his rejection. “You were right, last night, to say no. I need to find a man who will enjoy my virginity with me. One who wants to share my discovery of my body and its pleasure.”

  “Cate.” His blue eyes darkened and his hands slid back down her arms.

  “I wouldn’t want him to think the gift of my body was revenge.” Her voice shook.

  “I apologised. I’m an idiot to have thought it.”

  “And I’d be an idiot to ignore what you really think of me.” She pulled her hands out of his hold and folded her arms defensively. Now she was so muddled, she didn’t know what she thought or wanted.

  “I think you are beautiful, courageous, generous and loving. I think you’re perfect, and you terrify me. Why do you think I was so inept and stumbling last night?”

  The admission shocked her. Her arms dropped. “You’re scared of me?”

  “Of what you make me feel, of how fragile the tie between us is.” He reached out and traced the neckline of her robe, following it down, his fingers trailing against her skin. “Women aren’t the only ones who need reassurance. Last night I needed to know you wanted me, that I was more than the man on the spot when you desired one.”

  She tried to assimilate the amazing fact that he could be vulnerable and acknowledge his vulnerability. His hand, poised at the V of her robe, didn’t help her to think clearly.

  “I wanted you,” she said.

  His hand didn’t move. “And now?”

  Tell the truth and shame the devil. “I want you.” She smiled ruefully. “Why do you think I dressed this way?”

  “To torture me.”

  She gasped as his hand slid beneath the satin and cupped her breast.

  His mouth captured her gasp, captured her. His tongue plunged into her warm, wet mouth and stroked her tongue into playing.

  The belt knot gave way and her slippery satin robe slid off her body, pooling at their feet.

  He groaned and tore his mouth from hers. He looked the length of her body. “Beautiful.”

  “Looks like you’re over-dressed,” she murmured. The protest lacked strength. She felt incredibly sexy to be naked against his business-suited body. She wrapped her arms around his neck and stretched against him.

  The sheer, wicked decadence excited her, and Daniel.

  He took her mouth with ruthless need and she answered from her own feverish burn. He lifted her and carried her through the penthouse to his bedroom, tumbling her down on the unmade bed.

  “Am I over-dressed?” He leaned over her, nuzzling the tender curve of her neck.

  “Yes!” She wanted skin on skin.

  He rolled them over, so that her nakedness straddled him. “Then do something about it.”

  She felt pagan and powerful, kneeling over him. The burning urgency in his eyes reassured her. She was wanted, her desire returned.

  “Tie first.” She unknotted it and draped the ends down his chest, then began on his shirt buttons, moving down. She adjusted her hips so that she rode over the hard ridge of his desire that pressed against his trousers.

  The sensation was addictive.

  He thrust uncontrollably beneath her. “Have mercy.”

  But she couldn’t. She needed him and the completion he could bring her.

  He moved suddenly, pinning her beneath him.

  She welcomed the weight of him, her legs gripping him instinctively.

  “We need…to go…slow.”


  “No.” She wanted fast. She wanted him. Her legs tightened.

  “Yes.”

  Cate could have bitten him, but then his hand found her moist and swollen and waiting for him, and he entered her. One finger, two. She pressed against his hand, and he rubbed her, coaxing her body into pleasurable surrender.

  “Yes, Caty.” He watched her face. “Come. Come for me.”

  She gripped his shoulders, arched and shattered.

  “Daniel.” Her voice slurred as she drifted back to earth and felt the tension humming through his body. Her own felt boneless. She had melted into him. “You didn’t…”

  “Soon.” Gentle kisses eased her from satiated to desirous. She felt the fire ignite from smoulder to flame and reached for his belt buckle. “Take off your clothes. I want to see you.”

  His response to her words and hands jerked through his body. “Not a good idea,” he said unsteadily. He caught her hands and lifted them above her head. Her breasts lifted with the motion, brushing his chest.

  “Please.” Already need was building again, and this time she wanted to shatter with him.

  He groaned, his eyes slitting with pleasure as he rubbed his chest against her breasts. “I still don’t have condoms.”

  Her eyes widened. “Then why did you bring me to bed?”

  “Because I wanted you. Want you.” He released her wrists and swept a possessive hand over her body. “Because you’re so responsive. You wrap around me like honey. I couldn’t wait.”

  “But you haven’t…come.”

  “Tonight. When we have time. When I can love you until you scream.”

  Her toes curled at the words and his husky tone. “Do we have to wait?”

  He kissed her deeply and she answered the demand freely. She gave and enticed.

  When Daniel broke the kiss, he was breathing heavily. He sat up, his expression tense and hungry. “I told Tim Radjick, the new CEO, that I’d be in the office early. The announcement of the handover is tomorrow and we have details to settle before the press conference. I have to go.”

  “Oh.”

  “Just, oh?” He watched her carefully. “I don’t want to leave you.”

  Intellectually, she knew he had other commitments, huge commitments. Daniel was too important a man to drop everything for her. For sex, she said toughly to herself, denying the caring concern in his blue eyes. Mentally, she withdrew behind her usual defences, closing herself off.

  For the first time, her nakedness bothered her.

  “We’ll have tonight.”

  Tonight. A shudder rippled through her. One night, maybe two. She hadn’t thought this through. She was embarking on a short term affair with a man who might become her brother’s brother-in-law. He’d be in her life forever, but only in her bed for a couple of days.

  How dangerous, how potentially devastating. Was she willing to pay the price?

  She looked at his taut expression, and the male strength and hunger of his body.

  “Caty?”

  “Remember to buy condoms.”

  Relief lightened his expression. He leaned over her, and kissed her hard and fast. “I won’t forget.”

  He re-dressed quickly while she lay on the bed and watched, a sheet covering her. There was an unfamiliar intimacy in watching his deft knotting of the tie, the automatic shake and smoothing of his suit sleeves.

  How many women had watched him dress and leave them? The thought hurt, although she didn’t expect the world to be virgins, like her.

  “I’ve never brought a woman home to my bed,” he said into the silence. “If sex was casual for me, I’d have condoms on hand.”

  “Your past is your business,” she answered instantly. She hated that he might have read and responded to her insecurity. Her hands curled around the edge of the sheet.

  He ignored her defensive tone. “For the record, if we had married six years ago, I’d have been faithful.”

  It came out of nowhere, this reference to their shared past.

  For an instant, she stared at him, then nodded.

  “Good.” He bent and kissed her, a passionate, tender promise. “I want to love you, tonight, Caty, but if you have second thoughts, if you change your mind, that’s okay.”

  “I won’t.” She said it in defiance of her own growing nervousness, but also because she saw a hint of uncharacteristic caution, even wistfulness, in his eyes. He didn’t have to be the strong one, protecting her from herself. Hadn’t she argued this out with herself last night?

  “I won’t.” This time she whispered her promise. “I want you.” She stroked his face, and he turned his head to kiss the centre of her palm.

  “I’ll try to be home early.”

  He left, and she lay a while longer in his bed, inhaling the scent of him and remembering his touch and her response.

  Tonight she’d make love, fully and completely, with Daniel. Would it change her?

  Deep in her body, she quivered. Whether she admitted it or not, trusting him with her body was a huge step. If he hadn’t shown her how much pleasure there could be, would she have risked this intimacy?

  Always before she had defended her independence, held herself aloof from the men who wanted to share her life. This blazing sexual attraction to Daniel had blindsided her, but more than that, she’d been lonely, and letting him close eased that loneliness.

  “Just don’t go thinking you’re in love.”

  Love was for Amie and Rob—fingers crossed. If they could work out last night’s argument.

  Could she help?

  She half-rose from Daniel’s bed, then hesitated. No, now was not the time for even well-meant interference. Amie had to heal the hurt between herself and Rob.

  But if Cate couldn’t help Rob and Amie, what would she do with her day?

  “I can’t just lie here and wait for Daniel.” Although the notion of waiting naked in his bed had a sneaking appeal.

  She pushed aside temptation and returned to her room to dress for the day. If she wanted to maintain her independence and self-respect, she had to act. She wasn’t a mistress, to wait in Daniel’s penthouse for his return. She had her own life, her own needs and responsibilities.

  She needed to reaffirm her identity as a woman in charge of her life. She wasn’t immature, vulnerable or running scared.

  Over a second cup of coffee, Cate knew what she had to do.

  It was a matter of moving forward, and that meant dealing with the past.

  Daniel had challenged her with it, and her own common sense said it was time and past to heal old wounds. She would contact her dad.

  “Not by phone.” That was too easy to put someone off. No, if she was going to prove her courage, then she’d go to her dad’s office. “Tackle him in his lair.” The wry humour didn’t help.

  She realised she was trembling. If her dad rejected her this time, it would be utterly final.

  Her throat ached with tension as she caught a bus across town. Her mind scurried, searching for excuses.

  Maybe this isn’t a good time? Rob had mentioned something about a visiting Middle Eastern group. Her dad would be busy and dismissive of all that wasn’t business.

  Coward.

  She got off the bus and drew a deep breath. In her black trousers and jacket with her white shirt and jaunty red scarf, she looked like any other office worker. No one walking past would guess her emotional turmoil.

  The sun came out from behind a cloud and she clung to the good omen.

  One final try. She would risk her heart, and hope.

  The office layout was familiar from her childhood, although the decor had been updated. Now, it was teal and beige. The receptionist was busy with a courier and his sign-sheet, and Cate slipped past.

  Her dad’s secretary was new since Cate’s last visit, but her eyes behind tortoiseshell-framed glasses widened as if in recognition.

  “Cate?” The middle aged woman blushed. “Oh, I am sorry, but I recognise you from the photo on Matt’s desk.”r />
  “My photo?” Cate was equally stunned. She actually stepped back a pace.

  The woman rose from her chair. Her hand went out as if to grasp Cate. “Would you like to see him?”

  “More to the point, will he see me?” Cate tried to sound wryly amused, but knew she failed.

  “Of course he will.” The woman started for the closed door to Matt Trapani’s office. “Don’t go anywhere.”

  “I thought he might be too busy to see me.” Cate retreated another step.

  “Not for you.” The secretary knocked and opened the door. “Matt, your daughter Cate is here.”

  “Cate? Caterina?”

  Be calm. Talk rationally. Cate noticed her hands were shaking.

  The door opened wide. She saw her dad and burst into tears.

  Matt Trapani gathered her up, bustled them inside and began the soothing litany she’d heard in childhood, when he’d promised to make her world safe and perfect.

  When he reached “rain today, sunshine tomorrow” she hiccoughed and wiped her eyes with a tissue.

  His secretary had vanished discreetly.

  “Sorry.” But her tears had carried them over the awkwardness of meeting. She could add, sincerely and easily. “I missed you, Dad.”

  “I missed you, Caterina.” Matt was broader, greyer, but still vigorous. He blew his nose loudly. “You have grown into a beautiful woman, a strong woman. Not my little girl.”

  “But always your daughter.”

  “Yes.” Matt smiled. He tucked away his handkerchief. “Always my daughter.”

  They talked then, sharing six years of growth and change.

  “Are you happy in Sydney? Is your work satisfying? I have read your book, Cate. It is good. After I read it, I nearly phoned you, but I had hurt you so much.”

  “Oh, Dad. Don’t make me start crying again.” She blinked rapidly. So much wasted time, so many regrets. She should have tried for a reunion earlier, should have taken the risk.

  Rob had urged her to, but she’d refused, vehemently.

  Matt nodded and changed the subject. “Have you heard Rob is engaged?”

  “Yes.” She didn’t say the news of his engagement was the reason she’d flown to Perth. She could hardly admit to Matt that she’d feared he’d been meddling.