Page 81 of Dirty Rich Cinderella Story

“Not nearly enough.”

Which means the policy was small or the debt was enormous. “Was he good to you before that?”

“He was,” she says, “but that doesn’t feel real. I don’t know the man who left us like this.”

In other words, I’m living in the shadow of her father who she now feels is one big lie. “Let’s talk about rules,” I say, trying to set the solid ground work between us I now know is critical if I want to keep this woman in my life and I do.

“I don’t want anyone to know about us at the office or in a work environment.”

“What about Cat and Reese? They already have an idea about us.”

“Not yet if we can help it. I’d like to have some time for us to figure this out, but I know they do and I can’t lie to Cat any more than you can Reese.”

“Agreed, but if you have to tell Cat, just tell her. I’ve seen how hiding things from her stresses you out.”

“All right,” she says. “How does the hotel work for us in LA?”

“I’d like to say that you get your own room and stay with me or me with you, but not this time. Not when we’ll likely be watched.”

She settles her hand on my cheek. “Thank you. For doing what you said you would and really trying to protect me. Another rule.”

I cover her hand with mine and kiss her. “What would that be?”

“Don’t make my past a big deal. That separates us.”

“We’re talking about the conversation at the apartment?”

“Yes. I had to fight through a few things, but so did you. I had my mother growing up and a father that I didn’t hate back then. You didn’t. And don’t tell me you had money and I didn’t. Money does nothing to ease the pain of loss.”

“I could remind you that money would have kept you in law school and kept you from hating your father, but then, you wouldn’t be here now. And I’m selfish enough to want you here with me.”

“I believe we end up where we’re meant to be,” she says. “We just don’t always understand why until much later.”

“No one knows that part of my life you just repeated except you and Reese, and he knows because he had to walk me off the ledge with my father in college a few times.”

“But you told me the first night we met?”

“We both went places that night that we don’t normally go.”

“Yes,” she says simply, settling her head against my shoulder. “We did.” She smiles, and fuck, it’s a beautiful smile that has my cock hard, and this crazy feeling swelling in my chest. What is this woman doing to me? She snuggles down into the crook of my arm, head on my shoulder, and I shift slightly to hold her just right.

I lay there, holding her, listening to her breathing, the feel of her body pressed to mine, a drug that illogically arouses and calms at the same time. I’m not beyond admitting that my possessiveness with this woman is going places beyond my bedroom. I want to talk to her. I want to win cases with her. I want to hold her. I want to protect her. I want to save her from the hell of medical bills and struggles, and I can. I can make it all go away for her, but ironically, considering every woman before her wanted to roll around naked in my money, my money is partially why Lori left me the first time. I have to use restraint with Lori or she’ll leave me again. Or try.

I won’t let her this time.

***

Lori

I blink awake to the plane shaking and jerk upward, only to have a strong arm and a hard body impede my escape. “Easy, sweetheart,” Cole murmurs, nuzzling my neck, that wicked wonderful spice that forever clings to him invading my senses in all the right ways. “It’s just turbulence. All is well.”

All is well. Yes. In this moment, with this man holding me, all is well. My hand comes down on the light stubble on his jaw. “How long was I asleep?”

He kisses my neck where he’d just been nuzzling it and then I’m fixed in those dreamy blue eyes of his that make me want to sigh and perhaps moan. He’s gorgeous, and by his own declaration, mine, well at least for now.

“Four hours,” he says.

I blink. “What is four hours?”

---