Page 20 of The Billionaire's Cinderella

“I tried. But a couple days was all I could manage.”

“Is that so?” she asks quietly, smile fading.

“Yeah. Plus, I wanted to see if you remember how to flirt. The jury’s still out on that one.”

She hesitates. “My flirting with you was a one-time Friday night thing, Ryker.”

“Wrong.”

“Wrong?”Her brows creep higher. “Isn’t that normally how these hookups go?”

“Yeah, except I don’t think either one of us believes this was a standard hookup. But we’ll circle back to that.”

“What more is there to say?” she says, looking disconcerted now.

“Plenty. Tell me about the bakery. Who’s that on the wall? It’s not quite you and not quite your aunt, either.”

Another hesitation, longer this time.

“It’s, ah, my mother.”

“Oh, so she’s Valentina?”

Sadness creeps into her expression. “Was. Valentina was her nickname. Her name was Valerie.” She opens her mouth but can’t quite eject the words at first. “I wasn’t really planning to get into this, but…she died when I was in high school.”

“Sorry to hear that,” I say. “That leaves a mark. I wasn’t really planning to get into this, but mymother walked out on me, my brothers and my father when I was a kid. For my father’s best friend. Then she got killed in a car accident before we really reconciled. That left a mark.”

She winces. “Sorry to hear that, Ryker. What about your father?”

I feel another throb of loss.

“He died when I was twenty. Before my brothers and I really grew the business.”

The steady beam of her warmth and compassion kicks off a wave of longing inside me that I can’t quite explain. It would be so easy to reach across the table for her hand. To tell her about the sweet misery of my existence since I woke up alone the other night. To point out that we’ve already discovered that we have several things in common and probably have many more.

Instead, I take a deep breath and do my best to keep it all under wraps. For now.

“Good thing I came all the way down here to see you, eh? I spread joy and happiness wherever I go.”

That does it. She bursts into startled—and, more importantly, unabashed—laughter. I catch a fleeting glimpse of the woman who opened herself up to me with such joyous abandon the other night. I miss her. I want her. This additional infusion of her light into my life pushes me pass my limit. I can’t help staring at her any more than I can keep my feelings inside. Forget it.

“Why did you walk out on me?” I say, leaning in and dropping my voice. “I don’t even get a full night with you?”

Her eyes widen before she hastily looks away, focusing on passersby outside the window. She opens her mouth. Closes her mouth. Tries again.

“I have to be here every morning at the crack of dawn. I didn’t want to wake you.”

“Come on, Ella,” I said, offended that she expects me to believe that.

She reluctantly turns back to face me, her expression now reflecting the exact turbulence I feel.

“I’m not sure what the rules are here. And I didn’t know if you’d care.”

“I care. I fucking care.”

My fervency seems to catch her by surprise. Hell, it catches me by surprise.

“I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings,” she says after a moment or two of mutual searching stares. “That wasn’t my intention at all.”

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