Page 29 of The Billionaire's Cinderella

“Hmmm,” he says. “What about growing up? Tell me about your parents. Any siblings other than your half-brother?”

I open my mouth, but my words stall out.

I’m not sure why, to be honest. This is normal, getting-to-know-you chitchat, and I have a standard answer for questions like this:

No other siblings. My parents have both died. It’s just me and my aunt now.

Simple, right? The answer provides the broad outline that people need to know about me without getting into any of the embarrassing details. But as Ryker radiates steady warmth, patience and empathy across the table at me, I discover that I want to tell him the whole story. I want to get it out of the way and let the relationship chips fall wherever they want to fall.

The decision made, I open my mouth and discover that it’s not quite that easy. So I shut my mouth, take a deep breath and try again.

“My mother was my father’s mistress. He was already married,” I blurt.

He goes very still. “I see.”

“There’s more. My mother became an exotic dancer to make ends meet after he died.” I hesitate, then decide not to sugarcoat it. “She was a stripper. My mother was a stripper.”

“Okay.” He pauses, his expression carefully neutral. I can almost see him selecting his words the way a farm worker selects the ripest apples to pick. “Thanks for telling me. Maybe you could start at the beginning?”

“Her name was Valerie. She moved here from Minneapolis to be a dancer. She worked at a fancy steakhouse to make ends meet while she went on auditions. My father was already a married man. Already had my half-brother. He was about ten at the time. One night, my father had a client dinner at the restaurant where my mother worked. Evidently, they took one look at each other and it was love at first sight.” I laugh ruefully. “Not exactly your modern fairytale, but…”

“Go on. Tell me.”

“My father was a financial analyst. He did well, so he had the money to set my mother up in a nice apartment. But he never quite managed to get a divorce, even when my mom got pregnant with me. He just had two families. Which went over very well with his wife and my half-brother.”

“I can imagine,” he says grimly.

“Anyway, he died when I was seven. Cardiac arrest.”

“I’m sorry.”

I nod, determined not to cry.

“Was he a good father?”

“The best,” I say, swiping away a stray tear as I remember the suffocating shock of the day I came home from school and discovered that my father was gone forever. “He taught me to ride a bike in the park. Took me skating at Rockefeller Plaza at Christmas. Tea at the Plaza. FAO Schwarz. The zoo. McDonald’s. Private school. Everything a little girl could want. By then, Aunt Gilda had moved here from St. Louis. She and my mother were always close. Aunt Gilda worked at the bakery. When the owners decided to sell it, he loaned Aunt Gilda the money.”

“He sounds fantastic.”

“Not so fast,” I say, unable to keep the trace of bitterness from my voice. “He didn’t make any provisions for me or my mother in his will. And he was still married, so everything belonged to his wife when he died. She couldn’t kick us out of our apartment fast enough. My mother wanted to keep me in my school and keep my aunt in her bakery, but she’d never made it big as a dancer and had put her whole life into being a mom and being available when my dad showed up. She had great clothes and a few pieces of jewelry, but that was about it. Once she sold those, she got a job as a receptionist in a doctor’s office. And she started her, ah, work as an exotic dancer. She chose Valentina as a stage name. Aunt Gilda renamed the bakery Valentina’s after she died.”

“Ah.”

“Some days I can’t figure out whether I hate my father more for not taking care of us or my mother more for not getting a degree or some training during all the years they were together. Actually, I probably hated the snooty rich kids in my private school who never let me hear the end of it about my messy family and my mother the stripper. But…” I blow out a breath. “He was flawed and human. She did the best she could, and she was a great mom. Eventually, I got an academic scholarship to my private school and she was able to train to be a medical assistant and didn’t have to dance any more. Aunt Gilda taught me to be a great pastry chef before I ever went to school for it. I turned out okay, right? Who am I to judge my parents’ choices?”

Admiration or something like it shines in his eyes.

“Thanks for telling me,” he says quietly.

“That’s it?” I say, startled. “You should’ve seen the look on my ex-boyfriend’s face when I told him. I was never good enough for them. You should’ve seen the look on his parents’ faces every time they were forced to spend time with me. You’d have thought I’m into sex with animals and dead people or something. And your entire reaction is thanks for telling me? Is this a trick?”

“I’m happy to be more dramatic,” he says. “Would you feel better if I punched the wall? Threw you out?”

“I think I would, yeah.”

“Ella.” He rests his elbows on the table and leans in. “I’m sorry you went through that. Sounds like a nightmare. But I’m grateful for whatever happened that put you here with me now. And frankly, I wouldn’t care if you were Hitler’s daughter. Well, I would, because then you’d be too old for me, but you know what I’m getting at. You’re you. I don’t give a fuck beyond that.”

“You say that now, but won’t you be embarrassed when your brothers find out? Or your friends?”

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