Page 35 of The Billionaire's Cinderella

9

Ella

A drivingrain begins to fall early Sunday evening, right when we cross the bridge and hit the traffic heading back into Manhattan. Just the unwelcome thing I need for my gloomy mood to really get going. But also a much-needed reminder to mark the end of my fairytale weekend and the return of real life zooming straight at me the way Ryker’s sleek new Range Rover zooms down the highway.

I stare out the wet windshield at the blurry sea of brake lights ahead of us, thinking that poor Ryker might need a cattle prod to zap me into removing my ass from the buttery leather seats inside the warm little cocoon of his fine automobile when the time comes.

I’m not ready to end this idyll with Ryker. It’s going to be a rude awakening when I return to my regular life in a little while, for a variety of reasons. That much is abundantly clear.

Didn’t take long for me to get used to the finer things in life, did it?

Out in the Hamptons, fresh air is an everyday thing, not a rare treat like it is here in the city. Your view of the blue sky is unimpeded by the gray and dingy side of some skyscraper. Grass is everywhere and doesn’t need to be visited in the park the way you visit elephants at the zoo. The ocean’s waves lap a few hundred yards outside of your window.

Also in the Hamptons? Gourmet food produced by invisible servants. Luxurious towels and bed linens. Heated bathroom floors. Faucets that produce hot water for the duration of your shower rather than ending five to seven minutes beforehand. Antiques. Artwork. Elegance and beauty wherever you look. You can make love with the sexiest man you’ve ever met all night and for a good chunk of the morning. You can ride a horse on the beach after you finally get up, get dressed and get breakfast. Not the dejected and overworked Central Park carriage horses who keep their heads down and never acknowledge your existence, mind you. Real horses that look as though they belong on the track at the Kentucky Derby. With saddles and everything.

And Ryker…

I shoot him a sidelong glance, my heart sinking as I notice the new tension in his body. The rigidity of his shoulders. The tightness of his jaw and the rhythmic pulsing of a muscle in the back, as though he’s gritting his teeth. The way his lush lips have thinned into near invisibility. We held hands for most of the ride back, our fingers loosely twined in my lap as we talked, but now he has the steering wheel in a death grip. Both hands.

Ryker was a different man out in the Hamptons.

He was relaxed out there. Always smiling and laughing, always accessible. Physically and emotionally. He never took his eyes off me. I got used to the slow smolder of his gaze. He spoiled me with his attentiveness, providing me with more orange juice or more champagne or a jacket before I thought to ask for them. A girl could get used to that kind of attention.

Worse, he imprinted me with his touch. Now I feel the sweet residual soreness between my thighs. The phantom pressure of his arm draped across my waist and his groin pressed against my ass from when he spooned me while we slept. The silences between us were comfortable. Familiar.

And now?

“You okay?” Taking what feels like a huge emotional risk, I reach across the console—swear to God, the thing keeps growing between us; it’ll feel like the Grand Canyon before much longer—and smooth the hair at his nape. “You’ve been awfully quiet.”

He tenses and shifts in his seat, pulling away from me. My cheeks burn as I hastily pull my hand back to my side of the car, where it evidently belongs now that the weekend is ending.

“Yeah, fine. I hate this fucking traffic.”

He doesn’t say anything after that, and I can’t think of anything to say.

The resulting silence isn’t a comfortable Hamptons silence. It’s awkward.

I try to understand. I tell myself I do understand. We’re suffering from the same Sunday night gloom that hits working people everywhere. Our case is particularly bad because we’re coming off a mini vacation. It’s getting late. He’s probably hungry. New York traffic is a bitch. It would put anyone in a foul mood. Plus, Ryker owns and runs a huge company with his brothers, so he may be thinking about meetings he has this week. Things he needs to get done. His mental to-do list. All perfectly normal. None of that has anything to do with me.

But I’ve got a bad feeling. It’s getting worse with every passing second.

I can’t shake the feeling of déjà vu all over again. Jonas and I spent a romantic weekend at this cute little bed-and-breakfast in Maine a few months ago and had a great time. Or so I thought. But he gave me his whole I’m not sure I’m ever getting married speech a couple days later, pulling the rug out from under me, my self-esteem and my faith in my own judgment. Looking back, it seems clear that I failed some test of his that I hadn’t even realized I was taking. Either that or spending that much concentrated time with me gave him the jolt of clarity he needed to see that a lifetime together would be way too much Ella for him.

Ryker’s about to do the same thing. I know it.

Oh, sure, he said all the right things about wanting us to date and get to know each other better. But he wasn’t in his right mind at the time, was he? He wanted to get laid, which means that he was in the grips of advanced levels of hormone toxicity. When men are under that kind of duress, they’ll say anything. Do anything. All women know that. Hell, the medical community should probably do a study on the effects of acute horniness on male cognitive ability. I’m betting it’s roughly the same as the effects of anesthesia on teenagers getting their wisdom teeth extracted. Makes them loopy and likely to spout nonsense that no one believes.

That’s the bottom line: I shouldn’t have believed anything he told me, no matter how sincere he sounded at the time. I’m a big girl. I’ve been around the block once or twice. I knew better. I’m not even surprised that he hasn’t said one word about seeing me again after today. The fact that he put on such a good performance only goes to show what an accomplished player he is and how naïve I am. I’m like a little grandma from Des Moines who takes a church trip to Vegas and thinks she’ll win big at the casinos. That misguided grandma will never win, and neither will I. You’d think we’d both know that by now.

If you play big, you stand to lose big. That’s a rule.

When it comes to men, I’ll never come out ahead. I’ll never beat the house. That was true with my father and my ex. Much as I wanted to believe otherwise, it’ll be true with Ryker. Just wait and see.

“Which one?” he asks, startling me out of my thoughts.

I take a quick look around and reorient myself to the outside world. Home already.

“Next block.” I point to my building, which is no architectural marvel. The only similarities between it and Ryker’s Hamptons mansion is that they’re both dwelling places involving bricks. “There’s even a space for you. It’s a miracle.”

---