Page 11 of Cinderella's One-Night Baby

No sooner had he spoken than a glass was tapped.

Chairs scraped back as all the guests got to their feet. Gabrielle rose in time with Andrés, completely forgetting that heeled shoes reacted differently to being stood up in than clumpy boots. Losing her balance, she swung her arm out, instinctively grabbed his hand and swayed into him.

CHAPTER FOUR

IFANDRÉSWASN’Tso strong Gabrielle would have sent them both sprawling. As it was, he was not only strong but had superb reflexes and instincts. Long, warm fingers wrapped around Gabrielle’s and squeezed, the solid muscle of the shoulder her cheek landed on not giving way an inch.

Heart pounding wildly, wholly aware that the tip of her breast was squashed into his forearm and mortified at how close she’d come to embarrassing them both, she took a deep breath and adjusted her stance.

It frightened her how badly her hand wanted to stay in his, frightened her even more that when she pulled it free her hand refused to make a quick release, their fingers drifting apart like a caress.

The whole thing lasted seconds. It felt like for ever.

‘Sorry,’ she whispered.

‘Don’t be,’ he murmured.

The toast to the Queen’s health was made. The whooshing of blood in Gabrielle’s ears drowned it out completely.

She didn’t dare look at Andrés. Not a part of her didn’t tingle. How she hadn’t spilled her drink everywhere was a mystery she would never solve but she gladly drank it in one swallow when the command was given. Not strong enough to burn but potent enough to take the edge off her nerves. It barely touched the tingles.

She was only having them because, outside of work, she was starved for adult company and, she could admit, more than a little lonely, so was it really a surprise that she should develop an attraction to the first reasonably handsome man to stray in her path?

She nearly laughed out loud at the understatement of her thoughts.Reasonablyhandsome? Andrés would give Zeus an inferiority complex.

What she needed to do, Gabrielle decided, was accept that she was attracted to Andrés, accept that learning he wasn’t actually married had accelerated it, and park it. Enjoy the party that she was the luckiest woman in Monte Cleure to be attending and enjoy the company of her handsome date on what wasn’t a real date in the real sense because if it was, she wouldn’t have agreed to it and he certainly wouldn’t have suggested it. Glamorous men like Andrés Morato liked glamorous women with matching glamorous lives, not ordinary, squat border guards. You didn’t live in the principality of Monte Cleure your entire life without learning that. Once the evening was over, she would never see him again. He’d forget about her in days. Probably hours. Most likely by the time his car had turned around after dropping her home.

And she’d return to the beautiful boy she’d given her life to protect, and forget all about him.

Andrés swallowed his pre-dinner drink and turned his attention to Gabrielle. Not that his attention had left her. Awareness was thrumming through him at a rate he could scarcely believe, and all because she’d stumbled into him and grabbed his hand for support and the soft swell of her breast had pressed against his arm, accelerating the awareness that had already been building.

Something in the way she was holding herself and the way her teeth were sinking into her bottom lip made him think the awareness wasn’t entirely one-sided.

As they retook their seats, the waiting staff arrived with the bread rolls. Andrés cut straight into his, slathered one half with a pat of butter, and took a huge bite. It had been a long day and he’d hardly eaten. He was ravenous.

Taking another huge bite, he watched Gabrielle butter her own roll and idly wondered if her golden skin matched it for soft smoothness. Wondered what it tasted like...

Her face turned to his and she casually—too casually?—asked, ‘Which wine should I have? White or red?’

He spread another pat of butter on the other half of his roll. ‘Whichever you like.’

‘But I don’t really like wine,’ she confessed, making a face that matched her dislike of it. ‘Some friends and I shared a bottle years ago—it tasted like drain cleaner.’

The way she said it made him want to laugh. ‘I am sure you will find the wine here infinitely more palatable.’

‘I hope that’s the case because I don’t really think it’s the done thing for guests to be sick over the silk tablecloths.’ And then, with a gleam of amusement, her delightful pillowy lips closed over her own roll.

Grinning at her irreverence, he nodded at the approaching wine servers. ‘It’s time to decide.’

She swallowed her mouthful and pulled another face. ‘I’ll let you decide, and if it’s horrible and I’m sick, you can take the blame.’

Andrés didn’t know if it was the face she’d pulled or what she’d said or how she’d said it, but the laughter he’d been holding back escaped.

His sister had been right. Gabrielle had made him laugh earlier and she was making him laugh now. He had a feeling that even if the legal issues with Susi hadn’t been resolved earlier that day, Gabrielle’s company would still have lightened the tightness that lived in his chest during those torrid weeks, because he was feeling lighter than he’d done in a long, long time.

Choosing red for them both, he watched Gabrielle sniff hers suspiciously like she’d done with the pre-dinner drink.

‘If you don’t like it, we’ll get something else brought over for you,’ he assured her.

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