Page 14 of Cinderella's One-Night Baby

‘I will get down on my knees before my Queen and beg for your mercy,’ she agreed, laughing at both the absurdity and the relief that came with the complete change of subject.

Over the next two courses, Gabrielle stuck to water while they ate and chatted. She was making herself ration the wine. She drank alcohol so rarely that the last thing she wanted was to get drunk and make a fool of herself. Besides, she didn’t need alcohol. She was high enough on the buzz being induced by the whole evening and, she had to admit, the buzz that came from being the sole focus of Andrés’s attention.

Something was happening inside her, butterflies multiplying and growing in wing strength, but so long as she didn’t look at him too hard or let his scent seep into her airwaves and so long as she completely tuned out the closeness of his body next to hers and didn’t look at his arm—she had no idea why she should react to anarmof all things—she was able to temper the Andrés effect and just enjoy talking to him. But temper it only slightly. She doubted there was a woman alive who wouldn’t react to being in close proximity to such a rampantly masculine man whom even Zeus would be jealous of.

She could scarcely believe that the arrogant, entitled jerk who’d practically had a tantrum at having his car searched was someone she actually liked. She would never have believed such a man could be so easy to talk to or that she could be so enthralled listening to his tales. He was only ten years older than her but had lived, trulylived, enough to have five decades on her.

To learn he’d founded his multi-billion business empire out of nothing blew her mind.

‘I thought you were just trying to calm my nerves when you said you didn’t come from money,’ she confessed after he’d explained how he’d signed himself up for a distance-learning business degree whilst still studying at schoolandworked weekends as a barista and how, once he’d saved twenty thousand euros by the age of twenty, he’d invested it in two start-up companies founded by school friends which had both struck gold.

‘Iwastrying to calm you,’ he said with the sensuous smile that had made her stomach dip more times than she could count that evening. ‘But it also happened to be the truth.’

‘Where do you get yourdrivefrom?’ she marvelled. The hours he worked, the relentless travel...

She liked that he didn’t give her a pat answer. Liked that he considered the question before answering. ‘It’s something that has always been in me. It runs in my family—Sophia has the same drive. Our parents are both hard workers but the money they earned was hardly enough to keep the wolves from the door. I always wanted to be rich and so I made it happen.’

‘Does that always happen for you?’ she asked, fascinated. ‘Do you always get what you want?’

Gabrielle suddenly found herself holding her breath as his face drew closer to hers. The swirl in his hypnotic black eyes deepened and pulsed as the sensuous lips her eyes were increasingly drawn to parted.‘Always.’

CHAPTER FIVE

THERESTOFthe party attendees had ceased to exist for Andrés.

The longer the meal went on, the more he was reminded of long ago years, when he’d been too young for any lover to expect anything but fun from him, before he’d found himself approaching relationships wondering when he would be forced to end it. He’d learned to be forthright, firmly stating at the outset that he would never settle down or marry and while they always—always—reacted with a nonchalant shrug, each of them managed to convince themselves that they would be the one to change him, to make him fall in love. As if love even existed beyond the bonds forged by blood! His parents had believed they loved each other once but before their children reached double digits had become incapable of holding a conversation without dripping poison into it.

The moment marriage was hinted at, he ended it. Same as when lovers ‘accidentally’ left their toothbrush in his bathroom. Experience had taught him that ignoring those hints and letting things drag on until boredom kicked in meant a messy disentanglement. None had been messier than with Susi, the woman responsible for the dark cloud that had hung over him these last weeks.

The call from his lawyer had lifted that cloud. Having Gabrielle as his date for the evening had blown the last of it away completely.

Other than her relative youth, Gabrielle was nothing like those young, carefree lovers of his early twenties, but there was something about her that reminded him of that time, before life had made him so cynical, a time before he’d become jaded with humans in general. A time when he’d woken each day enthusiastic for what lay ahead.

He’d known she was different from his usual dates and lovers when he’d agreed with Sophia’s suggestion that Gabrielle be her substitute for the evening. The fact of her child had sold it for him. A woman with her own life and responsibilities and who lived in such a vastly different world to his wouldn’t view him with long-term grasping eyes. When the evening had begun, Gabrielle hadn’t wanted or expected anything from Andrés other than to be delivered safely home at the end of it.

And now...?

Call him arrogant but Andrés knew when a woman was attracted to him. It was all the little signs and Gabrielle was displaying them in abundance. What made it more erotic though, was his certainty that she was unaware of the signals she was giving. She couldn’t know that her beautiful dark brown eyes had melted into a bar of the most luxurious of chocolate or that her body was subtly leaning towards him, or that her face was constantly tilted to his.

He was coming to think Gabrielle might just be the most interesting and intriguing woman he’d ever spent time with. She had that rare combination of seriousness and intelligence coupled with a mischievous joy of the absurd that was sexy in its own right, and when the sixth course was cleared away, he put his elbow on the table, rested his chin on his closed fist and drank her in some more. She wasextraordinary.

Taking a sip of what was only her second glass of wine, she studied him meditatively before putting her own elbow on the table and resting her chin on the palm of her hand. Her hair spilled over her shoulder. ‘Can I askyousomething personal?’

‘I think that is only fair but the same rules apply.’

She smiled slowly. ‘Of course.’

The heat in his veins thickened some more. Their faces were only inches from each other...

‘Why were you in such a bad mood earlier?’

‘I didn’t think you’d noticed,’ he jested even as his heart sank. Andrés had hoped to get through this evening without having to think about the nightmare he’d just been through.

‘Don’t worry,’ she jested back, ‘it wasn’t particularly obvious.’

He grinned ruefully and studied her with the same meditation with which she’d studied him. For a moment he debated whether or not to enforce the ‘choosing not to answer’ clause they’d already agreed on. ‘I’ve been embroiled in a paternity battle.’

A dark brown eyebrow arched.

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