SUSAN MEIER - Cinderella And The Ceo

“Okay,” she whispered. “But just peek in the door and say good-night. If you actually go into her room, she could talk for hours. And she needs her sleep.”

“I’ll just peek in,” Deke agreed, lowering the volume of his voice, too. He didn’t know what it was about this woman that got to him, but she had something that could make him forget to do the simplest, most logical things like lower his voice, almost as if he couldn’t think in her presence. Or maybe it was more that when he was in her presence, he couldn’t think the way he was accustomed to thinking. All his habitual thought processes slipped away as if everything was new. Her lack of pretense and artifice, her treating him nicely when she didn’t know who he was, her appreciation for things he did actually made him feel differently about himself.

But he also recognized something more. Something physical that defied description. The woman was so attractive to him that wanting to touch her was instinctive. The most normal, most natural urge in the world.

And he had to struggle to control impulses he could normally quash with one rational thought.

He made a move to go around her, to get to Audra’s room, but Laurel stepped in his path. He stopped, thinking she’d done that accidentally, but when she didn’t move out of his way, Deke glanced down at her. She licked her lips and Deke’s breath froze in his lungs. The woman was going to kill him if she didn’t stop doing things like this.

“What?” he whispered harshly, desperately seeking any act of self-preservation.

She licked her lips again. “Look, I don’t know how to say this, but…but Audra’s very special.”

“I know. And if you’re worried that I’m somehow going to hurt her, don’t. I’ll keep the relationship centered around softball.”

She stopped him just by catching his gaze. “I know. I trust you.” She combed her fingers through her thick silky hair. “That’s what bothers me. I seem to be able to trust you very easily. Very naturally. What I’m trying to say is thanks.”

Again Deke was hit with a strange surge of emotion that completely defied description. It was warm. It was fuzzy. But it was deeper and more intense than a mere surface sentiment. He recognized the pride that filled him knowing he’d done something that obviously pleased Laurel, but that pride was edged aside by stronger, more potent, more important things. From what she’d said about trusting him easily and the way she seemed uncomfortable with it, he knew that she felt this instant attraction, too, and wasn’t sure how to handle it either. He wasn’t imagining this. He wasn’t crazy.

“So, thanks,” she finished, bringing him out of his reverie.

The soft feminine tone of her voice warmed him all over, even as it filled him with need. He swallowed.

“You’re welcome.”

Another minute ticked by with Deke unable to do anything but stare at her, wondering what the heck he was supposed to do with all these brand-new feelings. Laurel was different from the women he knew. Very different. At home, she was also very different from the tough drill sergeant who ran the Shipping and Receiving Department for Graham Metals. He liked her. She liked him. But he didn’t have a clue what he should do right now.

Pittsburgh’s most eligible bachelor three years in a row absolutely, positively, definitely thought he should kiss her. But the guy who was supposed to become chairman of the board when his stepfather retired thought he should run like hell in the other direction. He had a big job ahead of him and Laurel Hillman was the kind of woman who could steal a man’s soul. She was already distracting him from his purpose for being at her factory. He knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that getting involved with her would ultimately distract him from his destiny. She would change his life. And he didn’t want to change his life. He liked it the way it was.

But there was no denying that he wanted to kiss her. No denying that he was curious about the feel of her lips against his and the taste of her mouth.

Still, looking into her big green eyes, Deke also knew he couldn’t ignore the fact that a kiss would change things. And he couldn’t afford that. He was excited about the challenge of proving to his family that he was completely, happily, shrewdly capable of running the family empire. But to do that he needed to be focused. He couldn’t be distracted by a pretty woman or a romance.

He backed away. Laurel stepped to the side and he headed for Audra’s room.

“Good night,” he said to Laurel, grabbing the door handle to open Audra’s bedroom door. “Good night, Audra,” he called, then closed the door and all but ran away from them.

“Good night,” Laurel whispered, watching him go, touching her lips, confirming for Deke he had done the right thing. If he had kissed her, this situation would have probably spiraled out of control.

In her bedroom, Laurel bundled herself in her covers and tossed and turned for two hours.

She normally didn’t do things like this. She normally didn’t want to kiss her boarder. But this time she wanted to.

She really wanted to.

And it scared the life out of her.

The alarm woke Laurel the next morning, and though she quickly silenced it because she didn’t want an ebullient four-year-old girl bouncing into her room, she didn’t get out of bed. Instead, she pulled her comforter over her head and squeezed her eyes shut.

She would have let that man kiss her last night. A virtual stranger. Another man on the fast track. Heck, she would have happily kissed him first if she thought she could stretch far enough, quickly enough, to reach his mouth before he changed his mind and turned away.

She knew better than this. That was why she was so comfortable taking in executive-trainee boarders. Her ex-husband had been a well-educated man on the fast track, a man who was working his way to upper management in leaps and bounds, rather than one rung on the corporate ladder at a time. But when Aaron got his big break, a job as president of a manufacturing plant in Texas, he told her that she and Audra didn’t fit into the world he was entering. So he’d left them. The day she discovered she was pregnant with Sophie, he’d left them with a mortgage, a used car and not even grocery money in the bank.

She filed for child support, and instead of giving it, Aaron waived his rights to the kids. Completely. He had never even seen Sophie. He no longer acknowledged his daughters’ existence, and if the gossip she heard was true, he now had another wife, more kids. Two boys this time. And a corporate-lawyer wife. A woman who made as much money as he did, someone who enhanced his position.

Yeah, Laurel knew all about executive trainees. She didn’t belong in their world, and they were only passing through hers. She saw the situation for what it was. If she developed anything other than friendship with any one of these guys, she would be walking irresponsibly into another heartbreak.

Grounded by those realities, Laurel climbed out of bed. Though it was a warm May morning, she slid out of her sleeveless pajamas and put on a one-piece, long-sleeved flannel pair that even had feet, then covered them with a chenille robe. In case Deke had gotten the wrong idea the night before from her concealing, but more flattering summer-weight nightclothes, she nipped that problem in the bud.

She went to the kitchen and retrieved a filter and ground coffee to make a pot so it would be ready when she got out of the shower. Unfortunately, when she turned from the cabinet to go back to her bedroom, her executive-trainee border was already in the kitchen doorway. Their eyes met for a few seconds, and then Deke’s gaze sort of tumbled from her sleep-tousled hair to her thick robe, to the legs and feet of her flannel pajamas.