Page 33 of Cinderella Is Faking It

“I understand that climaxing isn’t the only good thing about sex, Blondie. I just think the person you care about should care enough about you to make sure you experience the rush of an orgasm every now and again.”

“I don’t even know why I’m talking to you about this,” she huffed and dropped back into her mountain of pillows. Some of them had shifted though and half her head was now resting on my stomach, her hair splaying out like rays of sun against my dark shirt.

“Hey Blondie?” I asked a while later when Knightley and Emma were having it out under some flowery tree like that wasn’t a hay fever nightmare.

“Hmm?”

“Sorry for poisoning you.”

“I’ve had worse nights,” she sighed, voice small and tired. She wrestled one of the blankets from her nest over us to cover my legs and most of her, adding to the cape she was still snuggled into.

“My abs do make a pretty good pillow,” I chuckled.

She poked her fingers out from her cocoon and reached up to pat my stomach. One, two, three times her fingertips drummed against it. She made no further comment before her hand retracted back into the covers, like a little hermit crab. I had to tell myself that she was just grogged out on antihistamines, because otherwise that would have been the cutest lil shit I’d ever seen.

FOURTEEN

Beck’s bedroomwas predictably boring. If you googledmodern industrial bedroom, you would find a picture of this place, and just accept it as some interior designer’s show room. Huge metal bed frame with random modern art hanging above it, one exposed concrete wall, and a mixture of wooden and slate grey accents. I doubted he’d even picked the two plants framing his floor-to-ceiling windows himself. No pictures, no souvenirs. The only remotely personal item was the book on his nightstand, which vaguely looked like a thriller - but it was in Spanish, and my Spanish skills started with ‘Hola’ and ended with ‘Gracias.’

I glanced into his closet, while pulling my dress back on, but that was equally-predictably filled with neat rows of suits and button-downs. My color-coding heart did give a little flutter though because everything was arranged perfectly from lightest to darkest color.

The only thing his bathroom cabinet revealed was that he used a Christian Dior cologne, not some sketchy pheromone perfume from the internet. Which meant my brain short-circuiting around him was all on me. Cool.

Maybe I should have felt a little bad for snooping, but the man had given me an anaphylactic shock and the best foot massage of my life last night, so I felt like I deserved some insights.

Eventually, I followed a promising smell back to the other side of the penthouse and found Beck in the kitchen again. His kitchen was huge. The entirety of my apartment could fit into it. I didn’t even know what half the appliances in here were. Beck’s suit jacket hung off one of the bar stools, but even buttoned up with a black tie around his neck, he looked more at ease in a kitchen than I’d ever been. “Hi,” I said after feeling a little creepy for staring.

He looked up from the laptop propped open on the counter. For the first time since meeting him, the way his eyes travelled down my body didn’t set my skin on fire. It felt more like he was checking that no limbs had fallen off. “Good morning,” he said once he was satisfied with my state of four-limbedness.

“Did you make breakfast?” I asked, trying to catch a glance at the pan on the stove.

“I got bagels on my run and made some eggs. Did you want anything else?”

“I was in the mood for a PB&J actually.” I grinned and fluttered my lashes at him.

“Very funny.” He rolled his eyes at me, but I swore I saw some muscle in his back unclench. I’d had my fair share of allergic reactions over the years and had quickly picked up on the fact that the people around you struggled more with your near-death-experience than you did yourself. Three years ago, Defne had spent two days crying after seeing me go down. The cupcakes at the charity bake sale she’d been part of had just been incorrectly labelled. Human error. It happened.

I climbed onto one of the barstools, stomach rumbling at the spread before me. Beck had decked the breakfast bar with fresh fruit, juice and smoothie options, three different kinds of cream cheese and a whole bowl of different bagels. “How long have you been up?”

“Five.”

“Why?”

“Because I get up at five every day.”

“But why?”

“Ah, that inquisitive nature of yours.” He set down a plate of scrambled eggs for me. “I go for a run and take a shower. I check the news and my emails. Sometimes I have to take international calls, sometimes to make breakfast. And usually, I’m in the office by 7.30.”

We both glanced at the clock on the wall creeping towards eight o’clock. “You didn’t have to wait for me.”

“I wanted to make sure you survived the night.”

“Yep, still alive. You should go to work.”

“I’matwork.” He nodded at his laptop, and as if on cue held up his index finger for me before tapping the AirPod lodged in one ear. “It sounds to me like there’s a management problem, not a distribution problem, so I’m more inclined to make changes to the team structure.”

Oh, he was actually at work. On a call. I’d never felt less productive than when I scooped some eggs into my mouth. I suppressed the sigh that tried to break free. Why did my scrambled eggs never taste like that? Like sunshine and blue skies? I had no idea about spices and herbs, but these eggs tasted like you were soaking up summer mornings.

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