Page 4 of Cinderella Is Faking It

“You’ll hurt yourself,” he whispered just loud enough for me to hear, eyes on the blonde woman across the table who seemed deep into a story about her cats? Her kids?

“I’m fine,” I breathed and pulled my hands out from under his. A deep, red groove bloomed where I had pinched the skin with my thumbnail.

Not fine, but not for him to judge. Instead of removing his hand from my personal space, he lifted it slightly. “I’m Beck.”

Well… I glanced at Cordelia’s name card. At least my introduction wouldn’t be a lie. “You can call me Del.” I slid my hand into his and flinched when his thumb traced over the sore spot on my skin.

“We should take you to the school nurse.” His dark charcoal eyes pierced me in place, while one corner of his mouth twitched up. Was he… flirting? Nope. Surely not. This was a very proper dinner among proper people. Right?

“I’ll be fine, thank you.” My voice came out surprisingly breathy and I pulled my hand back.Goddammit Delilah. Don’t let some handsome, rich, older guy throw off your focus with a smile.I had to get out of here. Parker was probably wondering where the hell I was. Unless he was sleeping already since he had the early bird shift all week. That usually meant he was in bed by eight.

“It’s just food,” Beck said, still speaking low.

“It’s dinner.”

“Dinner is food.”

“Dinner is food plus people plus conversation plus expectations plus…” I cut myself off before I could spiral down a similar road to the one Cordelia had taken earlier. No wonder she had locked herself in the bathroom. I would have liked to study a 50-page manual for handling a dinner like this before even thinking about attending.

The servers were back to take away our dishes. My eyes followed his bowl as it was lifted away from him, still untouched as well. Not a fan of soup.

I could not take my chances on a second course. Sooner or later, someone would track that I didn’t even know which one of the three forks in front of me I should use. Maybe I could walk sideways past the principal. “Excuse me,” I said and scooted my chair back.

“Thank you all for coming!” A voice boomed over the sound system. On the dance floor, a man with thinning white hair had taken the mic, and all heads turned.

“Seriously?” I hissed under my breath, drawing another chuckle from Beck. I squinted at him, but he was looking at the speaker like everyone else.

The man waffled on and on - only to get to the point that this was about historical building conservation. I couldn’t even get myself into trouble for a really noble cause. Just crumbling facades upheld in the name of luxury condos.

He had just finished speaking when the next course landed in front of me. My insides twinged at the sight of cheese-stuffed mushrooms. I had perfectly good pizza at home but how could anyone resist hot, melted cheese? I almost picked up the fork, but Rachel Sallow of Sallow Sweets was digging into her mushrooms, and a mixture of ham and nuts and some other meat spilled out from under the cheese. That was a ‘no’ from me.

I blinked at the ceiling and squeezed my hands together until my knuckles ached. My eyes were beginning to burn dangerously.

“Eating the food is also an integral part of dinner, you know?”

“Can you please just- I don’t mean to be rude, but I’ll just sit here until this thing is over.”

“You’re just going to sit there and stare at the ceiling for four hours? That’s one hell of a neck workout.”

“Four hours?” I gasped and snapped my head back down. “But we’re already on the second of four courses.”

“There’s breaks for dancing, there’s speeches, inevitably something goes wrong, and we’ll be forced to sit through a 65-year-old man’s temper tantrum,” he said with disinterest, picking up the bottle of wine from the center of the table. He leaned in to pour, but my hand shot out to cover my glass just in time.

“Thank you. I don’t drink.”

“Pregnant?” he asked with all the empathy of stone, pouring his own wine instead.

“No.” Anxiety. And it was bad enough tonight without any help. I didn’t need to add a panic attack to tomorrow’s agenda. “You don’t sound like you particularly enjoy these types of events.”

“These are networking events. I’m not here to enjoy myself. However, Del, sometimes I’m lucky enough to be seated next to the most beautiful woman in the room.”

If he hadn’t delivered the line in all seriousness, I would have laughed. If he hadn’t been looking at me with those dark eyes that hardly let you gauge where iris ended and pupil began, holding my gaze steadily, I might have even called him out on the line. Instead, it sent a ripple of heat down my spine that pooled in my lower back. “You weren’t lucky though,” I said, recalling his earlier words, “you messed with the seating chart.”

“True.” He cracked a wide smile that softened his sharp features, and my heart skipped a full beat. It was unfair for a single human to be this beautiful. My body was reacting in ways I would have preferred to stifle. I had a perfectly good Parker at home. “Every once in a while, you have to make your own luck.”

“I let you have the first one, but that one was too cheesy.”

He took a sip from his wine, and it really shouldn’t have worked, but something about the way he held that wine glass oozed the confidence to talk aboutlight bodied notes of cherries mixed with earthy textureor something without sounding like a total douche. “At least we agree that you’re the most beautiful woman in the room. I like a woman who knows her own worth.”

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