Page 33 of One Night with Cinderella

Monica took a breath. “That’s exactly why I called you, to ask the very question of just what do you know?” she said, feeling her stomach twist in knots from fear and anxiousness.

“You’re ready now?” Phoebe asked.

Monica sat back against the plush pillows as she crossed one leg over the other and slightly raised one shoulder. “Someone I know suggested it was time,” she said, thinking of Gabe.

“Seems like your aunt is more than willing to talk to you. Maybe it’s time to take her up on her offer.”

“This is not easy to say or admit, but it’s the truth, and I always say why lie when the truth is sufficient,” Phoebe began. “My brother had a taste for younger women. Not teenagers but young. I think they made him relive his glory days while he pretended his hair wasn’t turning silver and things below the belt weren’t quite as hard as they used to be.”

Monica felt a little nervous.

“He met your mother at his favorite twenty-four-hour diner, where she was a waitress.”

“How old?” Monica asked.

“Twenty.”

“And he was?”

“Forty-two.”

She winced. “Was he married?” she asked.

“No, but he and the singer Roz Garnet had an arrangement,” Phoebe said. “They met on the set of a movie being made in Hollywood. Whirlwind. She moved back to New York to be with him. Basically gave up her career to have him.”

Silly woman in love. Been there. Done that. Not doing it again.

Monica picked up her iPhone from the seat and searched for a photo of the disco singer. She found her to be a mocha-skinned beauty with curly hair and plump lips with her signature shades in place. She’s beautiful.

“They were together but not together for years, and no one knew. They liked it that way. He left his apartment in Tribeca to her,” Phoebe said. “She never had children of her own.”

Monica looked up from the phone. “Is that why he didn’t want me? To keep from hurting her? Was that my mother’s fault? Or mine?” she asked, unable to hide her censure. “And even in his death he protected her from the truth. From me. My existence. It’s pretty jacked up.”

Phoebe rose and came over to sit beside her niece. “I would never make excuses for my brother’s decisions. I am just giving you the truth,” she implored, reaching for Monica’s hand to cover with her own.

Monica withdrew it and rose to her feet to put distance between them as she felt the pain of resentment for her father spread across her chest in waves. “And the rest of the truth?” she asked, her voice hollow to her own ears. “My father turned his back on me and hid me so that his lover never felt betrayed. Now, why did my mother? Why did she desert me?”

Phoebe ran her pearl-colored fingertips through her hair as she shifted her gaze away.

“What?” Monica asked, narrowing her eyes as she looked at her.

Phoebe looked down at the floor.

“Why lie when the truth is sufficient?” Monica reminded her.

Phoebe sighed. “Your father admitted to me on his deathbed that your mother couldn’t take care of you. She was alone and struggling,” she began.

Monica crossed her arms over her chest and hugged herself. Preparing herself.

“He promised her he would raise you but gave you up instead,” she admitted with tears in her eyes when she finally locked them with her niece’s again.

Monica stiffened her back and knees to keep from swooning at her father’s betrayal. It was she who broke their linked eyes as she cast her gaze down to the toes of her crocodile leather flats. “What was her name?” she asked, her voice whisper soft. “What was my mother’s name?”

“That, he did not tell me.”

She hugged herself tighter and raised her head just as a tear flew down her cheek. “Secrets to the very end, huh?” she asked bitterly.

Phoebe winced and rose to her feet.

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