Page 28 of One Night with Cinderella

Six

Two months later

The rules had been made. No long conversations on the phone. No official dates. No overnight stays. And they both held up their end of the arrangement. But that didn’t stop the many hours they spent apart from being filled with thoughts of the other.

Gabe was consumed with constant memories of her at random spots of the day. The feel of her body. Her kisses. Her sighs against his mouth. And never knowing whether she would moan or release rough cries when she climaxed.

He made it his duty to get her yelling to the ceiling until her voice was hoarse.

That thought made him chuckle.

“What’s funny, Gabriel?”

He looked up from the quarterly reports to find the entire board of Cress, INC. gazing down the table to where he sat, left of his father at the head. “A random thought,” he explained.

“Care to share?” Nicolette asked from the other end of the oval-shaped conference table.

“Definitely not,” he asserted.

The meeting carried on and Gabe was pleased. His family was blissfully unaware that their former housekeeper was his lover. His beautiful, smart, passionate and adventurous lover. Who he was ready to see. Smell. Touch. Taste.

“If there are no other new matters,” Phillip Sr. began.

“Actually, is there an estimated date for when you will officially step down as chief executive officer and name a successor?” one of the board members asked.

Gabe looked on as his parents shared a glance across the length of the table. He also noted his eldest brother, Phillip Jr., seemed particularly pleased by the question. He twisted his favorite writing pen in his hand as he turned to his father for the answer to a question he was sure all of the Cress sons wanted to know. He certainly did.

“No, there is no estimated date, because I am not yet ready to step down,” Phillip Sr. said.

Gabe frowned and fought the urge to shake his head as his grip on his pen tightened.

“Nor do I feel any of my sons are ready to step into my role,” he added as he sat up straighter in his chair and folded his hands atop the table.

The frown deepened and Gabe gritted his teeth in a rush of annoyance and anger. Competing for the favor of their father in order to be appointed as successor to the “throne” of the Cress empire was in full swing, changing their family dynamic and pitting the brothers against each other. All to garner their father’s approval. And now the goal line had been moved further out of their sights. Gabe was tired of it all, feeling more like a chess pawn than a respected grown man.

He glanced around the table and saw the same sentiments on the faces of his brothers.

This had been their entire life under the rule of Phillip Cress Sr. Firmness. Demands. High expectations. More discipline than softness. As a man, Phillip Sr. was charming. As a husband, he was loving and devoted. As a father, he had been strict. Maybe even manipulating.

The challenge to be named his successor just exposed what had been there all along.

See me? Approve of me? Tell me I’m as good as you. Tell me I’m the best of your sons.

“Now. If we are done, I’d like to bring the meeting to a close,” Phillip Sr. said, his deep voice seeming to boom inside the large conference room.

“And just how long are we to remain in this holding pattern while you play with our lives?” Cole asked, ever the rebel.

Gabe envied his boldness.

Phillip Sr.’s jaw visibly tightened.

Nicolette rose with ease and moved to the door to open it. “If the family could have the room, s’il vous plaît,” she said with a smile meant to soften her clear demand.

As everyone else left, the brothers all rose from their seats and moved about the room as if suddenly uncaged.

“So, you all are upset?” Phillip Sr. asked, remaining in his seat as he eyed each of his sons. “You choose to take umbrage like your brother? The same audacity and disrespect?”

Gabe glanced over at him from his position in front of the floor-to-ceiling window. He frowned when he saw their mother rush to his side and whisper in his ear in French as she pressed kisses to his temple. His parents always had a way of making everyone, including their children at times, feel as if they were intruding on their own little world, one meant just for them.

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