Page 52 of One Night with Cinderella

“And the chef?” Gabe asked.

Cole shrugged one broad shoulder. “It is what it is and ain’t what it ain’t,” he said, pulling his iPhone from his back pocket.

“Careful, little brother, sometimes what you think it ain’t, it actually becomes, and before you know it, you’re in the thick of it, needing someone you didn’t even know you would want,” Gabe said, revealing a little more of just what Monica had come to mean to him.

He looked from Cole to the chef as his brother tapped away on the phone before lowering it to look over at Jillian. Gabe followed his line of vision, his curiosity piqued.

Jillian reached for her own cell phone. Across the divide she looked up. She and Cole shared a brief but very telling look before she typed away as she turned and walked back into the pantry, leaving the door ajar.

Ding.

Cole read the text that was clearly from Jillian in response to his, and he smiled so hard his dimples showed. “To be honest, I might just be ready for a little more than I expected, big brother,” he said before crossing the den and then the kitchen. He looked around for any other witnesses besides Gabe before joining their pretty chef in the pantry.

Gabe didn’t dare to think about what was going on beyond the closed door. Not at all.

“Nah,” he said aloud as he crossed the den, and the kitchen, as well, to reach the elevator for a ride up to the fourth floor.

As soon as it stopped and he opened the gate, he walked over to the glass wall that ran up the entire rear of the house. Crossing his arms over his chest and spreading his legs wide, he looked out at the snow-covered backyard. The whiteness was stark and pure, particularly against the night.

Almost as pure as his intentions when he’d humbled himself and asked for his father’s help in launching his own eatery. The decision to leave Cress, INC. had not been easy. Asking his father to financially back him had been even harder. Having the majority of his family aligned against him had been the worst. Still holding his drink, he turned from the view and looked around at the den, taking in the black-and-white family photos on the custom shelves and high-end tables. Memories made over the last forty years or better. Bonds being slowly shattered before his eyes over greed, forced competition and loyalty that was blind to anything but his father’s wishes.

Anger and annoyance caused his grip on his glass to tighten. If he was honest with himself, there was pain and regret in the mix of his feelings. He felt foolish for even a sliver of hope that his family would support him.

Gabe pulled out his iPhone and called Monica. It rang twice. “Hey, you,” he said. “You busy?”

“I can get unbusy with the right motivation,” she said.

He smiled. “I’m sending a car to bring you to where I will be waiting for you,” he said.

“And where is that?” she asked, her voice husky soft.

Gabe entered his bedroom suite and quickly packed an overnight bag. “It’s a surprise,” he said.

“Panties or no panties?” she teased.

He paused. His heart thundered. “No panties is always the default answer.”

“Fun.”

They ended the call.

He slung his bag over his shoulder and left his room to make his way back to the elevator. He rode it down to the basement, smirking a bit at how quickly he’d reverted back to his teenage days of sneaking out of the town house and avoiding his family by using the servants’ entrance in the basement. He just wasn’t in the mood for more confrontation. It was pointless.

Besides, he was on a mission that needed no interruptions.

Gabe stepped out and paused, looking down the hall to the quarters where Monica had once lived. Over the years, he had ventured to the cellar only to retrieve wine, and never once thought of her. For him, she’d been invisible. Someone to clean and help keep his living space orderly. Before they’d become intimate, he’d given no thought to her life outside of her part in theirs.

“More like tolerated out of necessity.”

As he remembered his mother’s words, he worried that maybe he was not very different from his parents.

Disturbed by that thought, he turned and made his way down the left side of the hall and past the glass door of the laundry room to the exit. He made sure the exit was securely closed before taking the steps two at a time until he reached the street. The car service he’d requested awaited him, and Gabe took a deep, invigorating breath of the winter winds as he allowed himself a look up at the town house before climbing into the rear of the SUV.

The ride was brief. Less than twenty minutes. For that, he was glad.

He spotted Monica leaving her own vehicle double-parked in front of the building. The winds whipped her hair and ruffled the ball-shaped fur she wore with jeans and thigh-high boots. She turned and smiled as he exited his vehicle with his bag in hand and stepped onto the sidewalk to pull her body close to his for a kiss. She deepened it, surprising him. As they got lost in one another, the noise and congestion of the city faded. The frigid cold and icy snow seemed to melt away. The fast-moving bodies breezing past them on the street were gone.

“Let’s go up,” Gabe said, breaking their connection with reluctance as he reached for her hand and led her inside the towering building.

---