Page 56 of One Night with Cinderella

Gabe.

Her heart pounded just as it did every time she saw him. She turned just as he rushed across the snow-covered roof, removing his overcoat to place it around her bared shoulders. “It’s freezing up here,” he said as he pulled her body into his embrace.

She welcomed his warmth but resented yet another late appearance.

“At least he showed up this time.”

Gabe stiffened and leaned back from her. His eyes searched her face as he frowned a little.

“What?” she asked in confusion.

“At least I showed up this time?” he asked.

Her mouth fell open. She realized she had said the words aloud and not in her head. “Yes,” she said, accepting that they were her truth and they deserved to finally be given voice.

His frown deepened as he slid his hands into the pockets of his tuxedo pants.

She stepped back from him, trying so hard not to notice how devastatingly handsome he looked in his black tuxedo. So damn good.

“I called and explained what happened,” Gabe said before glancing up as snow began to lightly fall.

Monica did the same. “Yes, you did. You always call with an explanation...of why you’re late, why you’re canceling, why you’re not even making plans to see me anymore,” she said, as she held up a hand to let one single snowflake float down upon it. “Making phone calls is not the problem.”

“What is?” he asked.

She crushed the snowflake inside her fist. “I can only guess,” she said, looking anywhere but at him. “I don’t know why you’re fading out of this relationship, but you are. First your family and now me, I guess.”

“My family?”

“Yes!” she stressed and then took a breath to reclaim her calm. “If you can cut them off and move out and be okay with not having them in your life, what does that say about your loyalty to me?”

“So now I’m disloyal?” Gabe asked, his voice low.

“And I’m divisive?” she countered.

“What?” he asked, obviously confused.

Monica knew she was all over the place. So were her emotions. Even in the storm of her anger, she knew she could find temporary calm in his arms. It would be so easy to push aside her fears and her annoyance to just get lost in him. Holding him. Kissing him.

“Deny that your family blames me for the distance between you,” she said.

His eyes shifted. That was telling.

So, Nicolette had voiced her issues with me to him already.

“You have nothing to do with the way things are between me and some of my family,” he said, not directly answering her question.

Gabe was not a liar.

“But I don’t want you to take them for granted because you don’t know what it feels like to not have family,” she said, wishing the feeling wasn’t so familiar to her.

“I don’t want to be taken for granted either, Monica,” he countered.

“Yes, but if you can walk away from them so easily—”

Gabe frowned. “You think my decision to stand independently was easy?”

She shrugged. “It seems to be.”

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