Runaway Cinderella

by Jenny Schwartz

  Having talked herself into a sane state of mind, she dressed in black trousers, fresh white shirt and pulled her hair back in a plain ponytail, trying to negate last night’s image of wantonness. She touched the soft fullness of her lips doubtfully, scrubbed off the lipstick and substituted a light lip balm.

  Today, she would be a sensible person, a concerned sister, and not a woman with needs and dreams.

  Nonetheless, her heart fell when she followed the aroma of fresh coffee to the kitchen and found the coffee machine perking, but no Daniel.

  He’d left a scrawled note by the coffeemaker. “Sorry. Business called. Will never give you brandy again. Don’t do anything stupid. D.”

  She crumpled the note. What did he mean by “stupid”?

  Worrying about her brother and doing something about that worry, was not stupid, no matter what Daniel thought. Or by “stupid” did he mean something more personal, like packing her bag and leaving the penthouse? Only that would be sane, not stupid.

  On the other hand, it was kind of him to attribute her late night behaviour to the brandy. She had a lurking suspicion that the brandy had only revealed her real desires—but she wasn’t willing to face that suspicion yet.

  She poured herself a mug of coffee and wandered out of the kitchen.

  What was Daniel really like? He was successful in business and protective of his family, but who was he as a person?

  Last night, sharing confidences with him, she’d felt the attraction of companionship. The feeling undermined the pride in her independence which had carried her through difficult years. Sexual desire was frightening enough, but this desire to know Daniel as a whole person, terrified her.

  But where was the danger in curiosity? As a journalist, wasn’t it her job to ask questions? And then, there was that famous advice: know your enemy.

  Cate smiled as she leaned against the window and looked down at the city below.

  Daniel wasn’t her enemy. She’d had suspicions of him interfering in Rob and Amie’s lives, but that was because of events six years ago, and she’d misjudged him. He’d been honestly appalled to learn of the consequences of the marriage he’d agreed to with her teenage self. She’d run, but she hadn’t needed to run from him.

  Not then. And if she ran now, would it be from him or from her own emotions?

  Daniel was an honourable man, kind in his own ruthless way. How did you unravel the complexities of such a man?

  She turned her back on the stunning view and concentrated on what the apartment revealed of its owner.

  Architecturally, the large space had a relaxed open feel and the furniture suited Daniel’s height and size. Wooden furniture predominated, mainly of local West Australian woods. The floorboards were a golden karri throughout, as were the desk and chairs of the study. In the dining room, the table had the deeper, darker red tinge of jarrah. The coffee table in the living room was a marri stump, cross cut and polished to a high gloss. Everything was solid, expensive and comfortable.

  A waist-high statue of a lion guarded a corner of the living area where an elaborate sound system revealed one of his interests: music.

  But the glory of the apartment was its display of Australian Aboriginal paintings. Huge canvases hung on the walls, telling stories of the artists’ landscapes and Dreamtime myths. Cate had written a series of articles on the booming Aboriginal art market internationally and she recognised the beauty and quality of his collection. It couldn’t have been amassed by accident. It seemed she’d identified one of his passions.

  She stopped in front of a desert painting. She liked what it revealed about Daniel. Like her, he felt a kinship and connection to the land. He valued a sense of belonging, and respected ties of family and obligation.

  The whole apartment proclaimed that Daniel knew who he was, what he wanted, and how to achieve his goals.

  “I wish I did.” In Sydney she felt confident and in control of her life, but returning to Perth seemed to have rattled all her insecurities. Maybe it was this vulnerability of returning home that made her so aware of Daniel? He was the handsome prince who solved all Cinderella’s problems.

  “This Cinderella solves her own problems.”

  It would have sounded better if her voice hadn’t drifted thin and lonely in the empty apartment. She winced. Time to phone Rob and get things sorted so she could return to Sydney and a life too busy to acknowledge loneliness.

  Cate battled through two secretaries and a five minute pause before her phone call reached Rob.

  His voice warmed when he recognised her, but he sounded harassed. “No. I can’t do lunch, nor dinner, tonight. Sorry. I’m entertaining a Middle Eastern group. But they leave tomorrow afternoon. How about dinner tomorrow night?”

  She looked around the penthouse. It meant staying another day and night. If she moved out now, Daniel would know her to be a coward.

  She agreed to dinner the next night.

  “Oh. Good.” Rob muttered something to someone in his office. “Look, Cate, we’ll talk tomorrow. Take care.” And he hung up.

  “Now what?” she asked the buzzing phone. How would she fill in the day?

  A quick check of the kitchen’s stainless steel fridge and expensive timber cupboards showed one possibility. The cupboards were bare.

  “Haven’t you heard of a supermarket, Daniel?” Her tummy rumbled in protest. She slammed shut the cupboards, collected her purse, and headed out, glad of the excuse to escape. She would breakfast at the cafe on the corner, then go grocery shopping. Probably Daniel managed by always eating out, but her budget didn’t stretch to such extravagance.

  Cate returned with three bags of shopping, heard the ringing phone, and dropped them to race for it. Her hand hovered over it a second, but the thought that it could be Daniel decided her to answer the phone in someone else’s home.

  “Hello?” She flexed her fingers where the heavy grocery bags carried from the bus stop had threatened to cut off her circulation.

  “Cate?”

  “Amie?”

  “Whew. I thought, maybe, you weren’t talking to me. I’m so sorry I was rude last night. Sorry, sorry. Daniel’s blistered me about it, but I was already sorry. I know you were being friendly. I’m not interested in politics, so it’s my own fault I wasn’t part of the conversation. I ruined your welcome home dinner. Will you forgive me?”

  “It’s okay, Amie. I’m too old a friend to take offence, and we all have off days.”

  “Thank you, Cate-sweetie.”

  “However.” Cate gripped the phone and continued determinedly, taking the chance offered to her. “I’m concerned that you’re unhappy. Is everything okay with you and Rob?”

  But for once Amie wasn’t going to babble, possibly because Cate was Rob’s sister. “We’re fine. And now you and I are fine. So everything’s blue skies and butterflies.”

  The metaphor surprised Cate into laughter. “Blue skies and butterflies—that’s cute.”

  “Use it in a book some time. I haven’t been a good friend. I never even told you how much I liked your book. I’ve read it.”

  “Thanks, Amie.” Cate was touched.

  “So.” Amie bounced back into an exuberant mood. “What are your plans for the rest of the day?”

  Cate glanced at the grocery bags. “Actually, I planned to do some cooking. It helps me to think.”

  “Ooh. Me, too.”

  “Do you want to come over and concoct something?”

  “I’d love to, but I’m on roster at the animal rescue shelter this afternoon. I know.” Amie’s voice brightened. “How about you and Daniel come to dinner at my flat, tomorrow? I’ll have time to cook something special.”

  “Rob said something about dinner…” Cate began. She could hardly talk candidly with her brother about his romance in Amie’s presence. On the other hand, it could be enlightening to see how he and Amie interacted on her home territory.

  “I’ll make lamb curry. Rob likes that. And I’ll tell Daniel. See you
tomorrow, Cate.”

  “Amie—” Too late.

  Amie had blithely made her plans and hung up, convinced that the world would fall into line.

  Cate shrugged. What couldn’t be changed—like Amie’s impulsive nature—would have to be endured.

  She made a green salad and ate it while flicking through a magazine she’d bought. A strawberry yoghurt was dessert, and then, it was time for serious distraction. She found a radio, tuned it to a popular music station, turned it up loud and began cooking.

  Three hours later she had a chocolate cake cooling on a wire rack (Daniel’s kitchen was incredibly well stocked with unused kitchenalia, probably courtesy of Amie), a chicken casserole in the oven, and a plan of action for tomorrow night. The tensions and ambiguities of Rob and Amie’s relationship had to be brought into the daylight. It would be heartbreaking if two such lovely people ruined their happiness by hitching themselves together if they didn’t belong as a couple.

  Cate studied the control panel on the high-tech dishwasher and decided she’d rather wash the cake pan and other cooking detritus by hand. So she turned the radio up louder still and gyrated in time to the music while she washed the dishes.

  She was singing along to an old favourite when warm hands encircled her waist and a smacking kiss was delivered on her cheek.

  “Hi, honey. I’m home.” Daniel grinned at her.

  She spun round, and he stepped back hastily from her sudsy hands.

  He raised his own hands in a surrender gesture. “Sorry. I couldn’t resist. You looked so much ‘the little woman’.” He reached over and switched off the radio, and in the sudden silence, smiled winningly. “Something smells good.”

  Her mouth twitched. “As it happens.” She tried to pretend to be firm and offended, but her pulse showed a disconcerting tendency to race. “I wasn’t cooking for you. I was cooking because it helps me think.”

  “Uh huh.” He continued staring at the chocolate cake. “And did you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ah.” He looked at her. “You sound very definite.”

  “I hope so.” She finished rinsing the dishes and left them to drain. A tea towel was the one thing the kitchen lacked. She tore off a paper towel to dry her hands.

  “I go for a drive when I need to think. But your strategy seems much more rewarding.” Again, he looked at the cake.

  A smile escaped her. “Would you like a cup of tea and slice of cake? Dinner will be in a couple of hours—if you’ll be home for it?”

  “Wild horses couldn’t drag me out of here.”

  She grinned and filled the kettle.

  He got out mugs and a knife to cut the cake; a man who never lost sight of priorities.

  “Cake plates, too.” She bit the inside of her mouth when he looked blank. “You’re not Hansel to leave a trail of crumbs to mark your path.”

  He laughed. “You’ll be a great mum, Cate. But frankly, I don’t know if I have cake plates.”

  He did. She’d already found them, and now she bent and took two from a low cupboard. When she turned to present them to Daniel, his boyish expression had changed into something older and more challenging. He’d been enjoying the sight of her derriere.

  His look flustered her, reminding her of last night. She didn’t know whether to apologise, explain or feign amnesia.

  He took the cake plates out of her hands, and the decision. “You’re an attractive woman, but just now I want cake more.”

  She laughed, not minding this once that he’d read her mind. “Have at it then.” And she poured the hot water into their mugs, dangling tea bags, while he cut the cake.

  He had generous ideas about the size of servings, but she didn’t argue. It was her belief that cooking burned enough calories for the end result to be indulged in.

  They carried their afternoon tea to the living area and sat down.

  “Wonderful cake,” he said after the first mouthful.

  It was an old reliable recipe for a rich chocolate cake, and just now, warm from the oven, it tasted like pudding.

  “It’s my favourite.”

  There was a friendly silence while they finished their cake, then she studied him over the rim of her mug.

  Even allowing for the smidgin of truth in the old saying, “the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach”, he was looking pleased with himself. Happier even than the best chocolate cake warranted.

  “Have you pulled a brilliant business move or something?”

  “A bit of both.” He stretched widely and grinned a Cheshire Cat grin. “You are looking at a free man.”

  “Explain.”

  “I’m handing over the day-to-day responsibility for the company to Tim Radjik. It took a while to find the right person and then to negotiate their package, but as of next month, Tim will be CEO and I’ll be free.” Daniel was too honest not to modify his statement somewhat. “Well, I’ll be Chairman, but that’s not as heavy a commitment in terms of time and physical presence.”

  She stared at him. “I thought the company was your baby. You built it into a success. You gave everything to it.”

  “Because I had to. I never dreamed of being a businessman. All I ever wanted was to dig up rocks. Mum says I never dug in the sandpit like a normal child, I excavated.”

  She smiled, imagining him as a serious blonde-haired toddler. But she shook her head, not understanding how he could give up the success he’d earned. “You’re good at business.”

  “I can be ruthless when I have to be, and I was lucky that my take-over of the company coincided with the mining boom, but I don’t get the same satisfaction from business that your dad and Rob do. They enjoy the competition and the details of a balance sheet.”

  “Rob doesn’t.”

  Daniel raised a dissenting eyebrow. “He does, you know. Maybe he didn’t in the past, but he’s grown into it.”

  Cate disagreed. Kind Rob couldn’t be like their dad.

  “Forget Rob.” Daniel set his mug on the coffee table. “We should be celebrating with champagne.” He grinned at her shudder. “Or brandy?”

  “Beast,” she responded to his teasing. Then, less certainly. “If you want to celebrate, don’t feel you have to stay in and have dinner with me.”

  “Oh no, Cinderella. You don’t get rid of me so easily.” He caught a curl that had escaped her tidy ponytail and tugged it, winding it round his finger so her face came closer and closer. “I intend to enjoy exactly what I want.” His tongue darted out and captured a cake crumb at the corner of her mouth. “Which is more chocolate cake.”

  Cate found herself released and breathless.

  He stood. “But first I need a shower.” He strode off, whistling.

  She collapsed back against the sofa. In his present exhilarated mood, Daniel was irresistible. If she were smart, she’d hightail it to a hotel. But she wouldn’t. She would just remember that despite his interest in her, he wasn’t about to start an affair with a woman he saw as his future brother-in-law’s sister. He might enjoy teasing her, but he’d drawn a line in the sand.

  “And I won’t cross it,” she promised herself. The closest relationship they could have was friendship. “Which suits me fine,” she lied. Maybe in a hundred years, her body could learn not to respond to him.

  Cate took a quick shower to remove the smell of cooking, and dressed in the stretch pants and soft angora top she’d bought that afternoon. She hesitated over shoes, and with a feeling of freedom, decided to go barefoot.

  “Pretty in pink.” Daniel was appreciative of the picture she made. He was barefoot, too, in old jeans and a casual shirt, standing at the bar. “What would you like to drink?”

  “Mineral water.”

  He grinned at her fervour, but refrained from further comment. He handed her a glass and raised his own beer in a toast. “To the future.”

  “To the future,” she echoed, bewildered by his meaning, but willing to go along.

  “And may all our dreams come true
.”

  She drank before asking curiously. “Do you dream?”

  His mouth quirked. “You mean, I look too tough to indulge in wishful thinking?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “You’re right. But I do dream. I just call them plans. I don’t think any well-balanced person can live without dreams, even if it’s simply a wish for current happiness to continue. Dreams are an expression of hope, and they challenge us to be true to ourselves, and to grow.”

  Cate forgot to drink. She stared at him. “You’re a philosopher.”

  “No.” He shrugged away the label. “But I’m old enough to have thought about life and what I want from it.”

  “What do you want? What will you do with your freedom from the company?”

  “Go bush,” he said promptly. “Western Australia is huge and we’ve barely scraped the surface of its mineral wealth. It’s not just metals like gold and iron ore, there are nickel and lead, diamonds and beryllium. We mightn’t have expensive deposits of ruby and emeralds, but lower grade beryllium is used in the manufacture of space materials, and there’ll be a growing need for it. I want to be one of the people who further opens up our State’s potential.

  “Besides, I like the outback. The peace, the space, the feeling that you can touch the stars and sink your feet into the red dirt.”

  She nodded. “Africa has the same sense of space. You can feel that it’s an ancient continent, but at the same time the future is waiting. We just have to find the key to open the door.”

  “Exactly.”

  They looked at each other in mutual approval and understanding.

  She glanced at the clock. “Time to stir the casserole and add the rice.”

  “Need a hand?”

  “No, thanks.”

  But he followed her into the kitchen and leaned against a bench, watching. “I have other plans, too.”