Charming: A Cinderella Billionaire Story

by Sophie Brooks

  The car pulled into a drive and stopped before I could think of anything else. “We’re here,” Ford said.

  I looked around at the completely unfamiliar building outside my window. “Wait—where is here?”

  Cara was quicker on the uptake than I was. “Oh my god, is this the Plaza Hotel?” she leaned over my lap and stared at the palatial entryway. “This is where we’re staying tonight?”

  “Yes,” Ford said, at the same time I said “No.”

  “Awesome,” Cara said, scrambling out when Jason opened the door for her. Clearly, she liked Ford’s answer better than mine.

  Turning to Ford, I said, “You’ve been so kind, but we can’t stay here. Can you just take us home, please?”

  “No,” he said simply. If he was kidnapping us, this had to be the fanciest hideout ever. “Your door is in pieces. You can’t stay there until it’s fixed. There’s security here. No one can go up the rooms without getting past the front desk. You’ll be safe.”

  He wasn’t exaggerating about the door. We’d barely been able to wedge it shut. I’d locked it, but that was a mere formality. A child could probably push it in at this point. “I-I mean, thank you for thinking of this. But I can’t afford to stay here.”

  Now he sounded a tad exasperated. “No one’s asking you to. The room’s already paid for, whether you two stay there or not. So as your BLT-loving friend, I advise you to stay here where you can see the hallway through a peephole instead of a two-foot gash in the door.”

  With that, he climbed out of his side of the car and held the door, looking at me expectantly. Bewildered, I got out after him. I knew I should object more to him getting this room for us, but right now, I couldn’t marshal any arguments. It’d been too long of a night.

  Ford rested his hand lightly on the small of my back as he led me into the opulent lobby. Cara caught sight of us and abandoned Jason at the front desk, hurrying over. Her hands were full of small objects. “Jason told them what happened, and they gave us a bunch of toiletries,” she said, holding up combs, toothbrushes, deodorant, and more. “Here’s your key. I’m gonna go see the room.”

  She dashed off before I could say anything. Ford must have seen the look on my face, because he said, “She’ll be fine.”

  “I know,” I said, struggling to put my thoughts in order. “I just—with all that’s happened… I kind of don’t want to let her out of my sight.”

  “You’ve been through a lot tonight,” Ford murmured, leading me over to an elegant leather sofa. He gestured toward it, but I was too keyed up to sit. “Do you have your phone with you?”

  “Yes,” I said, fishing it out of my bag. I’d just barely had the presence of mind to grab it, my purse, and my jacket on the way out the door earlier.

  “Give it to me,” he said, and for some reason, I did. What was it about this man that made me do what he said? Thus far tonight, this man I’d never laid eyes on before had told me to hide in the closet, give him my address, get in the car with him, and stay at this hotel. And I’d obeyed every time. Of course, who knows what would have happened if I hadn’t hidden in the closet or given him my address? I didn’t even want to think about that.

  Ford tapped at my phone for a few moments and then handed it back. His number was now in my contacts. “If you need anything, just call.”

  “Thanks,” I said automatically.

  “No,” he said, and he waited until I looked up from the screen to his intense gaze. His eyes were hazel green again. “I’m serious, Autumn. If you need anything—anything—call me.”

  Wow. I felt just as trapped by his eyes as I’d felt trapped in the closet earlier, only now it was a completely different feeling. This was the kind of trap I didn’t want to escape from. I didn’t want to look away, even as a small alarm was going off in the back of my head. “How… how did you know my real name?”

  “I heard one of the officers say it. Autumn.” He smiled, his eyes still locked on mine. “I like it. Summer… many women are Summer. Bright. Sunny. Flashy. But Autumn has layers. Warm orange, rich reds, burnt copper. Autumn’s always been my favorite season. The end of some things and the start of others.”

  Now he’d captured not only my eyes but also my breath. I seriously couldn’t breathe for a moment. Even with all the things we’d talked about in the last few months, he’d never said anything that affected me like that before. I couldn’t stop staring up at him. Maybe it was okay, because he didn’t seem to want to stop looking at me, either.

  At last, he raised his hand and set it on my forearm. Warmth radiated from his touch and traveled up my body as he slid his fingers up my arm to my shoulder. Strong fingers touched my hair as I froze, waiting to see what he’d do next. He smoothed my hair behind my ear, and then I felt his fingers at the base of my neck, slipping under the collar of my shirt. A moment later, I looked down, and he had one thin, maroon spaghetti strap wrapped around his finger.

  “Thank you for wearing that for me,” he said.

  And then he squeezed my shoulder and left.

  8

  Autumn

  The next morning, I awoke feeling like I’d slumbered in a pillow. Everything around me was white, smooth, satiny. Cream-colored sofas, thick ivory carpets, sheer floor-to-ceiling drapes in a material that looked like it had been spun by fairies. Ford had said he’d gotten us a room, but it was more of a suite than a room. It had a living room, two bedrooms, and two bathrooms. The bed beneath me was so soft that I felt like I could stay there forever. Probably best not to get used to sleeping in the lap of luxury, though. It would make it all the more jolting when the clock struck midnight and the fairy tale ended.

  I sat up gingerly and pulled on the fluffy white robe I’d found in the bathroom last night. Cara was still asleep, her soft breaths sounding steady on the other side of the bed. We’d talked a little more last night about the break-in, and she’d heard the message I left for the staff of the rental office about the state of our door. Once she’d heard my slightly more realistic version of what had happened, all thoughts of top-of-the-line SUVs, luxury suites, and handsome, rich men faded to the background for both of us.

  As I showered and dressed, my mind drifted to other times I’d woken to find Cara’s warm form snuggled next to me. When she was little, she’d often insist on watching TV shows that ended up giving her nightmares. It got to the point where I moved her pillow onto my bed automatically after certain shows. Then she hit her tween years and was too cool to share a bed with her big sister… that was, until mom got sick. Now, she was there when I needed her, and I hoped I was there for her, too. It made me ill to think that those men might have broken into our place when she’d been there.

  Cara was up when I emerged from the bathroom, wearing the clothes from last night—complete with the teddy under my shirt. Since I didn’t have a bra with me, I’d have to keep it on for now. “There are about seven hundred channels,” she said by way of a greeting. She was rapidly flicking through them at a rate that made my eyes hurt.

  “Better watch them quickly, then. Checkout’s at eleven.”

  She glanced at the clock by the bed. “That’s still two and a half hours away. Can we stay here until then? This place is so beautiful. I’ve never stayed in a hotel like this.” She paused, her gaze turning inward. “I guess I’ve never stayed in any other hotel except when we were little on vacation with mom and dad.”

  I stared at her for a moment, trying to figure out what she meant. What vacations? And then it hit me. When she’d been in elementary school, our parents had taken us on a few weekend trips to a fishing lodge a few states away. The lodge had been old and falling apart, and shared much more in common with our apartment than it did with this beautiful room.

  Had that really been the only other time she’d been in a hotel? I’d stayed in one with my grandma when I was a kid, my mom’s mother who had died when I started junior high. And twice in high school I’d been able to go on class trips. But Cara… she’d only been
eleven when mom first got sick, so she’d had less time and fewer experiences with an intact family. Maybe it was the emotions of the last twenty-fours catching up with me, but I wanted to throw myself on the bed and cry at all the things she’d never gotten to do. All she had was me. And clearly, that wasn’t enough.

  “So can we?” Cara was clicking through the channels in rapid succession again.

  “Can we what?”

  “Stay here until it’s time to check out?”

  I thought for a minute, trying to pull myself together and come up with a plan. “How about this? You go get clean, and I’ll go find us something for breakfast. Then we’ll check out in case I don’t get back in time, but you can stay here while I go talk to the apartment staff. If I’m not back by eleven, you can go down to the lounge and study until I get back.”

  “Sounds good,” she said, turning off the TV and heading to the bathroom, probably already dreaming of how glamorous she’d look at the antique desk we’d seen down in the lounge the night before. It was practically as big as our car. I bet few of her classmates had ever done their homework in such an elegant setting.

  Cara was dressed when I returned with bagels and cream cheese from a nearby shop. The food made me feel better, and made me realize it’d been a long time since I’d eaten. What was even better was that when I’d asked at the front desk about a bus route back to our place, the woman behind the desk said that the shuttle driver would take me.

  “That was nice of her,” Cara said, licking strawberry cream cheese off her finger.

  “They aim to please here,” I agreed. “Ready to pack up and check out?”

  She laughed, as I’d hoped she would. The only things we had with us were our jackets and purses, Cara’s book bag, and a small collection of the finest toiletries the Plaza had to offer.

  “Can I do it?”

  “Pack?” I asked, grinning. “Knock yourself out.”

  “No, check out,” she said, as if it were the most exciting thing in the world. “I’ve never done it before. Basically I just say that we’re leaving, right? Because the room’s already been paid for?”

  I hesitated, and then relented. She was a bright sixteen-year-old. She could talk to the nice woman at the front desk without my help. “Sure,” I said, and she looked pleased. “Just tell her our room number, and ask if everything is paid up. It should be. We didn’t make any calls or order room service or anything like that.”

  A dark thought hit me. What if the room hadn’t really been paid for? Maybe the hotel had misunderstood Ford or something? But there wasn’t much I could do about that now. If we had to pay, well, that’s what credit cards were for. Then I’d have a month to figure out how to pay that off. “See if you can get a receipt that shows if there’s any balance we have to pay.”

  “Okay,” she said, and bounded out of the room.

  I stood still for a moment, watching absentmindedly as the door shut behind her. Then I walked into the living room and pulled open the curtains. To my surprise, there was a balcony there. I hadn’t even noticed when we’d checked in last night.

  The February air held a slight chill, but by midday, the California sun would warm things up nicely. I could have gone back inside for my jacket, but instead, I wanted to enjoy the view. Even though it was almost nine, the city looked quiet from up here. More peaceful. Maybe more people got to sleep in on Saturday mornings than I’d realized.

  Probably Ford did. Did he even work, or was being rich and handsome his full-time job? He’d probably lived in this kind of luxury his whole life and would be used to this kind of view. But somehow I couldn’t imagine him wasting his days with no meaningful pursuits. I wasn’t sure if he was born into money or if he’d worked his way up to it, but he wasn’t lazy. Quite the opposite, in fact. We’d never talked about what he did for a living, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he were some kind of hotshot hedge-fund manager or an award-winning software developer. He was smart. He was quick. He was confident in himself and his abilities. I didn’t know his full story, but I knew that much about him. What I didn’t know was why he kept calling a phone fantasy hotline. Why he kept calling me. Not that I was complaining, especially not after what had happened last night.

  “Autumn!”

  Cara’s shouts increased when she couldn’t immediately find me. Sometimes she was a mature young woman and other times she was an excited little girl. I wondered if I’d been like that when I was sixteen. “I’m out here.”

  She burst onto the balcony so fast that the soft, sheer curtains clung to her shirt and jeans. I laughed as I helped her detangle herself. “What is it?”

  “This room. This suite, I mean. It’s ours for the whole week. The whole week!”

  “What?” I asked, my voice faint. “It can’t be. We can’t—it can’t—”

  “It is. I checked and double-checked. It’s paid through next Saturday morning. Pre-paid. I asked the woman at the front desk, and she said that this room will stay empty for us all week whether we stay here or not.”

  Ford had really done that? This was several levels beyond helping a damsel in distress as he’d done last night. Really, who wouldn’t have tried to help someone whose apartment was being broken into? But then he’d come and gotten me himself. And he’d brought us here. Still… I couldn’t accept this. He was a kind man. But a whole week here? It had to be a mistake. No one did that for strangers.

  “Look,” Cara said, shoving a printout into my hand. “I knew you wouldn’t believe it, so I got this.” Weakly, I scanned through it. Saw today’s date at the top of the receipt. Saw the checkout date listed as next Saturday. Saw the zero balance. Saw the words paid in full. “You can talk to the lady down there, but it’s real. We can stay here for the whole week. She said this is one of their nicest suites. She recommended we stay here as long as we can.”

  “But… but we have a home. And jobs to do. And school to go to.”

  “How does staying in a hotel change any of that?” she asked, with maddening logic. “Please, Autumn… it’s ours for the week. Ford has already paid. It doesn’t save him any money if we leave now. He obviously wants us to enjoy ourselves. He wants us to feel safe. Would you really feel safe sleeping in the apartment tonight? They may not even be able to fix the door today.”

  I was as helpless to resist Cara’s enthusiasm as I was to resist her arguments. “Okay,” I said, and then hurried on before she could get too excited. “We’ll stay for the rest of the weekend.” She paused mid-jump, opened her mouth, and then apparently thought better of it. I had a feeling I was setting myself up for more debating at the end of Sunday, but for right now, we’d reached a compromise. The torn look on her face, half-excited, half-disappointed, made me laugh.

  Putting my arm around her shoulder, I led her back into the living room. “Make a list of what you need from the apartment. If we’re going to spend two days in the lap of luxury, we need more than just the clothes on our backs.”

  9

  Autumn

  I didn’t get to the apartment until a little after eleven. As I climbed the dark and musty stairwell, I had visions of our door hanging askew on one hinge, and the place ransacked by some of our less-than-scrupulous neighbors. Well, ransacked even more than what the burglars had done. Then again, there wasn’t much in there worth stealing.

  A quick glance down the hallway assured me that all the apartment doors were closed. Once I made it to #37, I stopped in shock. I was staring at a brand-new door. And not just any door. It was by far the nicest one in the hallway. It was made of strong honey-colored wood, unlike the grimy particleboard of the old one. Wonderingly, I ran my hand up and down the smooth finish. Then I rapped my knuckles against a beveled panel by the doorknob. The resulting sound showed how thick and solid the door was. I traced my hand down to the lock. Or make that locks. It had a deadbolt, unlike my old one. I tugged on the knob, and the door didn’t budge. Not even a little give. The old one had been so flimsy that a strong breeze would
make it rattle. This one didn’t move at all as I tried to turn the knob. A knob that I didn’t have a key for, I realized.

  Still, I wasn’t about to complain that the rental office hadn’t told me where to get the key. Not when they’d gone all out with this new door. Maybe they did care about the well-being of their tenants. Of course, this door was the first proof I’d had of that, but it was pretty irrefutable.

  I exited the building and walked along the weed-covered parking lot to the rental office. But once I arrived, the office was dark. I knocked on the glass and peered inside, but no one was there. The time on my phone said 11:20. They were supposed to be open until noon on Saturdays. Grumbling, I dialed the office. I pressed five to get to the after-hours voicemail and explained my predicament and asked someone to get back to me about how to get the key. Surely we wouldn’t be locked out of the apartment until Monday morning? They wouldn’t do that to us—would they?

  With that unsettling thought, I walked to my car and headed back to the hotel.

  Someone finally called me back a little after four. It’d been an unusual afternoon. Cara had worked on her play at the antique desk downstairs, but I’d felt strangely adrift. On a normal Saturday afternoon, I’d do grocery shopping, errands, cook, or clean. But all of that required an apartment I could get into. It felt strange to have nothing to do. I certainly hadn’t had much experience feeling that way.

  The woman who called identified herself as Rita from the management company. “Sorry to hear about your break-in. Did you call the police?”

  “Yes, they were out there last night,” I said. “They broke in while I was home.”

  “Scary,” she said without an ounce of emotion. “One of your neighbors must have let them in. We keep the front door locked at all times. Only someone with a key can get into the building.”