by Mary Hughes
She woke at four a.m. in a panic. Today was Milly’s birthday.
Without money, with everything else that had happened, Cin had never gotten her card.
Wait. Spring break started yesterday. Milly’s in town. I can wish her a happy birthday in person.
When Milly was home on break, she worked third shift at her old high-school employer, a twenty-four-hour coffee and donut shop. She’d be getting off at six a.m.
Cin crawled out of bed and shivered through a cold shower, musing how unusually sensitive she was when she scrubbed between her legs…until she remembered her pre-tutoring session with Rafe, another encounter where he’d kissed then thrust her to heaven while smiling off his own obvious painful bulge. She abruptly came awake.
But with a silly grin.
After leaving breakfast warming in the oven for the Steps, she crept out of the house before dawn. The late winter air, floating taunting bits of snow, wiped the grin off her face.
Cin arrived at the donut store just as her slender, redheaded friend backed out of the service entrance. Milly turned, holding a long dry-cleaner’s hanging bag so it didn’t drag on the alley concrete. A skirt peeked from the bottom.
“Don’t tell me,” Cin groaned. “You’re going to the ball, too?”
“Cinderella! Hey, hon.” Milly nodded at her dress. “You mean the Glass Slipper Ball? Of course I’m going. It’s only the event of the century.”
“So I keep hearing. Glass Slipper Ball?”
“That’s the official name. Don’t know why. Hold this off the ground while I put on my hat and gloves? I had no idea it was this cold out.”
“Sure.” Cin took the hanging bag. “Why do you have your dress at work?”
“I’ve been shopping for months at all the big stores, found nothing, nada, zip.” Milly dug in her pockets, came up with a green knit toque and popped it on her head. “Last night before work, on a whim, I stopped in the boutique next to the donut shop. And there it was, the perfect gown. Of course, I snagged it, but I didn’t have time to take it home before work. I hope it doesn’t smell too much like sugar and grease.” Another pocket excavation came up with matching mittens.
“Might be an aphrodisiac for the right kind of man,” Cin said. “I’d have thought you’d make your own dress.”
“I could, but my degree is in theater costuming, not fashion.” She pulled on the mittens, then held out one hand for her dress bag. “Not that I won’t tweak this one.”
“Ah.” Cin handed over the bag. “Walk you home?”
“Is that my birthday present?” Milly dimpled. “Perfect. We haven’t chatted in ages.”
Cin winced. “My schedule is just so tight. When I’ve got a real job and can afford a place of my own, I can call you—”
“I was just teasing. But as long as you brought it up, I am a bit worried about you. You’re always future this and future that—but what about now? Do you ever stop and have a little fun?”
“If I stop for fun now, I won’t graduate, and neither will Ylanda.”
“Then at least move out from the Drudgery Domicile.”
“On what I make?” They’d had this argument before. In fact, on graduating from high school, Cin had even floated the subject of moving out with her stepmother. She still remembered the Widow Wikkid’s strident reply. “If you leave—don’t ever come back.” Without access to the house, how could she help Yl? “I just have to hang on a few months longer.”
“If I weren’t living out of state—“
“Your family still wouldn’t have room for me.” That was another reason she hadn’t moved in with Milly. The Mauses already crammed eight people into a two-bedroom house. Even if they’d gotten around all that, on minimum wage, money still would have been dicey. “It’s not much longer. I’ll leave when I have my accounting degree and a real job, and Yl has her high school diploma.”
“That’s awfully nice of you, staying for your stepsister’s sake.” Milly’s rolled eyes said she equated “nice” with “gullible”. “But what if something happens before you get out? What if you never get a real job, never get out from under the Widow Wikkid’s crushing thumb?”
Never? Cin swallowed a lump of panic. “Are you saying I’m not being realistic?”
“Hon, you might as well be singing ‘I’m waiting for my prince to come’.”
Cin’s shoulders hunched. “It’s not that bad.”
“Really?” Milly shook her head. “Do you ever do anything for yourself, not future you, but you now? Anything that’s not work? Anything to prove you’re alive?”
Rafe sprang into Cin’s head, and heat crept up her face.
“Nice.” Milly grinned. “Guess that answers that. Good for you. Seize the day. That’s what I’m doing, too, by going to the ball.”
“You expect to marry the Prince heir? Talk about me making impossible plans.”
Milly made a dismissive noise. “No, I’m not planning on marrying Gideon Prince. Yeah, sure, he’s supposed to choose his bride then, but there will be hundreds, maybe thousands of women to pick from. I’d have a better chance of getting hit by lightning. Besides, who wants him anyway?”
Cin thought of the Steps. “Rich, handsome? Most of the city.”
“Yeah, and he’s slept with most of the city, too. Or at least the hoity-toity hotties.”
“What do you mean?”
“Haven’t you heard? Gideon Prince is a Serial Dater.” Milly’s derisive tone made the capital letters plain. “He takes each woman in his circle out exactly once. What kind of marriage material is that?”
“You think he’s not looking for commitment?”
“I think he’s afraid of commitment. But that won’t stop me from enjoying his champagne and shrimp and dancing at his ball. And maybe meeting a nice rich friend of his who’s a bit less relationship-shy.”
“Well, I wish you the best of luck.” Reaching Milly’s home, Cin pulled her friend in for a hug.
Milly whispered in her ear, “You know I’d have you live with us in an instant if there was room.”
“Thanks. But it’s okay.” She gave her friend a final squeeze before letting go. “It won’t be that much longer.”
It only seemed like forever.
Cin went to work. As she baked bread and piled meat on sandwiches, she remembered Milly calling the Prince Ball the Glass Slipper Ball. Curious as to why, she spent her break doing an Internet search.
The articles she found for the event—Milly was right, Glass Slipper Ball was the official title—had lots of detail, but no explanation of what the name might mean. Swiping on her tablet, she delved into page after page of images, posh crystal-and-gold rooms aswirl in women in high hairdos and glittering dresses, the dashing Gideon Prince in black and white in the foreground.
All but one picture, that was.
On the tenth page-scroll of images, she found a single still of a dark-haired boy standing beside a beautiful older woman. The boy gazed up at the woman with a big smile, his teeth too big for his face. Her softer smile, gazing down at the boy, was no less full of love.
From the black of their hair and the shape of their mouths, they were mother and son. No captions or tags, but unless Cin missed her guess, this was a young Gideon Prince.
The boy held a wood-mounted glass slipper. She magnified the image until she could read the writing on the plaque.
Glass Slipper, Inc., a Charitable Foundation.
* * *
Two weeks later, her heart pounding, Cin’s feet practically flew over the concrete slabs of sidewalk toward Rafe’s apartment. Her neck itched from winter-dry skin, but she ignored it.
Tonight was the night.
In the past weeks, their tutoring sessions had gone from a couple per week to meeting Rafe at his apartment almost nightly. She didn’t get a lot of sleep, but what she did get made up for it. Tutoring, yes, but every night he greeted her with a grin and a gift—not flowers or candy, but a package of mechanical pencils, a killer no
te-taking app for her tablet, a phone charger, assorted thises and thats which she needed far more.
As if, in his own way, he was courting her.
Her arm itched. Stupid dry skin. She had hand lotion but couldn’t afford to moisturize everywhere. Snaking a hand under her coat, she sawed at herself until the itch eased.
Not that Rafe ever said he was falling in love with her. Just as well, actually. If he’d used the words, it’d probably have brought back pained memories of her stepmother, pinching her eight-year old cheek and smiling crocodile teeth at her father while simpering, “I love all our daughters.” Words of sweetness and light that were a lie, because her stepmother’s hand was sharp and mean.
Cin straightened with a frown. She thought she’d put her anger behind her. Apparently, childhood strife, unresolved, was like quicksand, always lurking.
Or maybe it was just Rafe’s tender treatment of her was such a vivid contrast to her stepmother’s, that it woke Cin’s resentment.
Rafe did for her, gave to her, time and money and effort, tangible things that made whatever they felt for each other seem more real. Maybe not love, not yet, but she definitely felt a connection, a real bond built on tangible action.
Her shoulder itched. Reaching his apartment building, she pressed his button with one hand while she scratched under her collar with the other. When he responded almost instantly, buzzing the door open, she danced inside. He made her so happy. But it was more than that. Sure, she loved the way he made her feel, but she adored the way he made her life better, made her better.
And the kissing and touching and climaxing was burning hot.
After that second time, he’d asked her to touch him, too. They’d caressed their way to mutual pleasure once, twice, sometimes even three times a night before Rafe called a stop to their love play, more and more reluctantly, to get to work.
Love play. Dangerous words. She knew most guys Rafe’s age considered what they did on the bed—and the couch and the table and the shower—just various bases on the way to a sexual home run. Emotional attachment never entered into it, much less love.
But the way Rafe looked at her, the way he touched her, so gently, so reverently…it couldn’t be just physical for him. He held her so tenderly afterward. There had to be more going on in his heart, had to be at least an echo of the torrent in hers.
She flew up the stairs, pausing only a moment to scratch the small of her back.
Yet he continued to draw the line at actual intercourse.
She frowned, not knowing what to think about that. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe it was just sex to him, and the reason he didn’t go through with intercourse was it represented too much of a commitment.
She was hoping otherwise. She hoped it was simply as big a step for him as it was for her, a solidifying of their growing relationship.
Because tonight, they’d take that step.
She dashed up the rest of the stairs. Tonight, she’d worked up cash reserves and the nerve to visit the drugstore and buy a box of condoms and a box of contraceptive sponges. Two methods were better than one, right?
Tonight, she was wearing matching underwear.
She knocked eagerly on his door. Tonight, she’d offer, and if he said yes, they’d make love completely.
Rafe opened to her, gaze going over her head.
“Hey.” She grinned.
His return grin seemed mechanical, and he immediately turned away. He seemed…distracted.
Odd. She stepped inside, shutting the door after herself. “What’s wrong?”
“Are you going to the ball?” He still didn’t face her.
“What ball?” As if she didn’t know. It was all her stepsisters could talk about, all anyone could talk about, even Milly.
“The Glass Slipper Ball. Gideon Prince is using it to pick his wife.”
“Are you going?” she countered.
“Not with this.” He glanced over his shoulder, briefly touching the scarred side of his face.
Cin was momentarily stymied. She honestly didn’t see the scars any more and had forgotten that they must pain him. Apparently, they also made him want to hide. She rushed to his side.
“You could go if you wanted to.” She brushed her fingers against his cheek. It was cool, almost cold, the flesh bumpy. He held still for her touch for all of a millisecond before turning out from under her fingers.
“Maybe. But you—you definitely should go.” Again, his gaze was anywhere but her.
She didn’t understand what he was getting at, why he was so distant, and it churned up anxious feelings. “I don’t have time for a party.”
“You should make time. It’s the only way you can get in the running.”
“The running for what? Rafe, you’re not making any sense.”
“In the running to marry Gideon Prince.”
The floor seemed to heave under her feet. “What? Why would you think I’d want to marry him?”
“You’ve got to think of your future.” He finally turned to her, taking her hands, his blue gaze searching hers. “Hear me out. Prince is wealthy. Really, really wealthy. You’d never want for anything in your life again.”
Frustration, almost anger, bubbled inside her, frothing over into a hiss. Rafe was usually so intuitive. Why didn’t he understand?
She didn’t want Prince or his money because she was falling in love with him.
But she couldn’t say that, not with the way he was promoting Prince.
She didn’t understand why he’d do that, why he’d talk up another man, especially marriage to another man.
Unless Rafe knew how she felt about him.
Her stomach dropped, as if the floor had suddenly disappeared. What if he wanted to avoid hearing her declaring her feelings out loud, because he didn’t feel the same?
Maybe it was just sex for him after all.
Her shoulders folded in on her. Her mother’s teachings came back to her, not in comfort this time, but in rebuke. Work hard and turn away from temptations.
The one time she hadn’t, this had happened.
A bolt of anger made her pull her hands from his. She spat, “I’d never marry Gideon Prince.”
Rafe startled. “Why not?”
“Because h-he’s a serial dater.”
“That sounds sinister.” One corner of his mouth quirked, as if he was trying to smile, but the bunched scars gave it a pained look. “Like a serial killer?”
“Like he takes each woman in his circle out exactly once.” She knew she was parroting Milly, but something about Rafe’s insistence that she try to marry another man set her teeth on edge, biting wrong and scraping incisors together. “Like he can’t do simple commitment.”
“Maybe he hasn’t found the right woman, yet.” Rafe’s mouth tightened, his attempted smile dying. “Maybe he’s desperate to find her, and this was the only way he could think to do it.”
“What, parade a bunch of women in front of him like horses and marry the best of show?”
He flinched and turned away as if it was all suddenly too much for him. “Look, maybe we’d better study.”
“Maybe we’d better.” She knew she sounded snippy and tried to make amends, touching his arm. “Um…I brought a present for you, for after.” Though the gift was for herself as well.
“We’ll see.” He shook his head. “We have a lot to do tonight.”
His lack of enthusiasm drained her of her joy. Her arm dropped. “Oh. Right.”
The work was harder than usual as she battled with both tax presentation and her own growing wretchedness. She and Rafe had fought. They’d never fought before. And rather than work things out, he’d pushed her away, using work as a cover. Like her father.
By the end of the night she was exhausted. She splatted onto the couch. Her shoulder itched fiercely, but it was all she could do to lift an arm to scratch.
He tsked. “You’re scratching yourself a lot tonight. Let me do something for you. I’ve got lotion for your bac
k.”
She thought about snapping, Now you want to be nice? but didn’t have the energy. She just peeled off sweater and bra and flopped gratefully onto her breasts.
The sound of brisk rubbing came from behind her, then the dent of his knee as he knelt on the cushion beside her hips. Gravity started her rolling toward him, but she battled it, still upset.
Yet the first touch of his lotioned hands to her back made her moan with pleasure. Her skin seemed to suck the healing moisture off his palms, and she only knew how dry her flesh was when, for the first time all winter, she wasn’t hurting.
He rubbed slowly, carefully, spreading lotion onto her skin, but also working out muscles kinked and strained from work, from their disagreement, from wondering and worrying about him, about them.
She relaxed, eyes closed, and forgot about all of it, lost in the wonder of his stroking hands.
A shift of weight on the cushions roused her as he laid down beside her. She’d fallen asleep. She tried to wake up, to tell him about the drugstore boxes, but her eyelids were so heavy.
“Shh.” He stroked her hair.
At home, she slept lightly from a childhood of the Steps playing nighttime pranks on her. They’d mostly stopped, but only luck had kept her from being caught sneaking out so far. She really needed to get home…she tried to say that.
But somehow, with Rafe’s strong body curved around hers, she felt completely safe.
Just a bit longer.
Sighing, she snuggled in and closed her eyes again. He curled a heavy arm around her, and she fell deeply asleep.
Only to wake to screaming sirens.
Eyes flying open, she jerked up—or tried to. A log lay across her ribs. Other things registered. Her pillowcase was coarser than usual, and the wall in front of her wasn’t her attic plaster, but fabric. She was on a couch…with Rafe. The log was his arm, lifting now as he twisted for something behind him. She turned. He was reaching toward the coffee table.
“It’s your phone.” He stared at it, blinking, yawning as it screamed like a fire engine in his hand.
Synapses in her brain began to trigger, along with panic. “That’s my stepmother’s ring tone. Give it to me!”
