Awakening His Innocent Cinderella

by Natalie Anderson

  ‘He denied my mother’s dying wish,’ he said harshly. He’d denied almost every damn wish of Rafe’s for a decade.

  But it was Gracie he was most angry with now. Gracie, who’d let that monster in. Gracie, who stood there looking so beautiful and soft and caring. ‘Please leave.’

  ‘Rafe?’

  ‘Leave. Now,’ he shouted. He needed to be alone. He turned back to the villa. Only, he couldn’t bear the sight of it right this second. He turned back again and she was there, right in front of him when he’d been ripped open by a rusted knife. He was nothing but jagged edges and oozing blood.

  ‘I’m not leaving when you’re this upset,’ she said gently.

  ‘I’m not upset,’ he spat at her. ‘I’m livid.’

  ‘He’s an ill old man,’ she answered calmly. ‘What can he do to you now?’

  It wasn’t now... It was everything. Rafe had everything, but still had nothing.

  ‘He exists!’ he yelled rawly.

  She looked up at him. It was hot and he was cold and her eyes were so soft, so full of empathy and emotion and infinite patience. And somehow he tumbled into that tenderness.

  ‘They denied my existence. My name. He had everything I didn’t. Legitimacy. Parents. And he wouldn’t even let me have mine. When he was a child, he had both his parents. I didn’t. He came here with Dad year after year. He had all those memories that I never got the chance to make.’

  ‘And now he’s losing them,’ she said quietly.

  ‘I know.’ His voice cracked. ‘He can’t even share them. He couldn’t share anything with me ever.’ He groaned. ‘Do you blame me for hating him for that?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘My father promised to bring me here,’ he said. ‘He said I’d love it. That we’d go on the water together. It was our dream...’

  ‘But you never got to come.’

  He breathed out. ‘Stupid,’ he muttered. ‘As if being here could bring him back.’ He couldn’t bear to look at her. He turned to the lake, blinded by stinging tears that wouldn’t fall.

  ‘Because that’s what you wanted.’ She wound her arms around his waist.

  ‘I said I wanted this villa to add to my portfolio but really it was to prevent Maurice from getting it. And, yes, I got some petty pleasure from that. But I didn’t know about Leonard’s health. And it wasn’t really why I wanted it.’ He blinked rapidly.

  ‘You loved your father.’ She placed her hand over his chest, feeling the pounding of his heart. ‘And he died. Then so did your mother.’

  He bent his head. ‘Yes.’

  ‘And that sucks.’

  He turned, seeing her half-shy, half-worried expression. Suddenly that agony eased—just as he admitted its depth.

  ‘It does.’ He dragged in another breath. ‘What they did to my mother was unforgivable. I never would have let them in here, Gracie. If you had any understanding of me, you would have known that.’

  ‘I know that you’re amazingly strong—’

  ‘Don’t. Don’t put this on me—don’t try to make me the bigger person. Because I’m not. You did the wrong thing.’

  ‘Maybe I did,’ she said softly. ‘But with the right intentions. And you are the bigger person. You’re not like them, Rafe, that’s the whole point. You would never do what they did to you, not to anyone. Not even them.’

  He stilled, hating her words. Because she was right.

  ‘They saw you as a threat,’ she said. ‘And people do dumb things when they’re scared. Sometimes people are just mean. But you’re not.’

  He’d wanted to be. The only reason he hadn’t been was because of her. Because she wasn’t. Yet she’d suffered too. Hugely. How had she stayed so lovely, so forgiving, in the face of all that upheaval?

  ‘Life isn’t black and white,’ she whispered. ‘There’s no way of keeping things simple. There’s just complication.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to make this a pity fest.’ He winced. ‘You didn’t have it easy either.’

  ‘No. Both my parents said they loved me. But if they really loved me, would they have treated me like a bone to be buried and hidden so the other couldn’t find me?’ She shook her head. ‘To be pulled between the two for years? It hurt all of us. As I said, people do dumb things when they’re scared.’

  Yeah.

  He rolled his shoulders—conflicted between ease and discomfort. He didn’t know why he’d been so angry only moments ago. Why he’d thought they could still hurt him. He wasn’t eight years old and alone now. He was an adult and he had everything he’d never had then—security, certainty. His half-brother showing up shouldn’t have bothered him all that much. Yet it had.

  ‘You were kind to Leonard,’ he said. ‘You’re a better person than me, Gracie James.’

  ‘My grandfather is called James,’ she said quietly. ‘He’s similar to Leonard in that his mind was going... I recognised it in Leonard and that’s why I felt sorry for him and for Maurice. It’s hard.’

  Rafael watched her. ‘How’s your grandfather now?’

  ‘By the time I got back to London, to be able to see him again, his memories were mostly gone. He didn’t know who I was. He passed away a year ago. It’s his watch I wear.’

  No wonder she’d had sympathy for Leonard, then.

  ‘I took the name James as my surname when I decided to start over. I wanted to choose.’

  ‘Because being in charge of your life is important to you,’ he said. She’d chosen who she wanted to be—literally. ‘I understand that now.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You missed out on so much.’

  ‘So did you,’ she replied.

  He held her close. With that simple hug, a calm serenity flowed, pushing the remaining angry wreckage further away from his heart. ‘Let’s go inside and find your watch,’ he suggested quietly.

  ‘I’d like that.’

  It was in his bedroom. His heart thumping, he picked up the watch with its round face and worn, canvas strap.

  ‘Vintage again.’ He tried to smile.

  ‘Bits of history.’ She fastened the strap with a small smile. ‘It’s probably cheesy, but I think they link us—to people, to our pasts. Some building blocks of identity. Maybe that’s what you wanted with this villa?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  Gracie walked over and framed his face with her hands. Her heart ached for him. He hadn’t wanted her to see his vulnerability. His hurt. And she’d just hurt him.

  ‘Don’t feel sorry for me,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t you feel sorry for me either.’ She smiled.

  She had nothing to give him except herself. Her love. Her honesty. But he didn’t want it. There was no point trying to change him. There was only the moment to enjoy.

  ‘I hate how it feels,’ he said a little roughly.

  ‘How what feels?’

  ‘This confusion.’ He eyed her meditatively. ‘It was easier when I could just hate them.’

  She smiled up at him. ‘Nothing is ever simple.’

  He shook his head and brushed his finger across her lips. ‘This feels simple. This feels good.’

  Gracie didn’t reply. While she was glad he was no longer angry with her, glad he was holding her close again, she was sorry that he was calling time on this conversation. Because this didn’t feel all that simple to her.

  He turned away from her and went to the luggage he’d stacked just inside the door. ‘I brought you a present from Paris.’ He held up his hand to forestall any protest. ‘Not an emerald bracelet.’

  ‘I should hope not.’

  He cocked his head, reading her awkwardness. ‘It’s only little. Really not that amazing.’ He suddenly laughed. ‘You really don’t like gifts? You probably won’t even use it.’

  She pulled the package from the carrier bag
and pulled apart the tissue wrapped around it.

  ‘It’s a rotary pastry cutter,’ he explained. ‘As I said, not anything fancy but I thought you might like it. Not just vintage, practically antique.’ He studied it for a second and his smile was a little lopsided. ‘Though I realise now that the vintage things you collect are for their connections to your people, not the things themselves.’

  ‘And the connection of this is to you.’ She beamed at him as she turned the cutter over in her hand. ‘I love it. Thank you.’

  ‘Really? You love it.’ He put his hand to his heart in an amazed gesture.

  ‘You must think I’m so ungrateful.’ She winced.

  Rafe leaned against the wall and regarded her, suddenly solemn. ‘No, I think you struggle with being given things.’

  Her lungs froze. ‘I’m no saint, Rafe.’ She sat on the edge of his bed and played with the small handle of the pastry cutter. ‘You know I went to stay with my father when I was eighteen...’ She drew in a breath to brace herself. ‘It was quite a...celebration, I guess. There was a big welcome party. He’d kept presents for me—for all the birthdays and Christmases we’d been apart.’ She cleared her throat and looked down at her feet. ‘It was so kind...’

  ‘But?’ Rafe prompted.

  She didn’t want to say anything more, it was wrong.

  ‘It’s okay to be honest, Gracie. You know you can tell me anything.’

  She glanced up at him and saw the acceptance in his eyes. ‘It was really sweet,’ she said softly. ‘It wasn’t his fault—he didn’t know me and I didn’t know him and that hurt us both.’

  ‘The presents were...not your thing?’

  She winced. ‘They were...’

  ‘Be honest,’ he encouraged softly.

  ‘Not all...my thing. But that wasn’t a surprise, though, right?’ she pointed out, eager to defend her father still. ‘How could he know what I liked when we’d been kept apart for so long? Neither of us knew the other. I’m sure I did things that he wasn’t a huge fan of.’

  ‘And you couldn’t laugh about it?’

  She shook her head. She’d never been able to laugh about much with either of her parents. ‘The problem was that he kept buying me presents.’

  ‘Impersonal presents,’ Rafe noted.

  Yes.

  Gracie looked at the little pastry cutter in her hands. How was it that Rafe had got her something that she loved after knowing her for such a short time? But he’d paid attention to her, he’d taken the time to hunt it out, he’d put real thought into it, not simply ordered the number one most popular gift idea online, irrespective of whether it would suit her or not.

  ‘I asked him not to, told him over and over that he didn’t have to,’ she said urgently. ‘That he didn’t need to feel like he owed me in that way, that he didn’t need to buy my affection... I’m not like that, Rafe.’ She looked up at him earnestly. ‘I don’t care about things in that way.’ She’d had to travel with so little for so long, she had a great awareness of what was truly of value.

  ‘Anyone who knows you would know that, Gracie.’

  Anyone who’d bothered to get to know her. And that was the point, of course. She sent Rafe a sad smile, he was so astute.

  ‘My father kept buying, kept paying, but I wanted his time, not his money. Not things. I wanted...’ She trailed off and tried to put it concisely. ‘I saw him with my half-brothers and I wished...’

  ‘You’d had him all your life,’ Rafe finished for her.

  ‘Then one day he said he had a big surprise for me. He made such a show of it with everyone there. He’d taken out a lease on a little bakery.’ She brushed her hair back. ‘It was only small but in a really hip neighbourhood. A whole actual café.’

  She glanced up and saw the small frown pleating Rafe’s brow.

  ‘Amazing, right?’ she said, burning, bitter tears filling her eyes. ‘You’d think there’d be nothing better than that for me.’ And it should have been. She should have been overwhelmed with gratitude. ‘It had been so incredibly generous. So supportive.’ A tear slid down her cheek but Rafe didn’t move any closer, didn’t take his gaze off hers for a second. ‘But there was a small apartment in it upstairs. For me. I was to move out of their home and into there alone. Immediately.’

  They hadn’t wanted her any more.

  ‘But weren’t you living with him so he could get to know you and catch up on all those years you were apart?’ Rafe asked.

  Her throat clogged painfully. ‘His boys were young and he was busy with them and his wife... He promised me he wouldn’t go after Mum. He said he was sorry and that he loved me but that it wasn’t working... I guess it got too much.’

  It had come as such a shock. She hadn’t been the daughter he’d wanted. They’d missed years and years and they could never get them back, and once she was finally there, he hadn’t wanted her to stay.

  ‘I tried so hard,’ she said, still so hurt. ‘I made the boys my doughnuts, I got them to test all my new flavours. I’d been studying at a culinary arts school, but I tried to fit in, I offered to babysit, I tried to help her around the house... But they were busy, you know? They didn’t need me.’

  They had their new happy life and she didn’t fit. So they’d engineered a way to get her out.

  Rafe lifted away from the wall and walked over, hunching down so he could look into her eyes. ‘You shouldn’t have had to do things to be needed, Gracie. You should have just been loved. Just as you are.’

  Gracie’s body turned to jelly. She quickly put the pastry tool on the bed before she dropped it. She’d wanted to be loved. She’d wanted to be in that big, warm house and been welcome. She’d wanted to be safe and secure and been able to stay. She’d wanted a home and a family, finally and for ever...

  Rafe waited but she still couldn’t speak. ‘So you didn’t take the lease on the café?’

  She vehemently shook her head. ‘Of course not.’ The misery broke free. ‘That’s never what I wanted from him. But he didn’t want me there any more. None of them did.’ Tears splashed down her cheeks as she sobbed. ‘So I left.’

  ‘For Europe?’

  She nodded, furiously wiping away tears, but more kept tumbling. ‘It’s awful, isn’t it? To be so ungrateful for such a gesture?’

  ‘Not awful.’

  She closed her eyes so she couldn’t see the tenderness in his. Because, no, it was awful. ‘It’s okay.’ She dragged in a steadying breath and tried to pull back her usual calm. ‘It’s stupid to be upset.’

  Rafe covered her cold hands with his. ‘It’s not stupid,’ he said firmly. ‘And it’s not okay.’ He squeezed her fingers gently. ‘He thought he was giving you everything but starved you of what you wanted most. Both your parents did that.’ He sighed and ran his hand through her hair. ‘And that sucks, Gracie. That just sucks.’

  He’d used her word to describe it. He was right. And she couldn’t see again for crying. She felt his arms go about her and he pressed her close, letting her lean on him, letting her cry against his chest in comfort. And she cried and cried and cried.

  ‘Oh, Rafe, I’m so sorry,’ she snuffled a long while later.

  ‘Don’t be.’ His answering caress, the warmth in his tone? It was too soft, too understanding.

  She made herself draw back, wiping her eyes again to study him. He steadily, silently regarded her too. He was so unfairly handsome and his gift was lovely but what was even more unfair was his thought for her. He knew her better—understood what she liked—more than anyone else in her life ever had. Right now there were still those bruised shadows in his eyes, remnants of the hurt and confusion from his own complicated family. But there was tenderness and understanding too and something else warm and deep swirling in the mix. A kind of silent support and solidarity in the acknowledgement that sometimes, yes, things sucked.

  Bu
t some things were simple. And how she felt now was very, very simple. Rubbing her fingers on his shadowed jaw, she leaned forward and kissed him.

  He leaned back a moment later. ‘You’re rewarding me for...?’

  ‘Nothing. This isn’t for the gift. Not because you were nice to those people, even when you didn’t want to be. Not because I’ve missed you like crazy. The reason I kissed you is so much simpler than that.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘You’re hot,’ she muttered, needing to bring this back to the light, adult tease it had been from the beginning. ‘And you’re a great kisser.’

  But it wasn’t the real reason. It was everything about him and she couldn’t maintain that easy flirtation. He mattered. And she needed to show him that. She needed to hold him.

  He didn’t smile as he looked down at her. Intense edginess tightened his features. ‘Gracie—’

  ‘Yes,’ she answered, before knowing what his question even was.

  ‘I need you, Gracie,’ he said roughly.

  ‘Good.’ Because she needed him too. She needed him now.

  She moved quickly, pulling at his belt as she kissed him, suddenly desperate to feel him against her completely. For him to fill her and make her feel that wonderful physical freedom again.

  ‘No,’ he said forcefully, suddenly spinning her and pushing her so she fell right back onto the bed. He followed, and grabbing her wrists he pinned her arms above her head, covering her body with his own. ‘Not fast. Not this time, Gracie.’

  She gasped as sensation rippled down her, making her wriggle beneath him. ‘It feels fast to me.’

  ‘No.’ He bent and kissed her, learning her mouth again with a slow, luscious sweep of his tongue. ‘I’m taking my time.’

  He wasn’t teasing. He was torturing. Slowly he stripped her bare. Slowly he touched every secret, soft part of her with such tender, caressing focus it bordered on cruelty. Because she was alight and aching and she needed him. There with her—all the way there. Now. She arched—smiling as she screamed, tears tumbling as his power made her tremble.