Read Online Cinderella's Christmas Affair by Katherine Garbera - Free Book Online Page A

Tad. Tad was still the great guy she remembered. But he made her forget who she’d become.
    “It’s not that simple.” She paced the length of her kitchen searching for an escape to the memories Tad’s deep voice evoked.
    “Sure, it is,” he said. His confidence nearly undid her resolve. He’d been right about other things before. Things like which schools to apply to. Which classes to take at the community college over summer.
    “Tad…”
    “You’re weakening. I know you are,” he said.
    She smiled to herself. The kitchen counter was covered in freshly baked goods and she reached for the royal icing to assemble the gingerbread house from the pieces she’d made earlier.
    Her mother, Marnie and she had made two hundred gingerbread houses one year to raise money for presents. God, she’d hated the smell of gingerbread that year. But now it made her feel nostalgic and warm inside. She’d made the house so many times over the years that the work was mindless and she assembled the house feeling her mom’s spirit with her as she worked. “What do you want from me?”
    “You keep asking me that. I want marriage.” He’d been angry when they’d first gotten on the phone. She’d heard it in his voice. But now he was teasing her. He was more relaxed. She was glad. She regretted leaving him alone in a restaurant.
    She didn’t want to be responsible for him feeling that way ever again. “I’m not going to change my mind.”
    “Leave that to me.”
    “Are you sure you want to try?” she asked. Marcus had left her shattered and she wasn’t sure she wanted to risk herself again. She didn’t want to be back in that emotionally desolate place again.
    She’d had to leave her job and start over with another company at the bottom. She didn’t want to do it again. And on the emotional side she cared for Tad in a way that she never had with Marcus. Marriage had sounded like a business transaction when Marcus had mentioned it but it sounded so right when Tad did. Maybe that was why she was fighting so hard to keep him at arm’s length.
    “Hell, yes. The best things in life are the ones you have to work for. Haven’t you found that?”
    She pushed a row of M&M’s into the roof of her gingerbread house. Her career was the only thing she had in her life. She had nice possessions and a house that was the only place where she let her guard down. It had taken her three years of saving and living in a shared three-flat in a so-so neighborhood before she’d been able to move here. “I can be really stubborn.”
    “I’ve seen that side of you. And I think I can get around it.”
    “How?” she asked, absently licking the icing off her finger.
    “With a kiss. Babe, you were putty in my arms.”
    She set down the icing bag and stood up. If he hadn’t kissed her today. If she hadn’t kissed him then it would be so much easier to walk away. But the powerful desire arching between them was the one thing that had been missing in her life. And she needed him. It scared her. The emotional connection or the physical bond, one or the other, would be okay but not both. “Yeah, I was.”
    How had he guessed? But then she thought that maybe when you stood a guy up and then confessed to wanting him that he might suspect that you had dating issues. Heck, she had more than issues, she had phobias and she wasn’t sure she wanted to explore them with Tad. He made everything about her life seem sharper. She hated lying so she changed the subject. “Will you be in your office tomorrow?”
    “I’m not going to stop asking,” he warned.
    Stubbornly, she refused to say anything else. Finally Tad sighed. “Yes, I’ll be in my office. Why?”
    “I’m going to send some cookies over.”
    “Homemade ones?”
    “Yes. I’ve been baking all night.”
    “Did you figure anything out while you were riding the range?” he asked.
    She laughed. That was definitely a Mr. Randolph comment. Tad’s dad used to tease her about all the