Read Online Operation Cinderella by Hope Tarr - Free Book Online

make things better for him. But making Ross Mannon feel better, no matter how personable and charming and, okay, hot he was in person, didn’t come close to aligning with her Operation Cinderella mission.
    He gestured her to the sofa. “Have a seat, Miss Gray. Can I get you something—coffee, tea, a Coke?”
    A tequila shot, I’m thinking. The gravity of his tone stripped away her confidence and sent her stomach sinking. Had she overreacted to the ketchup incident or hadn’t she reacted enough? Afterward, had she talked too much or too little? She looked into his eyes and the shadows she saw brought back a montage of her life’s low points since high school, from when she’d repeatedly “failed to live up to her potential” to all the times since when she’d just plain failed.
    Standing in the shadow of the oversized painting, she shook her head. “No thank you.”
    “Mind if I make some coffee for myself?”
    Actually she did mind, she minded a lot. If he was going to give her the thumbs-down, she’d just as soon have it over with so she could get the hell out of there and back to Manhattan where she belonged. But the choice wasn’t hers.
    “Go ahead…please.” Dropping her bag, she followed him out to the galley-style kitchen and took a seat on one of the high-backed breakfast bar stools.
    He puttered about, opening and closing cabinet drawers, swearing beneath his breath when he couldn’t find the coffee filters. Looking up from the silverware drawer he’d rifled through, he said, “You sure I can’t get you something?”
    Antsy with impatience, Macie shook her head. “Dr. Mannon, if you have something to say to me then please just come out and say it.”
    “You’re right.” He put down the coffee scoop and faced her. “Above all, I want to apologize for my daughter’s behavior. There’s no excuse for that kind of rudeness.”
    Unused to being on the receiving end of a man’s apology, she wasn’t sure how to react. “Sam is obviously going through a difficult time.” Christ, that was just the kind of lame platitude she’d come to hate.
    He let out a heavy breath. “I’m afraid there’s more to it than that.” He carried the coffee pot to the sink. Running the tap, he said, “I wouldn’t want this to become common knowledge, but Sam’s living with me because she ran away from her mother’s in Manhattan.”
    The revelation tripped Macie’s mind back to the times when she’d run away. Two months shy of seventeen, she’d gotten halfway to Chicago when the car ran out of gas and she’d had to stop and refill it using her dad’s credit card. By then her parents had put a tracer on the card, which was how the police had caught up with her and hauled her back home. The next time, she’d made sure to take along what to a sixteen-year-old had seemed like plenty of cash. It wasn’t. She hadn’t made it to Chicago that time, either.
    She found herself saying, “When a child runs away, there’s almost always a reason.” Who knew, Samantha’s reason might well be the crux of her juicy tell-all for On Top .
    He crossed back to the granite counter and poured water into the well of the Mr. Coffee. Measuring out the grounds, he said, “I agree. Unfortunately whenever I try to get her to tell me what went wrong, she freezes up and threatens to run away—textbook emotional blackmail, and, by the way, it’s working.” He punched the switch on the coffeemaker and turned to face her.
    Stunned by the raw vulnerability she read on his face, she worked to keep her expression neutral and her sympathy in check. “At least she felt like she could come to you,” she said, hoping to draw him out about his divorce. “She must trust you on some level.”
    He dragged a hand through his thick blond hair, and she found herself wondering if it felt as soft as it looked. “Up until a year ago we had a damn good—excuse me—good relationship. Now I just don’t know. The school counselor back in New