Read Online Overnight Cinderella by Katherine Garbera - Free Book Online

his teeth to remain unaffected. She was soft and fragile. So damned feminine that all of his instincts urged him to enfold her in his dark wings.
    He wanted to leave her here on the plane before his instincts got the better of his control. To get away from her before he drove her away as he had Rebecca. Rebecca who’d been better suited for him because she’d grown up tough. Not like Cami.
    He’d always taken his control for granted. Always counted on it to get him through the tough times as it had after losing his parents so young andcoping with life growing up on his own. And then Rebecca’s senseless death. He’d stayed on the Atlanta Police Force though he’d known the long hours he’d put in at work had been to blame for Rebecca’s death. She’d been killed by a drug-crazed crook while she was working undercover. The clincher was that it was an overtime shift because she hated to sit at home alone. One single act had completely torn his world apart, and control was the only thing he’d had left.
    After Rebecca died he’d worked even longer hours, eventually losing his edge because he didn’t care about living. He’d endangered not only himself but the life of his partner, as well. Six months after Rebecca’s death he’d left law enforcement to enter the private sector. After a brief stint in the Secret Service, he ended up an advance man with Max Williams in Tokyo. The journey to Japan wasn’t one he even remembered. He’d been drunk in a bar one night and had accepted a job from a colleague. He’d awoken the next morning with a hangover and a ticket to Tokyo in his pocket.
    Saving Max’s life that night in Tokyo had been as easy for Duke as breathing. The young thugs were no match for a man with nothing left to lose. But Max had felt more than gratitude and had made a lucrative job offer. Duke had never imagined he’d get to where he was today, but found his present job suited him in a way law enforcement never had. In the corporate world he wasn’t expected to form ties or bonds.
    Why then did he feel like bonding in the mostelemental way with Cami? He’d been alone a long time and preferred it that way, but last night loneliness had crept into his apartment. He glanced down at the pixie-like woman with her wild clothing and questioned how she could make him react when other more sophisticated women could not.
    He didn’t know the answer to that question. He only knew with gut-deep certainty that she made him react and want to keep on reacting until he was buried hilt-deep in her body. Teaching her to react to him.
    â€œYou don’t mind if I take the window, do you?” she asked as an afterthought.
    Duke didn’t care where she sat because it would be torture either way. She’d sit next to him with her sweet smile and small talk and make him believe he could be the man he knew she needed. She enchanted him with her frenetic gestures and romance novels.
    â€œIt’s too late now,” he muttered more to himself than to her.
    He was at the flash-point and he had to find the part of himself that had survived his upbringing. The gentle man he’d hidden from the world for so long. As he slid into the seat next to Cami, he realized he had the power to destroy her and her fantasies of how life should be. He didn’t know if he had the ability to stop himself. Or if he even knew how to try.

Five
    C ami wanted to be all business on this trip. Savannah was one of her cities. Flying into Savannah and driving up the coast to Hilton Head seemed romantic to her, even if they would be in meetings the entire time. And Duke was just the man she wanted to have with her on this trip.
    She wasn’t a woman most men kissed the way he had in the elevator. In fact, she’d never made love with a man. Her fantasies centered on Duke being the first man to make love to her.
    She warned herself not to take his attentions