Cin Wikkid: April Fools For Love (5 page)

“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 note-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 back.”

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.