A Cinderella Christmas Carol (Suddenly Cinderella) (5 page)

She handed the stack to Terri to hand out and headed into the hallway under the pretense of needing some air. Screw pretense, her face felt warm and her limbs shaky. Being the focus for curses and glares was one thing. Being center stage in bringing joy—in making people
smile
—was unchartered territory.

Footsteps followed her out. The door creaked closed and Matt stepped into the hallway. “That was your bonus money, wasn’t it?” He held out the white gift card envelope on which his name was scrawled in her less than neat handwriting.

She answered with a shrug. “Me give away money? What have you been smoking, Landry?”

He rolled his eyes. “I don’t smoke weed or cigarettes, and I’m pretty sure you know that. And stop calling me Landry. I really hate it.”

Spirit Matt had said the same last night. “Fair enough…Matt.”

“Better, thanks. By the way, how was your Christmas Eve?”

Starr hesitated. “It was… good. I picked up some Thai food and fell asleep on the couch watching an old black-and-white version of…
A Christmas Carol
. You know, just a nice quiet holiday at home,” she added, hiding a smile.

“Sounds nice,” he said. “Maybe I should have come over instead of going to the bar,” he added, gaze holding hers.

Starr hesitated, moistening her suddenly dry lips. “Maybe I should have invited you.”

“Maybe you should have,” he said, taking a step closer. “I might have slept better.”

Startled, she asked, “You didn’t sleep?”

He shrugged. “I did, but I had weird dreams.”

Fishing, she asked, “What about?”

He looked away, but not before she caught the color climbing his neck. “I don’t know, like I said, it was messed up. Mostly it was about Christmas, not this Christmas, but other Christmases in the past and…future. I was me but not really me, and you were there and we were doing a lot of flying around the city and other crazy crap.”

Recalling the vivid scene of them together in the future—the carpet picnic beneath the Christmas tree, his poignant proposal, and last but not least, how amazing he’d looked shirtless—sent her temperature spiking and her heart hammering. Had they met up in some alternate universe and shared the same Christmas Eve “dream”? Was that even possible? What was for sure possible was they were together here and now.

“Crazy crap, huh?” she said, feeling a no doubt silly grin spreading over her face. All this smiling was making the muscles in her face hurt…not that she was planning on stopping.

“And flying,” he reminded her, grinning back.

He shoved the gift card in his jeans’ front pocket, and for the first time she spotted his swollen knuckles. Defending her honor by clocking Kent, had that actually…
happened
? She opened her mouth to ask but before she could, he cut her off.

“So now that Christmas is just about over, I guess the next big holiday to gear up for is New Year’s.”

Wondering where he might be leading, she nodded. “Yeah, I guess it is.”

He closed the space between them with a single stride. “I was hoping you’d be my date for New Year’s Eve.” His big, warm hands took gentle hold of her shoulders.

She felt her mouth fall open. He wasn’t only asking her out. He was asking her out for freakin’ New Year’s Eve!

What to Wear (and NOT to Wear) to Sleigh Him on New Year’s Eve.
She’d written off the copy as a typical holiday fluff piece, but now she had to fight the urge to race home and read every word.

He stroked her arms, raising a trail of delicious shivers there and everywhere else. “You still haven’t answered me.”

“It’s uh…really hard to…think with you doing that.”

He stood his ground. “Good. You think too much as it is.”

“I do?”

He nodded. “You talk a lot too, not that I mind—
usually
.” He flashed a smile. “But back to our New Year’s date—I’m thinking we’ll start with dinner, some place intimate and kind of quiet, at least as quiet as it gets on New Year’s Eve, and then afterward some friends of mine are having a party at their place. Not a party really, just a few couples over to drink champagne and watch the ball drop on TV. But if you already have plans, I’ll—”

“I’d love to,” she blurted out, heart pounding.

“Great, I’ll swing by your building and pick you up. Eight o’clock, okay?”

“Perfect,” she said. “I’ll text you my address.”

He hesitated, a sheepish look taking over his face. “I, uh…already have it?”

“You do?”

He hesitated. “The first rule of any new job: make friends with someone in HR.”

“You have a mole in Human Resources!” Giving out confidential employee information to another employee was so against the rules! She should go ballistic, demand he give up his source, but before she could do either, it struck her. “That’s how everyone knew Christmas was my birthday. You told them!”

He didn’t deny it. “I’ve been at
On Top
for six months now and it seems like there’s a birthday celebrated about once a week, but so far not yours. I figured it had to be coming around soon. I never figured you for a Christmas baby, though. Saint Patrick’s Day maybe, but not Christmas.” He reached out and fingered one copper-colored curl.

Shivering, she managed a shaky laugh. “Yeah, I look like my mother screwed one of the Keebler elves or Chuckie.”

He shook his head, looking at her as though she was a lost cause he was determined to redeem. “You’re beautiful.” He cradled her face gently between his two hands, as if her pale skin were made of porcelain indeed. “You’re more than beautiful. You’re perfect.”

The dream scene from Christmas Future flashed through her thoughts and she felt herself blushing. “I guess having an HR mole means you know my birth year, too?” It wasn’t really a question, but she braced for his answer anyway.

“Yeah, I guess I do…
Cynthia
—or do you prefer Cindy?” He grinned wickedly.

“Let’s just stick to Starr, okay? You don’t mind…about the age difference, I mean?” She bit her lower lip, belatedly remembering she wore lipstick—oops!

He looked at her incredulously. “If anything, it makes you even sexier to me.”

“You think I’m…sexy?” It might sound like she was fishing for compliments, but she wasn’t. She’d thought of herself as cute, mildly attractive even, but sexy? Really, this was news.

His gaze turned steamy, the irises huge and black. “Oh, yeah, I do. Not just sexy—hot. I’ll show you sometime soon, but for right now, take a step back.”

“Step back?” Wondering what he had in mind, she let him back them to the doorway.

He smiled. “Great, stop. Perfect. Now look up.”

Starr did—and suddenly she got it. Lowering her gaze to his face, melting in the heat burning from his eyes, she asked, “Is that what I think it is?”

“If you’re thinking mistletoe, then yes.”

She laughed. “Who hangs mistletoe at a Matzo Ball supper?”

“New York’s a melting pot, so deal with it.” Leaning closer, he reached out and lifted her chin on the edge of his hand. “For now, just kiss me.”

He lowered his head and matched his mouth to hers. Starr sighed and sank against him. He tasted of butter cream and peppermint schnapps—the perfect Christmas confection. The touch of his tongue to hers shot an arrow of warmth straight down her spine. Inside her Cinderella slippers, her toes tingled.

He broke the kiss and drew back to look at her, his eyes twinkling like the stars she and the spirit had sped past in her “dream.” “Merry Christmas Birthday, Starr.”

“Merry Christmas, Matt.”

He leaned in and Starr tipped her face up to meet him. This time when his mouth met hers, his kiss held the promise of all the many merry Christmas birthdays yet to come.

Acknowledgments

My heartfelt thanks and warm holiday wishes to my editors, Stacy Abrams and Alycia Tornetta, to my agent Louise Fury, and to Danielle, Jessica, Barbara, Sara, and everyone on my Entangled publicity team who’ve contributed their tremendous time, talent, and energy to making my Suddenly Cinderella Series such a success.

Last but never least, to the real Molly Jane AKA Jane for filling my days with braying meows, drooling kitty kisses and unconditional love for these past twelve years—and counting. Thanks for letting me “rescue” you, sweetie!

About the Author

Award-winning author Hope Tarr earned a Master’s Degree in Psychology and a PhD in Education before facing the hard truth: she wasn’t interested in analyzing people or teaching them. What she really wanted was to write about them! To date, Hope has written twenty historical and contemporary romance novels for multiple publishers including
Operation Cinderella
, the launch of her Suddenly Cinderella contemporary series for Entangled Publishing and
A Cinderella Christmas Carol,
the series’ only novella. Hope is also a co-founder and current principal of Lady Jane’s Salon™, New York City’s first and only monthly romance reading series, now in its fourth year with satellite salons nationwide. Look for additional Suddenly Cinderella books continuing with Francesca’s story in
Project Cinderella
and find Hope online at her websites at
www.HopeTarr.com
and
www.LadyJaneSalonNYC.com
as well as on Twitter (@HopeTarr) and
Facebook
.

Find out where the Suddenly Cinderella series started with Macie’s story!

Read on for a sneak peek at Hope Tarr’s Operation Cinderella:

Manhattan magazine editor Macie Graham always gets her story—and she’ll do anything to uncover the dirt on famous conservative radio personality Ross Mannon. After he smears her article on his show, nearly costing Macie her job, she devises a plan to masquerade as a modern-day Cinderella and get her revenge on the infuriating Texan.

All Ross wants is a woman with old-fashioned values to be his housekeeper and role model for his troubled teenage daughter. When the perfect woman shows up, Ross is relieved—until he finds himself drawn to his gorgeous, red-stiletto-wearing new employee. “Martha Jane” is opinionated and sexy, and Ross is intrigued…and more than a little turned on.

Macie thought Operation Cinderella was foolproof, but Ross, with his rugged good looks and southern charm, proves to be as perfect behind-the-scenes as he does in public. But when she finally uncovers a secret that could destroy Ross’s reputation, she faces losing her job or losing the fairy-tale ending she didn’t even know she wanted.

Prologue

East Village, Manhattan

October

“Keep your jock strap on, I’m coming.”

Macie Graham stepped out of the shower to her apartment buzzer blaring. Fuck, that was fast. She’d been ordering from All Thai’d Up for two years now, at first because the edgy whimsy of the name appealed to her and later because they screwed up her standard order of Panang Curry with a side of sticky rice fewer times than the average St. Mark’s take-out dive. Bonus: the restaurant was only a few blocks from her apartment. Still, this was the first time one of their bicycle delivery guys had made it to her building in sub-fifteen minutes. Dude must be a regular Lance Armstrong. Impressive.

The buzzer let out another ear-splitting screech. Okay, this was getting annoying. Grabbing her robe off the hook, she called out from the steam-filled bathroom, “Chill already, I said I’m coming.” A stupid thing to do, literally talking to the walls, and yet considering all the stupid to bad things she’d done in the past month and a half, talking to herself didn’t begin to make the list.

She wrapped a towel around her streaming wet hair and raced through the living room, emptied of possessions except for her inflatable mattress, single suitcase, and her cat Stevie’s feeding bowls. Aside from the few boxes in her bedroom, everything else was in storage—in limbo like the rest of her life.

Reaching the door to her apartment—well, hers until tomorrow—she punched the intercom button. “Sorry, I was in the—”

“MJ…Macie, or whatever the hell you’re calling yourself these days, I know you’re in there. Buzz me up—
now
!” Ross’s voice, armed with an angry edge, rose above the crackling.

Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit…

Whipping away from the intercom, Macie pressed her damp back against the double-bolt, emotions reeling between shock, elation, and a primal fear. Ross. What was he doing here? How had he found her? And now that he had, how could she convince him to go away?

“Macie, it’s no use pretending. I talked to Francesca. She told me everything.”

At the mention of Ross’s ex-wife, every pore in Macie’s body seemed to open, soaking her terry cloth robe. She swallowed deeply, sucking down air like a college freshman quaffing beer at a kegger.

So this is what a panic attack feels like. I always wondered. Maybe I’ll do a story on it someday. Someday—assuming I survive.

She closed her eyes and focused on her breathing. Had she really gone from features editor of
On Top
Magazine
, one of the hottest, hippest women’s magazines to come on the scene since
Jane
, to hunted fugitive in six short weeks?

“Macie, I know you’re in there.”

Ross’s voice, angry sounding but weary, too, dragged her back to the madness of the moment. It was time to pull up her Big Girl pants and face the so-called music…which hopefully wouldn’t involve either police sirens or angel harps.

“Buzz me in and hear me out. You owe me that much.”

Swallowing hard, Macie opened her eyes and turned back around. He was right. She owed him that much. That much and so much more.

She reached out a trembling hand and punched in the security code.

Chapter One

Offices of On Top Magazine, Midtown Manhattan

September, Six Weeks Earlier

“Graham, I want your ass in my office in ten minutes. Ten minutes—got it?” Over the crackle of intercom static, Starr’s pissed voice reverberated off the framed magazine cover blow-ups blanketing the walls of Macie’s office.

Macie opened her mouth to answer, “Sure thing,” just as the line clicked dead. Her managing editor had just hung up on her. Could a pink slip be far behind?

She jerked open a desk drawer and searched inside for something to kill the headache hammering her skull, the double whammy of too many dirty martinis in celebration of Labor Day the night before and being blindsided that morning by her latest ballsy editorial decision blowing up in her face. No aspirin, just her luck—but there was a travel-size bottle of Pepto-Bismol. Loosening the child safety cap almost cost a sculpted nail, but once she had it off, she brought the bottle to her lips and knocked back a soothing bubblegum pink swallow.

Setting the antacid aside, she faced her computer screen, loathing bubbling up like bile. “You…asshole!”

The asshole, conservative media pundit Ross Mannon, smiled back at her from the webcast she’d paused in mid-play. With his cropped dark blond hair, chiseled features, and cerulean blue eyes, it didn’t take much imagination to recognize why the female
Newsweek
reporter had dubbed him the Robert Redford of the Right.

The Texas sociologist had made national headlines the year before by publicizing his research study showing a strong positive correlation between the hours American teens spent online and their likelihood to engage in a laundry list of high-risk behaviors, including unprotected intercourse. The conservative media had latched onto the study’s findings like a starved leech let loose inside a Red Cross blood bank. Within a week, “Dr. Ross” was making guest appearances on national news talk shows, decrying the country’s “culture of part-time parenting couched in denial and politically correct double speak.” Six months ago, he’d landed his own daily weekday radio program broadcast from the nation’s capital. Currently, three hundred radio stations around the country had picked up “The Ross Mannon Hour” as part of their regular programming, and the show’s website pulled in around 100,000 visits per day.

Until now, Macie had left Mannon alone.
On Top
might run some pretty candid—okay, in-your-face—copy, but taking on the latest conservative media messiah qualified as just plain stupid.

It was Mannon who’d put the kibosh on their peaceful coexistence. He’d gotten his hands on a copy of
On Top
’s current issue, spotted Macie’s feature article on the growing number of parents opting to prevent unwanted pregnancies by putting their teenage daughters on birth control
before
they had sex—“Forget the Fairy Tale. Teen Sex is Fact, Not Fiction”—and made the magazine the target of that morning’s “Ross’s Rant.” He’d ended by giving out
On Top
’s website, mailing address,
and
toll-free phone number, urging his listeners to make their voices heard. Within minutes the magazine’s overloaded server had crashed and the switchboard had lit up like a billboard in Times Square.

Along with the phone calls, which had ranged from hostile to deranged, there’d been e-mails to the corporate Powers That Be denouncing Macie’s article as trash. Macie hadn’t really worried much about that.
On Top
’s readership and Ross Mannon’s radio audience were planets apart, a separate species of entertainment news consumer. But when a major advertising account, Beauté, a manufacturer of high-end hair care products targeting the “tween” to teen market, pulled the ad spread they ran in every issue, citing the morals clause in their contract and concerns over branding and corporate image, well, that was another story.

She clicked her mouse to maximize the clip. Mannon’s blond head and broad shoulders filled her screen, and for a crazy few seconds she forgot why she was supposed to hate him. More than his looks, though, there was something in his eyes that brought to mind long-forgotten fairy tale fantasies about knights in shining armor, princes capable of bringing you back to life with a single, petal-soft kiss, and True Love, forever-after love, the kind of Big Love that outlasted a single sexy weekend or hot hook-up night—only, of course, it didn’t really exist.

All that perfection had to be a smokescreen, a front. Picture-perfect types like Mannon invariably had a less than storybook behind-the-scenes. He was altogether too good-looking, too
hot
to be living the squeaky-clean life of a contemporary Prince Charming. His website bio, pared down to a smattering of innocuous factoids, stood out as a big friggin’ red flag. Born and raised in Paris, Texas. A football scholarship to the University of North Texas, where he’d stayed on to earn a PhD. One daughter, Samantha, but no mention of a wife, which almost certainly meant he was divorced.
Hypocrite!
Do a little digging and the frog hanging out inside the pretty boy prince would leap to the surface. Just give her the chance, the access, and she could blow Mannon’s cover—she
knew
it.

It was all about the access.

She pulled at the ends of her waist-length hair, now straightened and colored jet black, and clicked on the pause button to pick up where she’d left off viewing the video.

Mannon’s deep-timbered Texas drawl blared from her Boston speakers. “Folks, I don’t usually bring up personal stuff on the air, but I’m gonna go ahead and make an exception. Looks like my fifteen-year-old daughter, Samantha, is going to be living with me twenty-four-seven for the foreseeable future, and the plain truth is I’m not much of a cook or a housekeeper…”

The plain truth. Ha! I’ll bet you wouldn’t recognize the truth if it bit you on your uptight ass.

“But what my Sam needs more than any of those things, even more than someone to chauffeur her around—and believe me, that kid’s schedule is packed tighter than the president’s—is a role model, a lady who models the kind of core values we talk about on this show.”

Macie fought the urge to gag. Poor kid. Sight unseen, she felt an affinity with Mannon’s daughter, whose situation struck her as eerily similar to her own childhood. It hadn’t been easy growing up as a precocious free-spirit. But when you were born to people—trolls—whose idea of parenting meant crushing independent thought at every turn, holding onto your self-worth, not to mention your sanity, was a constant struggle.

“Last Sunday,” Mannon continued, “I ran an ad in the
Washington Times
online. ‘Wanted: woman with old-fashioned values to serve as live-in housekeeper, child care provider, and female role model for precocious fifteen-year-old girl. Salary and benefits negotiable; values firm.’ You’d think ad copy like that would make it pretty clear what type of person I’m looking for, and yet would you believe I must have interviewed a dozen applicants this past week, and the last one showed up with green hair and a nose ring?”

Macie slid a hand over her stomach, feeling the small gold belly button hoop below her cropped body-hugging black angora sweater, and listened on.

“Okay, that’s enough about my domestic issues. This show is first and foremost about
you
. If any of you listening out there have a topic you’d like us to address in a future Ross’s Rant, shoot me an e-mail and put ‘Rant’ in the subject header. Again, that’s r-o-s-s at r-o-s-s-m-a-n-n-o-n dot com.”

Macie stared at the screen, feeling as if steam must be jetting out of her ears. Pretty clever—make that
devious
—getting his listeners to come up with the content for his upcoming broadcasts. Slacker!

She had her middle finger pointed to the ceiling when it hit her. Holy shit, it really was all about the access. Mannon had just handed her the proverbial keys to the kingdom.

Adrenaline pumping, she signed off from the
On Top
local area network and logged on to her personal account. Typing Mannon’s e-mail address into the Send box took balls, but still, it was the easy part. Crafting a message he would buy was trickier. Sticking to the K.I.S.S. rule, Keep It Simple, Stupid, she pounded out a few simple sentences aimed at balancing the requisite background information with just enough bait. She read it over one last time, clicked Send, and darted a look at the chrome-encased wall clock. 4:28.
Two minutes to spare—damn, I’m good.

She shoved her feet into her Jimmy Choo platform sling-backs, grabbed her iPhone, and shot up from the desk. Stepping out into the neon-lit hallway, she pulled the office door closed behind her. Fairy tales were for kids. Exposing a fake prince for his true frog self—real grownup life didn’t pack more magical mojo than that.

…

Watergate Towers, Northwest Washington DC

“Sam, I’m home.” Ross Mannon stepped inside the condo foyer and pulled the door closed behind him. He wasn’t ordinarily home by five p.m., but then this had been a
special
day.

No answer came, not that he’d really expected one, but the backpack dumped by the door told him that Samantha was home. Still, the place was so quiet an ice cube cracking would have sounded like a siren. Ice wasn’t far from the truth, either. His daughter was dishing out the classic cold shoulder treatment—and he was definitely being served.

He dropped his keys on the marble-top foyer table and headed down the beige-carpeted hallway to her bedroom, the scene of his latest parental crime cop bust. Her door was closed—no big surprise there. His fourth knuckle-bruising knock finally brought her to answer it.

She opened it a crack, just enough for him to make out one watery eye and a sliver of pink-rimmed nose. Shit, she’d been crying.
Call me Father of the Year—not!
“What do you want now?”

Taking a breath, he reminded himself he was the adult in this situation. “You and I have some talking to do.”

The door widened another notch, revealing a ribbon of stiffened upper lip and a sliver of white wire from her iPod headphones. “I don’t feel like it.”

“Feel like it or not, we’re going to settle this thing once and for all. Be in my study in five minutes or you’re grounded for the week.”

She backed up and drew the door closed on what skirted a slam.

So much for starting fresh.

Feeling as exhausted as if he’d just butted heads with Rita Mae Brown, Ross turned and headed down the hall to his study, his sanctuary in an apartment that otherwise felt too super-sized, too sleekly trendy, and entirely too beige to ever really suit him. That’s what came of hiring an interior designer, he supposed. At least he’d stuck to his guns and kept her out of his study. The room’s mission-style furnishings, terra cotta colors, and Navaho woven rug were purely him…as were his books, leather-bound editions of American literary classics from Nathaniel Hawthorne to Mark Twain to Arthur Miller, all of which he’d had shipped from his ranch back in Texas. After six months in the city, the study still smelled slightly of…home.

A stab of homesickness struck. Determined to ignore it, he stepped behind the desk, took out his computer, and hit the power button. Logging on and scrolling through his e-mail inbox, he promised himself that unlike the magazine mishap that morning, which he’d bungled badly, he wouldn’t lose his head. If the kid was angry, then let her be angry. Any emotion, even rage, was preferable to the smoldering silence she dished out most days.

A huff drew his gaze to the door. Sam stood on the threshold, one bare foot braced out in the hallway as though she was already planning her exit strategy, her escape.

In a single glance, he took in her mousse-spiked hair, belly-baring T-shirt, and low-rise jeans and felt his parental self-esteem sinking like the
Titanic
. His baby girl, where had she gone, and who was this sullen, slouching stranger? Heavy black liner rimmed angry blue eyes, taking him back to the month before when she’d shown up in the lobby of his Watergate condominium post midnight, a backpack slung over one bony shoulder and rivulets of mascara running like muddy rivers down her cheeks.

“I’m not going back to Mom’s, and you can’t make me,” were the first words out of her mouth, her chin—shaped just like her mother’s—pointed due north.

He hadn’t been sure what to do first: shake the shit out of her for talking to him like that or hug her because she was, after all, safe and not lying dead in a Dumpster. He’d opted for the hug, squared things with the doorman, and then hurried her upstairs to his apartment. As soon as he’d closed the door behind them, her tough-girl exterior crumbled like a cookie.

“Oh, Daddy…” she cried in that little girl voice he remembered so well, the voice that not only pulled on his heartstrings but threatened to snap them clean through.

And that’s when he’d known Sam wasn’t just acting out. For her to run away, something had gone wrong,
very
wrong, back in New York.

Just when he sensed she was on the brink of opening up to him, his BlackBerry belted out the first few bars to Madonna’s “Material Girl,” the ringtone he’d assigned to his ex-wife, Francesca.

Sam had closed up like a clam. Sobbing, she made a beeline for his spare bedroom, the one earmarked for her when she came to stay.

The opportunity lost, Ross picked up the call. “Frannie, listen up. Sam’s here. She’s safe.” He spent the next thirty minutes calming her down while trying to figure out what had gone so terribly wrong

Only, Frannie was clueless, too, which scared the crap out of him. Until now, his ex had always been the cool parent, the confidante, the cross between a best friend and a big sister. If she was in the dark, then whatever had gone wrong with Sam wasn’t small. It was major. Learning that she’d apparently shoplifted a bullshit charm bracelet a few weeks before had stunned him to his core.

“How the hell did that happen?” he’d demanded. “And why am I just hearing about it now?”

“Don’t interrogate me, Ross,” Frannie snapped, her British sangfroid on the cusp of a major meltdown. “I know you think I’m a bloody poor parent but—”