Cinderella's Christmas Affair (2 page)

“Don’t let me keep you.”

Right.
One minute in the man’s presence and she’d lost ten years worth of self-confidence. Confidence she’d earned by standing on her own and not depending on anyone else.

Tad nodded and walked to the coffee service that CJ had set up. Normally, her assistant would have handled it but this was her first day working with Rae-Anne. Her temp had proven to be a little inept around the office.

CJ motioned to the easel at the end of the long narrow conference room. Working quickly she set up her presentation and then glanced out the window.

It was a blustery day in early December. Chicago was gray and damp. Though the Christmas decorations along Michigan Avenue tried to instill a little cheer, they failed.

Failure was something CJ understood but she didn’t plan to let it rest on her shoulders today. She took a deep breath, muttered her mantra to herself and then turned to face the other people in the room.

Tad touched her shoulder; she started and dropped her cards.
Damn.
This wasn’t going to work. Six years of moving her way steadily up in the advertising world was suddenly in jeopardy.

He picked her cards up from the floor and held them out to her. Their hands brushed. His were large and tan. He wrapped his fingers around hers, which were cold. Rubbing his thumb across the back of her knuckles he warmed up more than her fingers.

“Cold hands?” he asked softly.

“Always,” she said. Her fingers were never warm even in summer.

“You know what they say about hands,” he said.

“Honestly, no.”

“Cold hands, warm heart. Do you have a warm heart, CJ?” he asked.

No way was Tad Randolph—the only boy she’d ever allowed herself to have a crush on—flirting with her in the middle of the conference room.

“CJ?”

“Uh…I don’t know.”

“There’s something familiar about you,” he said.

She took her cards from his grip and nervously shuffled them. Oh, God, please don’t let him remember me. She was never going to be able to do this.

“Have we met?”

She shook her head. God, don’t get me for lying, she thought. Just in case she crossed her fingers behind her back. Before she could answer her boss walked in.

“CJ was featured in
Advertising Age
last year as part of their Top Thirty To Watch. Twenty-somethings who were taking the advertising world by storm,” Butch Baker said from the doorway.

Butch was forty-eight and had been with Taylor, Banks and Markim forever. He was her immediate boss and observing today as part of the promotion process. CJ was next in line for the directorship of the domestic division of the advertising company. Today’s meeting wasn’t a make-it or break-it deal, but bagging the sporting goods contract would give her a nice lead over her competition.

Butch and Tad turned aside to discuss mutual friends and CJ turned back to her presentation. Everything was in place. If she’d paid closer attention to her notes then she would have realized that P.T. Xtreme Sports was owned by Tad Randolph.

Normally, her secretary Marcia would have taken care of notifying her of such details. But Rae-Anne had been lucky to find the file on the company before they’d had to come down to the conference room.

She missed Marcia. They’d worked together for four years like a well-oiled machine until Marcia had fallen in love with Stuart Mann and married him. The couple had decided to start a family, which left CJ without Marcia’s presence in the office. Not that she begrudged Marcia her family, she just wished they’d had more time to train this temp.

“You nervous?” Rae-Anne asked when Tad’s other executives filled the conference room.

“I shouldn’t be. This is routine.” Sure, it’s every day the boy you had a girlhood crush on was the key to an important account…and your promotion.

“Then why are you?” Rae-Anne asked.

“That’s the million dollar question, Rae-Anne. Thanks for helping me set up. You can go back to the office now.”

“No problem. Good luck, CJ.”

“I need more than luck,” CJ said. She needed a miracle, but her life had been short on those.

Taking a deep breath, she squared her shoulders and began her presentation. She avoided meeting Tad’s gaze. And spoke with all the confidence she’d cultivated since she’d left that small town she’d grown up in, and honed since Marcus had left her.

It would be a lot easier to deal with Tad’s reappearance in her life if he weren’t so damned attractive.

Remember what he said about you and how it felt to realize you’d put your trust in someone who was so superficial. Remember that Tad wasn’t the only one to teach you that lesson. Marcus did as well.

How many times did she have to be hurt before she’d finally learned?

Her career had never let her down. Advertising was safer and required no heartache.

But there was a part of her—Cathy Jane—that wondered what it’d be like to kiss Tad Randolph, high school superstar. A little experiment to see if all the hype that had surrounded Tad during high school had been accurate.

She was no longer the girl with the baggy clothes and frizzy hair. She was a sophisticated city girl who knew how to make men take notice of her and wasn’t afraid of their attention. At least in the boardroom she knew how to do it.

Life couldn’t get much better, CJ thought. Once she started talking her confidence returned and she realized that even if Tad recognized her it wasn’t the end of the world.

“I know you had a long-standing relationship with Tollerson but together we can take P.T. Xtreme Sports to the next level,” she said.

“Very impressive. We’ll be making our decision at the end of the week,” Tad said, wrapping up her presentation.

He had a few words with Butch as CJ cleaned up her presentation boards. Not bad, she thought. She’d made it through the presentation and unless she’d missed her guess, P.T. Xtreme Sports was going to be the newest account in her impressive portfolio.

“Great job, CJ,” Butch said.

“Thanks, Butch.”

Butch walked out of the room and CJ felt like doing the Snoopy dance of joy.

Slowly the conference room emptied leaving only herself and Tad. Why was he still here?

Nervously, she tugged at the hem of her suit jacket. “I’m really impressed with you, CJ Terrence.”

“Thanks,” she said. She should just clear the air, tell him they’d gone to high school together and then put it behind her.

He moved closer. There was something sensual in his eyes. Was he attracted to her? He quirked on eyebrow at her as she took a half step backwards.

“Am I scary?” he asked.

“No.”

He smiled at her and closed the gap she’d just opened with her retreat. She tried to reassure herself that he wasn’t stalking her. If she wanted to she could back away and give herself more space. But she didn’t want to. He smelled good. Closing her eyes she inhaled deeply.

He took her hand again rubbing his thumb over the back of her knuckles. “Are you sure we haven’t met before?”

Oh, God. Not again. Why hadn’t she run when she had the chance?

What was she going to say? The truth was she didn’t want him to ever look at her and picture the girl she’d been. But having an account manager that lied to you didn’t exactly inspire confidence.

The rubbing motion of his thumb was sending shots of awareness up her arm. Her hand was tingling and if she wasn’t so reluctant to have her past discovered she’d actually enjoy this time with him.

“Well…Ms. Terrence.”

“Well what, Mr. Randolph?” she said pulling her hand away.

Time to take control and get the heck out of the conference room.

“CJ Terrence…CJ…Cathy Jane?” Tad asked.

She was frozen. Unable to think of anything intelligent to say she just nodded.

“Cat Girl, I knew you looked familiar,” Tad said smiling.

Cat Girl…that’s what she’d called herself senior year. CJ wished for a time machine. She wouldn’t travel to the future to see the marvels it held, or to the distant past to visit Regency England. She’d travel back to her first year of high school.

She’d find her old locker and destroy the box of HoHos she’d always kept there. Then she’d give her teenaged self a makeover, pointing out gently that baggy clothes didn’t make her look slimmer and finally giving her teenaged self the one piece of advice no one else had given her but someone really should have—never call yourself
Cat Girl.

Even if you meant it tongue-in-cheek, some day when you’re almost thirty it will sound humiliating and not funny.

Alas, there was no time machine and she’d just have to muddle through this as best she could. Tad Randolph didn’t own the only large sporting goods chain looking for representation, she could find another one. Of course, by then Paul Mitchum, another ad executive, would have beaten her to the punch and her career with Taylor, Banks and Markim would be down the drain. CJ wished that the floor would open up and swallow her.

“That was a long time ago,” she said at last. “I’m not that person anymore.”

“Why didn’t you say something sooner?” he asked.

“Come on Tad, honestly would you want Cathy Jane from Auburndale to represent your company?”

“You’re not that woman anymore,” he said.

“No, I’m not,” she said. She met his gaze. His gray-green eyes had always fascinated her. There was more reflected there now than intelligence and fierce will. Now she saw a man with life experience. A man who tempted her to forget what she’d learned about men and maybe risk her heart on the gamble that this guy would be the one who’d never leave.

“I’ve got to get back to work.”

“I won’t keep you.”

She gathered her presentation case and walked out of the conference room without looking back.

“CJ?”

She glanced over her shoulder at him.

“Have dinner with me?” he asked.

“Oh, Tad. I can’t.”

“Why not? Come on, Cathy Jane, for old time’s sake.”

“It’s CJ now.”

She was tempted but knew that nothing good came from dwelling on the past. Besides, Tad had been the reason why she’d moved away from Auburndale. After she’d overheard him talking about her to his friends she’d realized that she needed to start over where no one knew her.

And Chicago had seemed the right place for that. Except she’d learned that running away meant nothing unless you changed, too. She’d been the same shy, awkward girl until Marcus had left and forced her to take stock of her life.

She didn’t really know how to handle men one-to-one. She started to shake her head.

“I know you’ve changed but we were once friends and I’d like to take you to dinner.”

She couldn’t stop her smile. They had been friends. He’d been the only kid her age in the neighborhood that summer they’d both been twelve—popularity and weight hadn’t mattered. They’d ridden their bikes all over the city and spent all their time together. She’d forgotten those days.

There was a part of Tad that was very dear to her. Not the teenaged boy who’d been more concerned about his image than her feelings, but the friend she’d had when she’d first moved to the ridiculously small town of Auburndale. “You’re bigger than you used to be.”

She blushed when she realized how ridiculous that sounded.

“Geez, thanks! Come on. Just one meal. What could it hurt?”

She knew she shouldn’t but couldn’t resist the temptation he represented. He’d been her secret teenage crush, and he’d never noticed her as a woman…until now. It was a fantasy and as long as she remembered that she should be fine. “Okay, one dinner but that’s it. We’re probably going to be working together and I don’t want things to get weird.”

“I like your confidence, Cat Girl.”

“Uh, Tad?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t call me that anymore.”

“What’s going to happen if I do? I am stronger than you now.”

“I’m a third degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do.”

“No kidding. I practice that martial art too.”

This was creepy. She shouldn’t have that much in common with him—the boy who’d broken her heart and made her doubt she’d be a mate to any man. “I’d love to spar with you.”

“Call me Cat Girl again and I’ll give you a chance. I don’t want to talk about old times.”

“I don’t either. I want a chance to get to know the new you.”

She tried to smile as she walked away because she knew that there wasn’t much new to her. She still felt like the same awkward person she’d always been.

Two

T
ad guessed that CJ had been trying to put him in his place but as he watched her walk away, enjoying the sight of her curvy hips swaying with each step she took, he didn’t mind.

Man had she changed since high school. He remembered the lonely little girl who’d made him feel like a hero when he’d bandaged her scrapes after she’d fallen off her bike. He remembered her as a sweet shy girl who’d been too smart for him in high school. He also remembered the girl who’d refused to talk to him after senior prom. He’d always wondered why she had cut him off.

But this woman in the conference room had been a sexy blend of intelligence, savvy and sass. Just what he liked in his women.

His mom had been bugging him to look up Cathy Jane since he’d moved to Chicago five years ago, but Tad had put her off. Kylie, his college girlfriend, had left him saying she didn’t want to come in second to a sporting goods store just about the time he had moved to the Windy City. Tad had been kind of sour on women then. The last thing he’d wanted to do was catch up with the girl who’d given him the cold shoulder through the last two months of their acquaintance.

Of course, at the time his mom had been pressuring him to marry as well. Which was a common thing with her. But his business had been in that crucial make-it-or-break-it stage and the last thing he’d wanted was the kind of distraction women offered. And he hadn’t been interested in marrying some hometown girl or any other girl for that matter.

Tad had shelved his dreams of wife and family and concentrated on making a success of P.T. Xtreme Sports instead. But his mother’s health had been deteriorating in the five years since he’d moved to Chitown and he knew she’d love to see him settled. In fact, she’d hinted rather baldly on the phone last night that she was the only woman in her circle of friends without grandchildren. And he was honest enough to admit he wanted a family.