The Cinderella Project (A Comedy of Love, #1) (24 page)

EPILOGUE

I later learned that Ella and Hunter had eloped
in Vegas mere days after I’d left to find Moiré. I smiled at the thought of Ella struggling to deal with a small swarm of neuro-babies. Ella’s lies were all explained. For one, I was never more to her than a meal ticket. The crazy wedding date changes? Adjustments to account for her father’s sudden loss of a real-estate fortune. Meanwhile, Moiré had helped her family settle not far from our university, and spent several days arranging to save my project.

My dissertation defense went over in spectacular fashion, and Moiré sat with my family when I crossed the stage to get my degree.

That left just one, last order of business.

One-quarter carat: that's all I could afford. My car gave up the ghost on the way to dinner that night. My hands and face were covered in grease before I was forced to admit that I couldn't fix the problem. So much for our reservations. A bus took us back to my place, only to find an ongoing party. Moiré's apartment was out: Daisy wouldn’t take kindly to losing me. There was no way I was going to do this in the lab. The lake was too far to walk to.

We decided on Rotary Club Park.

Moiré, of course, saw my stunt coming a mile off, but she was nice enough to still act surprised when I pulled the little jewelry box from my pocket. She laughed, clapped and cried all at the same time. Of course, she said
“yes.” Though this wasn't my first time popping the question, it was by far the best time. It meant that at last, I'd really get to keep Moiré with me.

Funny, Cinderella had lied to my face. In reality, the glass slipper belonged to her stepsister all along.

********************

THE END. Continue on to read a sample of Stan’s next book in his
A Comedy of Love
series.

Reviews are always appreciated.

Check out other titles by the same publisher:
www.breezyreads.com

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Twitter: @stancrowe

LOVE SPELL (A Comedy of Love, #2)
by Stan Crowe(SAMPLE. Chapter 1-2)

ONE

Clinton James Christopherson hated starting a Monday fleeing for his life. At best, he had one minute before the beautiful Jane Li would come knocking on the bathroom door; then it was game over.

He wished he could have gotten away
with more than just his pants.

The metal rim of his tiny bathroom window bulged dangerously as he tried forcing himself through, but it refused to budge. There was no
way
he was going back into the lion’s den of his bedroom, where Jane lay waiting on the bed. The window would have to go.

Do or die.

Clint slid back inside, braced his legs against the edge of the tub, and seized the sliding pane on both edges. Gritting his teeth, he yanked backward. The pane popped free of the track and he stumbled backwards out of the tub. His hip met the sink hard before he slammed against the door to the crunch of cheap wood paneling. His head ached and his vision swam, but he struggled back toward the window. Blinking against the pain, he guessed he’d widened the opening maybe an inch or so at best.

A knock at the door. “Clint?” Jane’s accented voice asked. “Are you finished
? What are you doing in there?”

“Uh,” he stammered. “I, uh, slipped on some water. Be out i
n a few moments.”
I hope.

“You will come now,” she insisted. “I have a surprise.” Her seductive voice didn’t mask the undeniable tone of command. Time was up.

Hefting himself up to the window again, Clint contorted painfully through the gap. Okay—the hard part was over. Or not. Fifteen feet below, the lawn glistened with morning dew. Clint was certain that kind of a drop wasn’t good for his health.

“Clint? I’m coming in.” The knob jiggled, but the lock held.

“No, no! Almost done. One sec!” Suspecting that was all he had, he dropped back into the bathtub, begging whatever deity may exist to give him a hand. In response, he slipped on a puddle. Flailing blindly, he snagged the shower curtain and jerked the curtain rod out of place, stopping with a thud beneath the window.

Wait a minute
.

*

Clint had never had his survival instinct fight against itself the way it did when he stuck his legs through the bathroom window and prepared for a two-story drop. Double-checking his grip on the shower curtain, he shoved himself outside just as the bathroom door burst open. He caught the briefest glimpse of Jane’s face, and it was enough to frighten him into letting go. A moment later, he met the lawn at high speed.

When Clint could see straight again, he almost regretted surviving the fall. Jane was halfway out the window, screaming something in Chinese. It didn’t sound like she was trying to order from Yang’s House of Noodles.

“Oww,” he muttered, focusing all his willpower to get himself up and moving again. He prayed his left arm hadn’t been fractured. His rib cage was a solid mass of pain. The throbbing in his head was keeping time with Beethoven’s Fifth. He staggered away from his apartment, knowing there was no chance of losing her now. Jane’s screaming receded back into the bathroom; Clint knew what that meant.

I am so dead.

With his bike still in his apartment, and his car in the shop for a transmission repair, hiding was his best option. He groggily surveyed the area, desperate to find cover. The playground was no good. The other apartment buildings were too far away, as was a pair of dumpsters across the parking lot. Ah! There! A black Bentley lounged in the parking lot, a stone’s throw away. Wasting no time wondering why a luxury car was in
this
neighborhood, he ran toward it. A door crashed open somewhere behind him, and he turned to see Jane burst through the entrance of his building, searching furiously. He dropped behind the Bentley, and noticed it had a vanity plate that read “JinLi55.”

This is Jane’s car? When did she get that much cash?

Clint took a chance at peeking over the car to see if the coast was clear. Instead, he looked right into Jane’s eyes. A tremor shot through him, and his will to live melted like butter under a laser. Then, raw instinct smacked him upside the head and forced him to run.

Sprinting through the parking lot, he ignored his aching legs. In his mind, Jane’s breath was already on his neck. Rounding a bend in the parking lot, he risked a glance behind him; then he finally found out what it was like to be hit by a car.

Brakes shrieked and Clint flopped gracelessly off the passenger side of an old, blue BMW. Pure adrenaline got him back on his feet in an instant. No time to curse the driver; only enough for a withering glare at—wait—who? He stared at her. She stared back.

“Molly?”

The woman behind the wheel nodded for him to get in.

“Molly!” He gasped before diving into the passenger’s seat, and jerking the seatbelt across him. “Thank all things holy that you’re here!”

Molly eyed him quizzically. “When did you find God, Cli—”

“I don’t have time for a religious discussion! Punch it!”

A bullet ricocheted off the car’s hood a split second after a loud “POP.” Molly didn’t even flinch. She thrust the car into reverse, and put the pedal on the floor. The engine roared and the pungent smell of burnt tires filled the car; Clint nearly kissed the dashboard. Amid a staccato series of gunshots, half a dozen holes appeared in the windshield. His left ear felt the heat of a bullet.

“You’d best stay down, Clint,” Molly said. As always, she sounded calm to the point of boredom. But even she was crouched low enough Clint wasn’t sure she could see out the back window.

“This is worse than when she forgets her meds!” he said, panicked. “Since when did she start packing heat?”

“Just sit tight.” Molly punched the clutch and cranked the wheel hard right, spinning her ride in a one-eighty. She dropped the car into drive, and floored it again. Drifting around a corner, she dodged startled pedestrians. The exit to the city street raced toward them on their left. At the last second, Molly executed a perfect handbrake turn to line up with the main entry of Trillian Oaks and sped into the street without pause. A Chevy pickup failed to see her much smaller car, and caught it right behind the driver’s side rear tire. The BMW’s tail snapped around tightly as Molly fought to correct. The car skidded sideways with a stuttering of rubber on asphalt. The passenger’s side tires rammed into the far curb. To Clint’s utter amazement, she avoided rolling the car and brought the vehicle back under control. Gunning the engine again, she sped off up the tight two-lane street.

“
Are you crazy?
” Clint snapped. “You’re going to get us
killed
!”

“Should I take you back to her?”

“Absolutely not!” he retorted. “But slow down! This is a twenty-five zone!”

Molly nodded. “That’s a good thing, or that Chevy would have ended our trip abruptly.” She had a point. If Clint hadn’t believed in miracles before today, he did now.

The streets of Pittsburg, California blurred past in the morning light as he caught his breath. This area was supposed to be a safe haven for him—new address, new phone number. No way for his psychotic ex to track him. Mom, Dad, and Holly had all wondered about the abrupt shift, but they’d accepted his vague excuse about wanting a change of scenery. And now, when he thought he was safe, his sister’s best friend came down with “the fever.” He hadn’t counted on that, but he knew the risks when he took them.

My fault for hugging Jane last night
, he thought bitterly.
Molly, though, that was an accident.

Clint glanced over at Molly to see if she showed any signs of being infected. Thankfully, she was fully engrossed in her driving. Part of him wished she
had
succumbed. No, he had to get rid of this thing; life wouldn’t have any hope of normalcy before he did. He had no desire to make a habit out of fleeing through tiny openings in second story bathrooms. His body groaned its agreement.

“Molly?” he said. “Mind terribly taking me to an urgent care center? Mom and Dad didn’t build me to fall out of windows. I know, because they got mad at me every time I did that as a kid.”

“You needed to be told not to self-defenestrate?”

“Not since I was three. But survival instinct runs pretty deep. Jane wasn’t taking no for an answer. And let’s not forget that you hit me with your car.”

Not even a hint of a smile crossed her lips. “You’re saying Jane had an actual intent to kill?”

Clint grimaced. “You don’t even want to know what she threatened in the bedroom.”

“Why did you let her in in the first place?”

He turned toward her. “She
kicked in my
door!
”

“I thought men liked forward women.”

“The door was
dead bolted
! Do you have any idea what that kind of thing does to a man’s psyche?”

“You’re afraid of women?”

“Only ones that can kill me with their bare hands. Call me a pansy.”

“Pansy.”

“I didn’t mean it.”

When Molly didn’t respond, Clint turned to stare out his window. The view along Highway Four was a blend of soundwalls and suburbs. A tiny smudge of birds headed skyward in the distance. For a moment he wished he could fly away from this insane situation, carefree. Then he remembered that a wish had gotten him into this mess, and reneged on his desire for flight. Adding the weirdness of flight to the weirdness of being able to send women into a frenzy of lust with a touch? No way.

At least something good was going on with his life—Graphitti Graphics had called him in for an interview.
The
Graphitti Graphics! For all it mattered to him, he may as well have gotten a call from Disney or Industrial Light and Magic! In seventy-two hours, he’d ace that interview, and show his college guidance counselor she’d been wrong when she’d tried steering him away from the arts. At last, three years of odd jobs were about to give way to something he’d actually gone to school for.

Molly snapped his thoughts back to the present. “I need you to tell me exactly what Jane said and did from the time she arrived at your place to the time I found you.”

“Why?”

Molly stared straight ahead as she flowed along with westbound traffic. “The incident is still fresh in your memory. More likely to be accurate—details are important.”

Clint looked back at her. “What? Did you plan on filing a police report? Don’t worry, I’ll take care of that as soon as I get done with the hospital.”

“Personal interest.”

Clint sighed. “Well, I guess it really started last night.”

Molly raised an eyebrow, but didn’t look at him. “Explain.”

“It was at Holly’s party,” he continued. “You were there.”

“What does that have to do with this morning?”

Clint chewed on his lower lip for a minute. Would she even believe him if he told her the truth? Maybe if he broke it gently?

“Sorry for bumping into you, last night.”

Molly shot him a quick, sidelong glance. “If you call tripping and landing on top of me a simple ‘bump,’ apology accepted. But that’s irrelevant to my question.”

Clint glanced out his window to see if he could still see the birds. Maybe it wasn’t too late to join them? But no, there was no sight of them now.

Clint exhaled. “Can I, uh, ask you a personal question?”

“The First Amendment guarantees you that right.”

He rolled his eyes. “No, I mean, can I ask you something personal and not have you get offended by it?”

Molly glanced over her left shoulder, waited a moment, and changed lanes. When the maneuver completed, she glanced at Clint. “I may get annoyed at endless caveats tacked on to hints of possible questions. Ask. I’m not obligated to answer.”

He bit his lip again.
Here goes
. “Um, did you feel funny when I tripped into you?”

“Being crushed by a one-hundred-eighty pound man isn’t on my list of ‘funny’ things.”

She wasn’t making this easy. “No, I mean, skip all that. After the fact, did you feel dizzy, or giddy or, strangely blissful?”

“I’m not actually a masochist. Ask Holly.”

This was going nowhere. Yet, she didn’t seem to have been infected by her contact with him. Maybe it was worth testing?

“Molly,” he probed. “Can I, like, tap your shoulder? Real quick?”

“You already have my attention.”

“Well, yeah, but let’s pretend this is a scientific experiment. Just a quick tap.”

She shrugged.

This is stupid
, he thought.
This is
so
stupid.