Cinderella After Midnight

Inwardly, Cat was still cursing the stranger. What had he said his name was? Patrick something. Callahan, that’s right, “Managing Director of Callahan Systems Software,” someone had said.

It wasn’t important. The only reason she’d accepted his invitation to dance was because it would have drawn too much attention if she hadn’t. She certainly didn’t want to upset innocent Mrs. Wainwright any more than absolutely necessary.

She tallied up the details of Patrick Callahan’s incredible good looks with less warmth than she’d have shown in assessing the shape and size of a Christmas tree in a wintry sale yard. Yeah, sure, he had it all. The height, the build, the hair, the shoulders, the Grecian nose and jaw, the healthy tan on his skin, the air of confidence, assurance and bone-deep entitlement.

He was the kind of man she detested, no doubt about that. An upmarket version of how Barry Grindlay must have been fifteen or twenty years ago. Barry Grindlay, the sleazy developer who was poised to bulldoze sweet, frail Cousin Pixie’s family home the moment the rezoning of lower Highgate Street went through in the middle of August. Barry Grindlay, who had no intention of paying Pixie market value for the place if he could possibly help it. Barry Grindlay, who refused to accept the fact that Pixie didn’t even want to sell in the first place.

In other words, Patrick Callahan was…had to be…arrogant and totally ruthless in his wealth and good looks. He had that sense of unquestioning entitlement written all over his face. He was the type who’d do anything for money, Cat was quite sure. And he undoubtedly believed that money could do anything for him, including pick up any woman he wanted, close any deal he wanted, buy any opinion he wanted.

In contrast to Grindlay, however, the CEO of Callahan Systems Software wasn’t important enough in Cat’s life to take the trouble of loathing. All she had to do was get this dance over and done with as smoothly as possible.

Doable. Easy.

He took her hand and held her in the middle of her back, and they began to waltz. Cat was thankful for Jill and Pixie’s dance lessons over the past couple of days. Patrick Callahan had done this before. He didn’t make the clumsy man’s mistake of trying to cover too much ground at once. They just pivoted gently in one spot, in three-four rhythm, leaving him plenty of time to gaze intently into her eyes.

Which, for some reason, he seemed keen to do.

They didn’t talk at first. Cat had to concentrate very hard in order not to start muttering, “one, two, three, one, two, three,” under her breath.

Patrick’s eyes were mesmerizing, she soon discovered. They were bluer than the reflection of a clear summer sky in a mountain lake, blue enough to put both Mel Gibson and Paul Newman into serious therapy. And there was a warm and very appealing glint of curiosity in them that drew her own gaze.

It made her want to ask, “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Since she refused to express any interest in the man whatsoever, she didn’t say it. Instead, each time they circled, she craned her head to glimpse Earl Wainwright to make sure she didn’t lose track of him. It was frustrating at first.

If only I was dancing with the councillor instead…

But then Patrick eased her a little farther out onto the floor and other bodies got in the way. Cat couldn’t see Councillor Wainwright anymore. She suppressed a sigh, surrendered her impatience for the moment and hoped desperately that the dance would end soon.

Chapter Two

Patrick felt the stifled movement of Lady Catrina’s sigh, and his curiosity surged once more.

Her body had been quite a distraction. There was something about this woman. She was lithe, supple and smooth in his arms. Her body was slim but strong and healthy. There was a warmth and sparkle to her that he hadn’t expected to find, an aura about her that suggested she lived her life to the fullest.

He couldn’t put his finger on it. Did it come from her eyes?

Well, no, apparently not. When they rested on him, they were cool and bored, and when they moved elsewhere, they were frustrated and impatient, which gave him a sour sort of feeling in his gut that he couldn’t quite identify.

His hand rested against the black fabric at the back of her simple, swishy dress. He could tell it wasn’t silk. Her skin would undoubtedly feel much, much silkier. He was a little startled to catch himself in the wish that the back of the dress was lower, so that he could discover the texture of her skin with his fingers.

Was he attracted to her, then, despite his cynicism?

Hell, yes! And he couldn’t understand why he didn’t have more control. He’d already decided exactly what sort of a person she had to be, and he wasn’t impressed.

All the same, there were things about her that didn’t fit…like the scratchy feeling on the heel of her hand, another item on a growing list of things he hadn’t identified yet. What on earth was that?

And this gown intrigued him. The fabric was cheap, yet his eye told him the gown was beautifully made, fitting her like a designer original stitched by a professional to her unique measurements. And that was a contradiction, because if she could afford a made-to-measure garment, why couldn’t she afford silk?

Since this was a far safer issue than the complicated matter of his unwilling…and growing…attraction to her, he focused on it and began to challenge her subtly.

“I hadn’t expected to come across a certified member of the British aristocracy at this event,” he murmured. “What brings you to Pennsylvania?”

“I’m staying with some friends,” she said, without hesitation. Without blinking, either, he noticed.

“They’re here tonight?” He knew they wouldn’t be.

“No, they were ill at the last minute and couldn’t come.”

Yeah, right!

“How sad!”

“Yes, it was a frightful pity.”

“Frightful,” he agreed.

“So I’m here on my own.”

“Where did you meet these friends? Here in the U.S.?”

“No, in Gstaad last winter. We were all there for the winter sports.”

“Gstaad? I didn’t think anybody went there anymore,” he commented. He was making this up on the spot, knew only that Gstaad was a winter resort somewhere in Switzerland, but he wasn’t disappointed in her reaction.

“Oh, well, I know,” she answered far too quickly, and he couldn’t help appreciating the agile movement of her mind. “But of course, um, that’s its great advantage. One simply can’t stand to be crowded into some too-too fashionable resort where everyone only goes to be seen.”

“No, I imagine one would find that very trying,” he said. If she had picked up on his parody of her accent and word choice, she didn’t let on.

The music ended, and he felt her begin to pull out of his arms as if she couldn’t wait to get back to Wainwright. Afraid of being found out?

Pretending not to notice her movement, he tightened his arms around her and said very smoothly, “We’ll have another one, shall we? The night’s young yet. Plenty of time to…” Deliberately he trailed off, and she fell into the trap.

“To what?” she said.

“I was hoping you’d tell me.”

“I—I don’t understand.”

“No?”

He shrugged, in no hurry to get to the point. It was much more interesting to do this slowly. The music began again, another waltz. On the ice, professional skaters were whirling around in glittering costumes with flaring skirts. A faint mist arose from the cold white surface.

On an impulse, Patrick asked her, “So, what do you think of the way they’ve set all this up tonight?”

“Oh, they’ve done a terrific job, don’t you think?” she answered at once, and her face lit up. The accent got a little wobbly, but she didn’t notice and he didn’t care. Her eyes were warm, dark pools and her cheeks were pink.

“The whole thing’s incredible,” she continued. “I could never have imagined they’d make it look so good, when it…uh…must normally be so bland. They must have worked incredibly hard. The sculptures are beautiful, and the lights, and the costumes. And I hate to think who was up on ladders for hours frosting all those patterns on the glass. I love it!”

“But of course you’ve attended this sort of function many times before,” he reminded her gently, knowing perfectly well that she hadn’t.

Jaded jet-setters didn’t express such enthusiasm in his experience. Nor did they spare a thought for the anonymous workers who had toiled to prepare their pleasures. He’d never met one who wasn’t entirely and selfishly oblivious to such details.

So who was she?

She didn’t seem like a fortune hunter. There was a sincerity about her…which was a ridiculous word to choose when even the name she’d given him was phony. She had to be about as sincere as a computer-generated telephone message.

“Oh, of course,” she was saying quickly, the accent back in place and more plum-in-the-mouth than ever. “But this actually compares rather well to the Ascot Ball, and…uh…and so forth. I’m pleasantly surprised.” She faked a well-bred yawn behind her hand, then shot a little glance up through her lashes to gauge his response.

He had to hide a smile. Hell, she was a cute little liar!

Is that champagne going to my head? he wondered.

It was a long time since he’d enjoyed dancing this much. Normally, it was something he put up with. He considered it a matter of business etiquette if the occasion was professional, or a form of foreplay if it was private. But tonight…with her…it felt great.

“I like the dinosaurs, by the way,” he said.

“The—? Oh. Right.” The tip of her tongue darted nervously to the corner of her soft, lovely mouth, and she gave a jerky little nod.

He hid another smile of satisfaction and amusement. He’d managed to identify the scratchy feeling on the heel of her hand, finally. A Band-Aid. Just now, he had sneaked a look and had discovered that it was the kind made for children, printed with red, blue and yellow dinosaurs.

Another tiny clue as to who she really was, another thing to pique his interest. Wearing a Band-Aid like that, she had to spend a lot of time with kids. It didn’t fit the character she was trying to portray, and she knew it, which accounted for her nervous reaction to his discovery. Strangely, it didn’t seem to fit the fortune-hunter stereotype, either.

“Will you be staying long?” he asked now.

“No, I don’t expect so,” she said quickly. “I’ll leave as soon as I can. I have to, uh, be somewhere else later in the evening. You know, one’s busy social whirl.”

“You’re talking about the ball. I meant staying in Philly.”

“Oh. Right,” Cat repeated thinly.

Drat! Again!

It was as if a cloak had slipped. She gathered her artificial role around herself once more and cursed the dropping of her guard. It kept happening, when she’d been so confident that she had it down pat. There was something about Patrick Callahan that was way too distracting.

And he was way too observant, as well. That darned Band-Aid! Yesterday evening, she’d cut her finger at the twenty-four-hour child-care center where she worked, slicing some fruit for the kids’ late-night snack. She had meant to exchange the dinosaur Band-Aid for a plain one today, but had forgotten in the flurry of getting ready.

“How silly of me!” she trilled with an effort. “Of course you meant this wonderful city of yours. But I’m afraid I’m leaving tomorrow.”

“Somehow I thought you might be,” he murmured. “Flying first-class?”

“Naturally. To Paris.”

“Wonderful. Where do you usually stay when you’re there?”

“Oh, just an exclusive little hotel downtown.” She gave a vague wave, which accidentally brushed his neck. It was warm, and suddenly she caught the waft of a musky male scent, a mixture of him and his soap, released by the brief brush of her fingers. “You wouldn’t know it,” she finished hastily.

“Probably not,” he agreed. “Interesting, though. I’ve never heard anyone refer to Paris as having a ‘downtown’ before.”

“No, well, I didn’t know if you knew the city or not,” Cat said, trying to infuse a note of arrogant condescension into her tone. Paris didn’t have a downtown? How was she supposed to know that, since she’d barely been out of Pennsylvania?

The man was really starting to make her nervous. That glint in his eye. That little smile that came and went in his face. It drew her attention far too often to his extremely kissable mouth.

Yikes, no! Not kissable! Good gosh! Note to self: No more Mirabeau champagne tonight!

“I know Paris,” he was saying. “I was wondering if you do.”

“Well, of course I do!” she claimed, then added with sketchy logic, “Didn’t I just say I’m about to go there?”

“So you did.” Again, he smiled at her, creasing all the tiny laugh lines on his face in a way that made him look far less intimidating, far more human. Then he slowly pulled her closer so that she had no choice but to rest her head against his shoulder as they danced, and there was that fresh, musky scent again.

She could feel his legs, now, getting tangled in the layers of her dress, and his arm was no longer safely in the middle of her back but much farther round, in the curve of her waist, just below her breast. As they moved, she could feel the weight of her fullness there, nudging softly against his hand. It didn’t feel anywhere near as unwelcome as she wanted it to, and she was melting inside. Was he flirting with her?

A silence fell. She would have spoken, only she was too afraid of saying something that would betray herself to him, too afraid that she had betrayed herself already.

Darn it, she knew she had! He had guessed who she was—or at the very least, who she wasn’t—and he was playing along with her.

Instead of hating him for it as she should, she found herself responding at first. Responding to that little half-smile of his, as if they shared a delicious, creamy, edible secret, instead of a secret that could blow her whole plan to smithereens if he revealed it to Councillor Wainwright.

How much, exactly, did he know? The detailed truth about who she was? Surely not!

Not the fact that she’d been kicked out of her home by her mean-spirited stepmother Rose six years ago, the moment she hit eighteen. Not the fact that her stepsister Jill, almost the same age, had been kicked out right along with her because Jill was pregnant and unmarried and the baby’s well-heeled, well-connected father didn’t want to know about it.

Not the fact that Jill’s older sister Suzanne had refused to remain in a house where her sisters weren’t welcome, so that all three of them, plus Jill’s little son Sam, had ended up struggling to survive in a no-hope trailer park for several years.

Yes, a trailer park, and not the kind where the other residents troubled to grow flowers and put drapes in their windows.

Thanks to Cousin Pixie, that life was behind them now. Cat was well on the way to completing her nursing degree and she was loving it. After turning her back on a career as a show skater following a disastrous six weeks in Las Vegas earlier in the year, Jill was training in computers and administration while she worked in the ice-rink office part-time. Infiltrating tonight’s ball under deep cover had been her idea. Suzanne had recently gotten her degree in library science. They each had hopes for the future. Still, they counted their pennies every single day.

Patrick Callahan knew Cat had as much right to call herself Lady Catrina Willoughby-Brown as she had to claim she could fly. But did he know how important this evening was to her? Did he know it wasn’t a game or a scam? Did he know that she and Pixie, Jill, Sam and Suzanne would all lose their home if he blew her cover tonight?

Of course he didn’t, and even if he did, if he’d somehow guessed why she was targeting Councillor Wainwright so assiduously, she doubted that he’d care. His type never did. From bitter experience, she knew this all too well.

There was a whole roll call of such people who’d impinged on her life. Curtis Harrington III, the Ivy League college boy who’d fathered Jill’s son. Barry Grindlay and his ruthless devotion to the bottom line. Her stepmother Rose, too, had given Cat many an unintentional lesson about the gulf that separated the privileged and the strugglers of this world.

The dance came to an end at last. Patrick led Cat from the floor, his fingers linked loosely through hers, and she was so relieved that this was ending that she didn’t spot his intention until it was way too late.

He’d taken her back to Earl Wainwright’s table and suggested cheerfully to the councillor, “That was fun. Why don’t you and Mrs. Wainwright take a turn now? There are a lot of couples out there now.”

Mrs. Wainwright’s eyes instantly lit up. “Oh, Earl. Why don’t we? He’s right. It isn’t just young people, and they’re playing our sort of music.”

Seconds later, Cat had to watch her elusive quarry stumble across the ice under the escort of a seventeen-year-old skate bunny. Patrick sat back in his seat, meanwhile, openly enjoying her poorly disguised chagrin.

“They’re serving more supper,” he said, then gestured at Jill, who was swishing by with a tray of filled plates.

She came to an elegant halt—she really was a beautiful skater!—and laid two plates down in front of them with a beaming smile. This quickly turned into a confused glare at Cat when she thought Patrick wasn’t looking.

Why are you wasting your time with this guy? the glare said.

Cat gave a tiny frown back and shook her head, as if to say, “Believe me, I’m trying to shake him off!” then Jill swished away with her tray once more.

“She skates well,” was Patrick’s comment.

“Yes, she does, doesn’t she?” Cat began warmly, then corrected her tone quickly. “That is to say, she seems more skilled than most of the people one sees on the outdoor rink at Gstaad.”

“Ah, we’re back to Gstaad,” Patrick murmured.

He tortured her without mercy as they ate. Cat hated herself for appreciating every moment of his cleverness. Never once did he say straight out that he knew she was a fraud. That would have been too easy. But he broke her cover again and again.

He trapped her and let her go again like a cat toying with a mouse, and she almost begged him, “Okay, you win. Call management and get me thrown out, if you’d enjoy the sight of my humiliation. I won’t bother to tell you why it matters so much. You’d only shrug.”

But he didn’t make his first move, and in the end she didn’t ask him to. Instead, she held desperately to the faint, fading hope that it would turn out all right. What other choice did she have?

Some minutes later, however, the Wainwrights came back, and despite Mrs. Wainwright’s suspicious glare, her husband gallantly whirled Cat away to dance at last. Patrick, surprisingly, didn’t interfere.

Suddenly, when she’d really believed all hope was lost, it was easy. Oh, it was so wonderfully easy! Here she was, out on the dance floor with a perspiring councillor, who was like putty in her hands.

One eager question from him about her ancestral home led her smoothly into the subject of chemical contamination of the poor, dear ancestral trout stream and consequent tragic demise of the poor, dear ancestral trout.

The councillor’s open-jawed interest in everything she said then allowed her to run on about the charming bed-and-breakfast mansion she was staying at in upper Highgate Street, and how the owner of the bed-and-breakfast was very concerned about the proposed rezoning of one block of lower Highgate Street, where, she understood, the houses had been built on the sight of a former tannery.

The ground, according to the bed-and-breakfast owner, was hopelessly contaminated from the tanning chemicals below the surface of added top soil and rock fill, and it would be a tragedy, quite simply a shocking, frightful tragedy, if the contamination—not known about by the general public, by the way, because it had been hushed up—was brought to the surface through reckless bulldozing by developers.

In any case, the heritage value of the old Victorian houses on that particular block was, “like my own ancestral estate of Dungrove Castle,” absolutely priceless and must on no account be sacrificed to the frightful greed of commercial interests.

“Lady Catrina, you are absolutely right,” said the councillor eagerly. “You couldn’t have known this, of course, but environmental contamination and deliberate hushing up of its presence is one of my most strongly felt issues, and it’s the most amazing coincidence that I should meet someone like you who shares my concerns.”

He took a moment to mop his brow with a big, plaid handkerchief, as if the fluency of his oratory was exhausting him, then said, “As for the heritage values, of course I wish we, here in the United States, had the sensitivity of you British nobles in that area. Rest assured, however, that this city—as well as you personally, my dear—”

He really did have a very pleasant smile, Cat noted.

“—can count on my influence in council to hold these forces of darkness at bay, and council is going to know that at the very next meeting, because I am not going to hold my cards to my chest any longer. The rezoning in lower Highgate Street is off!”

The music ended at that moment, and a very breathless Councillor Wainwright escorted Cat off the floor and back to the table.

Before he reached it, he was waylaid by his wife Darlene, saying urgently, “Earl? Earl! Grab that waitress. She’s missed our table, and I’m ready for my supper. Those canapes wouldn’t have fed a bird. Earl? Go after her!”

He loped off obediently in the wake of the waitress, almost forgetting about the ice in his eagerness. His wife, evidently not trusting either his persistence about supper or his immunity to any of the beautiful women here tonight, followed him.

Cat turned from the councillor and reached the table, her success glowing in her face and making her smile helplessly.

She’d done it. She had actually done it! Pixie’s home and the other gracious Victorian houses in lower Highgate Street were safe, as were the other families who lived in them. Seven and a half weeks from now, when the vital council meeting was due to take place, sleazy Barry Grindlay would have no more reason to try and con poor, frail, simple-hearted Pixie out of her one and only asset.

Now, if she could only find Jill, tell her the good news and get out of here…

“Pleased about something, Lady Catrina?” said Patrick’s darkly amused voice just a few feet away.

Cat dropped into her seat, knocked hollow by the man once more. Everyone else from this table was dancing or greeting friends, and he sat here alone. His long body was draped in his seat in a lazy sprawl and just one corner of his mouth was lifted in a smile.

Of course she hadn’t forgotten about him. Somehow she suspected she wasn’t going to find it very easy to do that, even after this event was over. His voice, his smile, the feel of his arms around her as they danced, his clever way with words and the searching, half-amused, half-cynical look in his blue eyes were all things that would haunt her, waking and sleeping, for weeks. And there was another quality to him, as well. Or maybe it was a quality in the air between them. Either way, she couldn’t put a name to it.

But at least until a moment ago she had kidded herself that his involvement in her evening was done.

It was instantly apparent that he didn’t agree. When she stammered out something inane about a frightfully pleasant conversation with Councillor Wainwright during the dance, he laughed aloud. It was a complicated sound, more than the simple expression of amusement.

“While there’s no one else around,” he suggested, leaning forward, “let’s be a little more honest about this, shall we?”

“Wh-what do you mean?” she said, although she knew quite well.

“You have about as much right to call yourself Lady Catrina Willoughby-Brown as I would have to call myself Prince Patrick of Kalamazoo,” he answered. “Sorry, Lady C, but I’ve blown your cover. I know why you’re really here, and I’m not going to let you get away with it….”