The Cinderella Arrangement Read online

  I wasn’t sure if I should be talking to Brandon like this, but I couldn’t resist. “Maybe it runs in the family,” I said, thinking of his mother’s suicide.

  He shrugged. “I’m just glad he has someone who has gone through the same thing. By the way, I’m sorry if I came off standoffish when we first met. The girls he usually dates are only with him for the money, but you’re not like any of the ones he’s been with.”

  The guilty feeling in my stomach doubled and I half-heartedly returned his beaming smile.

  I am with him for the money—sort of.

  I didn’t like lying to him, and I battled an overwhelming urge to confess and tell him the whole truth. My fingers moved around the glass mug. Luke would be upset. I stamped down on my impulse and looked down. For the first time, I felt guilty about this whole arrangement. How many people would I have to lie to? I hoped that they weren’t as nice as Brandon.

  “What’s his father like?”

  “I’ve only seen him a few times. He seemed polite. Maybe cold. That’s normal, though. I know everything about him through what Luke has told me, and he has told me some terrible things. It’s not just him. It’s the cousins and his uncle. They all want a piece of Luke’s inheritance and they’ll do anything to get it.”

  My fingers were white around the handle of the mug. “Can’t he get power of attorney over his father?”

  Brandon shook his head.

  What a mess, I thought. Part of me wondered whether it would be such a horrible thing if Luke’s father wrote him out of his will. Sure, he’d lose his inheritance, but didn’t he have a great deal of money in his bank account already? Didn’t he have millions of dollars worth of property? How many millions does one need, anyways? At least he’d be out of his father’s influence for good, and he would never have to stress about his family trying to usurp his inheritance.

  “Would it be the worst thing in the world if he lost it? Wouldn’t it be good to be out of his father’s hair once and for all?”

  He stared at me with a shocked expression as if I had suggested that we boil Luke’s head. “What—give up his legacy? Are you mad?”

  I shrugged. “It’s just—I would be happy with a million dollars. Why does anyone need that much money?”

  “It’s not about the money.”

  Bullshit. I rolled my eyes at him. “It’s totally about the money. Look, I understand. Losing that kind of money would make anyone crazy.”

  “It’s his inheritance. He deserves it. He’s earned it. It might go to people who don’t deserve it, who aren’t even affiliated with the company at all.”

  Despite his assurances to the opposite, I still didn’t think Luke would be as motivated if his inheritance was a few thousand dollars. How does one earn five billion dollars? You can’t. Mr. Pardini could do whatever he wanted with his money. Still, it was an asshole move to shove your only son out, especially when he had worked so hard his whole life for his father’s approval.

  Hell, who am I kidding? He deserves it. Luke toiled his whole life expecting to take his father’s mantle. To have it ripped out of his hands when this line of work was the only one he knew would be downright cruel.

  At that moment, Luke rejoined us at the table and I was tight-lipped, avoiding his gaze. The waitress brought us three steaming pies surrounded by mashed potatoes and a moat of gravy and I soon forgot everything I worried about. Brandon laughed at me as I sighed in ecstasy with each bite. The steak and ale pie was dripping with decadence; the meat was slow-cooked for hours so it fell apart and melted in my mouth. The gravy mingling with the mustard seed potatoes was delicious, and I devoured it, burning my tongue. After we finished, we sat for a while and enjoyed the peace of a warm, full belly. Brandon patted his stomach and stood up to leave.

  “I should get going.”

  “I hope I see you again,” I said, shaking his hand.

  “Likewise.”

  Luke stepped forward to grasp Brandon in a one-armed hug and then he turned as Brandon left the pub.

  I couldn’t read his face. “Luke, I’m sorry. I didn’t know what to say—”

  “Don’t be sorry. That was brilliant, even if it was mortifying.”

  My cheeks flushed at his praise and they burned even brighter when he smiled at me.

  Luke's arm dropped from my side the moment the elevator doors closed. He stepped a mile back and focused his gaze on everywhere but me. It was as though I was invisible.

  I thought that he believed he could ignore me into nonexistence. After the almost-sex in our hotel room, Luke avoided staying too long around me. For hours I'd stay in the room, alone. It wasn’t too terrible. The money I earned was used to travel across England. I visited York Minster Abbey and marveled at the Gothic splendor, even climbing the abbey’s spiral staircase. It was amazing, but I wished I had someone—anyone to experience it with.

  On the weekends, Luke and I went out together on fake dates. We kissed in front of paparazzi, we made out in park benches, and we took trains to Bath, Oxford, to the Lake District. The sexual tension between us was as taut as a tightrope, trembling, ready to snap. It all felt so damn real, but every time we returned to the hotel, Luke was distant. He separated himself from me the moment we stepped inside as though he couldn’t wait to be rid of me.

  There was an aching hole inside my chest. I no longer enjoyed going out with him—he made me feel even lonelier than I did when I walked alone. It sucked.

  I closed my eyes. “Luke?”

  “Hm?”

  “I can’t take this anymore.”

  The elevator lights beamed with the sixth floor.

  Luke looked at me with a puzzled expression. “What do you mean?”

  “I can’t go on kissing you every day and acting like it means nothing.”

  “Jessica, we made an agreement—”

  "Then we almost had sex. I haven’t been able to think of anything else."

  A heavy weight settled on my shoulder. His abdomen bumped into my back and I tried to stamp down the swell inside my heart. His fingers brushed aside the strands of hair on my naked skin, and just that was enough to make the heat between my legs blaze into a forest fire.

  “Do you think I want to push you away? I'm trying to protect us."

  The bell chimed. Seventh floor.

  "Maybe I don't want to be protected."

  "You're making this harder than it needs to be. I want you, too. More than you realize. But we can't."

  "Says who?"

  I turned around, and he looked at me with a lopsided smirk. "Damn it."

  He bent his head. His hands fell on my head and his lips seared against mine in a slow, long kiss. I moaned into him and his tongue slipped inside, flicking my tongue as if his head was between my legs. As I imagined that, my hands slid around his back and clenched over his ass.

  “Is this what you want?” he asked in a heated whisper when he broke the kiss.

  “Don’t toy with me.”

  “I’m not toying with you.”

  I couldn't think while he touched my breast.

  "I was just trying to keep my distance.”

  He didn’t seem to care about distance anymore. I gasped as his fingers found the waist of my jeans and groped for the zipper. My heart bashed against my ribs as Luke unzipped my pants, his back to the elevator doors. The cold air stung my skin as my pants fell.

  “Luke! They might record—we’re in an elevator.”

  “So?"

  "Maybe we should wait 'till we get—"

  "You want me to stop?"

  His hands paused their tracing of my cotton panties. He cupped my pussy, the heat of his palm burning my body. Then he reached forward with his middle finger to stroke my clit. It was a very light touch, but it was enough to send a spasm through me. Then he slowly parted my panties aside, which were soaking wet with my arousal. He dipped into me, watching my face transform with a satisfied smirk.

  “Luke.”

  “That’s it,” he wh
ispered. “I want to get you off.”

  There were two fingers inside me now, pumping inside my wet walls. The sounds echoed through the small elevator as Luke fucked me with his fingers.

  Another chime of the bell. Eight floor.

  I didn't care that anyone could walk in. My walls clenched around his thrusting fingers, and I seized Luke’s head. He crushed his lips against mine as I buried my tongue in his mouth. My moans interrupted his frenzied kissing, but he kept the same steady rhythm, his fingers curling into the spot that made me groan. My pussy contracted in pleasure, and I felt my stomach clench as Luke pushed me toward my breaking point. I cried out and felt my core contracting around his fingers as he plunged them in hard one last time.

  My back hit the wall as Luke pushed me, grinding his hardness into my naked thigh as heat seared up my spine. A smile staggered across Luke's face as I came on his fingers.

  "I could fuck you right now."

  I imagined him taking me by the waist, my hands flat against the stainless steel walls.

  Bing.

  The elevator chimed, and the door opened to the top floor. The lust didn't leave Luke's eyes as he dropped his hands from me and stepped back.

  Luke paced the hotel suite. “Did anyone call?”

  “You asked me that. No.”

  Things between us were tense lately, mostly due to Luke's refusal to bend the rules.

  Just fuck me already.

  “Why hasn’t he called?”

  I watched him, my eyes flicking from the toned skin peeking out from his shirt to his eyes. I didn’t know what to tell him. “He’ll call. Maybe he’s busy.” I knew that my assurances meant nothing to him, but I didn’t know what else to do.

  Luke looked at me with heat in his gaze as he ripped off his shirt and threw it on the floor. “He’s busy harassing the nurses, I’m sure. This is just another way for him to screw with me.”

  A loud ringing filled the hotel suite and Luke stood shock still. It was coming from the office. Wow, that’s creepy. He stared at me

  “Well, answer it!” I yelled as the second ring jarred the air.

  He sprinted toward it and I followed swiftly, hanging near the door, which Luke left ajar. Should I stay here?

  “Luke Pardini."

  I peeked inside and saw Luke hunched over the desk, shirtless, looking as though he wanted to throw up. He saw me watching and pressed the speakerphone button.

  “Hello, Luke,” said a wizened, male voice. “I see you’ve been very busy this past few weeks. A new girlfriend and a drunken brawl already?”

  “Hi Dad,” he said grimly. “I wasn’t drunk. Someone was in a fight and—”

  “I’m not interested in hearing your excuses. I’m more interested in the girl. She doesn’t look like the tarts you usually date.”

  I yanked my necklace chain against my skin.

  “Well, her name is Jessica.” Luke gave me a worried look. “She has a BA in English—”

  “Useless degree. What else?”

  A ripple of anger went through me. Useless? Well, I had heard it before.

  “She—um, she volunteers at a soup kitchen every week and wants a job in editing.”

  “How quaint.”

  I was astounded at how demeaning he could sound in the few words he spoke.

  The speaker of the phone let out a garbled sigh. “Luke, I called because I’m removing you from VP of Acquisitions for a few weeks.”

  Luke’s shout of rage was enough the make the walls tremble. “You’re what?”

  “I can’t afford to get any more bad press on the company. You know that you’re a magnet for it, right? I don’t know why you like to make my life so difficult.”

  “Dad, you can’t believe everything you read in the press!”

  The explosion of anger that erupted from the speaker made me back away.

  “Do you think it matters to the shareholders? What about the board members? They see you as a loose cannon. You’ve attracted so much negative attention to the company and I want nothing impeding the Hilton merger. I am sick and tired of our name being dragged through the mud because you can’t fucking grow up!”

  “Then you can say goodbye to the multi-million dollar deal I made in San Francisco!”

  The voice screaming through the speakerphone drew a sharp breath and began a violent coughing fit. When it recovered, his tone was shrewd.

  “What deal?”

  “I didn’t tell you, but I discovered a bed-and-breakfast chain in the city with high profit margins and cut them a deal. They’re all over California, and we have plans to expand to Oregon and Nevada. It will net us an annual thirty million dollars. I was going to tell you when it was finalized.”

  I almost winced at the unspoken plea in Luke’s voice: I wanted to impress you, Dad.

  “What will make me happy is having a son that doesn’t shame me and the name he was born into. When are you visiting me?”

  Luke didn’t bother answering back. He smashed his fist down and ended the call, making the phone bounce off the table. He picked it up and hurled it again. The machine flew at the glass, but it was one of those expensive, well-constructed, sleek models and it didn’t break.

  “Luke, stop!”

  His screams seemed to be a combination of insults and unintelligible outbursts of sheer rage.

  I never saw him lose complete control like this. If I touched him, would he whirl around and unleash some of his rage on me? He kicked the phone across the room and paced in front of the glass, refusing to turn face me.

  “Luke!”

  He slammed his fist into the wall and crushed his hand. I saw his dark reflection. His lips were parted as if he had just finished an exhausting run. “Fuck, I hate him."

  My hand touched his trembling shoulder and I took it as a good sign he didn’t throw my hand off. I spread my fingers and stroked his shoulder. When he didn’t protest, I lifted my other hand and did the same to the other side. Luke’s body leaned against mine. My heartbeat was almost painful.

  I should say something. “I’m sorry that your father is such a...” Asshole? Jerk?

  Luke took one of my hands inside his and I felt a swift flare of attraction as he traced lines in my palm. “Bastard.”

  “He’s just cranky from his illness.”

  He smiled. “He’s been like this my whole life, Jessica.”

  “Well, maybe’s pissed that you won’t visit him.”

  “Hell, maybe you’re right. Maybe I need to placate him with a fucking visit.”

  His hollowed eyes shined with years of tortured anguish. Deep down, he was still a little boy desperate for his father’s approval and some scrap of affection. He knew he would never get it.

  He didn’t move from me, the same resigned expression on his face I knew deeply. His lips pulled into a bitter, half-smile and he shrugged his shoulders. He moved in closer before I could speak. “I need to feel good about something.”

  His lips came crashing down on mine and I responded with a fervor that made his back slam against the glass wall. It was probably our first real kiss, not borne out of a desire to present an image to the press, but out of a visceral need to feel better. I needed his closeness, his naked chest writhing over mine, and his lips and tongue fondling my breast. I moaned into his mouth as his hands slid underneath my shirt and groped my breasts, his thumbs slipped under my bra and grazed my flesh, flicking my erect nipples.

  Luke’s mouth pulled away only to lift my shirt, and then his lips sealed against mine once again, his hot hands wrapped around my back to search for the clasp of my bra. It snapped away with one twist of his fingers and I felt the shock of the cold stinging my nipples. Luke closed the space between us and kissed my neck. My head tilted, and I let myself dissolve into the ecstasy that was his lips and tongue. His fingertips ran up and down my body, running up the small of my back and along the curve of my breasts. Then his hands teased the waistband of my jeans, slipping his fingers through to stroke the top of
my ass, curving over my hipbones and sliding down the thin fabric of my underwear. His middle finger stroked my mound in a circular motion, both of us breathing hard. The familiar feeling of desire and anxiety reared up again, but I knew I was safe with Luke and it was incredible. I reached down and unzipped my jeans and Luke bent down to pull my jeans and panties down my legs. I wrapped my arms around myself, now completely exposed, and gazed at Luke with a little of fear.

  He sighed in pained voice. “You are so gorgeous and I want you so badly, but—”

  “—No.” I covered his mouth with my hand and his blue eyes cut through me. “Please, don’t. I need this, too.”

  My head was ringing. I was stark naked in Luke Pardini’s hotel suite, overlooking the night sky of London in his office. Perhaps I was dreaming. He nodded at me and I uncovered his lips.

  “Ok, then.”

  He grinned as he swept me into his arms and I yelped as I lifted into the air. Luke sat down in the chair with my body in his arms. I curled over his legs and chest. I liked it. It was much more intimate. His cock was like a rock under my legs and I felt a stab in my chest, but he leaned over and kissed me, stifling my violent vortex of thoughts. Then he kissed my neck and then my breast until his tongue went for the kill and sucked my puckered nipple until it was raw.

  I moaned his name and wrapped my arms around his head, tugging at his dark locks as he sucked and tongued. His other hand groped down my hips, searching for the damp heat between my legs. His fingers found my slit, and he rubbed the ridge of his middle finger up and down; I was so wet I could hear myself all over his hands.

  Everything condensed to just us; the external sounds disappeared, and the background seemed to fall away like in a dream. His body was lean and hard, full of a powerful desire for me. He was like a furnace, chasing away every wisp of cold that clung to my skin. He stroked a finger inside me, curving it and striking just the right spot with the tip of his finger. I bucked my hips and cried out as pleasure bloomed all over my body.

  Every thought was consumed by pleasure. I cried out for more, but Luke smirked and resumed his careful rhythm. I gripped his head and forced his lips over mine. His finger slipped out, and I felt him pull back as he looked at me.