The Reluctant Cinderella. Christine Rimmer

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СКАЧАТЬ why was she telling him all this? As if it mattered in the least to Greg Banning how she and Angela juggled child care and the necessity of bringing home a paycheck.

      He remarked in a tone that said he really was interested, “Sounds like a tight schedule.”

      “It is. For both Angela and me. But we manage….”

      “You’re smiling. I think you love your sister a lot.”

      “Yeah. I do. She’s my best friend.”

      “Any other sisters? Brothers?”

      “Nope. Just the two of us—in fact, I was adopted into the Schumacher family when I was eleven and Angela was thirteen….” It had been a very tough time, those first years after her parents died. Megan had been bounced from one foster home to the next.

      “Your birth parents?”

      Was this getting just a little too personal? Probably. But then again, none of it was any deep, dark secret. “I was seven when they died. We went on a family vacation in the Bahamas—my parents, my brother and me. Mom and Dad rented a boat and took us out on the ocean. A sudden storm blew in. The boat capsized. I survived by catching a piece of driftwood and holding on until help finally came. My parents and my little brother…not so lucky. They said it was a miracle that I lived through it, that they even found me….”

      Funny. After all these years, it still got to her, to remember the ones she’d lost so long ago. If she closed her eyes, she could almost hear her mother’s warm laughter, see her father’s loving smile. She’d adored her bratty brother, Ethan, even though he could be so annoying.

      Not much remained to her of the day she had lost them. She recalled that the sun had been shining when they set out. The sky had darkened. And after that, she had only a series of vague, awful impressions of clinging to that bit of driftwood in an endless, choppy sea, calling for her mother, her father and Ethan until her throat was too raw to make a sound….

      Greg’s big, warm hand settled over hers on the white tablecloth. She looked down at it—tanned, dusted with golden hair, strong and capable looking. It felt really good, to have him touching her.

      Much, much too good…

      She eased her hand away, picked up her wineglass and knocked back a giant-size gulp.

      Greg’s dark eyes held sympathy and understanding. “What a horrible thing to happen—to anyone. But especially to a little girl.”

      She beamed him a determined smile. “Well. I got through it. And eventually, the Schumachers adopted me. Angela and I hit it off from the first. And then, three years later, our parents divorced. It was pretty bad, especially for Angela, who’d had just about the perfect childhood up till then.”

      And come on. Megan had said way more than enough about herself and her childhood. “What about you?” She was reasonably sure he had no siblings, but she asked anyway. “Brothers? Sisters?”

      He was shaking his head. “I’m an only. I grew up in a brownstone on the Upper East Side. Big rooms in that brownstone. And high ceilings. Kind of empty, really. And very, very quiet.”

      She sipped more wine. “Your parents still live there?”

      “Yes, they do.”

      “You wanted brothers, didn’t you? You wouldn’t even have minded a sister or two.”

      “Yeah. I wanted a houseful of brothers and sisters. Didn’t happen, though. Truthfully, for my mother, one child was more than enough.”

      Vanessa. That was his mother’s name. Megan knew this because Carly had told her. Carly said Vanessa was tall and slim and very sophisticated. And difficult to please. “Greg’s mother never did like me much,” Carly claimed. “Not that she’s happy about Greg wanting a divorce. Vanessa doesn’t believe in divorce, so she’s on my side for once. But it’s not for my sake or anything. It’s just the principle of the thing, you know? She’s always made it painfully clear that she would have preferred if Greg had married some rich Yankee woman from Vassar or Bryn Mawr, instead of me….”

      The waiter appeared with a pair of calamari salads. He set the plates before them, poured them each more wine and then was gone.

      Megan picked up her salad fork and popped a bite into her mouth. She wasn’t a big squid fan as a rule, but the salad was wonderful. She chewed and swallowed, thinking about Carly, feeling just a little bit guilty about the way things were going here. This was a business lunch, and nothing more. But somehow, it was a business lunch that felt way too much like a date.

      They both concentrated on the fabulous food for a moment or two, in a shared silence that was surprisingly companionable. Megan sipped from her water glass and decided a change of subject—away from the personal and more toward the professional—was in order.

      She suggested, “We haven’t set a date and time for our next meeting.”

      He sent her a look, one that heated her midsection and curled her toes in her best pair of shoes. “We aren’t finished with this one yet.”

      She toasted him with her wineglass. “I like to plan ahead.” And she took another sip, though she knew she shouldn’t. She was on her second glass and the world was looking a little bit soft around the edges. Plus she was smiling way too much. That always happened when she drank more than one glass of anything with alcohol in it. She became a smiling fool.

      Greg took a sip, too. “Okay. Tell me what you’ve got in mind.”

      Firmly, she set down her glass. “A formal presentation. With my entire team there—and anyone from Banning’s who you think should be in on the final decision.”

      “That sounds like the next step to me.”

      “I’d love it if you and your people would come up to Poughkeepsie for the presentation.”

      “You want it on your turf.”

      “I do.” She was grinning again. Much too widely. But somehow, she couldn’t—or wouldn’t—make herself stop. “Would that work for you?”

      “When?”

      “A week from today. Say, 10:00 a.m.?”

      “That’s quick.”

      “We’re not only good, we’re efficient.”

      “I like efficiency.” His eyes said there were other things he liked, things that had nothing to do with updating Banning’s brand.

      She remembered her objective. “So…?”

      He nodded. “Next Monday at ten in your offices. That should work. I’ll need to check with the others, confirm that they can make it.”

      “I’ll have my assistant call your assistant, just to firm things up.”

      Those dark eyes gleamed. “You mean to make certain the date and time get on my calendar.”

      She shrugged. Eloquently. “Well. There’s that, too.”

      “I СКАЧАТЬ