Cinderella After Midnight

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“Grindlay won’t leave my cousin alone. He’s trying to trick her into selling so that when the rezoning goes through he can get in first and develop the land. She’s vulnerable and often gets confused. We can’t ever trust that he won’t find a way to get to her. This was the only thing we could think of, and now…I need the bathroom,” she finished abruptly and hurried off before the Wainwrights reached the table.

Patrick sat back in his seat in stunned silence, his neck and face burning and his hands ice-cold.

What was that about? Sheesh! Who was talking about anyone losing their home? She had truly called his bluff just now, and she was too upset even to know it.

Clearly, he’d gotten something majorly wrong. She wasn’t here, like Tiffany de Saint, to catch herself a rich boyfriend at all. She had targeted Earl P. Wainwright for another reason entirely. His mind made rapid, accurate leaps of logic. Councillor Wainwright. She’d talked about a rezoning…

The puzzle fell into place in a sketchy sort of way. She had used this ball to gain access to Wainwright and influence his vote on the local council over a zoning issue that affected her home, and evidently she was sure she’d succeeded after her dance with the affable councilman. Patrick remembered the sweet relief on Cat’s face a few minutes ago when she’d returned to the table.

Without knowing the full story, he nevertheless approved. He knew a little about the workings of the local council in this particular obscure corner of Greater Philadelphia. In his opinion the council was way too fond of rezoning at the drop of a hat, making a mockery of sensitive city planning and development.

But the success of the plan, he calculated, had to depend on Wainwright continuing to fall for that British aristocrat thing, and this was why Lady C had been so upset to think of Patrick blowing her cover.

She’d fled to the bathroom to repair her makeup, while he was left feeling like a complete heel. He’d pictured her as a brazen gold digger, and he’d enjoyed the idea of exposing her. To him, it had been a bit of unusual entertainment for the evening, while clearly to her it was anything but.

Who was she? She had guts, imagination and flair, that was for sure, to attempt such a flamboyant scam. He was the only person who suspected she wasn’t who she said she was, and that was only because—

Wham! The realization hit him in the guts.

It was only because from the moment he saw her he hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her, hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her. This had made him a witness to her occasional slips. And now that he understood her a little better, his interest was stronger than ever. He hadn’t felt so immediately and totally fascinated by a woman for a very long time.

He sat there, toying with the rest of the food on his plate, impatient in every cell of his body for her to get back so he could learn more.

In the bathroom, Cat cooled her reddened eyes with wet tissue then set about patching up her makeup. She didn’t do a good job, but maybe it didn’t matter now. Maybe nothing mattered. She’d thought earlier that she had won the gamble of this saucy scheme, and instead she was hanging by a thread that Patrick Callahan could snip any time he chose.

And for some crazy reason—she didn’t really buy the “mosquito repellent” thing; there was more to it than that—he was going to allow her companionship to buy his silence.

Just her companionship?

Oh, no. Uh-uh. Of course not!

It clicked.

The bargain Patrick Callahan undoubtedly had in mind was the one that would take place after the party. The one where she would sleep with him in return for his continued silence.

The CEO of Callahan Systems could probably get access to the private phone number of any city councilman in eastern Pennsylvania just by calling in one tiny favor. He could blow her story any time he liked. Would he do it just because she turned down the offer of his bed?

Cat calculated for a few minutes, her mind spinning. She had to decide if there was a warm, selfless human heart beating away somewhere in there beneath Patrick Callahan’s good-looking exterior, with its aura of success and entitlement. And if there was such a heart, she had to appeal to it. She had to get him to care….

Maybe she’s not coming back, Patrick started to wonder.

He shifted restlessly in his seat and tried not to crane his neck in the direction of the bathroom, looking for her. He had totally lost interest in the conversation at the table, lost interest in anything other than Lady C, and he knew that his brother Tom would be most disappointed in the schmoozing element of the evening.

As for the cruising…

Lauren Van Shuyler stopped by his table for a chat. She was an old friend. He’d done quite a bit of business with her father’s company, and he genuinely liked her. But there was an inner sadness to her these days, and she’d never been a woman he could flirt with. A couple more women made their interest evident, in a similar style to Tiffany de Saint, but for some reason the very idea of even talking with them…let alone dancing, flirting, taking them home…wearied him beyond belief.

“Hello…”

His head shot up. It was Cat, smiling halfheartedly down at him. No, Lady Catrina, he corrected himself. He owed it to her to think of her that way. She was back from the bathroom, and he had been so busy brooding on the probability that she’d left the ball altogether that he hadn’t even noticed.

“Hi,” he said carefully.

She slipped into the seat beside him, her tentative smile still in place. “I hope I wasn’t gone too long.”

“Well, I did think about sending out a search party,” he drawled.

“I’m sorry.”

“Hey…” He frowned. Something was different. She had her chin held high, and she had “Lady Catrina” patchily in place, but she looked scared, and her sugar-brown eyes were full of uncertainty.

Wainwright and his wife were dancing again, and no one else at this large table had a starry-eyed fascination with the British aristocracy, so they weren’t taking much notice of either him or Lady C.

Patrick said to her quickly, “Let’s dance. I’m afraid you missed dessert.”

“I don’t care. Dancing’s fine.”

She got up obediently, almost timidly, and again he wondered, “What’s happened?” Then he found that he’d said it aloud.

“I—I don’t know what you mean,” she stammered, accent back in place.

They didn’t wait for the escorts over the ice. Instead, he just grabbed her, and they skittered across to the dance floor. He could feel the tension making every muscle in her body brittle and hard.

“You’re acting different,” he said when they reached the dance floor. “At first, earlier tonight, you couldn’t stand me.” He grinned. “And I kind of liked that.”

“Sure you did!” She raised one eyebrow. “I did,” he insisted. “It was…an experience I haven’t had very often.”

“Uh-huh,” she nodded slowly, understanding. “It would be, I guess.”

“You’re not slow on the uptake, are you?”

“Not generally.”

“Then you got upset,” he said, continuing his recap of the shifting balances between them. “And, Cat…”

“Lady Catrina,” she reminded him.

“Lady Catrina,” he parroted obediently, “I’m so sorry I rattled you like that. You have to believe that!” He took both her hands and squeezed them, brought them up to chest level and clasped them inside his palms.

“Are you?” She narrowed her eyes and searched his face, as though gauging the depth of his sincerity was really important to her.

It was, he realized. Of course it was!

“Oh, good grief, I know what it is!” he said, looking down at her. “You think if you’re not…nice to me now, then I’ll call security, or something. And if you’re not even nicer to me later, I’ll have a tiny little word in Wainwright’s ear and waste all of your careful planning.”

“And you’re telling me you won’t? Puh-lease! Try and make it convincing!” Suddenly, all the spirit and fire and determination was back. She pulled away from him and Patrick felt the hairs on his neck stand on end. Damn, but she had courage! Class, too.

“Of course I’m telling you I won’t!” he said. “Hell, what kind of a man do you think I am?”

“A rich one.”

He didn’t even dignify the cynical interjection with a reply and went on as if he hadn’t heard her, “Do you really think I need to resort to cheap blackmail to get a woman into bed?”

“Some men would find that amusing, whether they needed to or not,” she answered coolly.

With her pride back in place, she wasn’t going to give him an inch. Which was brave of her, considering what she thought he might do to her plan.

“Well, Lady C, believe me, I can find a lot better ways to amuse myself than that,” he told her, his voice rising in his effort to get through to her.

And, damn it, he was going to get through to her! he vowed, not stopping for a second to consider why it was so important.

He gripped her by the shoulders, rounding his hands softly over those warm, smooth knobs of muscle. Then he looked into her eyes as if he could hypnotize her into trusting him. All around them, dancers gyrated or spun, and colored lights swathed the darkness with their dazzling beams.

“Catrina—and will you please damn well let me leave off the Lady!—you have to trust me!”

“Why?” she demanded simply.

“Because—because you have no choice, my lady,” he repeated, now with total confidence. He could see the logic of it in his head like a game of chess. “Either I’m a complete scum who’ll blow your cover to Wainwright because you won’t sleep with me tonight.” The wicked part of him made him add, “By the way, I’m right in that, aren’t I? You won’t sleep with me tonight?”