A Cinderella Affair

Adam looked at the older woman. This was his first time meeting her in person. Max had taken care of the initial phone calls and scheduled this meeting. Adam sensed a lot of hostility between the two women. As much as he didn’t want to get involved in any family feud he couldn’t help but feel like Camille needed someone on her side.

“You took my father away from me. Is it really imperative for you to take everything?” Camille asked.

“What are your intentions for the house?” Adam interrupted. He’d heard the sincerity in her words and the pain. Randolph Davis had died three months ago, three months after the first time he’d seen her. He remembered the look of discontent in her eyes that night in the casino and couldn’t help but notice that it was magnified now.

And then she looked at him and Adam felt as if he were sinking, falling into those deep brown eyes, into her pain and despair. A part of him hurt for her and he suppressed the urge to go to her and hold her.

Adam had always been the more caring of the Donovan men, the compassionate one who had a soft spot for the ladies. Once upon a time that soft spot had garnered him a broken heart. Kim Alvarez was her name. She was his college sweetheart, the woman he’d been ready to spend the rest of his life with, until fate had stepped in and shown him the error of his ways.

And while Adam had sworn never to take that route again he didn’t miss the opportunity to help a damsel in distress when he saw one. Somehow he knew that Camille’s distress was unlike any other he’d ever experienced.

“I…I don’t know,” she stammered.

“Exactly,” Moreen continued quickly. “That’s why we need to go ahead with this deal now. Camille, they aren’t going to wait forever for you to make up your mind.”

“My mind is already made up,” Camille retorted.

Adam looked at Max who appeared to be at the end of his rope with this meeting. “Okay, why don’t we do this. Mrs. Davis has a room at the Gramercy, right?”

Moreen nodded. “Yes. I do.”

“Great. Then if Ms. Davis does not have a room I’m sure we can get you one since my brother owns the hotel.” Adam smiled because he desperately wanted Camille to smile, too, and because he hoped his mention of the hotel reminded her of the night they first met. “Then we can meet again tomorrow morning after everybody’s had the chance to digest these new developments.”

“I already have a plane ticket to go back to L.A. tonight,” Camille said.

She had the prettiest complexion, like a cup of hot chocolate, and the way she stared up at him made her look even more vulnerable. Not caring how out of place it was or that Max would definitely have something to say about it later, Adam got up from his seat and walked around to the other side of the table. He knelt down next to the chair she sat in and took her hand. “Why don’t you and I have some dinner and discuss what it is you have in mind for your father’s estate. I’ll share what Donovan Investments is offering and then you can decide. If you’re still not interested I’ll take you to the airport.”

She seemed to be thinking it over. He however, was loving the feel of her smooth skin beneath his touch. She smelled sweet and alluring, just as she had before. This was a big deal for him and the company and Adam had a strange feeling that Camille wasn’t going to easily be convinced to sell the property. He hated to admit that at this moment that wasn’t his top priority. Spending more time with her was.

“I don’t want to sell,” she said quietly.

“Just give me a chance to talk to you,” he implored.

Then as if she knew he’d been holding his breath waiting for that very action, she smiled. His insides warmed and the voice of dread echoed in the back of his mind.

This was so unlike her. Camille did not date often and when she did it was with men she’d met on more than one occasion. However, tonight she found herself sitting in the only restaurant on the ground floor of the Gramercy Hotel with the man who had haunted her dreams for months. She’d already missed her flight back to L.A. so it was agreed that she was staying in Vegas.

She’d remembered the weekend she’d spent here. The weekend she’d been Dana’s maid of honor and had been forced to do her bidding. Well, she couldn’t exactly call it being forced.

Dana Palmer was Camille’s best friend and had been since the summer Camille turned eleven—the summer after her father had married Moreen. A soft smile touched her lips as she remembered the impromptu slumber parties on those nights when Moreen was just too much to stand and through each of her bad relationships. Dana had provided that sense of balance Camille needed. When Moreen would verbally attack her, stripping her of all self-confidence and self-esteem, Dana would attempt to build her right back up.

Camille would do anything for Dana. Almost anything.

“This is your weekend. For three days it is my job to do whatever I can to make you happy,” Camille remembered saying. It was at that precise moment that he’d walked in.

The same man she’d bumped into on her way to meet Dana. This was Camille’s first trip to Vegas and her first time in a real live casino. She had no idea that casinos were hotels as well as money pits.

He’d been extremely attractive and he’d made her nervous. She was happy to get away from him, yet sad that she hadn’t had enough courage to talk to him like a sane adult woman.

“I want you to sleep with him,” Dana had said as she took another sip from her drink.

Camille had followed her gaze and immediately began shaking her head negatively.

“Uh-huh. You are out of your mind.” She had immediately turned her back to the “him” Dana had been referring to, her hands already beginning to sweat.

“Come on, Camille, he looks positively yummy!” Dana had squealed.

“Then you do him,” Camille had shot back while reaching for her drink. She’d gripped the glass, brought it to her lips, then decided she needed something much stronger. “Rum and Coke, please,” she’d asked the bartender who thankfully appeared just in time.

“I’m about to be a married woman, I can’t do him. But you’re single, so you should go for it.”

Camille had tossed Dana a disgusted look. “I am happily single and couldn’t manage to ‘do him’ if I tried.”

“What are you thinking about over there?”

His voice startled her from her memories and Camille jumped in her seat. She’d been so caught up in her thoughts that she’d forgotten she was now sitting across from the man she’d refused to “do” almost six months ago.

“What? Oh, I’m sorry. What were you saying?” She picked up her napkin and placed it in her lap. She needed something to do with her hands to keep them from shaking. Dating wasn’t something Camille proclaimed to do well. And that was mostly because she was self-conscious about her looks.

Taking a deep breath, Camille reminded herself that this was not a date. And that while Adam Donovan was her sexy dream guy, she was in no way the subject of his dreams. This was business to him. Business, she reminded herself, was something she could definitely do.

“I noticed. You were pretty deep in thought. Do you want to share?” he asked.

He looked at her quizzically, not disapprovingly, she quickly noted. “No. It was nothing.” She cleared her throat. “I’d rather talk about you. I mean, I’d rather talk about your plans for my father’s house and why you approached only one of the owners.”

Their food arrived so conversation was stalled for a few minutes. Adam had ordered the Porterhouse steak and roasted potatoes with steamed asparagus. Camille’s stomach lurched as the waiter put a huge salad in front of her. She attempted to focus on her salad, sprinkling it with lemon juice instead of salad dressing.

Adam took a bite and moaned. “Linc has got the best chef in town. I swear I’ve been to just about all of the upscale restaurants in Vegas and have never experienced a steak so tender and seasoned as this one.”

Camille stifled a moan of her own and stuffed a forkful of lettuce and croutons into her mouth. When Adam looked to her for a response she simply smiled and nodded.

“Is that all you’re going to eat?” he asked as he cut another piece of steak.

She nodded. “Yes, I’m not that hungry.” That was a blatant lie and if he could only hear the revolting sounds her stomach was making he’d know that.

“I never could understand how rabbit food could fill a human stomach. My mother serves a salad with every meal. Made me want to puke when I was growing up.”

Camille smiled and tilted her head to stare at him. “I’ll bet you were an obedient child,” she said absently.

“And you’d lose every dime of your money.” He chuckled. “My mother could tell you stories of how mischievous I was. One time when my cousins were at the house I convinced them and my brothers to take the mattress off our beds and slide down the grand staircase in the foyer.” He laughed loudly then. “We had the best time.”

Camille laughed with him because his smile reached his eyes which held hers captive. She laughed because the deep, sincere sound of his enjoyment touched a spot in her that she was sure she’d lost long ago. “What did your parents do?”

“Mom blistered my butt something terrible. But that was nothing new. Out of my three brothers I got in the most trouble.”

Camille stopped eating, placing her elbows on the table. Then as if she were right at the table with them, Camille heard Moreen’s shrill voice chastising her, “Take your elbows off the table.” Abruptly she pulled her arms down and dropped her hands in her lap. She prayed Adam hadn’t noticed but the moment she looked up she knew he had.

“Ah, are you older than your brothers?” she asked quietly.