Cinderella After Midnight

Cinderella After Midnight
Lilian Darcy

She had the dream dress, the shoes…and a secret. For "Lady Catrina" was really plain, poor Catrina Brown–and she didn't belong at the glamorous ball she'd so boldly crashed. Cat's mission was desperate, yet success seemed within her reach. Until her gaze met Patrick Callahan's across the crowded room. The handsome millionaire bachelor was everything she despised in a man–wasn't he? Trapped in his heated stare, Catrina knew Patrick saw through her flimsy disguise. Come midnight, would he expose her masquerade…or would this magical night last until dawn–and beyond?

It was midnight!

“I’m sorry…good night, Patrick. I have to go!” Catrina fled through the doors and into the lobby.

“Wait, Cat!”

“No. Patrick, I’m late….” She pushed open the outer door and ran into the humid June night. But he was still behind her.

“Stop! You can’t leave like this, when we’ve—when I have no idea who you really are.”

Cat didn’t listen. Couldn’t listen. Her skin was still alive and hot from the way they’d touched. But she had no illusions about what Patrick Callahan felt, even if he did.

Skittering down the steps, she felt her spike-heeled shoe come loose. It hurt. Why hadn’t she felt that before? Deliberately, she kicked the shoe off and left it on the step.

Like Cinderella.

Dear Reader,

September is here again, bringing the end of summer—but not the end of relaxing hours spent with a good book. This month Silhouette brings you six new Romance novels that will fill your leisure hours with pleasure. And don’t forget to see how Silhouette Books makes you a star!

First, Myrna Mackenzie continues the popular MAITLAND MATERNITY series with A Very Special Delivery, when Laura Maitland is swept off her feet on the way to the delivery room! Then we’re off to DESTINY, TEXAS, where, in This Kiss, a former plain Jane returns home to teach the class heartthrob a thing or two about chemistry. Don’t miss this second installment of Teresa Southwick’s exciting series. Next, in Cinderella After Midnight, the first of Lilian Darcy’s charming trilogy THE CINDERELLA CONSPIRACY, we go to a ball with “Lady Catrina”—who hasn’t bargained on a handsome millionaire seeing through her disguise….

Whitney Bloom’s dreams come true in DeAnna Talcott’s Marrying for a Mom, when she marries the man she loves—even if only to keep custody of his daughter. In Wed by a Will, the conclusion of THE WEDDING LEGACY, reader favorite Cara Colter brings together a new family—and reunites us with other members. Then, a prim and proper businesswoman finds she wants a lot more from the carpenter who’s remodeling her house than watertight windows in Gail Martin’s delightful Her Secret Longing.

Be sure to return next month for Stella Bagwell’s conclusion to MAITLAND MATERNITY and the start of a brand-new continuity—HAVING THE BOSS’S BABY! Beloved author Judy Christenberry launches this wonderful series with When the Lights Went Out… Don’t miss any of next month’s wonderful tales.

Happy reading!

Mary-Theresa Hussey

Senior Editor

Cinderella after Midnight

Lilian Darcy

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

Books by Lilian Darcy

Silhouette Romance

The Baby Bond #1390

Her Sister’s Child #1449

Raising Baby Jane #1478

* (#litres_trial_promo)Cinderella After Midnight #1542

LILIAN DARCY

has written nearly fifty books for Silhouette Romance and Harlequin Mills and Boon Medical Romance (Prescription Romance). Her first book for Silhouette appeared on the Waldenbooks Series Romance Bestsellers list, and she’s hoping readers go on responding strongly to her work. Happily married with four active children and a very patient cat, she enjoys keeping busy and could probably fill several more lifetimes with the things she likes to do—including cooking, gardening, quilting, drawing and traveling. She currently lives in Australia, but travels to the United States as often as possible to visit family.

Once upon a time there were three sisters who didn’t believe in fairy tales….

For more than three years, they lived in a run-down trailer park. Not many handsome princes there. Things got better when they found a fairy godmother—Pixie Treloar. She had a house for them to live in. Still, the sisters believed in their own hard work more than they believed in rich men and princes and knights in shining armor.

Then one sister, Catrina, met wealthy Patrick Callahan at a society ball…. Would she learn to believe in fairy tales after all?

Contents

Chapter One (#u4c5182d0-35f0-594d-8322-98958907d250)

Chapter Two (#u9fbe4504-c91a-50eb-aa0d-cfe3e2493726)

Chapter Three (#ub91d0545-fd38-54e0-9324-721b6f7e5c56)

Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter One

“I have located the target, Number One.”

The deep-toned, disembodied words floated through the air like a silk scarf on a breeze. The hiss of skate blades across freshly resurfaced ice punctuated the sentence. An elegantly clad skater made a graceful turn, swished past Catrina Brown once more and said in a tone of even deeper significance, “Repeat, Number One, I have located the target.”

Catrina, who was feeling nervous, lost patience.

“Jill Brown!” she hissed quickly, “Will you quit treating this like a spy movie and just tell me where he is? There’s no one within five yards of us right now. Who’ll hear above the music? And if by some miracle someone did hear, don’t you think ‘I have located the target’ sounds just a teensy bit more suspicious coming from a waitress, than ‘Would you care for a drink, ma’am?”’

Jill’s face fell. “Oh…I was enjoying that,” she said.

A neat flick of her hips scraped her blades sideways into the ice and brought her to a halt beside Cat. She balanced a tray of sparkling drinks in fluted glasses expertly in one hand.