CINDERELLA BRIDE

by Monica McLean

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  Contents:

  Prologue

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

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  Prologue

  ^ »

  Cinderella Candidates, the private investigator had labeled the reports—half in jest, half in truth. Carter King extracted the thickest of the folders from the mahogany file cabinet and carried it back to his office.

  Gazing down from the top floor of Carolina Banking and Trust, the tallest building in Raleigh, he saw treetops doffing the landscape as far as the eye could see, making the landscape look like a huge plate of broccoli. Somewhere, amid all that vegetation, lay the last missing piece of the perfect life he'd fought, struggled and slaved to achieve with every ounce of his strength.

  A woman—the woman who would give him a child.

  Marly Alcott, the label read. He opened the folder and took out a photograph the private investigator had entitled "Miss Marly's Kids." Something about this particular shot appealed to Carter over the others in the small cache the P.I. had provided him. For a long time, he stared at the plain, fair-skinned woman with her round glasses and wistful smile. Hordes of small children surrounded her.

  Not just any children. Low-income, underprivileged, economically disadvantaged—politically correct terms that said the same old thing: poor. Miss Marly's Kids were poor. Poor, the way he'd once been. A white-trash boy from the projects, as his ex-wife had reminded him on more than one occasion.

  He closed the folder without relinquishing the photo and wished he could close out bitter memories of Eva Ann as easily. Carter prided himself on learning from his mistakes, and marriage to Eva Ann had certainly proved the biggest mistake of his life.

  This time would be different. Carter had seen to it. No longer was he fool enough to marry for looks, and he sure as hell would never risk marrying "above himself" again. No, sir, this time Carter King had chosen his future wife using the same careful, logical precision with which he executed everything else in his well-planned, risk-averse life—with the sole exception of having married Eva Ann. He'd laid it all out on a spreadsheet, listing his criteria and hired a P.I. to scout out potential candidates. Then he'd selected the only woman with an X in every box: Marly Alcott.

  This time around, his marriage would be a union no different from any other joint business venture. Both entities would give to each other, creating a synergy, for one purpose and one purpose only: offspring.

  He was thirty-eight years old, and while certainly not on his deathbed, a fender bender the previous week had served as a reminder of how unpredictable life could be. What if he died tomorrow? His lawyer had advised him time and time again to make a will. But who would inherit the small empire he'd built from scratch? Some charitable organization that would hang his framed portrait in a dusty corridor?

  No, what Carter needed was an heir, and he wouldn't rest until he got one.

  He needed the help of a woman, both in bearing and raising his child. Aside from that, there would be no emotion stronger than friendship, mutual understanding and a shared love for their children—nothing that would upset his regained and highly prized equilibrium.

  Only once had Carter strayed from the critical path, bought into the myth of being in love. Being loved. He knew better now. He understood his limits. He could tempt fate only so far.

  This time he would get not only what he wanted, but exactly what a white-trash boy from the projects needed.

  A Cinderella bride.

  * * *

  Chapter 1

  « ^ »

  Marly Alcott's stomach growled despite the candy bar and two glasses of water she'd gulped down for lunch. Most days, she packed two lunches to take with her to Little Learners. Although her day care center provided the noonday meal, the tight budget didn't allow for extras, and it was almost guaranteed someone would need a little more from having gone without. Today it was two someones, and Marly who had gone without.

  Animated laughter tinkled through the air, the happiness almost a physical presence on the playground. Most days she could sit and watch her children play for hours on end. Her children—that was how she thought of them, the only little boys and girls she would ever have. But today, not even their laughter could lift Marly's spirits. Unlike the children, blissful in their innocence, she knew their days on this playground were numbered.

  "Hey, Miss Marly!" Five-year-old Tyler Cameron stopped chasing his best friend, Aaron, long enough to point to the sleek black vehicle pulling into the parking lot. "Look!" Tyler shouted. "That funny car's back."

  That funny car was a limousine, and it took Marly a moment to make the connection. Then, in a wave of panic, she shaved her wire-rimmed glasses farther up on the bridge of her nose, clapped her hands and shouted, "Children! Inside!"

  Limousines didn't frequent this neighborhood, one of the poorest parts of town. Tyler's father, Billy Ray Cameron, a drug lord who had built his business by preying on the poor, had recently taken to driving a similar vehicle. Tyler's mother, Linda, had finally left her abusive husband. Though she planned to testify against him in an upcoming drug trial, she feared Billy Ray's retaliation. Last week, she'd alerted Marly to a possible kidnap attempt.

  Marly glanced over her shoulder, relieved to see that one of her teachers, Miss Nancy, had also sighted the limo and was rounding up the children. But when Marly looked back, neither Tyler nor Aaron had moved. The boys stood there, thoroughly fascinated with the vehicle. Horrified, Marly watched the car door open.

  "Tyler, Aaron! Get away from the fence." She darted toward them, gravel shifting underneath her sneakers.

  From inside the car, one foot appeared. Then another.

  "Tyler!" she yelled. "Aaron!"

  "But why?" Aaron whined.

  "Move it!" She caught them by their elbows and reeled their small bodies around. "Now. Go. Run!"

  The urgency in her voice finally outweighed the five-year-olds' natural curiosity, and the boys responded in kind. Without another word, they took off. Their teacher met them halfway, ushering them inside through the open school door. She turned as if to wave to Marly, then faltered midway.

  Following her gaze, Marly looked back toward the limo and froze.

  She didn't know how she'd expected Billy Ray Cameron to look in person—she'd seen him only in a grainy newspaper photo soon after one of his arrests. But she had pictured someone out of The Godfather movies—a giant with slicked-back hair, an ugly scar and a gold tooth.

  Certainly she hadn't expected him to look like the man who stood at the edge of the fence, motioning for her to come over. The only thing she'd gotten right had been the giant part. This man was blond, and his face, although more angular than most, didn't appear scarred—she adjusted her glasses—at least not from this distance. His nose might have been a little crooked, probably broken several times in bar brawls or worse, but it wasn't so bad.

  In fact, Marly thought, wiping her suddenly clammy hands against her straight cotton skirt, he looked rather … appealing. Nothing like a drug lord at all, which only confirmed that she had lived in a plastic bubble all her life.

  "Marly Alcott?"

  His voice held a touch of southern drawl, but she wasn't well enough acquainted with the different southern regions to place it. At her nod, he extended his hand over the four-foot fence. "How're you?"

  She should have ignored his hand, told him he was on private property and asked him to kindly remove himself and his monstrosity of a car from the parking lot. Instead, she found herself stepping forward and noticing that he had brownish green eyes. Rich, brownish green eyes, like a pair of alligator boots, her mother would have said.

  No matter how deceiving his appearance, she could
n't romanticize a dangerous drug dealer responsible for making his son a crack baby. God, the boy was lucky to be alive. Raising her chin, Marly pushed up the rim of her glasses and inspected his outstretched hand as if it were contaminated. She wanted to smack it—she wanted to smack him—but couldn't. Years of proper upbringing were difficult to forget, no matter how hard she tried. But that was okay. She'd learned to convey what she really felt, while observing the conventional social graces.

  Marly held her breath and offered him a limp hand. As soon as he took it, she squeezed. Hard.

  Only, he squeezed back. Harder.

  She looked up, matching his startled expression, and yanked her hand free.

  Suddenly, she felt paralyzed, like a rabbit frozen in the middle of a barren field. There she stood on the playground all alone, acting as if this encounter were some power game, governed by the rules of a society of which she was no longer a part. The man in front of her was a criminal—one who could easily pull out a gun and shoot her right where she stood.

  "I'm sorry," he said, his eyebrows knitting. "Natural reflex."

  "Wh-what?"

  "I hope I didn't hurt you. Your hand," he indicated with a nod.

  She stopped rubbing her palm and met his gaze. It wasn't warm, but it wasn't cold. That was enough to surprise her. "What can I do for you?" she asked, backing up a step.

  He cocked his head and peered at her. "I'm Carter King. You spoke with my secretary about a donation."

  Marly blinked. "You're Carter King? The president of CB&T?" She looked back at the limo. "And that's your—"

  "Actually, the bank's. I'm just getting in from the airport. I wanted to see if you might be interested in going to the Children's Hospital fund-raiser tomorrow night. That is, if you don't already have plans. Kind of short notice, but it might be a good opportunity for you…"

  Marly barely heard the rest. One of the wealthiest men in town had come in person to invite her to a charity event. He could have had his secretary phone, the woman whose "How are you?" sounded like "Hair yew?" But no. Instead, Carter King, Big Bank President, had to drive up in his fancy car to one of the worst parts of town, scare her half to death and practically break her hand.

  "If you only knew," she whispered, closing her eyes briefly, "what it did to me—to us—when you pulled up in that…" She shook her head. "I thought you were a drug lord."

  Carter stood motionless. He didn't need to look over his shoulder to see what she saw. If anyone should have known what a flashy car in the projects signaled, it was him. But he hadn't thought about it because it was too convenient to forget. Gone were the constant reminders of his youth—the migraine-inducing beat of music with the bass turned too high, the smell of hard liquor and marijuana lacing the air on a balmy night. Could he actually have forgotten how the flash of chrome, careering through the neighborhood, could inspire sheer terror?

  Carter swore under his breath and saw Marly's startled expression. "I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking."

  "I—it's okay. You … you couldn't have known."

  A long moment passed during which he remained silent, wanting to give Marly the time she needed to regroup. He would tell her soon enough exactly what kind of man he was, what he knew and where he came from. There would be no mistakes this time, no secrets and no reasons to feel ashamed.

  Marly finally stopped rubbing her bare arms, drew in a breath and said, "It's nice to meet you, Mr. King. And awfully nice of you to invite me to the fund-raiser."

  "Just 'Carter,'" he said. "So is that a lead-in to 'Yes, I'll go' or 'No, I have plans'?"

  If she said no, he was prepared to propose right then and there, make his offer and let her chew on that for a while. Lousy timing, but time was running out for both of them. Each was desperate for different things the other could offer. He could help her; she could help him. A barter, plain and simple.

  He watched her carefully as she wrapped her arms around her small waist. She was thin. Awfully thin. Narrow hips and a beanpole shape. That worried him when he thought about potential childbearing difficulties, but he'd seen smaller women who were mothers. Somehow, they'd managed.

  She shook her head slowly, gazing somewhere around his knees, and Carter summoned the gumption to lay his proposal on the table. But then she said softly, "Yes, I'd like to go with you. Thank you. Did your secretary tell you the level of funding I'm trying to raise?"

  "She did." He waited until Marly looked up. "She also told me your grant fell through."

  "Yes." Her voice wavered around the word. "It's my own fault. If I'd done more research, I would have realized early on that this grant's typically awarded as seed money to start up new projects, not to continue existing programs."

  "But there must be other sources."

  "There are." She took a determined breath. "There's a lot of grant money out there. I just have to tap the right sources. I know that now. For all the good it does me."

  "How far in the red are you?"

  "Far enough."

  "You sound like you've given up." He watched her wrap her slender fingers around the chain-link fence without responding. He noticed the scars on her hands and winced inside. As requested, his private investigator had spared no details about Marly's past. Her medical records enumerated extensive injuries resulting from a village fire while she had served in the Peace Corps.

  He turned his gaze to her face. Her complexion was as innocent of makeup as an apple he might have polished on his sleeve—plain but not unappealing.

  She'd wrapped her strawberry-blond hair on top of her head in the shape of a donut, reminding him of the classic schoolteacher look from decades gone by. Still, her eyes caught his attention. Even through her glasses, they held the clear blue of the autumn sky. They drew him in, made him believe he could trust her not to manipulate or play games with him. Honest eyes.

  "Marly Alcott, don't go shattering my image of you."

  "What image?"

  "Champion of the Underprivileged—"

  "Economically Disadvantaged."

  "Champion of the Economically Disadvantaged. Good Samaritan Extraordinaire."

  "You seem to know an awful lot about me."

  "I've been following your work for some time now. The chamber's been very impressed with your fund-raising skills."

  She laughed softly, a laugh that held no humor, just a touch of helplessness. "I think I must have hit every single one of them up for corporate gifts in the past two years. Every one except … you."

  "I know. I was starting to feel left out." He grinned for the first time in too long, watching the way her eyes went from sad to hopeful, a slight smile tugging up the corners of her mouth. She did have a nice mouth, pretty pink lips and perfect straight teeth. He wondered if she'd worn braces, if her parents had stashed away a portion of their paychecks month after month, as his own mother had done, if Marly Alcott had grown up thinking even the barest necessities of middle-class life were luxuries.

  "Carter King, have I got a proposal for you."

  Marly leaned toward the fence as she smiled, and something turned over in his stomach.

  Now that was the portrait of Marly Alcott his files had painted, the bride he'd sought for over a year. "I figured you would," he said. "Because I've got one for you, too."

  She frowned.

  He almost reached over the fence to wipe the crease from her brow, but caught himself up short. Habit. He'd been staring at her photograph for the past month, even traced his finger along the contours of her face, trying to decide if this was a face he could wake to for the rest of his life.

  "Six o'clock," he said on a resolute note, starting toward the limo. "I'll pick you up."

  "Don't you want directions?" she called out.

  He shook his head. "My secretary looked up the address in the phone book. I found it on the map."

  Carter had found out everything he needed to know about Marly Alcott. That was how he'd come to decide she was far and away the best of all his candidates,
the woman who possessed all the qualities he needed.

  The woman he intended to make his bride.

  * * *

  Linda Cameron dropped off a photo of her ex-husband that evening per Marly's request. Marly shivered just looking at Billy Ray's craggy face. His cheekbones were too pronounced, too angular, and his eyes were deeply sunken into his skull, so that he looked like a skeleton. He had light-brown hair, which he wore in a long, thin ponytail.

  There was no way anyone could mistake this man for another. Too bad they hadn't seen the photo earlier—before Carter King's visit.

  "Bye, Miss Marly!" chirped a high-pitched voice that sounded like a cricket's.

  Marly looked up from the papers littering her desk and waved. "Bye, Betsy Jean. Tell Robbie I hope he's feeling better." She heard the slight southern drawl in her own voice. She'd picked it up from the kids, and it always seemed more pronounced at the end of the day. Wouldn't her mother's so-called friends just love that? Yes, she could just hear them sniffing their disdain at the Shorewood Country Club in South Hampton. But then, they sniffed at everyone. Even at their own, when they fell from grace.

  Marly removed her glasses and rubbed the sore bridge of her nose. She squinted at the ledger in front of her. A little more work and she could pack it up for the weekend. If only she'd had the money to hire one more person; she wouldn't have to do the jobs of five people. She stopped herself mid-thought.

  New hires were the least of her problems. Right now, the center could hardly afford to pay the existing staff, and from the ledger in front of her, Marly knew she would have to lay off two of her teachers by the end of the month. With the laws concerning teacher-child ratios, it would only be a matter of time before…

  A tapping at the door drew her attention. She put her glasses back on, and the hazy figure came into focus. "Oh, hello, Mrs. Edwards."

  "Sorry to bother you, Miss Marly."

  "No bother. I'm just wrapping things up. Come on in."

  Mrs. Edwards came into the room. Her frizzy, platinum hair sprouted from perpetually dark-brown roots. In her hand, she held an envelope, which she placed on Marly's desk.