CINDERELLA BRIDE

by Monica McLean

  In the bathroom, she washed quickly, trying not to notice the simple elegance of the gold fixtures, the ceramic tile, the double sinks or the oval Jacuzzi that sat under the skylights. Instead, she focused on the impracticality of the glass-encased shower stall and all the scrubbing it must take to keep the doors clean.

  Afterward, she brushed her teeth, changed into jeans and a navy blue sweatshirt and towel-dried her hair. She pulled her hair away from her face with a navy blue headband, plucking the wisps of her bangs free. As if on autopilot, she went through all the motions of getting ready, and it wasn't until she'd finished and was leaving the bathroom that her gaze zeroed in on the mahogany four-poster smack dab in the middle of the bedroom.

  She'd noticed it before, but hadn't allowed herself to think of the implications. Until now. She slumped against the door frame, one hand fluttering to massage her throat.

  The thought of actually sharing a bed with Carter was both electrifying and terrifying, with emphasis on the latter.

  Her response the night of the charity banquet, when Carter had told her about the donation, had been purely spontaneous, an overreaction to the tumultuous emotions racing through her. And last night in the moonlit field, the need for his touch had all but overwhelmed her.

  She'd given in to her desire without stopping to think about what she was doing, about where they were going. Now she did stop to think, about making love with Carter, about sleeping with him through the night and waking with him.

  Marly brushed her fingertips over her lips. She could still feel the warmth of Carter's mouth and, if she closed her eyes, remember how she felt in his embrace. For those few minutes, he had made her feel safer than she had in a long time, safer than she'd ever felt before. And wanted. Wanted for the woman she was, and not for the things she could give him. But that wasn't entirely correct.

  In a way, Carter was like the other men … only he didn't want material possessions. He wanted children. And she had promised them to him. Only, they hadn't discussed time frames or sleeping arrangements.

  And though she wanted Carter with an almost desperate, primal longing, the reality of intimacy was far more than she could deal with right now. There was the actual act and then the aftermath—explanations she wasn't ready to give.

  Not yet.

  She would simply have to tell him so. Surely he would understand.

  * * *

  "You're not sleeping in a guest room, and that's that." Carter plucked Marly's overnight bag right out of her hands and started walking down the hall with it.

  "Don't you think you're being just a tad unreasonable?"

  "No," he called over his shoulder.

  Marly tossed a glance in Tyler's direction, worried that their voices might awaken him, but the boy was sound asleep. With a frustrated sigh, she took off after Carter, catching up with him in the master bedroom.

  "Carter, please," she beseeched, closing the door behind her. "I've known you all of a week. Surely you can understand that I'm not ready to sleep with you."

  "Look, I told you before and I'll tell you again." He planted her overnight bag on the chair and crossed his arms. "I'm not going to pressure you into having sex with me. Not now, not ever."

  His vehemence surprised her. "I didn't think you would. It's just that little technicality about how babies are made…"

  "Exactly why I think it's important we get used to sharing a bed, even if we sleep fully dressed at opposite ends at first. We're going to be married, for crying out loud. I don't want my wife sleeping in another room."

  "But I'm not ready to share your bed, damn it!" Out of nowhere, the tears began. Anger, sorrow, despair, fear and anxiety all poured out in an uncontrollable flood. She turned her back, embarrassed that Carter should witness such flagrant lack of control. She remembered how her mother would get so disgusted with her so-called crocodile tears, the times she'd been sent to her room, told not to come down until she could learn to control her emotions.

  Marly bowed her head. How she wished she had her own room to escape to now.

  When she felt Carter's hands on her shoulders, she stiffened. She didn't want his pity.

  "I'm sorry," he whispered.

  "Me, too, but you might as well know you're marrying a wuss."

  "Stop." Carter squeezed her shoulders. "You don't believe that for a second and neither do I. You've been through so much in the past two days. You've had to deal with an untimely death, the added responsibility of a five-year-old boy, not to mention being coerced into marriage by a complete stranger."

  Marly sniffed. "You're not helping."

  "But I will if you let me. Come on, Marly." He turned her around to face him and wiped her tears with the pads of his thumbs. When she wouldn't look up, he bent his knees and peered up at her. "Won't you please stop fighting me? We're on the same side here."

  "Easy for you to say. You hardly strike me as the kind of man who has anything to be afraid of. Plus, you're the one holding all the cards from where I stand."

  Carter straightened, and the abrupt motion drew Marly's gaze. "Then maybe you need to stand a little closer."

  Suddenly, she found herself in the circle of his arms, her hands flush against his chest. Hardened planes of muscle tensed beneath her fingertips. She could feel his heart beating, the warmth beneath the sweatshirt. And she could feel the intensity in his eyes when he said, "We're all scared, Marly. Every one of us. We wouldn't be human if we weren't. So don't think for one second that you've got some kind of monopoly going here."

  Marly blinked, the mere notion of anyone or anything intimidating a powerful man like Carter too ludicrous to contemplate. "Name one thing. Just one thing that frightens you."

  "I can name several. I'm afraid of failure. I'm afraid of not being able to make a difference in the world. I'm afraid of dying without having children. I'm afraid of heaving this world in the same unremarkable fashion in which I entered it." He shrugged. "What can I say? I'm a selfish bastard."

  "No, I don't believe that," she said, because his words touched her somewhere deep inside. They spoke to her soul, and for the first time, she accepted Carter as an ally rather than an opponent. "It takes a very brave man to admit those things. And Carter, you will have children. I want you to remember that even if…" She swallowed, trying to fight another onslaught of tears. For so many years, she'd faced the stark reality of an uncertain future alone. She'd long stopped believing in happily-ever-afters.

  "Even if I have to wait five years to consummate our marriage?"

  "No, I—"

  "Good, because you know I'm a man of my word, and five years would make for one hell of a testosterone backup."

  "Very funny." She rolled her eyes and stepped away. How could he make jokes at a time like this?

  A time like this. She shook her head, then laughed at the ludicrousness of it all. Her life, their situation, the very notion that a man like Carter would wait five years for her.

  She'd stopped believing in fairy tales the day Preston Britner III confessed to his ulterior motive for dating her. From that point forward, she'd learned more than she'd ever cared to find out about the games people played, the sacrifices they made, to get what they wanted.

  She didn't suffer from any delusions. She wasn't, nor had she been for a very long time, the kind of woman who turned men's heads, the kind of woman a man like Carter could have at the snap of his fingers. Which led her to suspect he had ulterior motives.

  If he was playing games with her, she wanted to know the rules up front. She wanted to know exactly what he planned to gain out of their arrangement. Besides the fact that he wanted children and thought she was a prime candidate for motherhood, what made her so special?

  "Answer me this," she said, her voice calm and steady. "Why, of all the women you could have, would a man like you choose to marry a woman like me?"

  His eyes narrowed. "A man like me?"

  "Yes. I think it's a fair question."

  Carter tipped back hi
s head and inhaled deeply. When he straightened, the breath he let out sounded as if he'd held it for years instead of mere seconds. "Okay, I'll tell you why a man like me would choose to marry a woman like you." His voice sounded bleak and empty as he parroted her words. "Because once upon a time, I was a boy not unlike Tyler—only my father was the addict, and my brothers were the drug dealers."

  "What?"

  Marly's eyes widened in bewilderment. She wore faded jeans and little makeup. Her cheeks were pink from scrubbing, and her hair fell in silky waves on her shoulders. With Marly, what you saw was what you got. She was so natural, so unpretentious, so different from all the women he'd ever known.

  "It's true," he said in answer to her unspoken question, raking his fingers through his hair.

  Her gaze never left his as she took slow, hesitant steps toward the bed, where she felt the mattress behind her with one hand before hoisting herself up. "Go on."

  Carter knew he had to level with her. He couldn't chicken out this time. He shrugged, not really knowing where to begin except at the beginning. "I grew up in one of the worst projects in Atlanta. My old man was husband number three for my mother. He left us around the time I was five. She married once more after that, but it was short-lived. No kids out of that one. Of course, I was her fifth. She decided to call it quits after me."

  "Where is she now? Your mother."

  "She died of cancer ten years ago. Didn't quite make it to her fiftieth birthday."

  Marly covered her mouth with both hands. "Oh, Carter. I don't know what to say. I'm so sorry. I had no idea. I saw the photographs on the mantel. The one where you were little, sitting on the bench with the hotdogs."

  "That's us at the bus station."

  "And the other one. At your graduation. Wait a minute. It said Buckhead Prep—"

  "I went there free. She was a janitor at the school. We took the bus out to the suburbs every day." Three facts he'd tried so hard to conceal all those years ago, but his efforts had proved futile. There simply wasn't any way of hiding the fact that he was different. He'd known it, and it didn't take long before the other kids at school found out, too.

  But he'd never expected Eva Ann's daddy to stumble across the truth, not with all the precautions he'd taken to make sure his past stayed dead and buried. He should have suspected the man would go digging. Still, he had no one to blame but himself for not coming clean when he and Eva Ann had decided to marry. He wouldn't repeat that mistake now. He had to make sure Marly understood what she was getting into.

  If his calculations proved correct, she wouldn't bail out on him. Still, he braced himself for her reaction, some sign of pity or disgust, after the initial shock wore off. Experience had taught him that every decision model, no matter how good the criteria, still contained a margin of error. He only hoped like hell Marly didn't fall into that margin.

  He watched her fingers toy with the edge of her sweatshirt. When she cleared her throat, her voice came out low and shaky.

  "Let me make sure I've got all this. You grew up in one of the worst projects in Atlanta. You went to a private school because your mother was a janitor there. And you took the bus?"

  She made the last part sound so incredulous that Carter felt compelled to add, "Every day."

  "Umm-hmm." The crease between her brows deepened, and she kept her gaze averted. "So now how do I fit into this?"

  "Because you work with kids like me, like the kid I was. Because you understand that world, the world I come from. I need someone who understands … so my kids will understand."

  Marly nodded, fanning herself with one hand. Slowly, she slid down from the bed and went to stand by the French doors. She rubbed her arms as if to ward off a chill as she stared out the panes of glass, into the inky darkness, a dazed expression on her face.

  Carter took her vacated spot on the bed. Even though he'd had plenty of practice in the boardroom, patience didn't rank high on his list of virtues. Propping his elbows on his knees, he rested his chin in one hand and tried not to fidget, but the verdict was slow in coming. Marly didn't move for a long time, and when she did, he watched her forehead drop against the windowpane. She lifted one hand to cover her face.

  Carter's gut clenched automatically, but nothing could have prepared him for the devastating blow of four whispered words from the one woman he'd least expected to say them: "I am so ashamed."

  As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Marly turned around to see Carter rise from the bed in one swift move, his jaw set in a rigid line. "Where are you going?"

  "Out." His tone was terse. "I need to make some phone calls."

  "Wait. Before you leave, I owe you an apology—"

  "You don't have to apologize for speaking your mind."

  "No, not for what I've said, but what I've thought, what I've been thinking."

  He paused, one hand on the doorknob, and shook his head. "You lost me."

  "I stereotyped you, and that wasn't very fair."

  "I'm sure it was a shock for you—"

  "Yes, it was. But all that aside, I still didn't have any business jumping to conclusions about your life and your values. So please know that I'm sorry for misjudging you."

  Carter peered at her for a moment, his eyebrows knitted. "Marly, this might sound like a dumb question, and feel free to tell me so, but we are talking about the same thing, aren't we?"

  "You're going to make me spell it out, aren't you?"

  "Please."

  "Oh, all right. I suppose I deserve it." She clasped her hands. "I apologize for thinking that just because you're well-off now, you were born with a golden spoon in your mouth, that you're a Class A snob who's so absorbed with money and power you could never appreciate life for its nonmaterial worth. Um, that's the gist of it. Do you forgive me?"

  Carter scratched his chin. "You really thought all that?"

  She nodded.

  "So what changed your mind?"

  "What you just told me. About your past and your fears."

  "You said you were ashamed."

  "I am. Of myself." She saw him stiffen. "What? You didn't think—"

  "Apology accepted." He opened the door and gestured for her to precede him. "Ready for breakfast? I really do have to make some phone calls."

  "Not so fast." She strode across the room, bridging the distance between them with several quick steps. She closed the door and wedged her body between him and the exit. "Carter King," she said in her best schoolteacher stage whisper. "Don't you dare tell me you thought I was ashamed of you."

  He didn't reply.

  "You did, didn't you?" She shook her head. His hazel eyes looked so dark and haunted as they held her gaze that she wanted to crawl inside him and hold him. "You couldn't have been further from the truth. Do you know what I thought when you first told me? When I recovered enough to form a coherent thought? I stood at that window and thought my God. All this—" She gestured around the room. "The house, the cars, the horses, the bank. You built all this from nothing. Do you have any idea how that made me feel?"

  "Ashamed?" Carter said, one eyebrow raised, the slightest smirk playing on his lips.

  But she wasn't going to let him turn this into a joke. Judging from his initial reaction to stomp out of the room, he didn't find it funny, either.

  "Besides feeling ashamed of myself," she qualified, "I felt proud. Of you, of your accomplishments. Of the man you've become." She looked down at her hands. "I know, it sounds kind of silly. I mean, we hardly know each—"

  Before she knew what was happening, Marly felt the door press against her back and Carter's body move within scant inches of hers. She gasped and looked up. At the same moment, Carter's head came down. His lips covered hers, and she leaned in to him, like a flower turning toward the sun. Once withered, half-dead, all alone in the darkness, her petals unfolded now to bask in the brilliant light he poured down upon her.

  He kissed her softly, then not so softly, his hands rubbing up and down her arms. His head lowered
to her neck, his mouth feathering the hollow of her throat with hot, moist heat that drew a broken sigh from her.

  Greedy lips drew his mouth back to hers. She held his face to hers with one hand, the other clenching the fabric of his shirt. Her mouth opened at the touch of his tongue, and she moaned softly at the remembered taste that was all his.

  They clung to each other like two long-lost lovers, reuniting after an unbearable separation. Through two layers of denim, Marly felt him grow hard against her. Though her mind told her to move away, warned her that sunlight would burn if she got too much, her body moved, instead, to cradle him.

  The memory of the four-poster flashed in Marly's mind, the image of naked limbs tangling in the night. Sleeping in Carter's arms. Waking to—

  Suddenly, she remembered the reason she couldn't do this. The nightmares. Carter's inevitable questions. She pushed against his chest. "No, stop. I can't. Not yet. I'm not ready … for that."

  Carter broke away. He took a step backward as if to distance himself, as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, like a child wiping off a milk mustache. "I'm sorry," he said, his voice ragged around the edges. "I wasn't trying to push you. I—it won't happen again."

  Marly sagged against the door, trying to control her racing heartbeat. She knew she would have to tell him eventually, that he would find out. And when he did, there would be questions, questions she wasn't ready to answer.

  When she finally convinced herself she wasn't going to hyperventilate, she reached for the doorknob and opened the door. "So how about that breakfast?" She looked up and saw Carter still trying to catch his breath.

  "What breakfast? Oh, that breakfast. Yeah, right. Come on out whenever you're ready." He ran his fingers through his hair and all but raced out the door.

  Marly started after him, then turned back, her gaze alternating between the four-poster and her overnight bag. She raised her fingers to her lips, and her face flushed with heat. "God, help me," she whispered, closing the door behind her.