One Night with Cinderella - Niobia Bryant Page 0,11

at her bottom lip as reality returned. Gabe Cress, as beautiful and sexy as he was, and having far surpassed her seductive dreams, was one of her employers. She couldn’t afford to lose the job she loved nor did she want encounters like this to be a regular occurrence. It was all so typical of upstairs-downstairs relationships.

Tonight had been just for me, but no more.

She hated the insecurity she felt even as she lay in his arms. “Just once,” she reminded him in a soft whisper as she listened to the pace of his heart begin to slow.

He nodded, and for moments she didn’t count, he continued to hold her before he pressed a kiss to the top of her wild hair and rose from the chaise. A goodbye to their rendezvous.

Three

Two weeks later

Monica wiped her sweaty brow with the back of her hand before she rose from her knees and dropped the large sponge into the bucket of sudsy water.

“Thank you,” Raquel said from her seat on one of the two custom-made, light gray velvet sectionals in the sizable den centering the fifth floor of the town house, where there were three bedrooms, each with their own attached bathroom.

“No problem, Mrs. Cress,” she said, picking up the bucket from atop the silk Persian carpet in the same shades of gray and steel blue as the stylish decor throughout the entire town house.

“Apologize to Miss Monica for your mess, Collette.”

Moments after she heard Raquel’s request to her and Phillip Jr.’s daughter, Collette, Monica felt a gentle tug on her pants leg. She turned and looked down at the precocious three-year-old with dimpled cheeks and bright yellow spectacles that made her all the more adorable.

“I’m sorry I spilled my milk, Miss Monica,” she said.

“No worries, Colli,” she said with a soft smile, using the child’s pet name. “No worries at all.”

With her absolution, the little girl went running back across the room to sit at her mother’s feet where she’d been playing with her iPad.

Monica made a mental note to have the rug removed for professional cleaning. Once done dumping the bucket, she used the wrought-iron staircase running along the north side of the house to go back down to the fourth floor where she had been cleaning the bedroom suites before being summoned upstairs to attend to the spill.

She crossed the den that was the exact same design as the one upstairs, with the glass letting in so much spring light to shine against the hardwood floors and elaborate woodwork of the custom shelving and doors. She retrieved her cleaning caddie and pulled it behind her to Gabe’s bedroom suite on the far end. Her steps faltered a bit. This was his sanctuary, and after their lovemaking, entering it felt all the more nerve-racking.

At the door she took a long breath and wet her lips before finally opening it and entering his spacious suite decorated in stylish shades of gray, from charcoal to smoke. Her eyes fell on his unmade king-size bed and she envisioned him lying there nude as he slept.

“Just once. Then I better make it damn good.”

Closing her eyes, she shook her head to erase the hot thought and the memory of his words that night. Two weeks later and it was still scorched into her memory. She looked down at the goose bumps on her arms, brought on at the very thought of him.

Get it together, Mo.

She forged ahead, swiftly crossing the room to open gray suede curtains, exposing the glass wall that gave him a view of the city landscape in the distance. She used the leather ties to secure them back before moving over to the bed to take up the coverlet, the blanket folded across the foot and the crisp white cotton sheets. With them gathered in her arms and pressed against her chest, it was hard to ignore the scent of him rising from the bed linens.

Like a silly schoolgirl with a crush, she allowed herself to press her nose against the sheets for a deep inhale that took her back in time to that night.

“Oh. My apologies, Monica.”

Frightened, she released a squeal and dropped the covers to the silk rug as she looked at Gabe, standing in the now open doorway of his en suite bathroom. Her eyes dipped to avoid his bare chest but then fell to the towel barely clinging to his hips. She gasped and turned from him, wishing the sound of her harsh breathing didn’t echo so