Cinderella and the Playboy / The Texan's Happily-Ever-After Read Online Free Page A

the two shoe boxes they’d taped together and how they’d used scissors to cut out dog photos from a magazine.
    The mugs were half-empty before Annie’s recital of the day’s events was exhausted. Jennifer eyed her over the rim of her tea mug and smiled as her daughter broke off a chunk of peanut butter cookie and tucked it neatly into her mouth.
    â€œI have a surprise for you, Annie,” she said. “How would you like to have a sleepover at Jake and Suzie’s house this weekend?”
    â€œOooh, yes!” Annie bounced in her chair, her eyes lit with excitement. “May I take my backpack and my Lilia-Mae doll and my Enchanted Pony so Suzie and I can play with them?”
    â€œYes, of course.” Jennifer laughed when Annie jumped off her chair and threw herself into her mother’s arms, climbing into her lap as she listed all the many things she wanted to take with her.
    Jennifer felt a stab of misgiving as she cuddled thewarm, vibrant little body in her arms. This quiet apartment with Annie was her real life and she loved it—a world filled with her beautiful little girl and her busy days with work and college classes. A date with Chance Demetrios—at the ritzy Founder’s Ball, no less—was a huge step outside the constraints of the life she’d built.
    But her friends were right, too, she realized. Sometimes, she was lonely and longed for an emotional—and physical—connection with a partner. There was no room for a permanent man in her life just now and wouldn’t be for the foreseeable future. But just for one night, perhaps it wouldn’t do any harm if she seized the opportunity to play Cinderella before returning to the quiet rhythm of her busy days with Annie.
    Jennifer rested her cheek against her daughter’s silky red-gold curls, breathed in her little-girl smell of shampoo, soap and crayons, and contentedly listened to Annie’s excited plans for spending the weekend with her friends.
    Chance hadn’t recognized the street address that Jennifer had scribbled on the note after she had accepted his invitation so he’d made a mental note to check it out later. He tucked the paper safely awayin his pocket until later that evening, when he turned on his laptop to browse the Internet. It took his computer only a few moments to search, find a street map of Boston and pinpoint Jennifer’s neighborhood.
    He frowned at the screen, trying to visualize the area. He thought her apartment might be located within a mile or two of the free clinic where he volunteered. He typed in a request for directions from his own town house, in an upscale Boston neighborhood, to Jennifer’s address. The resultant map details confirmed his guess that her street wasn’t more than a short cab drive and probably within walking distance from the free clinic. The two addresses were in a shabby though respectable area of Boston, not far from his own home in actual miles but light-years away in real-estate prices.
    Chance didn’t give a damn that Jennifer’s address highlighted the disparity in their incomes but it drove home the fact that he knew little about her life away from the diner.
    He’d noticed her sitting in a back booth to study on her coffee breaks at the diner and when he’d commented, she’d told him that she was taking college classes. But beyond being a student and working as a waitress, she was an enigma to him. He wondered if she lived alone or shared an apartment with a fellow student.
    During their brief conversations, she’d never mentioned her family and he realized that he didn’t know if she had any sisters or brothers, or if her parents lived here in Boston. He couldn’t help but wonder what her childhood had been like, what kind of a family she came from, and where she’d grown up. Jennifer treated Mrs. Blake, the elderly widow who counted out coins to pay for her daily coffee and donut, with