The Millionaire's Proposition. Natalie Patrick
Snow White. I don’t think the prince in Cinderella ever gave his name.” She shifted her umbrella. “See? There’s another similarity. You haven’t given me your name, either.”
“Winstead. Clark Winstead.” He extended his hand.
Clark Winstead. He even had a great name. She put her own hand forward, remembered she still held the bootie in her fingers, dropped her gaze to it, then started to tuck it back into her other hand.
Clark Winstead stopped her.
“Here, if you don’t mind?” He took the trinket, apparently forgetting about the handshake entirely.
Becky felt a twinge of regret at not getting to feel her band in his. They’d made a connection, she thought, one she’d have liked to prolong if only with a more formal introduction.
“I notice it’s a bit worse for the run-in with my heel.” He examined the charm with one eye half-shut, then fixed those amazing eyes on her. “Why don’t you let me have my jeweler fix that for you?”
This guy has his own jeweler? she thought.
“Or I could replace it altogether,” he suggested.
“Oh, I wouldn’t want a new one. This one has sentimental value.”
“For your own baby?”
“No, I’ve never had any babies.” She gazed up into those heart-melting brown eyes. But I’d have yours, a little voice inside her sighed. “I do hope to have one someday.”
He nodded as if she’d just confirmed something to him.
“I know I don’t look terribly responsible or anything right now, but I am. I’ve always had goals in my life—like going to college, moving to Chicago. I made the second one happen—obviously—and hope to make the first one happen when I can afford it. I think that’s the kind of thing that helps make a good mother, having priorities and never slacking off on self-improvement.”
She knew she sounded like she was applying for the job. She felt the heat rise from her neck to her cheeks, even singeing the rims of her ears, at her chattering on. But a girl like her only met a prince, or a Clark Winstead, once in a lifetime, and something inside her told her to give him as much information about herself as she possibly could. It couldn’t hurt and something she said might just strike a chord in the guy.
“Plus I love kids and they love me. When the time comes, I think I’d be a very good mother.”
“No doubt.”
What had she thought? That he’d be so awed by her blathering that he’d propose right on the spot and ask her to bear his child? She folded her coat around her like a security blanket. “Um, in answer to your question, the bootie charm is for my nephew. I have one for my niece, too. I have a charm for every major event in my life.”
She held up the bracelet before she could stop herself from the childish, bumpkin behavior. Like the man wanted to see her stupid bracelet!
“Delightful,” he said. “May I?”
This time, he took her hand in his and Becky decided then and there she knew how the “real” Cinderella must have felt when the prince slid that glass slipper into place on her foot.
He turned her hand over and the bracelet clattered softly. “Why, it looks like you’ve led a very full life, Ms. Taylor.”
“I guess as full as a girl can lead and still be allowed to sing in the church choir in Woodbridge, Indiana.”
He laughed, probably just out of politeness, but it was a warm, genuine-sounding laugh all the same that radiated through Becky’s rain-soaked being.
He raised his eyes to look at her, his chin still tucked in. “That’s where you’re from? Woodbridge, Indiana?”
“Born and raised,” she said, nodding.
“Lucky Woodbridge.”
“Thank you,” she whispered.
He released her hand and reached inside his pocket. In a moment, he had withdrawn two perfect business cards the color of rich vanilla ice cream. He handed them both to her, then took a pen from inside his overcoat.
Becky recognized the type of pen from windowshopping for a gift for her brother’s last birthday. That simple, stylish, fine writing instrument, as they were called in the store, easily cost more than she could earn in a month at her old job in Woodbridge. Well, she thought, had she expected less from a prince?
“Write down your name, address and phone number on one of these,” he said. It wasn’t a request.
He wants my number, she thought. Her fingers could hardly grip the pen he handed her.
“I’ll take the charm to my jeweler to be repaired, then have him send it to you.”
“Oh.” She blinked. The noises of the city, which had seemed muted by the very presence of the man, came rushing back to fill her ears. Car horns blared, tires whooshed over the wet road, people called out to one another. Becky swallowed hard and managed to eke out a stiff but respectful “Thank you.”
If she had a shred of pride left, she’d tell him not to trouble himself. Correction—if she had pride and enough money to get the charm repaired herself, she’d tell him...
She looked up into that face.
His gaze brushed over her chin, her lips, her hair, then settled on her eyes.
She’d tell him... “Here you go. If it takes past the end of the month, I may not be at that apartment anymore, so I jotted down my brother’s address in Woodbridge.”
He slid the card slowly from between her fingers and placed it in his breast pocket. “Good. And you keep my card just in case they don’t do the job to your satisfaction.”
She ran her fingertip over the engraved lettering. “thank you. I will.”
He tipped his head and took a step backward. “Goodbye, then.”
“Bye.” She smiled, then stepped back herself, bumping into a burly mailman as she did. Her umbrella slid down her shin and clunked to the pavement, rolled into the gutter, then burst open just in time to get run over by a speeding taxi.
She was having one of the worst days of her life and the only prince she’d ever meet was right there to witness it.
Becky Taylor was either the sweetest, most innocent young woman he had ever run across—or she was a stark, raving lunatic.
“Miss Harriman, have this sent to my regular jeweler for repair and then have it...” He glanced down at the name and number written in delicate swirls on the back of one of his business cards.
Plus I love kids and they love me. When the time comes, I think I’d be a very good mother. Her words echoed through his mind.
He ran his thumb along the sharp edge of the card.
Flawless-as-cream skin, hair that looked, when not bunched up on her head, like the spun-gold curls straight off a Christmas angel and every bit as wholesome.
Clark did not often run into girls like that. The novelty of her spirit and innocence intrigued him, stirred something up in him. Other things about her stirred him up, as well.
Not too thin, but not too plump, either, the girl had a body that would fill a man’s hands, that could fulfill his most primal fantasies. Not like those stick-figure women who inhabited his moneyed world. That type wouldn’t do more than nibble on the exorbitant meals he’d buy them at all the best restaurants, but they’d damn sure eat a girl like Becky Taylor alive if given the chance.
And she’d give them indigestion for their trouble, too, he decided with a wry smile.
He chuckled to recall the fury she’d shown when she thought he’d made