Cinderella's Christmas Affair Read Online Free PDF Page A

that smart mouth. To hell with her Christmas tree. “Gallant rescue sounds good to me.”
    “You always did have a big head.”
    “You always were a bit of a pain.”
    “Then why are you here?” she asked.
    Because she was the one woman he’d never been able to forget. No matter how many beautiful, intelligent women he’d dated, CJ had always lingered in the back of his mind. “I’m a glutton for punishment.”
    “Follow me. I’m on the twelfth floor. We have to use the service elevator,” CJ said.
    “I’m yours to command.”
    “As if,” she said and climbed the stairs to the building.
    Rae-Anne and CJ held the doors open for Tad, and in a short time they were standing in CJ’s apartment.
    “Where’s your tree stand?” he asked.
    “I can do that. I don’t want to take up too much of your time.”
    “I don’t mind.”
    “Really that’s okay.”
    “You can’t do it on your own,” he said.
    “Rae-Anne is going to help me, right?” she asked.
    Rae-Anne had a pile of file folders in her arms and didn’t really look like she’d expected to decorate a tree.
    “Do you want me to help?” Rae-Anne asked. “My mother used to say many hands make light work.”
    Tad winked at her, sensing he had found an ally in his pursuit of CJ. And he just realized it was a pursuit and nothing less than complete surrender of the saucy redhead would suit him.

Three

    C J had had enough interaction for the day. Saturdays were normally her favorite. She wanted Rae-Anne to go home and Tad to disappear back into the fabric of the past so that she could once again have control of her life. She’d make herself a nice cup of herbal tea and then climb onto the counter and pull down the box of HoHos she had stored above the refrigerator.
    They were for emergency use only and after this day she knew she needed the sweet bliss that only consuming a box of chocolate cream-filled cakes could bring.
    She’d talked to Rae-Anne last night and they’d discussed Rae-Anne bringing over the Monday files so they could have a head start on the week. But then Rae-Anne had called to say she’d be late and CJ had decided to go and get her Christmas tree. Bad idea. She should have gone into the office instead. Nothing was the same with Rae-Anne as it had been with Marcia.
    But Tad was a different matter entirely. The purely masculine look in his eyes told her that he was interested in doing more than renewing old friendships and frankly, that made her nervous.
    She was glad that Rae-Anne was here because she didn’t want to be alone with Tad.
    Her weary soul said no more guys with buff bodies and yet she’d always been drawn to them. Marcus had been a marathon runner who’d spent hours in the gym. Even her dad had been a high school football coach.
    “I’ll make the coffee,” she suddenly blurted.
    And for some reason being around Tad seemed to reduce her normally quick tongue to banal small talk. More and more she was slipping back into the old Cathy Jane, joke of Auburndale high school.
    “I’ll make it,” Rae-Anne said.
    “No offense, Rae-Anne, but you have yet to make a pot of coffee that anyone would drink.”
    Rae-Anne threw back her head and laughed. “ Madon’, this woman thing is making me crazy.”
    “What woman thing?” Tad asked.
    “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Rae-Anne said. Turning to a battered box she pulled out a tangled mess of Christmas lights.
    “We’ve got our work cut out, my friend.”
    “I think I can handle it.”
    CJ left them to sort out the lights telling herself there was nothing wrong with escaping to the kitchen. Not long ago she’d vowed to never let a man make her cower again and here she was hiding out in her kitchen. She boiled water in her teakettle and made coffee in her French press. She had a box of cookies in the cupboard and she arranged them on a Christmas plate from the set her mother had given her the year before she’d died.
    There was a part of CJ that really