Oceans Between Us (A Cinderella Romance) Read Online Free PDF

his hand halfway down his chest. "She has to carry them outside for him."
    He was trying to make her feel better about her phobia. Sweet of him, considering she had disturbed his lunch. "Let me make you a cup of coffee, Mr. Rossellini. I think you've earned it."
    "Now I know your shameful secret, I think you should call me Dino." He had rested a hand against the door frame and was watching her.
    Dino, that was cute and it suited him. She looked down to hide her smile. "Okay, Dino it is then." It wasn't unusual for her to call guests by their first names. They didn't stand on ceremony at the Crow's Nest. So why did this feel different?
    ***
    A few days later, Maria sat on the floor in the sitting room, a heap of CDs beside her along with a pen and pad. She was babysitting Poppy and Charlotte, who were both playing happily on the carpet nearby. Poppy was quietly fitting shapes into holes while Charlotte noisily thumped the keys on her small plastic organ.
    Maria turned over a CD that her dad played in the dining room and squinted at the song titles, looking for dates. Did anything on here qualify as suitable for the playgroup hop? She really was hopeless with music. She had no idea what people had listened to in the fifties and sixties. Frustrated, a sigh hissed between her lips. A hop needed dance music, and that wasn't something her family listened to. That meant she would have to search through someone else's music collection, or try to find songs on the Internet.
    She should have asked Philip to give this job to someone else. She needed to learn to say no sometimes. Movement out of the corner of her eye made her look up. Dino stood in the open doorway, a hand resting on either side of the door frame and a frown on his face. "Good afternoon, Maria. These are your daughters?"
    "My what? No!" Her hand rose to her heart at the thought. If only they were. "They're my nieces."
    "Ah!" His expression cleared and he ambled into the room. "They have a resemblance to you, I think."
    "Do they?" Maria had never noticed that the girls looked like her, but then she hadn't thought about it before. As Dino came in, Poppy moved closer to Maria and cuddled against her arm, while Charlotte banged her organ even louder and started shouting, showing off.
    "You have a musician in the family," Dino observed with a wry smile.
    Maria grinned as Charlotte clambered to her feet and toddled across to Dino, presenting him with the organ. "Dance, dance," she shouted.
    His took the offered toy and shot Maria a questioning glance. "She wants me to dance?"
    "No. She wants you to play so she can dance."
    He smiled at the little girl and perched on the edge of an armchair, the organ across his knees. Then he started to play. Maria expected the usual random assortment of notes she was used to hearing. Instead, real music came out of the organ. Charlotte jumped around screaming and waving her arms. After a few minutes, Poppy couldn't resist joining her. Dino continued playing catchy tunes that segued seamlessly from one to another.
    "You can actually play real music on it!" She laughed at the girls' antics.
    "Hmmm." Dino pulled a face. "Maria, not even a maestro would be able to play real music on this toy."
    "Well, it sounds like music to me." Finally Charlotte got overexcited and banged the organ along with Dino, creating the familiar earsplitting racket. Poppy started to cry. "Okay, you two. That's enough." Maria rose and Dino passed her the organ. She hid it behind a big pot on the mantelpiece. "Time for a drink and a nap, I think." She lifted both girls onto the sofa and handed them their cups. They started drinking their milk and sleepy eyelids fell.
    Dino nodded towards the CDs strewn across the floor. "You are searching for something?"
    She flopped into an armchair and poked at the square plastic cases with her toe. "I've got to come up with a playlist for a sixties hop we're running as a playgroup fundraiser. I'm not having much luck."
    Dino went down