The Secret That Shocked Cinderella, page 1
There was a baby.
She’d been asleep for a whole month.
Riot opened the door just as Krav reached for her, pulling her back against his hard body as it opened to reveal a woman standing there, holding a tiny little bundle, cradled to her chest.
The baby had dark hair, her skin golden. None of Riot was visible at all. She looked for her own features desperately and didn’t see any.
She saw him.
But there was nothing that decisively stated that she was there as well.
But she felt it. She felt it, and she couldn’t say what it was.
She knew so little right now. She knew nothing about how she had gotten to this place in her life. And she didn’t look at her fiancé and know anything.
But looking at this child, she knew.
Maisey Yates is a New York Times bestselling author of over one hundred romance novels. Whether she’s writing strong, hardworking cowboys, dissolute princes or multigenerational family stories, she loves getting lost in fictional worlds. An avid knitter with a dangerous yarn addiction and an aversion to housework, Maisey lives with her husband and three kids in rural Oregon. Check out her website, maiseyyates.com.
Books by Maisey Yates
Harlequin Presents
His Forbidden Pregnant Princess
Crowned for My Royal Baby
Once Upon a Seduction...
The Prince’s Captive Virgin
The Prince’s Stolen Virgin
The Italian’s Pregnant Prisoner
The Queen’s Baby Scandal
Crowning His Convenient Princess
Pregnant Princesses
Crowned for His Christmas Baby
The Heirs of Liri
His Majesty’s Forbidden Temptation
A Bride for the Lost King
Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.
Maisey Yates
The Secret That Shocked Cinderella
To the Happiest Place on Earth, which inspired this one while I was on a much-needed family vacation and contributes to my motto: never grow up.
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
EPILOGUE
EXCERPT FROM EMERGENCY MARRIAGE TO THE GREEK BY CLARE CONNELLY
CHAPTER ONE
RIOT PHILLIPS HAD finally done something spontaneous. And it was turning out very, very badly.
Her name, a gift from her hedonistic mother, had never been representative of who she was. She’d been meek and mild all her life. Cleaning up her mother’s messes as best she could, and taking all the money in her savings account for a once in a lifetime trip to Cambodia was not in her wheelhouse, at all.
But her roommate Jaia was one of those people you couldn’t deny. Infectious and fun and the kind of woman who effortlessly pulled off a nose ring and got new tattoos of a Tuesday, just because. And when Jaia had said she had some old friends from high school headed to Angkor Wat to explore the ruins and go on a spiritual quest, Riot had been caught up in the moment.
She’d looked at her passport, something she had just in case but had never used. She’d looked at her suitcase—also never used. And she’d decided to just say yes.
And everything had been fine. Until they’d hooked up with Jaia’s friends. Lilith and Marcianne took everything Jaia was and amplified it. Everything was more reckless, less organized, and significantly drunker and Riot had been on edge for two days. The hostels they’d been staying in might as well have been a street corner—one was a tree house and when their next door neighbors had gotten amorous the whole thing had...swayed.
Worse, Riot hadn’t immediately known why.
And it was drunken Lilith who had howled over Riot not immediately guessing that the motion was caused by thrusting.
But the days spent exploring the different towns they’d been in had been incredible, and when Riot couldn’t handle the girls, she was happy to go off on her own.
Then they’d gotten to Siem Reap, the town nearest the ruins, last night to find the hostel full, and Marcianne had talked a man at a local bar into offering them his front room, where Riot had spent the whole night petrified.
Then they’d gone to the ruins and Riot had forgotten everything. All the drama, all the chaos. Because it was so beautiful, so serene and somehow every fantasy she’d ever had about...what might be out there. Bigger and bolder and more than her small town in Georgia.
It was a ruin, but the rocks had contained more life, more spirit than anything she’d ever encountered and when she breathed, she felt like she was truly breathing for the first time.
And then it had started to rain.
Not just rain...pour down buckets.
The air was thick and steamy, her dress sodden within seconds, she held the hem up, even though it was really too late to keep herself dry—but she was going to try and make a run for it.
And soon she realized...
She had been left.
The tuk-tuk they’d hired was gone, along with Lilith, Jaia and Marcianne.
She ran out of the temple she’d been in, down the front steps, the stone structure looming behind her, no longer peaceful but ominous. The rain seemed to have cleared out everyone and she was...alone.
Well, this felt like a metaphor for about a thousand painful moments in her childhood.
She took out her cell phone and she tried to call Jaia. It went straight to voice mail. Again and again, while she stood there with rain pouring over her skin.
Then she ducked back into the temple, took shelter in the rock there and walked down a long corridor that was partially open to the elements.
She wasn’t cold. But she was utterly saturated. She bowed her head low, water rolling forward down her nose. She touched the stone walls, slick now, and wondered if it was really all that different or special being abandoned in Cambodia versus the abandonment she experienced back home.
Sure. You don’t know how to help yourself here. That’s what’s different.
This was what she got for spontaneity. She should have known it wasn’t for her. Not ever.
And then she looked up and everything in her froze.
She wasn’t alone.
There was a man standing there. Sheets of rain fell between them, keeping her from seeing him clearly, but she could have sworn he was in a white dress shirt and a dark suit, like he was prepared for a meeting.
In temple ruins. In the rain.
He was tall. At least, he felt tall from where she stood.
It was impossible to say from this distance.
He had his hands in his pockets—a confident stance, rather than a casual one, and she wasn’t sure why she knew that, only that she did.
She should run.
She was a woman alone, in the rain, whose dress had become near pornographic with the way it stuck to her in this rain. And he was...a man. A Strange Man. Well, not inherently strange, but a stranger.
She didn’t run.
She had nowhere to run to.
So, she simply stood.
And then, he was the one who moved.
Graceful and silent, like a tiger stalking its prey.
As he moved closer, his features came into view. His hair was black, his skin golden brown. His face was sculpted with razor sharp cheekbones, a blade straight nose and a mouth that seemed dangerous.
His eyes were dark and mesmerizing, like the rest of him.
Yet again, she thought she ought to run. But didn’t.
She’d also been right about him being tall.
Which set off a further alarm bell. If she was right about him being tall, she was probably right about him being a predator.
But she still didn’t run.
You can’t outrun a tiger...
That was not a helpful thought.
She didn’t know what to do. If she should speak, or if she should run. She froze instead. And the tiger began to advance.
“Are you lost?” he asked.
His voice was like the sound a tiger made. All low, and felt in the deepest parts of you. She didn’t know whether she wanted to cower in fear or...draw closer to him.
“I’m not lost,” she said, her voice absorbed by the moss, plants and soft ground, the damp brick. She sounded small.
“Are you in trouble?”
“My friends left me.”
Oh, good. Tell the strange man you’re all alone.
“I already know there is no one else here.”
“And why are you here?” she asked, feeling bold in the moment. But only in the moment, because as soon as it passed she asked herself why on earth she was engaging the tiger man in speech.
“I went for a walk,” he said. “I live nearby.”
“Just...in a suit? Were you at a funeral?” She’d meant it to sound caustic and it had come out more a question.
<
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
He shrugged one broad shoulder and took another step towards her. She’d been hoping that if he did draw closer she would see that she’d exaggerated his size, his masculine energy, his handsomeness.
But no.
He burned brighter, the closer he got.
“Sorry helps nothing,” he said.
“It’s not about helping. It’s just about letting someone know they aren’t alone.”
But they both were.
Together.
The rain continued to pour and her dress was completely stuck to her body. She became very aware of both her choice to not wear a bra, and the effect the cold was probably having on her body.
As if her thoughts had cued him, he looked her over. The perusal was slow and somehow made her feel...heated.
There was something about him. She felt like she knew him, while at the same time he felt utterly unknown. It was a strange push and pull. Safety mixed with danger in a way she couldn’t define.
Not real danger. She felt safer with this man than she’d ever felt before.
The danger was in her.
As if he had awakened something in her she hadn’t known was there.
“Well, then since we are not alone, tell me. What sort of friends go off, and leave one of their own stranded in a monsoon?”
She had nothing else to do other than talk to him. He was her only way back to civilization.
Her phone didn’t have data, so she couldn’t look anything up. She didn’t have a backup plan that wasn’t...her flaky friends, which she supposed made her an idiot. So why not?
“I don’t actually think they’re my friends,” she said.
And realized that was true the minute she said the words.
“That seems apparent to me.”
“Well, Jaia was my roommate. Is my roommate? Back at home. The other two are her friends, and as soon as we got with them...”
“Old friends taking precedence over new. I see.”
“I guess so. I mean, I hadn’t really realized how much Jaia was...well she’s a flake. This whole trip has been deeply disorganized, and once it started raining they left. Or they met men and they left. Or something. With them, who can say?”
“But no one made sure you were all right?”
“More fool me, I was actually seeing to what we’d discussed doing. I was...” It sounded silly now.
“Yes?”
“I saw this as an opportunity to have a spiritual time.” It sounded so dumb and immature, it made her feel exposed, especially next to this man who had an air of worldly sophistication about him. She just sounded like what she was. A silly girl. But she wanted him to understand her, as foolish as that seemed. “By myself. I’ve... My life has been one long series of struggles and I’ve finally reached a place where I wasn’t so... Where it wasn’t so hard. I had some money saved up and I thought I’d come here and experience something new. I thought I’d come and feed my soul for a while because I’ve always been so focused on survival that part of me has been denied.”
“I was here for the same reason,” he said, looking up, the rain rolling down his face.
He looked back at her, and she was sure he could see straight through her.
“Oh.”
It didn’t feel silly, then. It felt like, at least she’d been right about one thing.
“I’m Riot,” she said. “Riot Phillips.”
He smiled then, in earnest. And it did not make him less intimidating. “Krav.”
He did not offer a last name.
Krav.
“You live around here?” she asked.
“I live in many places. Wherever it suits me in the moment. I keep a residence here, and that is where I’m currently staying.”
He didn’t seem like a bohemian wanderer in the way that Jaia did. But then, he’d been at a funeral, so perhaps that was why.
Maybe the suit was the piece of him that was wrong.
And as she looked at him she thought, yes. The suit was wrong. He was not a man who belonged in a suit. He was a man who belonged here. In the ruins. In the jungle. In the rain.
It was funerals that were wrong.
“Are you...were you here for the funeral?”
“Yes. Though I came a few weeks ago when it was clear my mother would not last much longer.”
Her stomach twisted.
“Your mother. Oh, I’m so sorry.”
She didn’t have the kind of relationship with her mother that brought out any warm feelings in her, but she knew, oh, she knew well, that most people loved their mothers very dearly. And in fairness, she loved hers. It was part of why it was so difficult.
If she felt nothing, then it would all be easier. But she did.
“It is life.” He looked desolate when he said it, even though his voice didn’t change. “A part of it. And never do I feel more aware of that and connected to it than when I am here, so it felt just the right place for a walk.”
He was still a tiger.
But she did not think he’d eat her.
In spite of herself, she shivered. It wasn’t particularly cold, but the fabric of her dress was truly stuck to her now. And it was beginning to seep down into her bones.
“Come with me,” he said. “You’re soaked clean through. My home is just a short walk away.”
“Your...home is a short walk away?”
“Yes,” he said. “Through the trees.”
“The trees but...”
“Follow me.”
She did, because there was nothing else to do. And because she felt if she didn’t...the very thought of not going with him filled her with a sense of sadness. Darkness. And when they came to the end of the ruin, he went on. Deep into the jungle.
The darkness of the foliage swallowed them whole.
“I don’t think there’s...”
And then she looked up. There was a glow in the trees, and her jaw dropped.
It was a house. Up in the trees. Not at all like the hostel they’d stayed in last week, but something otherworldly. The roots of the trees grew down over the top of a stone shrine, the banyan tree seeming to hold it like a mother would cradle a child, and it was the trees above the shrine that held the house as well, large pillars extending down to the ground, adding support. A staircase began at the shrine and wound tightly around the tree, carrying them up into the canopy, and into the house.
There was an expansive deck around the whole outside of the house, and he led the way to a door that seemed to open by magic. It was ornately carved, as was the rest of the home, and when they were inside, she was stunned by the care given to each exquisite detail. The carvings inside mirrored much of the temple art, and there were grand tapestries hanging on the walls. The living area was plush, with cushions spread all over. There was a small kitchen area off to the side.
“One moment,” he said.
He disappeared into another room and returned a moment later with a silk robe on a hanger. “You should get into something that hasn’t been rained on, and I can dry your dress.”
“Oh, I...”
Her heart thundered wildly and she couldn’t quite say why.
“You may change in there.” He gestured off to the left, and she found her feet doing his bidding, even while her mind continued to question both him and herself.
She should ask him to call her a car.
She should ask if he could take her back to...to where? They didn’t have a hostel booked. But she could find a hostel on her own. With just a little help. She was going to have to accept that she couldn’t count on Jaia and company anyway.
And she would.
After her dress was dry. Because she really was uncomfortable.
When she walked into the room he’d sent her to, it took her a moment to gather her wits because she felt transported. Unlike the front of the tree house, the bathroom was modern, and much more lavishly appointed than she could have imagined a tree house might accommodate.
Who was this man?
She undressed slowly, shivering as she peeled the thin fabric of her dress away from her skin and let it pool at her feet. She realized she was standing naked in a strange man’s tree house bathroom and she laughed. She couldn’t help herself.
