A Millionaire for Cinderella by Barbara Wallace

place in the story where she should stop. Having justified her actions, there was no reason to share any more. The problem was that talking about the past was like cracking a glass. Once begun, the crack didn’t stop spreading until it reached its natural end. And so the words continue to flow. “There was this guy who lived near us. Named Ben. He was always hitting on me, telling me how hot I was. Used to tell me a girl built like me could rake it in at the club where he worked. I always ignored him. Until I didn’t have a choice anymore.”
    Unable to sit still any longer, Patience pushed herself away from the table and crossed to the back window. Her distorted reflection stared back at her in the glass. “It was January. We hadn’t eaten all day. I’d lost my job—we didn’t have money. Piper had a cold. Sounds like one of those over-the-top TV movies, doesn’t it?” she said with a hollow laugh.
    “Go on.”
    “I didn’t know what else to do,” she whispered. The desperation and shame she’d felt that fateful day returned as fresh as ever, rising up to choke the air from her lungs. “I told myself it was only for a little while. Until Piper and I were on our feet.” The delusion of youth and hopelessness.
    “How long did that take?”
    Why was he asking? He could guess the answer. Until she went to work for Ana.
    “That’s the trick life plays on you,” she said, resting her head against the glass. “You tell yourself it’s only for a few weeks, a few months tops. Next thing you know, a few months turns into a year. Two. After a while, you start to think maybe you can’t do any better. I mean, you’ve got no experience, so any job you can get doesn’t pay nearly as much and that’s assuming you could even get another job. Who’s going to hire someone who danced on a table?”
    “Table? Is that—?”
    “Yeah. A drunk grabbed my ankle.” Her breath left a smudge on the pane. Using her scarf, she wiped the mark away. If only life could clean up so easily. “Sometimes I think, if only I’d held out one more day...
    “I can still feel their eyes on me,” she whispered. “At night. Watching me with their dull, glassy eyes. Fantasizing about what they want to do with me.” She slapped a hand against her mouth to keep from gagging as the memories began to choke her. A sob broke through anyway. “They made me feel so dirty.”
    “Shh.” Once again Stuart was there, his face joining hers in the glass. Didn’t matter that he wasn’t touching her, his proximity was good enough.
    “But I kept my promise,” she said. “I kept us off the streets and I gave Piper a normal life.” Of all the regrets she had in her life, keeping Piper safe wasn’t one. “Whenever things got really bad, that’s what I would tell myself.
I kept my promise
.”
    Behind her, Stuart let out a long, loud breath. An echo of her own exhaustion. She hadn’t expected to share so much. Telling Stuart details she’d never told anyone...the ordeal left her raw and exposed. “You said you wanted the long version.”
    “Yes, I did.”
    There was another sigh. Patience imagined him washing a hand over his features as he tried to digest everything. What would he think if he knew the one detail she’d kept back? But how could she tell him when she could barely admit the secret to herself?
    “I know you think I had some big agenda, but I didn’t. I ran into Ana and she confused me with a job applicant. I let her believe that’s who I was and interviewed for the job.” She turned so he could see she was being as honest as possible. “Ana was the first person besides Piper who ever treated me like I mattered. I swear I would never hurt her. I just needed to get out.”
    “You do matter,” Stuart whispered.
    She hated the way his words warmed her from the inside out. More so, how she couldn’t help following them up with a pitiful “I do?”
    “Yeah, you do.” His thumb brushed her cheek, chasing away tears she