Overnight Cinderella by Katherine Garbera

traced the arch of her eyebrow, the curve of hercheek, and the swollen pinkness of her lips. “You’re the kind of woman who deserves everything a man has to give, especially from her first lover.”
    â€œWhy can’t you give me your everything?”
    â€œBecause of my past. I can’t love, Cami.”
    â€œEveryone can love,” she said.
    â€œNo they can’t. You have to trust and believe in life. I don’t.”
    â€œBut you were married.”
    â€œRebecca was my buddy. A woman who grew up the way I did.”
    â€œShe didn’t believe in love?”
    â€œWe never said the words.”
    Cami’s eyes sharpened. Duke knew she understood what he hadn’t said. Rebecca had loved him, but he’d never been able to love her. Rebecca, the woman who’d deserved his love, yet he’d been incapable of giving it to her. Rebecca, who was ten times stronger than this emotional creature, had needed the words he’d never been able to say.
    â€œMaybe I don’t want love.”
    â€œOh, you do, Miss Romance Novels At Lunch.”
    She moved closer to him, not stopping until her breath brushed his neck. “I want you more.”
    Â 
    Cami spent the next few days in a wonderful haze, thinking about Duke. At work she’d started to sharpen her presentation skills in the biweekly meetings to the steering committee by watching Duke in action. More importantly, she began to seeherself as an attractive woman, something she’d never believed possible.
    Gabriella had wanted to give her clothing advice for years, yet Cami had never allowed her. It seemed ridiculous for an ugly duckling to dress like a swan. But no longer. She called her sister and with her help did some online shopping.
    She wanted to give Duke something comparable to what he’d unwittingly given her—belief in herself. He’d treated her as a respected peer in front of the event team and in his own quiet way brought her to the attention of the board of directors by praising the work she’d done. But what could she give him?
    She surfed the Net before it was time to go home, looking for a pair of skimpy shorts her sister had told her about. She ordered the shorts and returned to her home page—a search engine.
    Absently she typed his name and the words “police officer” in the search engine and waited for it to bring back information on the man she wanted as her lover.
    There were three sites that interested her. The first was a newspaper archive she used for a lot of her benchmarking research. The article covering Rebecca’s death talked about the much-decorated police officer who’d dedicated his life to protecting the innocent.
    Cami felt her heart clench. This man who protected everyone else had no one to protect him. She reread the details Duke had given her that night on the quiet airplane. In black-and-white print theyseemed cold and heartless; but she remembered the raw emotion in his eyes and his raspy voice. She wanted to go to him and give him a hug.
    She dried the few tears in the corners of her eyes and moved on to the next set of groupings, which she’d seen before. These were of Duke’s parents’ death when he was two. Cami bookmarked the page and exited the Web. While she’d had no intention of snooping into his life, now that she had, she understood more about Duke than she’d thought possible.
    This man who’d been abandoned time and again needed a family. This man who’d kissed her and set her soul on fire for something she couldn’t define, needed her. This man whose background she’d just spied on stood in the doorway of her office.
    â€œHi, Cami,” he said, his voice brushing over her senses like the secret thrill of wearing naughty panties under a conservative suit.
    â€œHi, yourself.” She blushed. Thank goodness he hadn’t arrive two minutes earlier when his life story had flashed across