The Reluctant Cinderella by Christine Rimmer Page A

upscale. Good-quality housing. But it’s hardly one-of-a-kind. There are a lot of towns upstate that are very much like it.”
    â€œI don’t know. Rosewood just says ‘home’ to me. It’s the best kind of place to live, clean and attractive. The streets are safe. The schools are top-notch. It’s a town any man would choose as the place to raise his family.”
    â€œAnd that was what you wanted. A family. A big one…”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œAnd Carly didn’t want kids?”
    â€œShe said she did. But she kept putting it off—until it was too late. Whenever I mentioned getting started on our family, she would say she wasn’t ready. First, she said the house we bought wasn’t big enough for a family. We bought the house next door, tore our house down and built Carly’s dream house on both lots. Once the house was built, I brought up the idea of kids again. She said she wanted the houseto be perfect first….” There. He’d said it. The p word. He repeated it. “Perfect. That was always the main push with her. Carly wanted— needed —for things to be perfect.”
    â€œâ€¦And you’d already had more than enough perfection to last you a lifetime.”
    He sat back in his chair. “See? You get it. You get it, exactly. Carly wanted it all to be perfect—and I wanted anything but. It was sad, really. The timing was never right for Carly and me. At the end, when it was too late for me, then she started making those ‘let’s have a baby’ noises. And by then, I could only say no, that our marriage was in trouble and we needed to deal with that first—at which point she’d clam right up on me, paste on a bright smile and change the subject. I felt…sympathy for her. Even then. I honestly did. She wanted so badly to please, you know?”
    Megan was nodding, her eyes so soft. “Yeah. I know.”
    â€œShe was always dieting like crazy, to get into her size two designer clothes. She knocked herself out trying to get my mother to like and respect her. I told her that would never happen, that Vanessa Wright Banning didn’t like anybody and only respects people she considers above her on the social scale. But Carly kept trying. She just wouldn’t quit. She took cooking lessons and became a gourmet chef. I’d come home every night to a four-course meal straight out of Bon Apétit magazine—a meal Carly herself would hardly touch. And then there was her family….”
    Megan looked thoughtful. “You know, she’s never mentioned her family to me.”
    â€œTo me, either.”
    â€œWait a minute. I don’t think I’m following.”
    â€œI’m saying that to this day, I know pretty much zip about the Aldersons. Carly’s family was always off-limits between us. When I’d ask about them, she’d either change the subject or find some other way to evade the issue. I wanted to get to know them a little, to see the town where she grew up. There was always some reason why we couldn’t go there. I met her mother, Antoinette, once. Can you believe that? Once. At our engagement party. Some family emergency came up and Antoinette couldn’t make it to the wedding. I never had a damn clue what the emergency was, even. Carly just said there was one. No details, no explanations.”
    Megan was quiet for a moment. What was she thinking? He couldn’t tell. Finally, she said, “I’m sorry, Greg.”
    He didn’t feel the least encouraged by her tone. “What does that mean?”
    â€œIt means I wish it had worked out for you and Carly. I truly do.” Megan’s voice was low. And much too careful.
    And suddenly, he felt anger rising. “You know what? Being sorry isn’t going to make everything okay again. I hate that it turned out this way, because I always believed that when I said ‘I do,’ it would mean