Texas Cinderella / The Texas CEO's Secret: Texas Cinderella / The Texas CEO's Secret. Victoria Pade

meant trotting out details of his and Katie’s private relationship to the help’s daughter?

      He knew no one would approve of that.

      But this was his business and it was important to him.

      Although why it was so important he still wasn’t sure.

      He wasn’t sure why it was so important. He wasn’t sure if he should let anything personal develop between them. He wasn’t sure what was going on with him when it came to Tanya.

      He was only sure of one thing—that kissing her last night had been something he’d been wanting to do and denying himself because of his agreement with Katie to go on pretending they were engaged until she gave him the go-ahead to stop. And last night, when he’d been given the go-ahead, kissing Tanya had been uppermost in his mind the whole time they’d been looking at those old family photos.

      Only the fact that he had kissed her hadn’t left him rid of the desire. It had only made him want to kiss her again. And better.

      Which she’d told him not to do. And if she’d told him not to do it because she thought he’d been a jerk to Katie, he needed to amend that impression.

      Of course if she’d told him not to kiss her again because she just didn’t like him…

      It was probably better to find that out sooner rather than later.

      But simply telling himself that brought back the caring-what-someone-thought-of-him thing.

      Because damn it all, housekeeper’s daughter or not, he did care what Tanya thought of him, and he cared so much it was unsettling.

      He’d lost his best friend to war. He’d spent a miserable year himself in the Middle East. He’d come home unable to look at anything the way he had before. But today this was what was bothering him?

      Regardless of how he tried to dismiss it, though, yes, this was what was bothering him. Over and above everything else, he couldn’t shed the idea that Tanya Kimbrough, the housekeeper’s daughter, might not like him.

      That was the long and the short of it.

      Unfortunately, coming to that conclusion didn’t get him any closer to understanding it.

      Or to understanding why it seemed as though Tanya’s effect on him was growing by the day…

      “Okay, okay, I get it—the McCords are generous, civic-minded, caring people who have funded, or partially funded, or raised money for, or sponsored innumerable things that all benefit the citizens of Dallas!” Tanya said, crying uncle as Tate pulled into the parking lot of a planetarium that was named for the McCords.