His L.A. Cinderella

Irritation sounding in her voice, she tried to push up on to her feet. ‘I’m good now, Will. Thanks. Let me up.’

But he held her in place. ‘Give it a minute.’

When he held the glass back to her mouth, her sense of mortification was raised several notches. She pushed his hand away. ‘Stop that. I can do it. I don’t need a minute.’

Taking the glass from him, she struggled anything but gracefully to her feet, splashing water onto her hand and the floor. Once she was upright, she swayed precariously. Will stepped forward—one hand removing the glass, one arm circling her waist as he calmly informed her, ‘That went well.’

Cassidy scowled at the grumbled words as he handed the glass to a hovering concierge before demanding, ‘Key card.’

‘What?’

‘Give me your key card.’ Lifting his free hand in front of her body, he waggled long fingers. ‘Hand it over. You’re going back to bed.’

‘I don’t think—’

‘Good. Run with that. Key card.’

While her brain tried to think up an argument against the new and not necessarily improved attitude he seemed to have acquired with age, her traitorous hand reached into her bag for the card. Apparently the best she could come up with in reply was, ‘I don’t remember you being this bossy.’

‘Comes with the territory in my job.’ His fingers closed around the card.

‘Can we get anything for the lady?’

Will nodded at the concierge’s question. ‘You could send up some chilled orange juice to room…?’

When he lifted his brows at Cassidy, she sighed. ‘Ten-twenty-eight.’

‘And send out to the nearest pharmacy for cold medicine of some kind.’

The concierge nodded. ‘Of course, sir.’

Completely out of nowhere, Will did the last thing she’d expected and bent at the waist, scooping her into his arms like some kind of caped superhero. The man would put his back out! She was a good twenty pounds over the weight she’d been the last time he’d pulled that stunt.

A part of her curled up and died even as her arm automatically circled his neck. ‘Put me down, Will. I can walk.’

As she whispered the words her gaze met that of several fascinated observers, and a couple of women who looked distinctly as if they were swooning. Now her cheeks were on fire. ‘Will, I’m serious! I’m too heavy.’

‘No, you’re not. Shut up, Cass.’

She wriggled, and felt her lunch rearrange itself inside her stomach, drawing a low moan from her lips. If she threw up in public she was taking the next plane home. It would serve Will Ryan right if she threw up over him!

He walked through the remainder of the foyer as if she weighed nothing, and then turned to hit the elevator button with his elbow. Adding even further to her nightmare, he then moved the hand at her waist and dropped his chin to frown at her body. ‘What are you wearing under that blouse?’

Oh. Dear. God.

‘I think you’ll find we’re eight years too late for a conversation about my underwear.’

When he looked at her, she summoned a smirk.

His green gaze travelling over her face, he took in her flushed cheeks and the way she was chewing on her lower lip before he looked back into her eyes. ‘Wearing something so tight that it restricts your breathing is hardly going to help any, is it?’

‘It’s not like I planned on falling at your feet.’ Oh, she just didn’t know when to stop, did she?

Amusement danced across his eyes. Before he could say anything the elevator doors opened, so he turned sideways and guided her inside. ‘Push the button, Cass.’

She did. Then Will took a step back and lifted his chin to watch the numbers as they lit up above the doors.

‘You can put me down now. Seriously.’

‘That’s not happening.’

Cassidy sighed heavily. His stubborn streak, she remembered. When Will had dug his heels in over something he’d been an immovable object. It had led to more than one heated debate when they were writing, but back then they’d had one heck of a good time making up afterwards. Naturally now she’d thought about that her body reacted. So she tried to think of the names of all of the seven dwarfs to distract herself—there was always one she couldn’t remember; now, which one was it? Scrunching her nose up while she concentrated didn’t help. Nope still couldn’t get him. Elusive seventh dwarf! She sighed again.

‘Huff all you want, Cass. I’m not putting you down.’

The elevator pinged and the doors slid open while she informed him, ‘You’ll have to put me down eventually. It’ll make it a tad difficult to do the basics, lugging me around like a sack of spuds all day.’

When he turned from side to side to search for the plates on the wall that would indicate where her room was, she waved a limp arm. ‘That way.’

‘Why didn’t you call and say you weren’t feeling well?’

Because a part of her had been looking forward to seeing him again, that was why. Her curiosity had been getting the better of her ever since his e-mail had arrived. Only natural considering their history, she’d told herself. What girl wasn’t fascinated by how her first love looked years after the last time she saw him? It was one of those things that never completely went away. Along with the associated paranoia of wondering whether time had built her memories of him into some kind of magical figure he couldn’t possibly live up to, or whether he would have aged much better than she had.

In the face of further humiliation, she lied, ‘I felt better when I got up.’

‘Liar.’

Cassidy sighed louder than before. ‘I hate that you can still do that. Fine, then—I wanted to know why I was here.’

‘Yes, obviously. Because I didn’t explain it in the e-mails I sent you…’

Was he fishing? She lifted her chin and frowned up at his profile at the exact moment he chose to lower his dense lashes and look down at her. It made her breath catch in her lungs. One man should not look that good! It took every ounce of strength she had not to drop her gaze to his mouth. Then she had to dig deeper to make herself breathe normally again.

She should never have made the trip over. ‘It wasn’t like you picked up a phone to discuss it.’

Broad shoulders shrugged before he slotted her key card into the door. ‘Different time zones. And my schedule has been crazy.’

Cassidy lifted a brow. ‘Liar.’

‘Nope.’ He shouldered the door open. ‘You’re seven hours behind over there. I’ve been dealing with a movie that’s running over budget every second. Any time I had to call you would have been during school hours your end. Plus, if you were worried about making the trip and wanted me to call you, you’d have said so in your e-mails—wouldn’t you?’

She hated it when he used reasoning on her. And when she couldn’t read him the way he did her. Back in the good old days the former had been useful mid-debate, and the latter had been endearing as heck—especially when he’d told her what she was thinking in a husky voice, with his mouth hovering above hers. But now? Now it just kept on making her feel like even more of an idiot than she already did for not realising the physical attraction she’d had for him would be as uncontrollable as it had been before. There was no fighting chemistry. When the pheromones said it worked, it worked. It was up to the brain to list the reasons why it couldn’t.

Setting her gently on her feet by the giant bed, he leaned over to drag the covers back before standing tall and letting a small smile loose. ‘Take it off.’

‘Excuse me?’

He jerked his chin. ‘That industrial-strength whatever-it-is you’re wearing. What is it with women and those boned things, anyway?’

A squeak of outrage sounded in the base of her sore throat. ‘You’re unbelievable. Go away.’

‘I’ll go when you’re all tucked up in bed. Anything happens to you within twenty-four hours of hitting L.A. I might feel guilty for bringing you here…’

Somewhere in the growing red mist of her anger came a question that temporarily made her gape at him. ‘You brought me here? I thought the studio brought me here? Are you telling me you paid for all of this—the flights and the limo pick-up and the fancy room and everything?’

Say no!

‘Yes.’

Uh-oh. Room swaying again. But when his hands grasped her elbows she tugged them away and managed to turn round before she flumped down onto the mattress. Automatically toeing her shoes off her feet, she shook her head and blinked into the middle distance. ‘I thought the studio paid for it.’

‘They paid for a script. We took the money. Now we have to deliver.’

What had she got herself into? She couldn’t be beholden to him. It wasn’t as if she had the money to pay him back—not until they were paid the balance of their advance for the last script. Even then. Every cent was precious. There was no guarantee she could start writing again without Will and make money at it. Not that she’d tried the last time…

A crooked forefinger arrived under her chin and lifted it to force her gaze upwards. Then he examined her eyes for the most maddening amount of time while she held her breath. ‘You need to sleep. I’ll come back later and check up on how you’re feeling.’

‘You don’t have to.’

‘Go take that ridiculous thing off while I’m here—in case you pass out again.’

‘I won’t pass—’

‘Humour me.’

Pursing her lips, she reached for her pyjamas from under the soft pillows, pushed to her feet and scowled at him on her way to the bathroom, ‘I don’t know that I can work with this new bossy Will.’ She lifted her chin. ‘I don’t like him.’

Closing the door with a satisfyingly loud click, she took a second to lean against the wood until the world stopped spinning again. For a long time she’d told herself her life was a mess, but it was a glorious kind of mess. Now she felt very much like dropping the ‘glorious’ part…

She had to sit on the edge of the bathtub to struggle her way out of everything without another dizzy spell. Then she hid the offending underwear under a pile of towels, in case he decided to use the bathroom before he left. Stupid cold! That was what she got for working in a room full of children—she must have incubated the germs on the plane. So much for being considerate and taking the time to see the children through the last term, postponing her trip by a couple of weeks until the summer holidays. They’d repaid her in germs. Bless them.

‘You okay in there?’ He sounded as if he was standing right by the door.

When she yanked it open, he was.

‘You can go away now.’

Will blocked her exit and took his sweet time looking her over from head to toe and back up again, for the second time in as many hours. Only this time it left her skin tingling with more than the cold sweat from her cold. Just one comment about her two-sizes-too-big pyjamas and he was a dead man.

Then his gaze clashed with hers and her eyes widened. What was that?

He stepped back. ‘Bed.’

Cassidy made a big deal about making sure she patted the covers down the full length of her legs when she was between the cool cotton sheets. The room was wonderfully cool too. Had he turned on the air-conditioning for her? Then she saw the glass of water on the bedside table, alongside the remote control for the television, a box of tissues and the large folder with all the hotel’s numbers in it. He’d thought of everything. It was amazingly considerate, actually. It tempered the sharpness brought on by her humiliation, and her voice was calmer as she snuggled down against the large pile of cushions.

‘There. Happy now?’

When she chanced another look at him he had the edges of his dark jacket pushed back and his large hands deep in the pockets of his jeans. He seemed so much larger than she remembered—as if he filled the room. And yet still with those boyishly devastating good looks and that thick head of dark hair, with its upward curls at his nape, and the sharply intelligent eyes that studied her so intensely she felt a need to run and hide…

Half of her silently pleaded with him to go away.

The other half probably wished he’d never left to begin with.

‘I’ll be back later.’

‘You don’t need to. Call in the morning if you like. I’ll sleep.’

The green of his eyes flashed with determination. ‘I’ll be back later.’

The balance of power within Cassidy swayed towards ‘go away’. ‘I won’t open the door Will.’

‘I know.’ He took his hands out of his pockets and backed towards the door, his long legs making the journey in three steps. Then he lifted a hand and casually turned something over between his long fingers like a baton, ‘That’s why I’m keeping your key card.’

Cassidy could have growled at him. But instead she rolled her eyes as she turned away and punched the pillows into shape, hearing the door click quietly shut behind her. After counting to ten, just to be sure, she fought the need to cry. Oh, how much easier it would be if she could hate him…

He was way out of her league now. Way out.

She wanted to go home.

CHAPTER TWO

THE dream was feverish. In the no man’s land between deep sleep and consciousness came vivid images that were a mixture of the past, the present and some imaginary point in time real only in her mind. The sheets knotted around her legs felt cumbersome, still heavy, even though she’d long since kicked the blanket to one side and damp strands of her auburn hair were stuck to her cheeks and her forehead.

She felt awful.

But she was old enough and wise enough to know she was at the sweating-it-out stage. She just had to let it run its course and her body would fight it off. It might mean she was looking at a few days holed up in the hotel room, but it wasn’t as if it was the worst hotel in the world, was it?

The low light from her bedside lamp shone irritatingly through the backs of her eyelids, and voices sounded from the television she had on low volume to help lull her to sleep. She’d never been particularly good with silence. But then neither was she accustomed to the noises of a busy American hotel. So keeping the TV on had seemed like a plan—especially when she’d discovered a channel that showed the familiar programmes she was used to watching at home. That was why it took a moment for her to drag her mind out of its half-slumber into a cognitive state. The door had to have been knocked on several times by then, she figured—with increasing levels of volume…

‘Cass?’ It was Will.

She groaned and croaked back at him. ‘Go away, Will.’

Please go away. Don’t make it worse. Let me die in peace. Then if he wanted to he could come and take her body away and donate it to medical science. She was beyond caring any more.

‘I’m coming in.’

The man had no idea when to take a hint! The next thing she knew the door was open and he was walking in, with a large paper bag in his hand. So she did the mature thing and grabbed a pillow to hold over her face with both hands. Maybe she could suffocate herself…

‘How’s the patient?’

‘Not in the mood for company,’ she mumbled from under the pillow.

‘You have a pillow over your face, so I couldn’t quite hear that. Here, let me help you.’ He pried her fingers loose and removed the pillow. Then he waited for her to squint up at him through narrowed eyes. ‘Hello there.’

Cassidy silently called him a really bad name. ‘Please go away Will.’

Setting the pillow on the other side of her head, he laid the backs of his fingers against her forehead and frowned. ‘When’s the last time you took tablets?’

‘I don’t know—half an hour after you left…maybe…’

‘Time for more.’

Struggling her way into a sitting position, she accepted the tablets he dropped into her palm and washed them down with what was left of the glass of juice on her side table. Then she set the glass back down and lifted her heavy arms to try and tidy her hair before looking up at him from under her lashes.

‘I appreciate what you’re doing, Will. I do. And whatever it is you’ve brought me in the paper bag. But I just need to sleep it out. It’ll be some kind of freaky twenty-four-hour thing, that’s all. I’ve taken my tablets and had some juice, and now I’m going back to sleep. If you leave a number I’ll call you when I wake up. I’m not that bad. Really.’

She then ruined the effect by sneezing with enough force to make it feel as if she’d just blown the top off her aching head. She moaned. Someone should just shoot her.

Will calmly handed her a tissue.

She decided to disgust him to get him to leave, blowing her nose loud enough to alert all shipping routes of an incoming fog.

Will had the gall to look vaguely amused. ‘You need to eat something. I brought you chicken noodle soup.’

How could he? As he reached a large hand into the bag memory slammed into her frontal lobe and ricocheted down her closing throat, wrapping around her heart so tight it made it difficult to breathe. Because he’d done this before, hadn’t he? Only she’d had flu that time. They’d been in the tiny bedsit they’d shared for a while instead of living in halls of residence. As well as bringing her everything she’d needed to feel better, and heating endless pans of chicken noodle soup, he had sat up with her, watched television with her, held her in his arms, smoothed her hair until she fell asleep…

It wasn’t that she’d forgotten. It was just that the memory hadn’t been so vivid in a long time. There had been so many different memories to overshadow it. Heartbreak had a tendency to do that—taking the best of memories and tingeing them with a hint of painful regret for the fact there wouldn’t be more memories made in the future. But right now he was adding a new one. One that was surrounded in bittersweetness because it wasn’t one she could hold onto the same way as the first.

It hurt.

Removing the lid of the soup carton, he wrapped it in a napkin and handed it to her along with a plastic spoon. ‘Here…’

Dampening her lips, she hesitated briefly before reaching for the carton. She had no choice but to slide her fingers over his during the exchange, and a jolt of electricity shot up her arm. Her chest was aching when he slid his fingers away. It would have been easier if he’d just set the carton down. Darn it.

Purposefully she took the spoon from him by grasping the opposite end from his fingers, croaking a low, ‘Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome.’ He inclined his head.

When she blew too hard on the soup, and splattered just enough hot liquid on the back of her hand to make her frown, she glanced up at him and found amusement dancing in his eyes again. He truly was the most irritating man in the world.

Then he sat on the edge of the bed and turned towards her. ‘If you’re not better tomorrow I’ll get a doctor to come see you.’

‘I don’t need a doctor; it’s a cold—not bubonic plague.’

‘And they say men make lousy patients…’

Cassidy shook her head. Then leaned in and blew more gently on her soup to cool it. When she looked up, Will was studying her intently—almost as if he’d never seen her before. It made her sigh for the hundredth time that day. ‘What now?’

‘You changed your hair.’

The words surprised her, but as usual her sarcasm kicked in. ‘Yeah. Women tend to do that a couple of times in eight years. We’re fickle that way.’

‘Still have a smart mouth, though.’

Which apparently gave him leave to drop his gaze and look at it as she formed another pouting ‘O’ to blow air on the soup. She immediately pursed her lips in response. When his thick lashes lifted she scowled at him. ‘Your good deed is done for the day now. You can go and do whatever it is you normally do at this time of night. Wherever you do it and with whomever you do it.’

‘Whomever?’ The corners of his mouth tugged again. ‘Nice use of the English language. Fishing for details, Cass?’

Cassidy had never wanted to scream so much in all her born days. ‘Writers are supposed to have a good grasp of the language. Not that you’d understand that. I spent half our time together correcting your spelling mistakes…’

She really had. It wasn’t that he couldn’t spell, it was just that sometimes his mind worked faster than his typing fingers.

Then she addressed his cockiness. ‘And I’m not fishing. It’s none of my business.’

‘You could try asking me.’

‘I’m sorry. Wasn’t “it’s none of my business” clear enough?’

‘Not the littlest bit curious?’

‘Why would I be?’

The beginning of one of those smiles started in his eyes. And if it started in his eyes first it was devastating when it made it to his mouth. She knew. So she stopped it happening by throwing out somewhat desperate words. ‘Even if you’re free as a bird it doesn’t make any difference. You and me? We’re workmates. Business partners, if you like. Barely platonic ones. We’re like two people stranded on a desert island who have to make the best of it till the next rescue boat arrives—as good as strangers. You don’t know any more about who I am now than I know about—’

‘You’re babbling. You always babble when you’re nervous. Why are you nervous, Cass?’

Screwing up her face, she set the soup carton onto the side table and slid down under the covers, lifting them and tucking them over her head. ‘I hate you. Would you go away? I’m not up to this. You’re still the most annoying man I’ve ever known.’

‘Makes me memorable…’

Cassidy growled, and promptly ended up coughing when the vibration hurt her raw throat. Somewhere mid-cough she heard what sounded like a low chuckle of laughter. She peeked over the edge of the covers ready to scowl at him and found him lifting his brows in a question, a completely unreadable expression on his face. It made her narrow her eyes.

‘You know we need to get on better than this to work together, don’t you?’

She did, and immediately felt like a fool again. ‘Can we try and get on better when I don’t feel like the hotel fell on me?’

‘When you’re weak is probably the best time to talk this through.’

‘That’s evil.’

Will had more difficulty stifling his smile than he had so far. ‘True.’

He wasn’t apologising for it, though, was he? The rat. Cassidy tried hard not to be charmed by it; she did. But a small sparkle-eyed smile was apparently nearly as effective as a killer one, and before she knew it she was smiling back at him. Then she shook her head. ‘I hate you.’

‘Mmm.’ He leaned forward, his large body distractingly close to hers and his familiar scent somehow making it through her blocked nose. ‘You said.’

When he lifted the soup carton Cassidy lifted her gaze to his hair. He had great hair. The colour of dark chocolate, thick enough to tempt a woman’s fingertips, and distinctly male to the touch when she touched it, but soft enough to encourage her to slide her fingers deep…She wished she didn’t remember so much…

Will leaned back. ‘You need to eat.’

‘Bossing me again, Ryan?’

‘Necessary, Malone.’

Without comment she went ahead and sipped at the soup, her gaze flickering to his often enough for her to know he was still watching her. Not that she needed to look to confirm it. She’d always known when Will was looking at her. In the same way she could feel the newfound tension lying between them.

Thick lashes blinked lazily at even intervals, and then he asked, ‘Good?’

‘Mmm-hmm.’ She nodded. ‘Good.’

Looking around the room for a moment, Will folded his dark brows in thought before he took a deep breath and focused on her again. ‘I think you should stay at my place while you’re in L.A.’

Cassidy almost choked on her soup. He had a knack of doing that to her. But he couldn’t be serious! There was no way she could go and stay at his place—be under the same roof with him twenty-four-seven. They were barely managing to make civil conversation between his short sentences and her loose tongue. And now he wanted them somewhere they couldn’t escape from each other? Oh, yeah. That would help.

Then she thought about the fact he was paying for the hotel room she was in and felt guilty. Maybe if she found a computer and checked her meager bank account she could discover somewhere cheap and cheerful to stay? It didn’t need to be fancy: a bed, a door that locked, a shower, a minimal number of cockroaches…