A Modern Cinderella

Who was she kidding? Cassidy had always been one of those people that needed to know. Christmas presents—she shook them. Books—she read the last pages before she got halfway through them. Favourite TV shows—she trawled the internet looking for spoilers for a new series before the episodes made it to the screen. There was about as much chance of her not asking as—

‘So tell me more about Malibu.’

‘What do you want to know?’

‘Whatever you decide to tell me…’

She looked out through the windscreen at the glittering aquamarine blue of the Pacific Ocean, the thrill of seeing it for the first time bringing a soft smile to her mouth. She had always loved the ocean. Not surprising, really, when she lived on a tiny island surrounded by it. But there was just something about the ebb and flow of the tide…as if it was the subliminal heartbeat of the planet. Every time she saw the sea it made her smile. Seeing the Pacific for the first time was like meeting a new friend.

‘That’s the Pacific. Beautiful, isn’t she?’

‘She is.’ Cassidy allowed herself to wonder why anything associated with the sea was always a ‘she’. Probably something to do with moods and unpredictability and seduction, she supposed. From that point of view it was easy to see why seafaring men of old would have chosen the feminine to describe her.

‘Malibu hugs the Pacific north of Santa Monica. It has over twenty miles of coastline. Surfing is the big thing, obviously—endless opportunities for catching the perfect wave…’

The smile she could hear in his voice made her turn to look at his strong profile; the flicker of his thick dark lashes as he watched the traffic was unbelievably hypnotic to her. ‘You surf?’

The corner of his mouth tugged. ‘Used to. Don’t have as much time now…’

A sudden visual image of Will walking out of the surf, glistening with water and shaking his head to loosen silvery droplets from his thick hair while he smiled that smile, did all sorts of delicious things to Cassidy’s libido and left her mouth unbearably dry. There were times her active imagination took on a life of its own—useful in writerly terms, but not so useful when she was supposed to be thinking in terms of Will as a business partner. There could be no thinking of him bare-chested. Or towelling his hair for him. Or lying down on a large blanket beside him on warm sand.

Goodness, it was hot all of a sudden…

‘It’s part of the reason I bought a house on the beach.’

Suddenly staying at his house was looking more attractive to her. But…‘You bought a house on the beach so you could surf more, and then quit surfing? That makes perfect sense.’

He shrugged. ‘Just the way it worked out.’

The house they pulled up in front of looked small and cosy. The sound of the ocean filled her ears as she stepped outside into warm salty air that made her breathe deep and appreciate the difference in air quality after the lack of oxygen in Los Angeles. But when Will unlocked the front door and stepped back to allow her to go ahead of him her eyes widened. Okay, it wasn’t small and cosy. Will’s house was…Well, it was amazing…

The deceptive frontage on the road made it look like it was just the one storey, and not all that big, when in fact it was split level and stretched for miles, with its lower level suspended above golden sands outside so that the huge picture windows made it look as if the entire house was floating above the waves. Open-plan, rich wooden floors, sparse furniture that didn’t take anything from the views. It was very male, very modern, but stunningly beautiful.

It yelled money from every corner.

When Cassidy hovered at the top of the stairs, Will closed the front door and stepped over beside her. ‘The view sold it.’

‘Well, it would, wouldn’t it?’

‘Kitchen, living room, gym, home cinema and office are all on the lower level. Your room is over here to the left.’ He took her case in that direction while she continued staring out of the windows.

Now she knew why Lizzie had fallen for Pemberley before she fell for Darcy. Because the part of Cassidy’s soul that loved the ocean could live happily ever after in a house like Will’s. Give or take a few feminine touches. If she lived there she would have bright comfy cushions on the large sofas, flowers in vases, books on the almost empty shelves where pieces of modern art were displayed. She could picture it in her mind’s eye. She could practically hear music playing from an invisible stereo, laughter echoing off the walls, and the sound of small, running bare feet coming in from the beach. It made her heart hurt. How dared he have the house of her dreams? It was as if he’d purposely gone out and stolen every dream she’d ever had and held it from her, to add to breaking her heart the way he had.

She genuinely hated him for that.

With a deep breath she turned on her heel and followed Will along the hall that skirted the floor below, rolling her eyes when she got to the open doorway and looked in at the bedroom she would be staying in. Of course it had the same ocean view. And naturally Will was sliding open the glass windows so the sea breeze caught the light curtains. Was there ever any doubt it would have its own balcony, with comfy lounge chairs just waiting to be occupied so she could watch the sunset at the end of the day?

Stepping into a little corner of heaven, she plunked down on the end of the large bed and allowed herself to bounce just once on the deep mattress while she fought the need to cry. It really wasn’t fair. How could he? What had she ever done to him to deserve this kind of torture?

Will turned from the windows and pushed his hands deep into the pockets of his dark jeans as he studied her. ‘Tired?’

Weary would have been a better word, she felt. ‘A little. Coffee would probably help. And I should take some tablets again, just in case.’

‘Okay.’ He nodded. ‘Did you have breakfast?’

‘No.’

‘Yeah, that’ll help you get better. Will bagels and lox do?’

‘Depends.’ Cassidy lifted her chin, stifled a wry smile and arched a brow. ‘What is lox, exactly?’

His eyes sparkled. ‘It’s smoked salmon. Bagels with cream cheese and smoked salmon.’

‘Ahh.’

‘Is that “Yes, Will”?’

A more genuine smile broke free as she inclined her head. ‘Yes, Will. Thank you. Bagels and lox sounds lovely.’

As if to emphasise her approval her stomach growled softly, making Will’s mouth twitch as he left the room. ‘Come down when you’re ready. Feed a cold and all that…’

She wished he would stop being nice. Annoying Will her heart could cope with. But if he started adding Nice Will to the house she’d fallen in love with at first sight she would be in even bigger trouble than she had been twenty-four hours ago.

Lying back on the bed, she turned her head and closed her eyes, breathing as deep as her aching chest would allow while she compared Will’s life to the one she had. It wasn’t hard to see who had fared better. If her self-confidence had been low before she’d stepped on the plane in Dublin, it was pretty much sitting at the bottom of a dark pit of despair now. She really needed to do something that would make her feel like herself again. But that was just it. Since Will, she’d never really discovered who Cassidy Malone was without him. Maybe it was time to find out?

After all, she was in the house of her dreams in California, a stone’s throw away from the industry she still found completely absorbing—even from the periphery, as a viewer of the art form. It was a step in the right direction, wasn’t it? Nothing ventured, nothing gained?

She slapped her palms against the cool covers and sat upright, reaching into her bag for her tablets and taking them with her as she left the room. Coffee, bagels and lox, tablets—and then she was going to start work and see if she still remembered how to write. That was somewhere to start…

CHAPTER THREE

‘THAT’S the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.’

‘How is it?’

‘How is it not?’ She blinked incredulously at him, then continued looking around the large glass desk for the pen she knew she’d had five minutes ago. ‘You want them to find a hidden nuclear warhead in the middle of an archaeological dig?’

Will allowed a pen to twirl between his thumb and forefinger, as if teasing her with it because she couldn’t find her own. ‘We need explosions.’

‘A nuclear warhead is a little more than a simple explosion. And how on earth did the terrorist group get the thing down there, when we’ve already said that no one has discovered the site after centuries of searching?’ Cassidy shook her head, lifting discarded scene cards in her search.

‘We can change that. It’s one line.’ His pen stilled and his deep voice informed her, ‘Behind your ear.’

‘What?’ She scowled at him, her pulse hitching when she realised how intensely he was staring at her as he lounged in his chair and swung it from side to side. That chair had been driving her crazy. It had a squeak. She’d have thought a man of Will’s means could afford a can of oil to fix something that irritating, but no. He just kept swinging and squeaking, and swinging and squeaking, until she thought she might have to kill him.

He jerked his chin at her. ‘Your pen. It’s behind your ear.’

When she reached up her hand she sighed; of course it was.

Retrieving the pen from behind her ear, she reached for the last card he’d scrawled notes on and scribbled through half of it forcefully. ‘Rachel wouldn’t be seen dead wearing that either. You’re turning her into a sex object.’

The chair squeaked back and forth. ‘Bad boy hero, sexy heroine, explosions, treasure hunt, hint of romance—all the ingredients of a blockbuster, trust me…’

‘The box office is all that matters to you, is it?’ Cassidy began rhythmically tapping the end of her pen on the glass tabletop. ‘Forget telling a story, or little things such as character arc and continuity.’

‘We’re still at the brainstorming stage. We’re miles away from character arc and continuity. This is the fun part.’

Really? Because Cassidy hadn’t noticed the ‘fun part’ so much. It was almost as if Will was determined to get her to argue with him. Surely a man with his experience in the business knew better than to fall into the usual traps of cliché and plot device? If she didn’t know better she might say he was playing with her on purpose…

While she considered the possibility of that with narrowed eyes, she tapped her pen harder and faster against the glass. Will continued to add to the ambient noise with the squeaking of his chair.

Then his mouth twitched and he nodded at her pen. ‘That could get irritating after a while…’

‘You think?’ She lifted her brows and tapped the pen harder. ‘Like the squeaking of your chair, perhaps?’

When she pouted there was a split second of silence as the tapping and the squeaking stopped. Then, out of nowhere, they both laughed at the same time. Cassidy tossed the pen down, running her palms over her face as she groaned loudly. The man was making her insane!

Residual laughter sounded in the deep rumble of Will’s voice. ‘Time for a break.’

It only occurred to her that his voice sounded closer when warm hands closed over hers to lift them from her face, and she found herself tilting her chin up to look into the green of his gaze. He was gorgeous. Take-a-girl’s-breath-away gorgeous. Her heart thundered against her breastbone loud enough for her to hear it in her ears as he smiled a small smile that darkened his eyes a shade, then lowered her hands before stepping back and gently tugging her upright.

‘I need food.’

‘Again? We ate less than an hour ago.’ There had been sandwiches. Cassidy definitely remembered there being sandwiches.

‘Five hours ago.’

It was? She looked out of the windows as Will turned, keeping hold of one of her wrists to draw her towards the door. Sure enough, outside the light was changing, the tide was turning and people were beginning to—

Hang on a minute. Why did Will still have hold of her wrist?

Turning her head, she dropped her chin and frowned down at the human handcuff. Long fingers were lightly hooked over her pulse-point, but they were hooked nevertheless, and he was walking them through the living area towards the kitchen. She couldn’t take a chance on him realising what he did to her pulse. So she gently twisted her wrist and reclaimed it, frowning all the harder at the fact her skin still tingled where he had touched.

Will glanced briefly over his shoulder, then walked to the giant refrigerator and looked inside. ‘Steaks okay with you? We can flame-grill them on the deck.’

‘Sounds more than fine with me.’ She stopped at the end of the narrow breakfast bar and rested her palms on the granite surface. ‘What can I do to help?’

‘Chop some salad, if you like. Use whatever you fancy out of the fridge.’

Cassidy forgot herself and smiled as he reappeared, tossed the steaks down on the counter and reached into a drawer for barbecue utensils. ‘You have the weirdest accent now, you know. Tang of American, but still using Irish phrases.’

A brief sideways glance of sparkle-eyed amusement was aimed her way. ‘You can take the boy out of Ireland…’

She rolled her eyes.

Will jerked his dark brows as he unwrapped the steaks. ‘Everyone does it. You spend time in a certain environment, surrounded by people who talk a certain way, and you absorb some of it. It’s probably a subliminal need for acceptance.’

The idea that a man like Will would feel the need for acceptance anywhere momentarily baffled Cassidy. Maybe she was reading too much into it? She was known to do that. A lot of women were. She stepped towards the fridge to have a poke around for salad ingredients. ‘Was it weird at first? Living here, I mean?’

‘In Malibu or in California?’

When he reached past her for a bottle of sauce Cassidy’s breathing hitched. He’d bent his upper body over hers, had reached his arm over her shoulder and brushed his fingertips against her hair on the way past, surrounding her for a fleeting moment with an intensely male body heat that contrasted so very sharply with the cold air from the refrigerator’s interior. It had an immediate visceral reaction on her. Goosebumps broke out on her skin, her abdomen tensed, her breasts grew heavy. She even had to swallow hard to dampen her dry mouth and close her eyes to stifle a low moan.

For crying out loud—she knew it had been a long time since she’d last made love, but it was really no excuse for the compulsive need she suddenly felt to turn round and launch herself at him, so they could spend several hours seeing if they still remembered how to play each other’s bodies like fine instruments…

One, two, three breaths of cool, refrigerated air—then she reappeared from behind the door with an iceberg lettuce, tomatoes, a cucumber, and two different bottles of salad dressing. When she chanced a sideways glance at Will she found him on the other side of the breakfast bar, studying her intently.

‘Malibu or California?’

‘What?’

‘You asked was it weird living here. I asked Malibu or California.’

Oh, yes, that was right. She had done that. ‘California.’

‘Yes.’

She set her things on the counter and lifted a brow. ‘Malibu?’

‘No.’

When light danced across his eyes she knew he was messing with her, so she shook her head. ‘A bowl for this stuff?’

‘Second cupboard on the left, underneath you.’

‘So why was California weird?’ She opened the cupboard and hunched down to look inside.

‘Why don’t you hit me with your first impressions and I’ll tell you if I felt the same way when I got here…’ The sound of doors sliding told her he had moved towards the deck.

By the time she came back up, with a large wooden bowl in hand, he was firing up the outdoor grill. So she found a knife and a chopping board all on her own, while raising her voice to continue the conversation. ‘Way more people, nobody smiles and says hello the way they do at home, hotter, brighter—drier. Nothing as green as you’d see in Ireland. Food’s different, television is different, the cars people drive are different…Some things are familiar, but the vast majority of differences outshadow them…’

Will was smiling yet another small smile as he came back in, the sea breeze outside having created unruly waves in his dark hair that made him look even more boyish than he already did in his simple white T-shirt and blue jeans combo. No one would ever look at the man and put him in his early thirties. Good genetics, Cassidy supposed. His kids would inherit that anti-ageing gene, and the boys would all look like him, wouldn’t they? With dark hair that even when tamed would rebel, with that outward flick at the nape, and green eyes that sparkled with amusement, and the charm of the devil when they wanted something, and—

Cassidy couldn’t believe she was standing in his beautiful house and picturing dozens of mini-Wills standing between them. She’d be naming them next. Maybe her biological clock was kicking in?

‘In other words weird…’

She smiled as she chopped. ‘Okay. Point taken. So why is Malibu different?’

‘It’s not so crowded here. The air’s better.’ He shrugged his shoulders as he turned bottles of wine on a rack to read the labels. ‘Quieter. More private. I’d lived in California long enough by the time I bought this place that it wasn’t so alien to me any more. But this was the first place I felt I could call home.’

‘You don’t see Ireland as home any more?’

‘I see it as where I come from, and a part of who I am, but I have my life in California now.’

Cassidy had known that for a long time. But hearing him say it didn’t make it any easier. It was another thing that highlighted how different they were. Somehow she knew she would always see Ireland as home. She had thirty years’ worth of memories there—not all of them good, granted. But it was the good and the bad that made her who she was—for better or worse. A part of her would always ache for the green, green grass of home if she left it behind. The fact Will had left everything behind without any apparent sense of poignancy made her wonder if he remembered their time together the same way she did. Or remembered that he had said he loved her.

Maybe the harsh truth was he hadn’t. Not the way she had loved him. If he had he would never have left her, would he?

The sound of a cork popping brought her gaze back to him as he set a bottle of red wine on the counter to breathe. But when he reached for deep bowled glasses and she opened her mouth to remind him of the dangers of her errant tongue and alcohol, he surprised her.

‘Why teaching?’ he asked.

She frowned in confusion. ‘What?’

‘Why teaching?’ He turned around and leaned back against the counter, folding his arms across his chest and studying her with hooded eyes. ‘I don’t remember you ever showing an interest in it when I knew you before.’

Well, no, because when he’d known her she’d still had dreams that felt as if they were within her grasp. Then she’d been given a harsh reality check. She shrugged and tossed the chopped-up salad ingredients in the bowl. ‘Necessity to start with, I guess. I needed a job with a regular wage. If I was going to spend a good portion of my life working, it made sense to me to be doing something I might enjoy…’

‘Do you?’

‘Do I what?’

‘Enjoy it?’

‘I’d enjoy it more if I was better paid.’ She shot him a brief smile, then concentrated on reading the labels on the salad dressings. ‘I like little kids. They think in straight lines. They still believe in magic. Adults get the magic knocked out of them with age. Every day when I spend time with a classroom full of kids, and they do or say or discover something that makes me smile, I get a little of that magic back for a minute.’

When he remained silent, curiosity made her turn her head so she could try and read his expression. He was still staring at her, thick lashes still at half-mast so she couldn’t see his eyes properly. It was disconcerting.

Then he tugged on a ragged corner of her heart with a low, rumbled comment. ‘You used to believe in magic more than anyone I’d ever met…’

Cassidy felt a hard lump forming in her throat, and immediately felt the need to turn her face away, dropping her chin and hiding behind a strand of hair that had escaped from her up do as she tried to open the lid of the salad dressing. ‘Like I said. It gets knocked out of you with age.’

Was this lid cemented on? She pursed her lips and felt the cap digging into her palm as she tried twisting it with a little more force, shifting her shoulder so she was literally putting her back into it, while forcing words out through tight lips at the same time.

‘Just part—of life—that’s all. Nobody’s fault. Or any—’

A large hand settled lightly over her fingers and Cassidy’s chin snapped up. He gently removed the bottle from her hand and opened it with one deft twist of his wrist. Then he held it out for her, warmth shining from his eyes and the corners of his mouth tugging upwards. ‘Borderline babbling again, Malone.’

Sighing heavily, she reached for the bottle. ‘You’re the one in charge of the magic these days—industry of dreams and all that. Maybe I handed on the baton.’

Will’s head lowered closer to hers, his voice dropping an octave. ‘You’re saying I couldn’t make magic back in the day?’ Apparently it was enough to bring one of those smiles her way. ‘I think my ego might be bruised.’

That wasn’t the kind of magic she’d meant. But before she could form a coherent sentence he turned away, lifting the steaks from the counter-top and walking out onto the deck. Leaving Cassidy staring through the glass at him and feeling distinctly confused. Her inability to read him was really starting to bug her.

Once the steaks were on the fancy stainless steel grill he had on the deck, Will closed the lid and came back to the open door, leaning on the frame and studying her before he took a deep breath and asked, ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Better.’ She smiled before turning to put away everything she hadn’t used. ‘I’ve stayed upright for more than twenty-four hours now—go me.’

‘How do you feel about a trip tomorrow?’

Cassidy’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. ‘Where to?’

‘Magic land…’

Leaning forward in her seat on the golf cart, Cassidy couldn’t help but grin like an idiot at her surroundings. It was better than Christmas as far as she was concerned.

‘You want to stop and take a look around?’

Yes! She turned to nod enthusiastically at Will. ‘Please.’

It might have seemed like an ordinary street to some people, but to Cassidy it really was magic land. From the second they’d pulled up at the studio’s parking lot it had been nigh on impossible to keep the smile off her face. She’d dreamed about places like this for most of her life—but to actually be there…

To Will, visiting the back lots of a studio was probably like taking a busman’s holiday, but there wasn’t a single thing that Cassidy didn’t find fascinating, with an almost child-like glee. Every large warehouse structure they passed was the cover of a storybook waiting to be opened; every extra in full costume was someone she wanted to talk to; every truck full of props was an adventure playground. And the streets of the back lot, with houses and storefronts and windows and open doorways, were just calling out for fictional characters to live there and tell their stories. Cassidy could practically see them walking around, hear their voices as they spoke.

She even found her imagination filling in the words…

With her short lap belt undone, she turned in her seat and found Will standing beside the open-sided cart. He held out a large hand to help her down, and in her excitement Cassidy forgot all the reasons why she shouldn’t let him hold on to the hand she slipped into his as he led her down the deserted pseudo-New York street.