A Modern Cinderella

Cassidy opened her mouth to tell him to go straight to—

But he looked her in the eye and knocked the air out of her lungs by saying, ‘You blame me for our break-up, don’t you?’

He wasn’t done, either. Not content with opening the can of worms, he then twisted the knife she felt she had in her chest by adding, ‘Maybe you should just take a minute and remember who it was that did the breaking up before I left…’

The sharp gasp of air hurt her already raw throat.

Then a muted doorbell sounded, and the door at the top of the stairs was flung open. ‘Hello? Anybody home? Time to put down the keyboard!’

Cassidy had a brief glimpse of the frown on Will’s face before she snapped her head around to watch with wide eyes as Angelique appeared. If it wasn’t surprise enough finding out that the woman had a key to Will’s house, there was then a thundering of footsteps and a small blonde-haired ball of energy ran down the stairs, across the wooden floor, and launched itself into Will’s waiting arms.

‘Uncle Will!’

Uncle Will? Cassidy couldn’t help it; her jaw dropped. Not just at the sight of the little girl throwing her small arms around the column of his neck. What really amazed her was Will’s expression as he held her. He was transformed. Gone was the intense, unreadable, pain-in-the-rear Will, and in his place was a man who looked as if he’d just shed five years. Light danced in his eyes, he grinned broadly, and there was the sound of deep, rumbling, happy laughter before he made an exaggerated groan and leaned his head back to look down at her.

‘Hey, munchkin.’

‘We brought a picnic!’

‘Did you, now?’ He lifted his dark brows as he looked in Angelique’s direction, ‘Did I know we were having a picnic?’

‘It’s a surprise, silly!’ the little girl informed him.

‘Indeed it is,’ he answered dryly.

Angelique had made it to Cassidy’s side. ‘This is what happens when you two stand me up for dinner. Script or no script, you still have to eat.’

Will looked up as he bent to set the child on her feet. ‘We have managed to feed ourselves on our own. Ever hear of a little thing called a phone, Angie?’

‘Ah, but if we’d phoned ahead it wouldn’t be a surprise, would it?’

‘Remind me to ask for my key back some time.’

Cassidy was rapidly putting two and two together. She even found her gaze sliding across to the little girl who was tugging on Will’s jeans to see if she could see any similarities between them. Having had such vivid images of miniature Wills in her mind since she’d arrived in his gorgeous house, she felt the ragged edges of her heart grate painfully at the thought of finding any. She didn’t want Will to have any children she might be forced to look at. The thought of him having them with any woman who wasn’t her was apparently painful enough.

Which made no sense whatsoever, considering how much she currently disliked him and how close they had been to a major argument not five minutes earlier.

‘Uncle Will?’

He hunched down to look the little girl in the eye; the thoughtfulness of the simple act made Cassidy’s heart hurt all over again. ‘Yes, munchkin, what can I do for you?’

‘The picnic’s for the beach.’

‘Is it indeed?’

She nodded enthusiastically. ‘And I brought my swimsuit and my bodyboard.’

‘Ah.’ Will pursed his mouth into a thin line and frowned almost comically at her, before taking a deep breath through his nose. ‘We’d better go check the sea is still there, then, hadn’t we?’

The little girl giggled, and Cassidy found herself smiling at them as Angelique linked their arms at the elbow and lowered her voice conspiratorially. ‘Sometimes I wonder who has who wrapped around their little finger. I hope you’ve brought a bikini with you?’

The thought of publicly displaying her body on a Malibu beach next to the goddess that was Angelique Warden made Cassidy want to curl up in a ball and die. That was not happening in this lifetime. Not that she owned a bikini to begin with, but still…

‘Will could give you a surfing lesson while he’s helping Lily bodyboard.’

Cassidy’s gaze shifted sharply and crashed into Will’s as he stood to his full height. Then her troublesome imagination revisited the image she’d had of him emerging from the surf and she swallowed hard. For a moment she even thought she could hear herself making a gulping noise.

Thick lashes blinked while he stared at her. The intensity returning to his gaze was even fiercer than before. Oh, please, please don’t let now be one of the times when he can read my mind, she silently pleaded. There was only so much humiliation she could take.

Then he nodded. ‘You’ll need sunscreen. Beach towels are in the laundry room. Angie knows where everything is.’

Before Cassidy could protest, he turned his attention to Lily. ‘Right, then. While Cass and I get changed, you and your mom can go get this picnic we’ve been promised. Are there cookies?’

‘Duh, Uncle Will.’

Despite many, many, many carefully worded protests, Cassidy found herself on the beach—thankfully in a swimsuit rather than a bikini. Even that was covered by a thigh-length light shirt. Smothered in the highest factor sunscreen she’d packed, she also had the large-brimmed straw hat Angelique had left behind on her last visit to Will’s house on her head. She had the prerequisite sunglasses on, and had bent one knee as artfully as she could manage as she sat on the large blanket beside the bikini-clad Angelique. If people squinted Cassidy reckoned they might look like nineteen-fifties movie star next to modern-day goddess. Hopefully. After all, women had been adored for their hourglass figures back then—which meant, as always, her timing was severely off. Not that it made her feel any more comfortable in her own skin.

Watching Will playing in the surf with Lily was the worst form of water torture she’d ever been submitted to. It was just plain wrong to be drooling at the sight of him in long swim shorts—bare chest, toned, tanned, gorgeous enough to die for—while he played with a small child. Especially if he was that small child’s father, and she was sitting chatting to the woman he’d made that child with. Cassidy had never had a worse case of the green-eyed monster in all her life.

‘Lily adores him.’ Angelique was smiling at them when Cassidy looked her way. ‘He’ll make a great father some day.’

Cassidy exhaled with relief as quietly as she could manage it. ‘She’s gorgeous.’

‘Obviously I think so. But then I’m a tad biased. Do you have kids, Cass?’

‘Thirty of them.’ She smiled at Angelique’s expression. ‘I’m a schoolteacher.’

‘Ahh. You scared me for a minute.’

Despite a lingering modicum of jealousy over her relationship with Will, Cassidy found herself warming to Angie. She wasn’t at all the way the tabloids portrayed her. And seeing her obvious love for her daughter humanised her.

Turning onto her stomach, Angie swung her feet back and forth in the air and studied Cassidy from behind her sunglasses. ‘Did you and Will ever talk about having kids when you were together?’

It was a very personal question, but by asking it she’d already shown she knew there had been more to their relationship than being scriptwriting duo Ryan and Malone. The thing was, talking about their relationship with someone who might well be in, or have been in, a similar relationship with Will made Cassidy uncomfortable.

So she sought a simple answer. ‘We were young.’

The fact she’d said it with a shrug of her shoulders didn’t seem to fool Angie. ‘Ever since I’ve known Will he’s been reluctant to talk about you. It took us to get him drunk one night before he would even talk about growing up in Ireland…’

He’d talked about his childhood? Wow. Cassidy wondered if Angie knew what a big deal that was for Will. She’d been dating him for nearly a year before she’d got the full story—though in fairness she hadn’t had to get him drunk.

But her brain had latched onto one seemingly insignificant word. ‘Us?’

Angie examined the perfectly manicured fingernails on one hand. ‘Lily’s father—my on-again off-again partner Eric—is one of Will’s best friends. It’s how I got to know Will. And why he’s Lily’s godfather.’

Immediately Cassidy’s gaze sought them out again in the sea. Will was swinging the little girl round and round in circles, while she squealed in delight and he grinned boyishly at her. ‘Oh.’

She’d got that one completely wrong, then, hadn’t she?

There was a chuckle of laughter. ‘Yes, I wondered if you’d thought that. You’re delightfully easy to read, aren’t you? I can’t tell you how refreshing that is in Hollywood.’

Heat built on Cassidy’s cheeks that had absolutely nothing to do with the sun.

‘Can I ask you a question, Cass?’

A sense of dread made her cringe as she looked down at the woman she had a sneaking suspicion was about to ask the one question she didn’t want to answer. ‘Depends on what it is.’

Angelique smiled. ‘I’ve wondered why Will didn’t bring you with him.’

‘When he moved here from Ireland?’

‘Yes. You were quite the writing team, on top of the relationship you had.’

Okay, not the question she’d been waiting for. Maybe that was why she answered it honestly, her chin dropping and her voice lowering even though there wasn’t any chance he could hear her from where he was. ‘I couldn’t leave.’

‘So he did ask?’

‘Yes.’ It was a simplistic answer to a situation that had been very complicated.

There was a moment of silence, then, ‘Do you regret it?’

Cassidy smiled sadly. ‘That’s not an easy one to answer. It’s not a case of regretting; it’s more of a case of what was right and what was wrong at the time, and what was meant to be and what wasn’t. And I have no idea why I’m telling you this…’

‘Maybe you need a friend?’ Angelique waited until Cassidy looked at her, and then she nodded sharply and beamed. ‘I’ve decided I like you, Cass. I think we’ll be great friends. You don’t treat me like a movie star, and that’s a huge bonus.’

Cassidy lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. ‘You are a movie star.’

Angie lowered her voice to a similar level, ‘Shh. Somebody might hear you.’

They were laughing when the sun was suddenly blocked out, forcing Cassidy to shade her eyes with a hand as she looked up at the dark silhouette surrounded by bright light.

‘Ready for your surfing lesson?’

CHAPTER FIVE

‘I DON’T actually want a surfing lesson. Honestly.’

‘Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.’ Will turned round and took the two steps required to get to where she’d been dragging her heels. Reaching out, he captured her wrist in long fingers and tugged her along behind him. ‘You might like it.’

‘I’ll sink like a whale,’ she grumbled.

‘Whales don’t sink; they swim. So will you.’ He threw a frown over his shoulder as he continued tugging her along the sand, ‘Stop being paranoid about your weight, Cass. Women are supposed to curve. I’m sick to death of being surrounded by stick-thin women counting the calories in a bottle of water.’

Trying to free her wrist was getting her nowhere. ‘Bullying me again, Ryan?’

‘Nope. Forcing you to have a good time. It’s for your own good. You seem to have forgotten how.’

‘Said by the man who doesn’t have time to go surfing, having bought a house by the ocean for that very purpose? I think you’ll find that falls into the category of I will when you will,’ she retorted.

He stopped so suddenly she careened into the wall of his back, and grunted in a very unladylike manner before scowling up at his face.

The sight of his face leaning closer to hers made her eyes widen. That was before he lowered his voice and rumbled a meaningful, ‘Oh, I know how to have fun, Cass. Don’t you worry…’

Judging by the glint in his eyes, he wasn’t talking about surfing fun either.

Standing back a little, he frowned at her body. ‘That’s got to go.’

When he released her wrist, she lifted both hands to grip hold of her shirt as if he might try to remove it at any second. ‘The shirt stays.’

Will folded his arms across the sculpted chest she was trying very hard not to look at. ‘You do know it’s going to be transparent in the water, don’t you?’

Actually, that thought hadn’t occurred to her. But now he’d pointed it out she was even less likely to participate in a surfing lesson than she had been sixty seconds ago…

She started backing away. ‘Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m famished. I’ve heard a rumour there’s a picnic on the go, so I think we should just—’

There was a short chuckle of deep male laughter, and then he leaned over and captured her wrist again, shaking his head as he tugged her forward. ‘Down on your stomach on the board…’

Huh? Her gaze dropped and discovered a surfboard on the sand. She scowled at his words. ‘On my stomach? On the board?’

He ducked down a little to get her attention, his nose mere inches from hers. ‘Surfing lesson—remember?’

‘I thought it would be in the water.’ How was she supposed to think straight when he was so close?

Will’s gaze dropped briefly to her mouth when she dampened her lips, then lifted to tangle with hers for equally as brief a moment before he leaned back and looked down at the board. ‘Basics on dry land. Then we go in the water.’

Well, how was she supposed to know that? Okay, on her stomach—with Will standing over her, looking down at her rear. Cassidy silently prayed for a tidal wave…

‘Why am I getting on my stomach?’

‘Because that’s what you do to paddle the board out far enough to catch an incoming wave…’

Right. Except that statement presupposed she actually wanted to catch a wave—which frankly she didn’t. Waves shouldn’t be caught. Cassidy believed they should be allowed to roam the earth in freedom, with all their other wave friends. She might even start a campaign of some kind: Save the Wave. Catchy, she thought.

She sighed heavily, focused her mind on another method of stalling Will, and came up with, ‘Maybe you should demonstrate first?’

With a shake of his head that indicated he was fully aware of what she was doing, Will dropped onto the board, leaving her staring down at him in the same way she’d feared he would stare at her. Somehow she had the feeling her view was much better than his would be. Then he started to move his arms, and she became fascinated with the play of muscles on his tanned back. Was he working out nowadays? She didn’t remember him being so…toned…

‘Paddle evenly with both arms, and then turn and watch for a wave. Try to time it so you jump to your feet as it hits your board.’ He demonstrated by jumping lithely to his feet and reaching his arms out to his sides for balance. ‘Then use your feet to steer the board. If you shift your weight to your toes you’ll go one way; rock back onto your heels and you go the other.’

He made it sound so easy. But his description of brain surgery would probably consist of Pop skull open, move jelly stuff around and put lid back on. Whereas Cassidy suspected her version of surfing would involve less of the standing up and more of the getting wet and spluttering as she tried to get salt water out of her lungs.

‘Your turn.’ Will stepped off the board and quirked his brows when she hesitated, his voice lowering and his eyes sparkling. ‘Chicken. Whatever happened to the hunger to learn and the spirit of adventure you used to have?’

Cassidy threw another scowl at him, pursed her lips and lowered herself cautiously onto the board. ‘I really do hate you, you know.’

‘No, you don’t.’ He hunched down beside her.

When she was on her stomach, she looked up at him in time to see his gaze rise from studying her body. It made her laugh. ‘Oh, yes, I do.’

The first time she attempted jumping up to her feet she fell over, but managed to get a hand on the hot sand to help right herself. Will encouraged her with a low, ‘Try again.’

The second time she fell on her rear, and frowned hard at his obvious amusement. He cleared his throat and held out a hand to help her up. ‘Again.’

Cassidy growled at him. ‘When does it start to be fun, exactly?’

The third time was the charm. She not only fell over, she fell on Will, and toppled him backwards onto the sand, creating a tangle of legs and forcing him to wrap her body in his arms. Yup—her run of incredible luck had continued. Because when she puffed air at the loose strand of hair that had got in her eyes and looked down her face was inches away from his. And he was smiling one of those smiles.

Someone, somewhere really had it in for her.

The heat from his bare chest seeped through the thin material of her shirt and made every cell of her body unbearably aware of where she was fitted against him. It was like being set on fire. She felt the lack of oxygen to her brain making her dizzy, felt the ache of physical awareness so keenly it almost snapped her in two. Then one large hand lifted, and impossibly gentle fingertips brushed her hair back and tucked the strand behind her ear.

Cassidy felt her heart beating so hard against her sensitised breasts that she was certain Will must feel the erratic rhythm too. She needed to say something funny to break the tension—needed to move as far away from him as possible before he realised how damn turned on she was—needed—

She saw his throat convulse before he took a deep breath that crushed her breasts tighter to the wall of his chest. ‘We should try again.’

What? Her eyes widened at the words. He couldn’t possibly mean—

Will studied her eyes, then rolled her to the side. ‘You need to pick a point in front of you to focus on as you jump onto your feet. That’ll make it easier to balance…’

Struggling awkwardly to her feet while she felt her cheeks burning, Cassidy avoided his gaze and frowned at her foolishness—or her wishful thinking, or whatever it was that had made her heart leap the way it had. ‘If I can’t do this on dry land I don’t see how I stand a bat’s chance of doing it on moving water.’

While she bent over to swipe the sand off her legs, Will’s deep voice sounded above her head. ‘Don’t give up so easy, Cass. Some things are worth the effort.’

Her gaze shot up to tangle with his and he shrugged. ‘You love the ocean. Always did. Makes sense that anything that allows you to appreciate it more you’ll end up enjoying.’

Several hours later she discovered he was right. The fact he’d been just the right degree of persuasive, determined and patient at varying stages to get her to that point had not gone unnoticed either. Any more than she’d failed to notice when he saw his theory on the transparency of her shirt when wet had been right too.

It was her last attempt. She managed to stay upright long enough to ride the wave for several feet, and the exhilaration of achievement burst forth from her lips in joyous laughter at the same time as Will let out a victory yell. When she inevitably fell off and surfaced from the water, lifting her hands to smooth her wet hair back from her face as she grinned like an idiot, she looked up—and her grin faltered. He had hold of the board as he waded towards her, waist deep in water the same way she was. But then he lifted his chin, his gaze travelling across the foaming surface and sliding up her body oh-so-very-slowly.

When he looked into her eyes the heat she could see both robbed her of her ability to breathe and slammed into her midriff with such force that the next wave almost made her lose her footing in the shifting sands.

For the longest time they stared at each other. The ebb and flow of the tide dragging her abdomen back and forth was all too evocative, considering the ferocity of her physical desire, and eliciting a low moan from the base of her throat that the wind thankfully dragged away. Then Will frowned—hard—turning his head and looking out to sea so that Cassidy caught sight of a muscle moving in his clenched jaw.

Almost in slow motion she saw him exerting control over himself. It was heartbreaking. Especially considering the fact that she was faced with the very image of him she’d conjured in her imagination when he had first told her he surfed. Standing there, with silvery rivulets of water running off his body, shining silvery in the bright sunshine, droplets of the same shimmering water falling from wet tendrils of the dark hair that clung to his forehead and the column of his neck. He was glorious. More than that, even. He was the most sensationally sexy man she had ever laid eyes on. And she had never wanted him as much as she did at that moment—while he’d taken a deep breath and got his self-control back in the blink of an eye.

When he looked at her again the small smile on his full mouth didn’t make it all the way up into his eyes. ‘Told you you’d get it. Well done.’

But Cassidy couldn’t let it go that easily. And the very fact he had so obviously been affected by her gave her enough of a subliminal confidence boost to take a step towards him. ‘Will—’

His eyes narrowed at the husky edge of her voice. ‘I’m going to catch a few waves of my own. Be back in a while.’

With that he turned away, got on the board, paddled further out to sea—and the moment was gone. He’d made it plain that whatever moment of remembered desire from the past he’d just experienced could be dismissed in a heartbeat. Men were supposed to think about sex at ridiculously regular intervals, so they said. Cassidy was merely a woman in the nearest equivalent of a wet T-shirt. She got that.

But the rejection hurt. It hurt bad.

Setting a sheet of the first draft of their script to one side after she’d proofread it, Cassidy reached for another. Even though they worked in silence for the following fifteen minutes, she could still feel him studying her. He’d been doing it for days. And it was getting to her big-time.

‘What, Will?’

‘I’m just thinking of going to the kitchen to get a knife.’

‘To do what?’ She didn’t look at him. He might have been studying her like some kind of bug under a microscope, but since the beach she’d been able to look at him for no longer than a few seconds before she had to avert her gaze. Apparently his rejection still hurt. And looking at him made it worse.

‘To cut the atmosphere in this room…’

She sighed heavily. ‘Will—’

‘Right.’ He pushed to his feet and lifted the sheets from her hand, setting them to one side. Then he grabbed hold of her hands and tugged. ‘Time for a change of scenery. And lunch.’

It was beginning to feel as if she’d been trapped in the house with Will for years on end. People didn’t get jail sentences as long. Every hour felt as if it was dragging. Plus, if Will kept feeding her the way he was she was going to go home weighing more than when she’d arrived.

The second she was on her feet he let go of her hands, turned, and headed into the next room. Cassidy automatically fell into step behind him, somehow unable to drag her disobedient gaze from the errant curls of dark hair brushing the collar of his cream shirt. It was easier looking at him when he didn’t know she was, she supposed…

‘We’ll eat on the deck,’ he announced as he glanced over his shoulder. ‘The ocean is supposed to have a calming effect.’

Cass shook her head at his dry wit as they moved into the kitchen. ‘You want me to take anything out?’

‘Juice and glasses would be good.’

She opened a cupboard for glasses and the fridge for juice, feeling a pang of sadness at how they moved around each other as if they’d been doing it for years. It was like a choreographed dance. He reached an arm up to the cupboard door; she ducked under it. She turned for the fridge; he circled around her in one fluent step. She opened the refrigerator door to put away the juice; he reached inside for mayo and ham before he closed it again…

Cassidy had watched her parents doing a similar dance hundreds of times over the years during her childhood, and had never appreciated how much it demonstrated their ease with each other. But then they’d had decades to learn the moves; Cassidy and Will hadn’t had all that long even when they were together.