A Modern Cinderella

Without thinking she casually handed him a chopping board on her way to opening the sliding doors. When he looked sideways at her, he frowned for a second before taking it.

‘It’s always beautiful out here,’ she said from the doorway.

‘I know,’ Will answered, with a smile in his deep voice.

Stepping on to the deck, she set the glasses down on a small table and then moved towards the railing, where she breathed deep and smiled. It was the kind of place she would have allowed herself to relax and just ‘be’, under better circumstances. She wondered if Will ever felt that way. Pleasure in the simple things had never been the young Will’s thing—not that he hadn’t appreciated them; he’d just always been ambitious for more. But Cassidy had learned how precious and fragile life could be. It was important to take pleasure in the simple things, she felt.

But, looking at the ocean, she found her thoughts wandering inevitably to the same things. For the hundredth time since it had happened she found herself revisiting what had happened the day he’d taught her to surf—which in turn led her to revisiting the kiss during their ‘rehearsal’. She had no idea why she was so obsessed by that kiss. Okay, admittedly the mature version of Will was oh-so-sexy—she would have to be blind not to have noticed. Under tall, dark and handsome in the dictionary it probably said see Will Ryan.

The sound of a plate being set on the table behind her gave her enough warning to get her thoughts under control before he appeared in her peripheral vision. Then they stood there for a while, side-by-side in silence, before Cassidy chanced a sideways glance at him just as Will turned his head to look at her.

He smiled a more genuine smile than he had in days, and she felt another shiver of awareness as he asked in his deliciously deep voice, ‘Better?’

‘I shook the cold a week ago.’

‘That wasn’t what I meant.’

Yes, she knew it wasn’t what he’d meant. Since stalling never seemed to work with him any better than lying did, she took a deep breath and admitted, ‘I’m sorry. I guess being cooped up in that room is starting to get to me…’

Will nodded his head, as if he’d already known the answer, his gaze shifting back to the ocean. After a few moments he said, ‘Thank you.’

‘For what?’

Turning around, he reached out and lifted a glass before smiling at her with a light sparkling in the green of his eyes. ‘For helping with lunch.’

Cass smiled back at him. Liar. But she didn’t call him on it; she appreciated that he hadn’t pushed her any further on why she was feeling the way she was. Apparently a little honesty really did go a long way. Anyway, she had a sneaking suspicion he already knew, and was letting her off the hook by not saying it out loud. She should really thank him in return for that. But she didn’t, because that would be bringing it up all over again. Instead she turned away from the railing and sat down in one of the comfortably padded wicker chairs on the deck, reaching for a sandwich as Will did the same and sank into a matching chair beside her.

They managed a whole ten minutes of companionable silence, but then he casually ruined it by asking, ‘So…you want to tell me what else has been bugging you?’

The half-eaten sandwich froze halfway to her mouth, her appetite waning. Then she took a deep breath and went right ahead and took a bite, filling one side of her cheek as she chewed.

‘Okay, then.’ Will lifted another sandwich. ‘I’ll just ask every half hour from here on in until you yell it at me in the middle of an argument. That usually works.’

Then he glanced at her from the corner of his eye and had the gall to add a wink. She forced herself to speak. ‘Still got that pitbull quality to your personality, don’t you?’

‘Mmm-hmm.’ He took a large bite of sandwich and grinned at her as he chewed.

‘That wasn’t actually meant as a compliment…’

He spoke with the food still in his mouth. ‘I prefer to think of it as a dogged determination to get to the root of an issue before it becomes a bigger problem than it needs to be.’ Ridiculously thick lashes brushed against his skin a couple of times while he considered her and swallowed his food. ‘If my memory serves right—letting you work things through in your head for too long before you talk about them does that.’

‘I’ve been stuck under a roof with someone I can barely hold a conversation with for two weeks. How is that not supposed to get to me? Maybe I have a right to be moody for a while under those circumstances?’

‘No, you don’t. Not if talking about it is all it takes to fix it.’ He frowned, ‘Who likes being moody anyway?’

Shrugging her shoulders, Cassidy focused her attention on her sandwich, mumbling under her breath, ‘In my experience cute guys who think it adds to their feeble attempts at seeming mysterious…’

There was a very noticeable silence that drew her gaze back to his face, where a stunned expression was warring with amusement. She scowled at him. ‘What now?’

‘You think I’m cute?’

‘I didn’t say that.’ Well, not on purpose she hadn’t.

‘It’s okay. I’m fine with you thinking I’m cute. Though I should probably tell you it has a slightly different meaning over here than it does in Ireland…’

‘I know what it means over here, and for the record it’s not all that different to what it means back home. And I don’t think that about you.’

Very visibly having to control his smile, Will leaned back and nodded. ‘See, I was going to tell you what I really think is making you feel cooped up…and how I feel about the same thing…But now…? Now I think I’m just going to let you come to your own conclusions. That way I get to be both cute and mysterious…’

‘That’s not what I—’ She fought the need to throw her sandwich at him as she felt heat rising on her neck. ‘Don’t edit my lines outside the office, Ryan.’

‘You know,’ he sighed dramatically, and let loose a killer one of those smiles, ‘suddenly I’m in a much better mood than I was twenty minutes ago.’

Will had the gall to chuckle, looking at her from the corner of his sparkling eyes. Darn it. He was gloating, wasn’t he? What had happened to the supposedly professional relationship they’d agreed to have? Flirting with her, using a combination of random winks, sparkling eyes and that smile, could hardly be considered professional.

Cassidy felt distinctly as if she was constantly waging a battle of some kind with him and…heaven help her…he was winning.

He was showing her that he could read her better than anyone ever had—get under her skin and bug her more than anyone ever had—get her hormones to scatter all rational thought to the wind and make her laugh when she really didn’t want to by lifting his eyebrows ridiculously at her like he currently was…

With a shake of her head she dragged her gaze away from him, to look for some of the peace the ocean had briefly brought her way. ‘You are still the most annoying man on the planet, you know.’

‘Ahh…but I’m also cute.’ He inhaled deeply through his nose, smug satisfaction oozing from the rumble of his voice. ‘And mysterious…’

When she glanced sideways she saw him take another bite of his sandwich. Instead of saying anything smart in return she did the same thing. They sat for another ten minutes in what could almost have been misconstrued as a companionable silence, eating and looking out over the ocean. It was nice. Under further scrutiny Cassidy realised to her complete and utter astonishment it was better than nice. She almost felt…content…and it had been a long time since she’d felt that way…

‘Do you think she’ll ever forgive him?’ Will asked.

Cassidy turned her head to look at his face. ‘Rachel?’

He nodded, studying her eyes with the silent intensity she was now almost used to. ‘She can be pretty bloody-minded when she digs her heels in.’

Cassidy shrugged one shoulder. ‘It’s self-preservation. Look where being up-front with him got her last time.’

‘She knew how Nick felt about her.’

‘No. She thought she knew how Nick felt about her. Then she convinced herself she was wrong…’ A memory from real life wrapped itself around Cassidy’s memories of their last script, making her turn her gaze away and frown at the ocean. ‘The last argument they had was pretty heated.’

‘Lots of things can get said in the heat of an argument that might not have been meant the way they sounded…’

‘They can.’

‘Maybe we should have them talk it through?’

Cassidy grimaced, then looked sideways at him. ‘I think Rachel would rather have needles poked in her eyes.’

‘So would Nick. Hot ones.’

It made her smile. ‘They both need a smack upside the head.’

To her amazement, Will smiled back. ‘That would make for a short script.’

‘True.’

Dark lashes flickered as he searched her eyes, then Will nodded firmly—just the once—as if he’d made some kind of momentous decision. Swiping a palm against his thigh, he reached his large hand towards her. ‘Will Ryan.’

Cassidy arched a brow, her smile still in place. ‘What are you doing, you idiot?’

‘Starting over.’ He jerked his chin at his hand. ‘The idea is that you now put your hand in mine and introduce yourself the way I just did. Give it a try. Take a deep breath if you need to. Go on. You can do it.’

‘Uh-huh.’ The smile grew. ‘Patronising me is really going to help your cause.’

Will shook his head. ‘Count to ten and swallow down the sarcasm. Otherwise it’s going to get to the point where—when we’re done with the script—only one of us is coming out of that room alive…’

‘You were the one who suggested getting a knife.’

‘Malone. Don’t make me turn on the charm.’

It wasn’t an empty threat. If Cassidy hadn’t known that from experience she’d have known it from the way his eyes darkened several shades and his voice lowered an octave to a deep grumble that spoke of tangled sheets and early morning pillow talk. The thought made her smile falter.

Dropping her chin so she could study his outstretched hand with caution, she weighed up the danger of keeping her distance versus taking a chance and ending up friends with him again without her heart wanting more. It was risky.

Long fingers waggled in the air between them, and his voice lowered another octave, sending a shimmer of sensual feminine awareness of nearby hot male across her body. ‘Come on, Cass…’

She wondered how he managed to sound like temptation itself—and scary at the same time. Did he even know he was doing it? Or how dangerous a decision it was? Because, despite the intimation, they had never actually been ‘friends’ at any point of their relationship—there had always been something more.

Taking a deep breath, she swallowed hard and lifted her arm, her hand hesitating mere inches from his. It was Will who closed the gap this time, circling his fingers around hers and holding on—allowing the warmth of his touch to seep through her skin and travel into her veins, where it rushed up her arm towards her racing heart. He clasped more firmly and shook their joined hands up and down.

Then he repeated, in a voice laced with determination, ‘Will Ryan. Known to be the most annoying man on the planet at times. Tendency towards occasional arrogance that I’m never going to learn to control. Strange obsession with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at two in the morning…’

Cassidy smiled as her gaze travelled up his arm, past the lock of errantly curled hair below his ear to the sparkling green of his eyes. Then she shook her head and swallowed down the need to giggle like a shy schoolgirl. ‘Cassidy Malone. Known to be the woman with a natural knack for public humiliation. Tendency to over-think things to the point of complete randomness. Strong belief that peanut butter and jelly anywhere in the vicinity of a slice of bread is just wrong…’

‘Hello, Cassidy Malone—can I call you Cass?’

‘Somehow I doubt I’ll be able to stop you.’

Will smiled that smile, then cocked his head as he ran the pad of his thumb back and forth over her knuckles. ‘We could use this for Nick and Rachel, you know…’

Cassidy rolled her eyes and attempted to quietly extricate her hand from his. ‘Just no escaping those two, is there?’

‘You want to?’ He held onto her hand.

‘Do I want to what?’

‘Escape them for a while?’ The thumb kept brushing over her skin, distracting her from looking away from his mesmerising eyes.

It meant it took a second or two longer than normal for her to focus on what he’d said. ‘Will, we can’t keep taking breaks if you want to get this thing done. It’s counter-productive. You know that.’

He studied her intently. ‘You’re hating every minute of this, aren’t you?’

Not every minute, no. She loved rediscovering her muse, she loved it when their scenes started coming together, she loved staying in Will’s beautiful house by the ocean, she’d even loved spending time with Angie and Lily on the beach—and she agreed that, given the chance, she probably could end up good friends with a world-famous actress…

But she couldn’t allow herself to enjoy those moments. Not properly. Not when she was living in a fantasy world on borrowed time. One day soon she would have to walk away from Will’s life and try to find one of her own. One more fulfilling than the one she’d been living. Because if she’d been happy in the life she had she wouldn’t have been so quick to leave it behind, would she?

‘Cass?’ The thumb stilled, and the impossibly gentle use of her name made her realise she’d dropped her gaze to the beating pulse at the base of his neck.

She looked back up. ‘Sorry. Drifted off for a minute. I’ve got a tendency to do that too.’

‘I remember.’ He said it with just enough softness in his voice to suggest he remembered it with a degree of affection. Darn it.

When she made another attempt at freeing her hand he let her. So she folded her fingers into her palm and let her arm drop to her side as he leaned back, his expression changing to the unreadable blankness she hated so much,

‘It’s okay, I’ve got my answer.’ Lifting a glass of juice, he pushed to his feet and turned towards the open door. ‘We’d better get back to it then.’

CHAPTER SIX

WITHOUT any idea why she felt compelled to correct his assumption, Cassidy found herself on her feet, matching glass in hand, and following him into the kitchen. ‘Wait, Will. You’re wrong. You didn’t get an answer.’

Turning in the middle of the room, he lifted his chin and looked at her with hooded eyes.

Which left her squirming inwardly as she tried to find the words to explain it to him without giving too much away.

‘I’ m not…That is it’s not that I’m not…’ She puffed her cheeks out in exasperation, and avoided his gaze by glancing at random points around the room. ‘I guess I just—’ A deep breath and a grimace, and then she silently said to heck with it and took a run at it. ‘I feel a bit—lost, I suppose. You and me? We’re not the same. This living together under the same roof—’ One of her hands flailed in the air in front of her body, towards him. ‘Well, we’re not the same…’

‘You already said that.’

Cassidy scowled at his calm tone, and the fact that her gaze shifted to meet his and discovered what looked like a glint of amusement only made her feel more stupid than she already did.

She sighed heavily. ‘This is your life, Will, not mine. I’m just a visitor here. But this script…it’s important…it means a lot. I don’t want to mess it up.’

When there was silence it drew her gaze back to him again, then he took a shallow breath and asked, ‘Why is it so important?’

Now, there was a question with a loaded answer.

Her hesitation brought him a step closer, his hand reaching out to set his glass on the nearest counter top. ‘I get the not wanting to mess up part. Everyone feels that way when they work on a script. Or on any kind of a project that means something to them. There was a time you wanted to succeed in this business as much as I did…’

Cassidy smiled wryly. ‘Apparently not quite as much as you did…’

The low words were enough to tug on the edges of his mouth. ‘Okay. Fair enough. We had different motivations but the same goal—at least I thought we did. Maybe I was wrong about that?’

If she had, she’d have left everything behind to go with him to California. That was what he was intimating, wasn’t it? Yes, Will had been driven for different reasons from Cassidy. But the goal had been a dream they’d shared. What had broken them apart had been Cassidy’s starry-eyed romanticism over the life they would have together weighed against Will’s need to be successful enough to prove to all those people who had thought him worthless that they’d been spectacularly wrong in their assessment. Cassidy had believed they would achieve their dreams together. Will had left her behind and done it on his own. But she’d let him go, hadn’t she?

Will took another step closer. ‘Why is it so important, Cass?’

She took a deep breath, while warily watching to see how close he planned on getting. ‘We bombed last time, Will. You remember how bad that felt as well as I do…’

‘Oh, sweetheart, I’ve bombed a few times since then—trust me. It’s par for the course out here.’

The use of the drawled ‘sweetheart’ made her cock a recriminating brow at him, but she let it slide when she saw the light in his eyes. ‘But you’re a success, Will. Look around you—this house, your company, the awards you’ve won—you’ve made it. I’m a schoolteacher. Not that there’s anything wrong with that—it’s one of the most honourable professions on the planet—but it wasn’t something I’d planned on doing for the rest of my life.’ Any more than living on her own had been. ‘The last script I cowrote with you is the only thing I have on my movie-writing CV. The script for a movie that bombed at the box office and gave movie reviewers globally the excuse to ramp the venom volume up to high—remember? I ended on a failure. A very public failure. I don’t want another one. Seriously, I don’t think I could take it…and…And I’m babbling again, aren’t I?’

‘Like a brook.’ He smiled indulgently.

Another step forward brought him to within reaching distance. But instead of offering her the kind of comforting hug she desperately needed and dreaded at the same time, he lifted his hands and pushed them deep into the pockets of his jeans—meaning the only way a hug would happen was if she reached for him.

But that wasn’t going to happen, was it? No matter how much she sorely needed to be held—just held—for long enough not to feel as if she had somehow detached herself from her fellow human beings. Now that she thought about it, it was probably the same fear that brought tears of emotion to her eyes when small arms would hug so tightly around her neck on the last day of term…

‘It was a success in the long haul, Cass. Or we wouldn’t be here. You need to remember that. Sometimes the road to success has its twists and turns. That’s all.’

She managed a somewhat shaky smile and a roll of her eyes at her continuing inability to listen to reason or appreciate thoughtfulness without the need to cry. ‘I’d just rather skip the hobnailed boots stomping all over my self-confidence this time round, if that’s all right with you.’

The green of Will’s eyes softened and warmed. ‘Welcome to Hollywood.’

Cassidy laughed softly, then stared at him in wonder. ‘How do you do it?’

‘Thick skin.’ He shrugged.

‘Is there a store nearby where I can pick one of those up?’

‘’Fraid not. It’s something you acquire over time. Wouldn’t suit you, anyway.’

Sighing heavily, she nodded. ‘I’d be willing to try it out for a while.’

Whether it was something he saw in her eyes, or something he knew instinctively she needed—as he so often had once upon a time—Will pulled his hands out of his pockets and closed the gap between them. He reached for her with a rumbled, ‘Come here, Malone.’

Oh, great. Now she was welling up the way she did with the kids. Only this time it was bittersweet for different reasons. Even as Will drew her close to the wall of his chest and circled her with his arms, she felt the deep-seated sensation of coming home after a long, long time in exile. She hadn’t realised how homesick she’d been for him until he was holding her and she had her arms around his lean waist. The scent of clean laundry and pure Will surrounded her, but she breathed it deeper anyway. When one of the large hands on her back gently rubbed to soothe her she had to fight the need to sob uncontrollably. But not just because it was a hug when she so desperately needed a hug. It was because it was Will. The Will she’d missed so very much that even while she was being held in his arms the fact she knew it might never happen again was enough to break another corner off her ragged-edged heart.

‘You’re doing great, Cass. Don’t be so hard on yourself. There are days in that room I forget it’s been so long since we worked together.’

She had been feeling better about her scriptwriting abilities, but hearing him say it meant a lot to her. ‘Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome.’ The smile sounded in his voice.

It made her smile too, as she tilted her head back to rest her chin on his shoulder. Then she took another deep breath and forced herself to step away from him. ‘I guess I can stand to be cooped up in that room for another few hours if you can.’

‘Good.’ A devilish smile was backed up by another wink. ‘We can talk about Rachel wearing that harem girl outfit again.’

Cassidy laughed. ‘No. we can’t. She’s not doing the Dance of the Seven Veils for Nick…’

‘She’d be very sexy doing it.’

‘She’d feel like a complete idiot doing it.’

Will retrieved his glass and headed back towards the office. ‘Okay, then. We’ll play out the scene and see how it goes.’

Cassidy chuckled; he could go right ahead and hold his breath for that one. But she suddenly felt a lot better going back into his office with him. Much better.

Ryan and Malone were on top form when they pitched their script for the first time—even if it was technically just a trial run.

Will had driven them into Los Angeles, to his plush, if chaotic offices. making small talk on the journey that Cassidy knew was meant to distract her from her nervousness. It was yet another thoughtful gesture she both needed and feared at the same time. Between his thoughtfulness, his ability to read what she needed—sometimes before she realised it herself—and the amount of mild flirting he’d been doing since the day of their partial truce she was already walking a fine line. If she made the mistake of falling for him again…

Once they were in the conference room with selected members of Will’s team, and they began the read-through, something clicked. Maybe it was because she let herself get lost in what they were doing. Maybe it was because, for the guts of an hour, reality was shut out. Maybe it was because they became Nick and Rachel again. Maybe it was the fact their audience laughed and sat forward in their seats with rapt expressions at the right times. Heck, maybe it was a combination of all those things. But whatever it was, it was magical. For the first time since she’d come to California it felt as if the old Will was completely back.

He laughed more, he smiled that smile at her when she blushed as she skirted over any kisses or love scenes in the script, he even danced with her and dipped her the way the script directed—to the obvious amusement of their captive audience. He took her hand so they could both take a bow when that same audience applauded at the end…

Then they spent another hour talking with the team about special effects and storyboarding and locations—and Cassidy forgot she was with a group of complete strangers who worked for Will, and debated with him the way she usually did when they were alone.

After handing out work assignments, Will watched her shake the last hand at the open doorway, then leaned casually against the doorframe. ‘Trying to start a revolution inside my production company, Malone?’