Kitabı oku: «A Modern Cinderella», sayfa 3

Will kept going. ‘We’re not strangers. People don’t change that much.’

She begged to differ. And if she hadn’t had living proof in herself then she had it in the man sitting so close to her in the confined space of what she now knew was a Mustang something-or-other—she’d seen a little tag somewhere. Not that she was going to turn her head to look for it again, if it meant she might end up catching a glimpse of him from her peripheral vision. Just being so close to him, so aware of every breath he took and every movement of his large hands or long legs, was enough for her to deal with, thanks very much.

‘Yes, they do. Life changes them. Experiences change them…’ She had a sudden brain-wave. ‘It’s exactly the kind of problem Nick and Rachel will have when they meet again.’

The mention of their fictional characters momentarily silenced Will. Then she heard him take a breath and let it out. ‘That’s true.’

So it was true for their fictional characters but not for them? How did that work? It was enough to make her turn her head and aim a suspicious sideways glance at his general gorgeousness. ‘It’s not like they’re going to trust each other either.’

‘Well, she did steal the artifact from him.’

‘No—she took it to give it back to its rightful owners. There’s a difference. He’d have sold it on the open market for whatever he could get.’

‘She lived off the money they made doing the same thing in the past. You can’t use that as an argument against him.’

‘Oh? Now we’re saying there has to be moral equivalency?’

Will shot her a quick yet intense gaze as they waited in traffic, his deep voice somehow more intense within the car’s interior. ‘It’s not the best plan to alienate everyone to the hero and heroine before we even get started, is it? There are always two sides to every story. You want to make him into a bad boy then you have to make the audience understand why his morals are lower than hers.’

‘Bad heroes sell. You can’t tell me they don’t. Bad heroines are universally hated.’ Cassidy lifted her chin, but she could feel the smile forming on her face. It was like one of their debates of old. ‘Unless you’re thinking of turning her evil—which, incidentally, you’ll do over my dead body. The audience needs to empathise with her. That’ll sell.’

‘Actually, I can tell you exactly what sells these days. Right now its superheroes and family-friendly.’ His long fingers flexed against the steering wheel. ‘The real money can be found in family-oriented movies, where good is good and bad is bad. It’s black and white. Moral equivalency needn’t apply. Last year seven films with a G or PG rating earned more than one hundred million at the domestic box office, and three PG-rated films were among the year’s top ten earners. Only one R-rated film was in the ten top grossing films—and there was no moral equivalency in that movie, I can assure you.’

The smile on her face faded and was replaced with blinking surprise as he recited it all in an even tone, negotiating increasing traffic at the same time. It seemed everyone in Los Angeles had a car.

He knew his stuff, didn’t he? Who was she to argue? Not that it stopped her. ‘Correct me if I’m wrong, but haven’t you just proved my point on moral equivalency?’

Silence. Then to her utter astonishment a burst of laughter—deep, rumbling, oh-so-very-male laughter—then a wry smile and a shake of his head. ‘It’s been a long time since anyone spoke to me the way you do.’

Cassidy blinked some more. ‘Maybe people should do it more often.’

‘If they did they’d get fired more often.’

The corners of her mouth tugged upwards. ‘Wow. Who knew you were a tyrant in the making, back in the day?’

‘I’m not a tyrant.’ He seemed surprised she thought he was.

‘No?’ Turning a little more towards him, she leaned her back against the passenger door and angled her head in question. ‘What are you, then?’

‘The boss.’

‘So no one can correct you when you’re wrong?’

‘They can put forward a different point of view, if that’s what you mean.’ He was forced to break eye contact with her to concentrate on where they were going. ‘No one ever does it the way you do, though.’

Cassidy couldn’t help but allow the chuckle of laugher forming in her chest to widen her smile. ‘So no one actually looks you in the eye and tells you you’re wrong?’

‘Not in so many words, no.’

No wonder he’d got so arrogant over the years. If no one ever stood up to him, or gave as good as they got, it would be a breeding ground for arrogance. Irrationally, it made her feel sorry for him. Everyone needed someone who cared enough about them to be brutally honest when it was needed. No one was ever right one hundred percent of the time, after all. Being blunt on the odd occasion to demonstrate another point of view showed you cared enough about them to try and save them from the kind of mistakes arrogance might make. To Cassidy, knowing no one did that for Will made him seem very…alone…

‘She’ll probably feel awkward when she sees him again.’

Huh? Oh, he meant Rachel, didn’t he? Right—script stuff. Stay with the flow of conversation, Cassidy. ‘I doubt she’d have sought him out voluntarily.’

‘So we need something that brings them together.’

Cassidy arched a brow. ‘You’re going to want him to rescue her, aren’t you?’

The one corner of his full mouth she could see hitched upwards. ‘Who doesn’t like it when the hero swoops in to rescue the heroine?’

‘Sexist. Why can’t the heroine rescue the hero? Or rescue herself? Or just be in the same place as him searching for something when they both get in trouble and have to work together to get out of it…?’

Will shot a brief, sparkle eyed glance her way. ‘Okay, then. He has to rescue her from something when they end up in the same place hunting for something.’

Cassidy rolled her eyes. ‘Fine. But I’m fighting for a later scene when she has to rescue him right back.’

‘We’re not making Nick look weak.’

‘Vulnerable—not weak. Women find vulnerability sexy in a strong male. You should try it some time. Might get you a girlfriend…’ The reappearance of her errant tongue made her groan inwardly and avoid his gaze when he looked her way again.

‘You don’t know I don’t have a girlfriend.’

‘I told you, it’s none of my—’

‘I don’t have one right now. But all you had to do was ask.’

Oh, for crying out loud. Not only had she just caused a self-inflicted wound at the idea of him with another woman, but now he’d managed to slip that little piece of unwanted information into the conversation it was only a matter of time before—

‘What about you?’

Yep. There it was. Well, if he thought for one single, solitary second she was discussing the disastrous attempts she had eventually made at having a love life—long, long after he’d left—then he had another think coming. Not that it would be a long conversation.

Lifting her chin, she smiled sweetly. ‘I don’t have a girlfriend either.’

Will chuckled for the second time.

The sound was ridiculously distracting to her. How did it do that? It wasn’t as if she hadn’t heard him laugh before; she’d heard him chuckle, laugh softly, laugh out loud—had felt the rumble in his chest and been in his arms when his body had shaken with the reverberations. She knew how the light would dance in his eyes, how he would smile the amazingly infectious smile that gave everyone around him no choice but to smile along with him. For a long time Cassidy had believed she’d fallen for his laughter first. Yes, his boyish looks, height, gorgeous hair, etc., etc. might have been what had initially caught her eye. But it had been the sound of his laughter and the first glimpse of that smile that had drawn her heart to him.

Since she’d got to Los Angeles she’d wondered if she’d imagined the effect his laughter had on her. As if her memories were tangled up on some mythical pedestal she might have elevated him to over the years. But it was having exactly the same effect on her as before: skin tingling, chest warming—as if the sound had somehow reached out and physically touched her…

Forcing her gaze away, she turned forward in the seat to look out through the windscreen, and was surprised to see the ocean beside them. ‘Where are we?’

‘Pacific Coast Highway. It’s the equivalent of Malibu’s main street.’

‘Malibu?’

‘It’s where I live.’

It was? Malibu? Where the rich and famous lived? She knew he’d done well since he came to California, but that he’d done well enough to be able to afford—

‘It was originally part of the territory of the Chumash Nation of Native Americans. They called it Humaliwo—or “the surf sounds loudly”. The current name derives from that. but the “Hu” syllable isn’t stressed…’ When she gaped at him he looked away from the highway long enough to raise his brows at her. ‘What?’

‘Who are you?’

The question was out before she could stop it, her words low and filled with incredulity. It was just the more he said the less she felt she knew him; it was as if he had somehow morphed into a completely different person when he’d moved halfway across the planet—and it was just so at odds with the many things that were familiar to her that it left her feeling a little…lost…

Will checked the road again, then looked back at her. ‘You know me, Cass.’

His saying it in a low rumble that made goosebumps break out on her skin and her heart do a kind of weird twisting move in her chest only made her study him even more intently. ‘How do you know all this stuff?’

‘About Malibu?’

‘It’s like you’ve swallowed an encyclopaedia since you got here. Hollywood-speak, movie industry stats, local history…’

What looked almost like confusion flickered across the green of his eyes before he turned his head to watch the road again. ‘Hollywood speak is everyday language here. Movie stats I study as part of my job, and Malibu I just happen to like—it’s why I moved here the minute I could afford it. I hate the city.’

Actually, the last part she understood. Home of Disneyland and movie stars, Beverly Hills and Hollywood, she knew Los Angeles had long lured people into its glittering fantasy world, with its endless sunshine, palm trees, shopping malls and beautiful people. The city was like no place she’d ever been before. But after so many years dreaming about it, she’d known in less than twenty-four hours that she couldn’t live there. Not in the city anyway. Too many people, too many cars, too much smog. No one saying hello to their fellow human beings in the street unless they were dressed as iconic movie figures and demanding money in exchange for a photograph with them. Cassidy had taken one afternoon to wander along Hollywood Boulevard, and as fascinating as it had been, reading the iconic stars beneath her feet, it hadn’t made her feel at home. And now she’d discovered Will possibly felt that way too…

Well, it gave them some common ground, didn’t it? A stretch maybe, but she would take what she could get…

Despite the danger, Cassidy wanted to know more. Her dilemma became whether or not to actually ask any more. If she did she would be getting a window into his life—would have new Will Ryan memories to add to the cornucopia of old ones she already carried around with her. If somewhere along the way the new version of him proved as addictive as the old? Well, then she was in big, big trouble…

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.