A Cinderella Story

COLLECTION

January 2020

A Modern Cinderella

February 2020

Working with Cinderella

March 2020

Saved by His Cinderella

April 2020

Seducing His Cinderella

May 2020

His Exotic Cinderella

June 2020

A Groom for Cinderella

About the Authors

By the time TRISH WYLIE reached her late teens, she already loved writing and told all her friends one day she would be a writer for Mills & Boon. Almost two decades later, after revising one of those early stories, she achieved her dream with her first submission! Despite being head-over-heels in love with New York, Trish still has her roots in Ireland, residing on the border between Counties Fermanagh and Donegal with the numerous four-legged members of her family.

KATE HARDY always loved books and could read before she went to school. She discovered Mills & Boon books when she was twelve and decided this was what she wanted to do. When she isn’t writing, Kate enjoys reading, cinema, ballroom dancing and the gym. You can contact her via her website: www.katehardy.com

BARBARA WALLACE can’t remember when she wasn’t dreaming up love stories in her head, so writing romances for Mills & Boon is a dream come true. Happily married to her own Prince Charming, she lives in New England with a house full of empty-nest animals. Readers can catch up with Barbara through her newsletter.

Sign up at www.barbarawallace.com

A Modern Cinderella

His L.A. Cinderella

Trish Wylie

His Shy Cinderella

Kate Hardy

A Millionaire for Cinderella

Barbara Wallace

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-0-008-90601-6

A MODERN CINDERELLA

His L.A. Cinderella © 2009 Trish Wylie His Shy Cinderella © 2017 Pamela Brooks A Millionaire for Cinderella © 2015 Barbara Wallace

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

Version: 2020-03-02

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Table of Contents

Cover

About the Authors

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

His L.A. Cinderella

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

His Shy Cinderella

Back Cover Text

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

EPILOGUE

A Millionaire for Cinderella

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

About the Publisher

His L.A. Cinderella

Trish Wylie

For my new friend Lisa from Warner Bros.

Studios for the behind the scenes tour.

CHAPTER ONE

THERE he was: the infamous Will Ryan.

Pathetically, her palms felt clammy. Though that could just have been the horrible cold she’d picked up on her way to California, she supposed…

But, truthfully, Cassidy Malone couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so nervous or self-conscious. Or so completely incapable of fooling people into thinking she was more self-confident than she actually was. She really needed the latter if she was going to stand a chance of pulling off the deception of a lifetime. And if she couldn’t do it in the land of make-believe, then where could she? If she just didn’t have this stupid cold to add to everything else. Who flew halfway across the planet to a place twenty degrees warmer than home and ended up with a cold? She felt awful. So much for the theory that she would feel more confident away from home, where nobody knew her…

But therein lay her immediate problem. Because the man making his way across the beautiful lobby of the Beverly Wilshire knew her all too well. A decade ago he’d known every inch of her body intimately, and had held her heart in the palm of his large hand—the same heart that now jumped in joyous recognition and then twisted in regret at how comfortable he looked in their surroundings.

Cassidy was incredibly jealous of that.

Will didn’t so much as bat an eyelid at the white marble, the large chandelier, the carved wooden elevator doors or the polished brass and black accents. I belong here, his confident stride said silently. But then Cassidy couldn’t remember a time when there’d ever been a place he hadn’t had that air of self-assurance. He’d always had a way of carrying himself that practically dared people to say he was somewhere he didn’t belong.

That confidence, and the hint of potential danger if pushed, had added to his potent sexuality from the very beginning as far as Cassidy was concerned. Add boyish good-looks and a smile that could genuinely melt female knees…He’d been the flame and she the moth. But to see him so at home in a place where she felt so very lost…Well, it just widened the already cavernous gap between them, didn’t it?

Ridiculously, it hurt. When it really shouldn’t have. Not after so long…

His bright green gaze sought her out and brushed nonchalantly from her head to her toes and back up again, forcing her to suck in her stomach and silently pray that he couldn’t see any sign of the foundation underwear she’d struggled her way into. Like every woman Cassidy knew, every inch counted in times of crisis—even though she had absolutely no idea where those missing inches had been relocated to. With any luck Will would keep their meetings to places where there was air-conditioning, so she stood a better chance of not passing out in the California heat and the thin air of Los Angeles. Restricted circulation plus bunged-up nose didn’t exactly give her a head start…

Mentally she crossed her fingers.

‘Cass.’

He held out a ridiculously large hand when he got to her, and for a second Cassidy looked down at it with an arched brow, as if confused by what she was supposed to do with it. They were shaking hands? Like complete strangers? Really?

Okay, then.

Surreptitiously swiping a clammy palm on her hip, she placed it in his; the heat of long fingers curled around her cooler ones, sending another jolt of recognition through her veins to her heart. Good to know her body hadn’t forgotten him either. She tried to think professional thoughts. It wasn’t easy. But she had to work with this man.

Will let go of her hand somewhat abruptly. ‘Recovered from your flight?’

‘Yes. Thank you. I think it’s easier this way than going back.’

‘Happy with the hotel?’

‘How could I not be?’ She glanced around, but couldn’t stop her gaze from shifting back to study him. Still boyish. He hadn’t aged a day. How was that fair?

Will nodded, and glanced around him the way she had. ‘It has a history firmly tied up in Hollywood. Dashiell Hammet wrote The Thin Man here. Elvis lived here while making movies at Paramount, and they’ve had everyone from members of the British royal family to the Dalai Lama stay at one time or another.’

‘That’s nice.’ Inwardly she rolled her eyes as the words slipped off the tip of her tongue. Eloquent, Cassidy. Way to go. But, however foolish she felt, it was nothing in comparison to how stunned she was by his coolness. It was like talking to a tour guide. An uninvolved, unattached and in fairness disgustingly good-looking tour guide. But nevertheless…

‘I thought you might appreciate it.’

Cassidy lifted a brow again. Meaning what? That she should be thanking her lucky stars she was here in the first place? True. But she didn’t need to be made to feel as if she’d been invited to Tinsel Town by some miraculous accident. Some timely miraculous accident, she corrected. Because she couldn’t have needed a break more if she’d tried.

He was right, though. She’d been as thrilled by the hotel as she had by her first glimpse of the Hollywood sign on the hill. Located only a few steps away from the glittering shops of Rodeo Drive, she knew the famous hotel’s ornate European façade, with its distinctly rounded awnings and rows of sculpted trees, was straight out of the pages of Hollywood history—not to mention being the site of one of her favourite films of all time. It was just a shame she wasn’t going to be there at Christmas, when they reportedly did an outstanding job of decorating, transforming its exterior into a dazzling display of twinkling lights.

By then she’d probably have been discovered as a fraud and sent home with her tail between her legs—back to eating rice and pasta like she had in her student days, while she’d waited for her grant money to arrive. Only this time she’d be waiting for meager pay-cheques that couldn’t support the debts she had after caring for her father before he died. Well, now, there was something to look forward to.

‘Ready?’

She nodded as Will swung a long arm in invitation and allowed her to step ahead of him. Squinting at the bright light outside, she took her sunglasses off the top of her head moments after Will donned his. A California necessity, she’d discovered since she’d landed. And as much of a status symbol as everything else, judging by the designer wear everyone but her had shading their eyes.

Silently, they turned right—Will matching his longer stride to hers—then right again at a major light, until they approached a strip of nice-looking semi-casual restaurants. Will’s choice was an ivy-covered courtyard, where the maître d’ greeted him by name and held out chairs for them before unfurling linen napkins onto their laps and handing them leather-bound menus with a flourish and a small bow.

Cassidy fought the need to giggle like a schoolgirl. At the grand old age of thirty, she should be more mature. ‘Well, this beats cheese sandwiches in the park.’

Thick dark lashes flickered upwards from their study of the menu. They brushed his deeply tanned skin once, twice, and then he quirked his brows a minuscule amount and continued reading. ‘That was a long time ago.’

Seeing him again, it felt like yesterday to her. But she didn’t say that. Instead she allowed herself a moment to surreptitiously examine him while he made a decision on what to eat. Had he got sexier as he’d got older? Yes, she decided, he had. Darn it. Men were known to do that. Wasn’t the fact he was more successful than her, richer than her and plainly more confident than her enough? At least one of them had got it right. Small consolation, though.

It was tough not to be as mesmerised by the sight of him as she had been at twenty. And twenty-one. And twenty-two. From the thick dark hair that curled disobediently outwards at his nape, all the way down the lean six foot three of his body, he was one of those guys blessed with the ability to mesmerise woman. Who could have blamed her for the crush she’d had from a distance for over a year? Or for how shy she’d been when he’d first talked to her during a group project in their screenwriting class? Or how…?

‘Do you know what you want?’ Will asked, in a low rumble that sent a sudden shiver up her spine.

The spine she straightened a little in her chair. Because, yes, actually—she did know what she wanted. She had a list, as it happened. High up on it was the ability to make the most of an opportunity when it came e-mailing her way, without blowing it by drooling all over the man who had long since left her behind. So now he’d given her an opening, it seemed as good a time as any to ask:

‘A better idea of what the studio expects from me would be nice.’ She even managed to tack on a smile when he looked at her again. See—she could do confident if she tried.

Will took a breath and closed the menu, calmly setting it down on his side-plate as he glanced around at the lunchtime crowd. ‘They expect what they paid us that hefty advance for back in the day. We both knew what we were doing when we signed on the dotted line.’

Did we? If she’d known the heartache signing that contract would bring her way she wasn’t so sure she would go back in time and sign it again. But Cassidy let it slide. ‘So, after all this time they suddenly want script three? Just like that? When movie number two pretty much fell flat on its face…’

‘At the box office. But thanks to a rabid internet fan base it made money on long-term residuals. You’d know that from the fact we still get royalty cheques. This time we have the opportunity to be one of those sleepers that might well prove an accidental tent pole, with a good script and the right budget.’

Cassidy blinked at him for a moment, and then confessed, ‘I have no idea what you just said.’

He almost smiled. ‘Hollywood speak.’

‘Is there a dictionary?’

‘Not that I’m aware of.’

‘Pity.’ She tried another smile to see if it had any effect. ‘You’ll have to translate for me, then.’

‘Bottom line?’

Oh, please, yes. ‘That might help.’

Something resembling amusement glittered across his amazing eyes. ‘They want a script yesterday, and as you and I own the rights jointly to the original copyright we’ve both got to do it. We’re joined at the hip till it’s done and they’re happy…’

‘No pressure, then.’

The wide shoulders beneath his expensive dark jacket lifted and fell in a brief nonchalant shrug. ‘We did it before, Cass. We can do it again.’

The tiny word ‘we’ seemed to tug on a ragged corner of her heart every time he said it in his deep rumble of a voice. Not that it meant anything any more. He probably didn’t feel the pressure she did. Why would he? He’d been writing scripts ever since he left—had success after success to his name: award nominations, contracts and his own production company. Whereas she, his former writing partner…?

Well, she had a knack for getting seven-year-olds to stay quiet, but that was about it. The closest she’d got to writing was putting her lessons on a blackboard…

Automatically she reached for iced water the second a waiter poured it, swallowing a large gulp to dampen her dry mouth. A cold dew of perspiration broke out on her skin while she wondered when was a good time to confess how long it had been since she last written a single original word. Maybe just as well she hadn’t unpacked properly yet.

The waiter smiled at her as if he felt her pain. So she smiled back.

Will’s voice deepened. ‘Have you done much writing?’

Oh, come on! How could he still read her mind when it had been so long since he’d seen her? It was the perfect opening for honesty; yes. But since she already had a shovel in her hand it seemed a shame not to use it.

‘Not much scriptwriting. I’ve dabbled with other stuff.’ In that she’d read instructional books—lots of them—to no avail. ‘You know how it is. Use it or—’

‘Lose it.’ He nodded, the corners of his wide mouth tugging in a way that suggested he was fighting off one of the smiles that would addle her thoughts. ‘This shouldn’t take long, then. If you were rusty it might have taken a while to get you back up to speed.’

Cassidy swallowed more water to stop a confession from slipping free. Had it got warmer all of a sudden? She suddenly felt a little light-headed.

Out of nowhere he added, ‘We made a good team once.’

She almost choked, her eyes watering a little as she looked at him and he finally let that smile loose. Oh, that was just unfair. She instantly hated him for it. With the white-hot intensity of a million burning suns she hated him for the fact that smile could still knock her on her ear. But even more than that she hated him because she’d been waiting for it to appear and knock her on her ear. She’d known! Had known from the second his name appeared in her Inbox that he would have the capability to do damage to her self-control all over again.

But then being attracted to him had never been a problem. It had been his complete lack of availability to commit that had. She wasn’t ending up the fool twice. She darn well wasn’t!

Lifting her chin an inch, she set her glass safely on the white tablecloth and dampened her lips in preparation for saying the right words to make it plain to him it was strictly business between them this time round. After all, if she wanted to be made to look a fool she could do it all by herself. She didn’t actually need any help.

But her resolve faltered in the sight of that smile. Light twinkled in his eyes, fine laughter lines fanned out from their edges, the grooves in his cheeks deepened, and his lips slid back over even teeth that looked even whiter than she remembered when contrasted with the golden hue of his Californian tan.

Put all those things together and it was infectious. Cassidy could even feel the reciprocal upward tug of her own mouth. No, no, no—she mustn’t smile back. That was how it had started last time.

Will’s deep voice added words husky with appreciation. ‘You look beautiful—as always…’

The woman inside her so lacking in self-confidence blossomed under the simple, if unfounded praise. She could feel her skin warming, could feel her heart racing—could feel her smile breaking loose…

Then a sultry female voice sounded above her head. ‘As always flattery will get you everywhere, Irish boy…’

Whipping her head round, Cassidy found herself staring up at a face she recognised from movie billboards and TV screens. The woman wasn’t just beautiful, she was perfection. Even without airbrushing.

When Will pushed his chair back, the actress stepped over to him and kissed each of his cheeks, European-style. ‘I heard you got a green light for your pet project. Bravo, you!’

‘You know what I had for breakfast this morning too?’

‘Not in a long time.’ She aimed a wink at Cassidy, who smiled weakly in return. ‘Not that you haven’t been invited often enough…’

Will remembered his manners. ‘Angie—this is Cassidy Malone. Cass, this is—’

‘Angelique Warden. Yes, I know.’ Cassidy made the smile more genuine as she stood up and stretched a hand across the table. ‘It’s nice to meet you. I loved your last movie.’

‘Shame the box office didn’t feel the same way. But thank you.’ Her eyes narrowed momentarily. ‘Wait a second. You’re not Cassidy Malone as in Ryan and Malone?’

Cassidy’s gaze slid briefly to Will and then back. ‘A long time ago…’

‘Then the rumour is true? They picked up the option?’

Will nodded, and glanced around him as if it was a state secret. He even lowered his voice. ‘It’s not been announced yet, so—’

‘Oh, you don’t have to tell me, you idiot. How exciting!’

Suddenly Cassidy was much more interesting to her than before, and a matching set of European cheek kisses were bestowed on her before Cassidy could warn her of her cold.

‘So nice to meet you. Make him bring you to dinner. I have a million and one questions to ask about the Ryan and Malone years. Will thinks being enigmatic makes him more interesting.’

‘Not everyone likes their every move reported in the dailies.’

Still blinking in stunned amazement at having been kissed by one of the highest paid actresses on the globe, Cassidy found her attention caught by the drawl of Will’s newfound American twang. The words made her scowl in recrimination. He’d been many things back in the day, but cruel had never been one of them. The famous Angelique Warden had hardly had an easy time with the press in the last year.

But Angelique laughed huskily and batted his upper arm with her designer purse, pouting and rolling her eyes. ‘Yes, but it’s such a joy for the rest of us. Dinner. Saturday. Bring your partner. I’m going to learn all your darkest secrets.’

‘No, you’re not.’

‘I’ll ply her with alcohol if I have to.’ She winked at Cassidy for the second time and Cassidy was immediately charmed by her.

In fairness, if she plied the only Irish native on the planet who couldn’t hold her drink with alcohol then she would get everything she’d probably never wanted to hear. Half a glass of wine and Cassidy’s tongue tended to take on a life of its own.

‘No, you won’t. I need her lucid for the next few weeks.’

‘Was he always so serious?’

Cassidy looked at Will, found him staring at her with a disconcertingly unreadable expression, and her answer kind of popped out. ‘No. He wasn’t.’

He stared at her until she could feel her toes curling in her shoes.

So she bravely lifted her chin in challenge.

After what felt like a very long time, Angelique laughed musically. ‘Okay, then. Well, you two kids have fun. I can highly recommend the scallops. Saturday, Irish boy—you hear me?’

‘I hear you.’

He waved an arm to indicate Cassidy should sit back down, and she was glad of it. She really was starting to feel light-headed. Maybe she should have dragged herself out of bed for breakfast after all?

‘I’ll call on Saturday and tell her we can’t make it.’ He re-opened his menu. ‘I think we should start brainstorming tomorrow and get something down on paper over the weekend.’

That fast? Great. Now she felt nauseous as well.

Hiding partially behind her auburn hair as she lowered her chin to scan the menu, she cleared her throat and asked, ‘You have any ideas?’

‘A few.’

It was like pulling teeth. ‘Any you’d care to share?’

When she glanced at him she saw the slight upward pull on the corners of his mouth before he answered. ‘Not here, no.’

Cassidy’s gaze moved from side to side and she lowered her voice to a stage whisper. ‘Are they watching?’

‘They?’ His gaze rose, curiosity lifting his brows.

‘The script gremlins…’

There was a second of silence, and then a brief rumble of low laughter broke free. ‘Haven’t changed, have you?’

Oh, how little he knew.

They managed small talk after that. The latest movies Will’s company had produced, the differences in living in California compared to Ireland…They even segued from there to the weather. But she couldn’t help missing the ease they’d once had with each other. Angelique was right—Will had got serious with age. It made Cassidy feel like even more of an idiot. She couldn’t seem to manage a conversation without a wisecrack or teasing him the way she’d used to, and it added to her feeling of awkwardness. Then she hit rock bottom in the embarrassment stakes when he walked her back to the hotel.

The air really was thinner in California. And it really was incredibly warm. Food hadn’t got rid of her light-headedness. Her nose felt more blocked than ever, her throat hurt, and her voice was beginning to fade…

Then, back in the foyer of the beautiful hotel, surrounded by beautiful people in expensive clothes, Will turned to say goodbye and the world began to spin. The edges of her vision blurred—she swayed. And, as she had figuratively speaking so many years ago, Cassidy fell at his feet.

She came to with her head resting against Will’s hard chest, his warmth surrounding her. He must have sat her up. He had his arm around her. Blinking the world into focus, her eyes immediately sought his.

He was frowning. ‘What happened?’

‘If I had to guess, I’d say I fell down,’ she informed him dryly.

‘Are you sick?’

‘Bit of a cold. I spent the morning in bed.’

His mouth narrowed into a thin line as he held a glass of water to her lips. ‘You should have said something.’

Allowing the water to wash the dryness from her mouth and throat, she glanced around at the sea of interested bystanders and immediately felt colour rising in her cheeks. Great. The never-ending humiliation continued. It reminded her of that time in high school, before she’d had laser surgery, when she’d forgotten her glasses and got into the wrong car outside the school gates. She’d held a five-minute conversation with a complete stranger before she’d realised what she’d done…

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

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

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

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

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

‘What?’

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

‘I don’t think—’

‘Good. Run with that. Key card.’

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

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

‘Can we get anything for the lady?’

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

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

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

The concierge nodded. ‘Of course, sir.’

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

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

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

‘No, you’re not. Shut up, Cass.’

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

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

Oh. Dear. God.

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

When he looked at her, she summoned a smirk.

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

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

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

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

‘You can put me down now. Seriously.’

‘That’s not happening.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Liar.’

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

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

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

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

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

Cassidy lifted a brow. ‘Liar.’

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

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

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

‘Excuse me?’

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

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

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

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

Say no!

‘Yes.’

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

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

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

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

‘You don’t have to.’

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

‘I won’t pass—’

‘Humour me.’

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

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

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

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

When she yanked it open, he was.

‘You can go away now.’

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

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

He stepped back. ‘Bed.’

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

‘There. Happy now?’

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

Half of her silently pleaded with him to go away.

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

‘I’ll be back later.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

She wanted to go home.

CHAPTER TWO

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

She felt awful.

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

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

‘Cass?’ It was Will.

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

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

‘I’m coming in.’

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

‘How’s the patient?’

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

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

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

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

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

‘Time for more.’

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

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

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

Will calmly handed her a tissue.

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

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

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

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

It hurt.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘And they say men make lousy patients…’

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

‘You changed your hair.’

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

‘Still have a smart mouth, though.’

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

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

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

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

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

‘You could try asking me.’

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

‘Not the littlest bit curious?’

‘Why would I be?’

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

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

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

‘Makes me memorable…’

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

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

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

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

‘That’s evil.’

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

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

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

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

Will leaned back. ‘You need to eat.’

‘Bossing me again, Ryan?’

‘Necessary, Malone.’

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

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

‘Mmm-hmm.’ She nodded. ‘Good.’

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

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

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

Will continued while she blinked at him, ‘We need to spitball ideas and get to work. And we never used to stick to a nine to five, so if we’re working through the night it makes sense to be somewhere we can do that. I’ll come get you in the morning.’

Cassidy wondered if there was ever going to be a point where she got to make decisions on her own. ‘Don’t you have an office?’

‘I have one we can work in at home, yes.’

Not what she’d meant, and he knew it. ‘In the city. You can’t run an entire production company from home.’

‘I probably could. But, yes, I do have offices in the city. Still the same problem there—this makes more sense.’

It didn’t matter if it made sense. Surely he remembered that about her? But before she could even string together a thought, never mind form the words to argue it out, he was pushing to his feet. ‘While you’re not feeling well you can take a break to sleep any time you need to. I’ll come get you at nine.’

Cassidy watched him get halfway to the door before she managed to open her mouth. ‘I’m not comfortable with the idea of living in your house—or apartment—or whatever it is you have.’

‘You’ll forget that when you’ve been there a few days.’

‘Damn it, Will!’ She frowned at him when he turned round. ‘You can’t keep riding rough-shod over me like this. If I don’t want to stay in your house I don’t have to. And if it’s because you’re paying for this hotel then I can find somewhere—’

Lowering his chin, he lifted his brows with amused disbelief. ‘You think paying for this room is a problem for me?’

‘That’s not the point. Whether or not you can afford—’

Will shook his head, smiling incredulously. ‘It’s got nothing to do with money. It’s got to do with practicality. Man. I’d forgotten how stubborn you can be.’

Swallowing down another pang of hurt that he’d forgotten anything about her when she remembered everything about him, Cassidy arched a brow. ‘Pot, meet kettle. Regardless of whether or not you can afford to pay for this room, the simple fact is you shouldn’t be. I’ll pay you back whatever you’ve already forked out. I don’t want to owe you anything. This is business and we both know it. Whatever we once had doesn’t matter any more. We’re not even friends now.’

‘And blunt. That part I hadn’t forgotten.’ He lifted his chin and frowned at a random point in the air while taking a deep breath that expanded his wide chest. Then he dropped his chin and looked her straight in the eye. ‘You’re right. It is business. You have a job back home. I have a job here. So the sooner we get this done the sooner we can get back to work. If we dig in, and eat, drink and sleep this script for the next few weeks, we can nail it.’

It was all about the script; of course it was.

Will quirked his brows. ‘Well?’

‘It’s business.’

‘Exactly.’

‘Right.’ She didn’t have the energy to keep fighting with him. ‘Fine, then.’

With his mouth drawn into a thin line and a frown darkening his face, Will swung round and tugged on the door. ‘Nine o’clock.’

When the door closed behind him Cassidy blinked at it. For a brief second he’d almost looked angry. How on earth were they supposed to communicate well enough to write a script if they couldn’t even hold a conversation? She flumped further down on the pillows and put what was left of her soup on the nightstand before tugging the covers up over her shoulders. She felt cold again, she was shivery—and suddenly she had an incredible sense of loneliness to add to her feeling homesick.

Her first trip to Hollywood should be a fairytale experience. It was a dream she’d had since childhood, when the magic of movies had sucked her into the kind of imaginary worlds that had enthralled her for most of her life. Everything about it had fascinated her as she got older: the sets, the effects, the lighting, the locations, where the words the actors and actresses spoke came from. The latter had then become something she wanted to do—she wanted to put those words there. To watch a movie on a big screen and hear words she had written on a flat page spoken by an actor or actress who could add depths and nuances she might never even have thought of.

When she’d got her dream the world had become the most amazing place to her. And she’d got to share that magic with the man she loved. It had been perfect. She had been so happy.

But there was no such thing as perfect happiness. Life had taught her that. Failure had taken the sparkly-eyed wonder from her eyes. Then she’d had to give up her dreams, her confidence shattered, her heart broken, because Will had gone and she’d had no choice but to watch him walk away. The last time she had seen him was indelibly imprinted on her brain, and in the empty part of her heart that had died that day…

Cassidy had felt as if all the magic had been sucked out of her life. And she’d never got it back. Just small pockets of happiness ever since. But then that was everyone’s life, she had told herself. She just needed to get on with it. One day after another.

Even if for a very, very brief moment on her flight over she’d allowed herself to dream again. Not so much of Will, but of the other great love she’d lost. She’d foolishly allowed herself to think about what might happen if she rediscovered her muse and decided to take a chance in Hollywood for a while. But this script was simply something to get out of the way. Then she would go home. End of story. No pun intended.

Then she would have to decide what she wanted to do with the rest of her life.

At nine she’d been in the foyer for ten minutes, glad of the concierge to help her with her bags and glad at how easy checking out proved to be. Still a little light headed, she found a plump cushioned chair and waited…

Will was outside at the stroke of nine. Something else that was new about him. He’d once been the worst timekeeper she’d ever known.

‘You’ll be late for your own funeral,’ she would tell him.

‘Ah, now, that’s the one time I can guarantee I’ll be on time,’ he would tease back with a smile.

Cassidy missed that Will.

The new Will was frowning behind his designer sunglasses the second he got out of his lowslung silver sports car. He said something to the uniformed man in charge of valet parking as he slipped him a folded bill, then pushed through the doors and removed his sunglasses before seeking her out. Four steps later he had his hand on the handle of her case.

‘Did you check out?’

‘Yes.’

‘Any problems?’

‘No. They said it was taken care of.’

With a nod he stepped back, watching her rise. ‘Feeling any better?’

It was said with just enough softness in his deep voice to make it sound as if he cared, which made Cassidy feel the need to sigh again. Instead she managed a small smile as she stood. ‘Yes. Thank you.’

Somewhere in the wee small hours of the night she had decided the best way not to be so physically aware of Will’s presence was to avoid looking at him whenever possible. So she didn’t make eye contact as she waited for him to load her case into the boot of his car. Instead she smiled at the liveried valet as he opened the passenger door for her—though she did almost embarrass herself again by trying to get in the wrong side of the car…

When Will got into the driver’s seat and buckled up she looked out of the side window to watch Rodeo Drive starting to think about coming to life. But they had barely pulled away from the hotel before he took advantage of the fact she was trapped.

‘Want to tell me what’s really bothering you about staying at my place?’

Not so much. No. She puffed her cheeks out for a second and controlled her errant tongue before answering. ‘We don’t know each other that well any more. It’s going be like spending time in a stranger’s house.’

There was a brief silence, then; ‘I disagree.’

Well, now, there was a surprise. They worked their way through intersections and filtered into traffic while Cassidy noticed all the differences that indicated she was in a different country from home. Larger cars, palm trees, billboards advertising things she’d never heard of before, different shaped traffic lights…

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.

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.

After a few steps he asked, ‘You want to see inside?’

Nodding, she threw another smile his way.

So Will took them to the nearest open doorway and stepped back, setting her hand free to allow her to go ahead of him. ‘Some have a room like this they can dress to be any kind of store they want, but most of the buildings only go back a couple of feet from the frontage.’

Cassidy turned a circle in the empty space, tilting her head back to look up at the skeletal structure of wood and ladders. Her nostrils were filled with the scent of that same wood warmed by the Californian heat outside, and it was all too easy to see why there were so many fire extinguishers around. The danger of fire would always be a worry for a studio. The whole place would go up like a tinderbox, wouldn’t it?

‘When they dress the room they put in a false ceiling and leave space to hang the lighting. If you look outside you’ll see there aren’t any door handles or streetlights; they get changed by the props department according to the era of the shoot…’

Drinking in every word, she felt her chest fill with what felt distinctly like joy. It had been such a long time since she’d felt that way. She could have wept with how wonderful everything was. To some it might have seemed false and empty, a charade—but not to her. To her it was a world full of possibilities…

Will’s deep voice lowered until it was barely above a whisper, making Cassidy wonder for a moment if he’d even realised he’d spoken out loud. ‘Yeah, I had a feeling you’d love this.’

Lowering her chin, she caught her breath when she realised how close he was to her. There was the beginning of a smile in the green of his eyes, and the accompanying warmth she could see seemed to reach out and wrap around her like a blanket on a winter’s night. Then his gaze studied each of her eyes in turn, thick lashes flickering.

The intensity forced Cassidy to silently clear her throat before she could speak. ‘I do. It’s amazing. Thank you for bringing me here.’

Will studied her for another long moment that made her feel as if time stood still. Then he took a breath and looked around, shrugging wide shoulders beneath the pale blue shirt he wore loose over his jeans. ‘Sometimes seeing where movies are made can help with the writing process. Anything that can be filmed on a back lot or on a stage saves money on the budget. Studios like that.’

It all came down to business for him, didn’t it? He saw everything in terms of the bottom dollar. Another thing that was different. Yes, Cassidy knew it was part of his job—but it was yet another reminder that he wasn’t the same Will Ryan she had known. In the last twenty-four hours she had actually convinced herself she’d seen brief glimpses of the old Will she had loved. But every time she thought she saw something in him that might help rebuild the merest shadow of the relationship they once had—and would therefore make it easier to remember how well they could work together—it was as if a switch flipped inside him. Then the Will she didn’t know and couldn’t read was back.

It was both disconcerting and frustrating. For a second she even wanted to grasp hold of his wide shoulders and shake him, demand that he let out the Will she knew from behind the impenetrable wall he seemed to have built around himself.

‘I guess you have to worry more about that kind of stuff these days?’

‘I do.’ He wandered around the empty room, glancing briefly out through the windows clouded almost opaque with dust. ‘It’s one thing letting your imagination run riot in a script, but it’s another producing something all the way through onto the screen.’

Cassidy nodded, her gaze following him around the room. He was practically prowling. Almost restless, silently alert, his steps taking him in a wide circle around her. His gaze slid unerringly to tangle with hers at regular intervals, and it felt as if he was assessing her, trying to decide what to say and what not to. It felt vaguely predatory to her. But that was ridiculous…

Finding her mouth dry again, she swallowed, and then dampened her lips before asking, ‘So tell me what your company does.’

Pushing his hands into his pockets—a move Cassidy noticed he made a lot—Will continued circling her. ‘We’re responsible for the development and physical production of films and television shows. Sometimes we’re directly responsible for the raising of funding for a production—sometimes we do it through an intermediary. Then we sell the end product to the big studios when it’s done.’

‘You script some of them yourself?’

‘Some, yes.’

‘Is it easier to sell your scripts if you can produce them?’

‘Not always.’ The corners of his mouth tugged wryly.

He was so guarded. Had Hollywood taught him to be that way? she wondered. It was a tough industry, after all. The fact he’d been successful in it meant he’d had to learn to play hard ball at some point. But then Will had always been driven. He’d had a rougher upbringing than most. To go from fostercare kid, handed from home to home, to end up rich and successful in Hollywood was one heck of an achievement. Surely he knew that?

As jealous as she was of his success, in practically every corner of his life in comparison to how very ordinarily hers had turned out, Cassidy was incredibly proud of him. She just wished she could tell him. Not that he wanted or needed to hear it.

‘One of our productions is filming on one of the sound stages here. You want to go watch for a while?’

It was enough to put the smile back on her face. ‘Can we?’

Will looked amused by her enthusiasm. ‘Wouldn’t have offered if we couldn’t, would I?’

Oh, he could try and make her feel like a child for being so excited by everything he was showing her, but it wasn’t going to stop her feeling that way. She rushed to the door and yanked it open to walk into the bright sunshine, jerking her head and grinning at him. ‘Hurry up, then. We might miss some of the good stuff.’

An hour later she was sitting on a high folding chair, with her hands over the headphones on her ears, watching the small screen in front of her and listening to the dialogue from the actors mere feet from her. She wasn’t even distracted by the fact Will was in a similar chair close beside her—or that every time she glanced at him he was watching her with silent amusement glowing in his eyes. In fact the only thing that took some of the excitement away was when she foolishly allowed reality to seep in around the edges of the experience.

It was a one-off experience for her—and no matter how much joy she felt, it was tainted by the fact it was another fleeting glance of what could have been. Had she been brave enough or selfish enough to leave Ireland behind her, follow the man she loved to California, her life could have been as wrapped up in the world of make-believe as Will’s was. With luck, hard work and Will by her side, maybe she’d have made a go of it too. She could have been so happy. Maybe there would even have been a couple of those miniature Wills she kept seeing in her mind’s eye running around that beachfront house of his by now…

The thought made her heart twist painfully in her chest.

When the director yelled ‘Cut!’ she removed the headphones and swallowed away the lump in her throat as she handed them back to the sound engineer. ‘Thank you.’

‘No problem.’ He smiled at her before moving away.

Will’s low voice rumbled at her shoulder. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing’s wrong. Thanks again for this, Will—it’s been amazing.’ She flashed him a smile.

But he could still read her too well, and his eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly. ‘Feeling sick again?’

Actually, she’d pretty much forgotten the tail-end of her cold as the day progressed, so she could answer that one with conviction. ‘No. I’m feeling much better, as it happens—haven’t even needed tablets.’

He continued studying her eyes. ‘Then what is it?’

If she lied and said she was tired there was the chance he might suggest they leave—if he didn’t see right through her the way he usually did when she lied—and she wasn’t ready to leave yet. It wasn’t as if she could tell him the truth, was it? How was she supposed to look him in the eye and tell him her active imagination had painted a picture of a life that wasn’t hers so vividly that it made her feel the loss of it like a bereavement?

So she avoided his gaze and changed the subject. ‘Is this a new show?’

‘End of the first season. It’s done well in the ratings. Already been renewed.’ He waited for her to glance at him again before he added, ‘We’ll go take a look at the editing department next. Special effects are done somewhere else.’

Cassidy found herself mesmerised by the softness in his deep voice. And her errant tongue couldn’t help but ask, ‘Why are you doing this?’

Dark brows lifted in question.

‘I thought you were mad keen to get the script done.’

He shrugged. ‘Thought it might help.’

When he continued looking her straight in the eye, Cassidy had a moment of fear that he might know how much of a fraud she was. Was that what this whole behind-the-scenes day trip was? A way to try and get her creative juices flowing again? In fairness, it was a pretty great plan if that had been his aim. But if it had how, exactly, had he known? Had she been so transparent? Had the scenes she’d worked on with him been so dreadful in Hollywood terms? If they had, why hadn’t he said so? If he knew what a phoney she was why hadn’t he said something? Bringing her all the way across the world to allow her to make a fool of herself when in all probability he could more than likely have just bought her out of the contract…

‘You were always as fascinated by this stuff as I was.’ He stared into her eyes for another long moment, then looked away, turning his profile to her as he got to his feet. ‘Seeing it should keep it real in your mind while we work on the script. And if we can cut a few corners by filming some scenes here instead of on location then we can free up some of the budget for better effects.’

Ah. Right. Business. That made more sense to her than him doing it because he knew how much she would love it. It put her mind at ease that he hadn’t seen right through her charade. She didn’t feel any better, though—it would have been nice if he’d cared enough to do it just because he knew the pleasure she would get from it.

But then Will Ryan had long since ceased to think of Cassidy in terms of anything remotely resembling the word ‘pleasure’—physically or otherwise…

She nodded firmly and edged off the seat. ‘Editing department it is, then.’

CHAPTER FOUR

THEY’D spent most of the day at the studio, so it meant they had to spend the next few days digging in. To Cassidy’s amazement it was going pretty well, all things considered.

Will’s guided tour had indeed given her an extra dimension of insight to the logistics of each scene they came up with, and—even though she knew he hadn’t intended it—it had also got her creative juices flowing. When they started getting words down on paper she felt as if she was getting a part of herself back again. It was exhilarating, and it boosted her self-confidence no end. Heck, she was even starting to have fun.

That would be the reason she would cite later for not having seen the danger coming her way before it arrived. Because if she’d been paying more attention…

When they couldn’t agree on what should happen at the end of an action scene, Will came up with the idea that they read the lines aloud. Nothing unusual about that, she had thought at the time. It wasn’t anything new, after all. When they had worked on the first of Nick Fortune’s adventures they’d often acted out a scene before they’d even put words down, and sometimes they’d become so absorbed in the roles they were playing that it had added a dimension to the fictional characters they might never have thought of otherwise.

But back then they’d had a very different relationship. And it never occurred to Cassidy to take that into consideration when they got to their feet with their matching sheets of script in hand, hot from the printer.

Nick and Rachel had got themselves into trouble, and had been arguing about whose fault it was they were in the mess they were. They were minutes away from being tossed off the edge of a cliff by armed terrorists…

‘“I suppose you’re going to kill us now?” That’s what you asked them? Why didn’t you just offer to shoot us too?’ said Will as Nick.

‘Oooohhh,’ laughed Cassidy as Rachel. ‘Believe me if I had a gun right now I’d be more than happy to shoot you!’

She grinned when Will changed his voice to read one of the terrorists’ lines. ‘Would you two shut up? You’ve got about five minutes to make your peace.’ He threw her an all too brief smile before jerking his chin at her to indicate it was her line.

Cassidy lifted her sheet and tried to find where they were. ‘Just make sure he goes first. He’s the one that got us into this mess.’

‘Me? I’m not the one who screamed and gave away our position!’

‘That spider was the size of Moby Dick!’ Cassidy couldn’t help but laugh again at the line. She loved that line. It was her line; she’d thought of it. She was back! What had made her think she couldn’t do this again?

Will became Will again. ‘Which brings us to the part under debate…’

The original idea had been to have Nick and Rachel fight their way out of the situation by distracting the terrorists with increased arguing. Cassidy had wanted it to be Rachel’s idea; funnily enough Will had wanted it to be Nick’s. Will suggested Nick should wink at Rachel, to let her know what he was doing. Cassidy said Rachel was too mad at him to play along with anything he came up with.

Suddenly Will looked at her, with a gaze that made her heart jump out of rhythm.

‘What?’ she asked a little breathlessly.

‘I have an idea.’ He stepped closer. ‘Play along.’

Cassidy turned her head and eyed him with suspicion. ‘What are you doing?’

‘They get to the edge of the cliff. They’re still arguing. Guns at their backs.’

‘Uh-huh…And then…?’

Something dangerous shimmered across Will’s eyes as he closed the gap between them, his deep voice lowering to a husky-edged rumble. ‘Then, just before they’re pushed over the edge, Nick asks for a last request for a dying man…’

‘And that request would be…?’

Will smiled that smile and knocked her on her ear again. ‘He asks to kiss Rachel.’

Cassidy’s eyes widened. ‘He what?’

‘Just for the record, her face looks exactly like yours does right now…’

Somewhere in the foggy haze of her completely distracted brain Cassidy knew it would ramp up the scene to a new level, but that wasn’t what made her heart thunder loudly in her ears and her body temperature rise. No. It was the fact that Will was staring down at her with a darkening gaze.

He wasn’t seriously going to—?

Thick dark lashes lowered slowly as he took the last step to bring his body within inches of hers. And as she swayed a little on her feet he angled his head, his gaze lowering to focus on her mouth. Oh, God. He was. But why? He couldn’t—

Cassidy’s lips reached for his of their own volition when he was less than an inch away, like a flower lifting towards the sun. His mouth was full and firm and hotter than she remembered from the hundreds of times she’d kissed him before, but no less familiar. When his large hands framed her face, she took a deep breath through her nose. When he leaned into her she exhaled against his lips, her heavy eyelids closing…

If anyone had told her a month ago that some time in the very near future Will Ryan would be kissing her again, and she would be feeling it in every cell in her body, she’d have laughed out loud at the ridiculousness of the notion. But he was—and she did.

It was surreal. And at the same time it was like coming home.

Long fingers slid down her cheeks, around her neck and into her hair. The taste of him was on her lips and the heady scent of clean laundry and pure Will was surrounding her. Cassidy forgot about the script, forgot about the fact they were playing the part of Nick and Rachel, forgot about the danger in what they were doing. She forgot all those things.

Instead she dropped her sheet of paper and reached for handfuls of the shirt above his lean waist, while he slipped a hand up to cradle the back of her head, his fingers threading into her hair as Cassidy drowned in the sensations flooding her body.

She’d missed kissing him. How she’d missed it. It was as if her body had been asleep like Snow White’s, and only now, with the right man, was she being kissed back into life. But then no one had ever kissed her like Will kissed her. He could make the world tilt on its axis beneath her feet. Always. From the very first time he’d kissed her. He’d caught her similarly off-guard as they’d walked over the O’Connell Street Bridge in Dublin, after taking photographs of possible locations for a short film they’d been working on for their class. With no warning he had taken her hand, tugged her to him and kissed her. Because he had to, he had told her afterwards. As if it had been as vital to him as breathing or drinking water, or any of the other things a person had to do to survive…

When he slowly drew his lips from hers, her mouth followed his back for the inch she’d closed, her eyes opening wide and searching his with a combination of wonder and fear.

After a brief moment of studying her with a dark unreadable gaze, Will rested his cheek against hers, whispering into her ear in a husky voice, ‘Then Nick says, “You take the one on the left”.’

Cassidy’s heart plummeted to the soles of her feet.

Will released her and stepped back, turning abruptly and informing her in a flat, businesslike voice, ‘That works better. So, we’ll add that in and jump straight to the fight and the chase scene…’

‘Right.’ Cassidy nodded dumbly while she tried to get her breathing under control. The script. Nick and Rachel. Not Will and Cassidy. That was what the kiss had been about. He hadn’t kissed her because he’d wanted to. He’d just forgotten they didn’t have the same relationship now they’d had before when they would have played out similar Nick and Rachel scenes—apparently.

Bending down to retrieve the sheets of paper on the floor, she took a deep breath and puffed out her cheeks as she exhaled. She could only pray he wasn’t planning on acting out the love scene they had planned for Scene Three…

She didn’t think she could survive Will Ryan breaking her heart twice in one lifetime. She wasn’t entirely sure she’d got over the first time.

The kiss changed things. At least it did for Cassidy. She tried not to let it, but she couldn’t stop it—partly because she couldn’t seem to get it out of her head…

What she needed to do was focus on what they were doing. Heck, at this point she would even take a stab at rebuilding some kind of platonic friendship with Will. After all, she had to work across a desk from him every day. How was she supposed to do any of those things if every time she looked at him she was thinking about how it had felt to be kissed by him and to kiss him back? Why was she so obsessed by it anyway? It wasn’t as if she’d kissed him back because she’d wanted to—at least she told herself it wasn’t. She’d been playing a part, the same way he had, thinking on her feet, reacting to what he’d done—that was all. It didn’t mean anything.

Darn it, he was looking at her again. She could feel it. Every time he did it the hair on the back of her neck tingled.

‘Stir crazy?’

She kept pacing around the room, the same way she had for most of the two days since they’d kissed. ‘I’m fine.’

‘Well, I’m not,’ his voice rumbled back. ‘All that pacing is making me crazy.’ Will sighed heavily. ‘You’re not used to sharing space with someone these days, are you? I never pictured you as that much of a loner…’

Cassidy stopped dead in her tracks and angled her head. ‘Excuse me?’

‘Lived with someone else after me, did you?’

Her jaw dropped. What business was it of his who she had or hadn’t lived with? She could have lived with twenty men. Not that she had lived with anyone else, barring the time she’d lived in her father’s house while he was ill. But that wasn’t the point.

A few times over the years she’d considered advertising for a flatmate, but by then she’d got used to having her own space. Living on her own, she didn’t have to worry about someone else’s opinions on things like what TV channel to watch, or how loud she could play music, or any of a dozen other compromises a person made when they shared living space.

‘Compromises…’

Cassidy frowned when he said the very thing she’d just thought—as if he’d somehow stepped inside her head. ‘What?’

‘I said living with someone involves compromises.’

‘It does.’ She nodded. ‘And forced intimacy…’

‘Shared responsibilities…’

When he looked up at her she turned away and began pacing again, the words quietly slipping off the tip of her tongue. ‘Never being alone.’

She frowned sideways at him when she said it, confusion clouding her vision as he studied her with a curious expression that almost said he suspected why she’d been so uneasy with him of late. She hoped he didn’t! But while he continued staring at her there was an inexplicably heavy tension in the room.

Her chin lifted. ‘Okay. Fine. You’re right—all are things I suck royally at. Barring the last one. I excel at being alone these days—it’s what I do best.’

‘Cass…’ He kept his voice low. ‘Living with someone is nothing like what we’re doing now. You know that. And being alone isn’t—’

‘Of course it’s nothing like this. This is artificial. And temporary.’ Cassidy tried to figure out why that felt so bad and couldn’t seem to find an answer. Maybe being alone for so long had affected her more than she’d realized? She started pacing again. ‘This isn’t sharing space. It’s temporary. A charade.’

‘A charade?’ he repeated dryly.

She glanced sideways at him again as she changed direction. ‘Oh, come on. It’s miraculous enough that we’ve managed to work together this last while…’

‘We shared space before and it was never this much of a problem…’ Will reached for his mug and frowned when he discovered it was empty. ‘You want coffee?’

He didn’t wait for an answer, reaching across the large desk for her empty mug and pushing his squeaky chair back. ‘I don’t think this has anything to do with sharing space with me. I think trying to keep me at arm’s length is starting to take its toll on you.’

When he left the room her feet immediately followed him. ‘And what exactly is that supposed to mean?’

‘I think you know what it means.’

How dared he assume he knew her every thought? Just because nine times out of ten he was in the ballpark area, it didn’t mean he could read her damn mind.

She followed him across the living room. ‘So if I’m not throwing myself at you it means I’m fighting some inner battle, does it? How do you get that head of yours through doors?’

Setting their mugs down on the breakfast bar, Will went about refilling the coffee-maker, replacing the filter and spooning in coffee granules. ‘Doesn’t have anything to do with throwing yourself at me. You’re determined not to allow yourself to even be friends with me again. It’s childish, frankly. We’re both adults.’

Placing her hands on her hips, she stopped dead at one end of the breakfast bar, speechless.

With the coffee set to percolate, Will turned around, leaning nonchalantly against the counter-top on the opposite side of the kitchen from her and calmly folding his arms across the studio logo on his T-shirt. ‘You’re different. The Cass I met in the Beverly Wilshire just over a week ago isn’t the girl I knew in Dublin. The girl I knew in Dublin was open-minded and honest to the point of bluntness, and she would never have let something brood in her the way you have since you got here. So let’s just clear the air and get it over with, shall we?’

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.

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?’

‘Meaning?’

‘You didn’t see some of their faces when you debated with me?’

She had—and she might have been worried he was angry about it if she hadn’t seen the sparkle of amusement in his eyes. ‘I noticed the look on their faces when you conceded anything. I get the impression that doesn’t happen too often…’

‘It’s rare.’ He shrugged and cast a glance over the open-plan work area outside the conference room like some ruler surveying his kingdom. ‘But not unheard-of.’

‘Hmm.’ Cassidy leaned against the other side of the frame, pursed her lips and then smiled when he looked at her. ‘Might do you good if it happened more often, Ryan. Who knows what creativity you have here, hidden under too many layers of fear to speak up in front of the boss. You should thank me.’

‘Or hire you.’

Her jaw dropped. But before she could figure out if he was being serious, he pushed off the door frame and jerked his head. ‘Come on. I have something I want you to see while we’re here…’

Of all the things she had expected to be shown—fancy office, great views over Los Angeles, other productions he might be working on—a room the size of a large stationery cupboard, filled with piles of paper and sacks of letters pretty much came at the bottom of the list. So when he turned the lights on and closed the door behind them, she turned round and lifted a brow.

‘A mailroom? That’s what you wanted to show me?’ Her voice was flat.

Will blinked lazily at her. ‘Pick a letter.’

She was obviously missing something. Frowning, she turned her head and examined the room more closely. Nope—it still looked like a mailroom to her. Not a particularly well-organised one either.

‘Pick a letter. Or an e-mail—doesn’t matter.’ He stepped closer to her. ‘Any one you want.’

Okay, she’d play. Glancing at him from the corner of her eye, she made a big deal out of waving her hand in circles before closing her eyes and feeling around for a random selection—not helping with any invisible filing system he might have.

When she opened her eyes and held it up in front of her face, the corners of Will’s mouth were tugging upward. ‘Read it.’

Dragging her gaze from his, she slipped the letter from the opened envelope and began to read, her eyes widening when she realized what it was. Lifting her chin, she stared at the rest of the papers—then at Will.

The green of his eyes radiated warmth, and his deep voice lowered as he told her, ‘Pick another one.’

She did—and got an e-mail that made her throat tighten.

Will’s voice was lower and closer when he spoke again. ‘Keep going.’

‘All of them?’ Cassidy lifted her chin and silently cleared her throat, so her voice didn’t sound so strangled. ‘This whole room is fan mail for our movie?’

‘Yes. The studio forwarded it here to begin with, but when it started increasing we changed the address on the website. We get mail from all over the world.’ He searched her eyes and smiled. ‘They call themselves the Fortune Hunters.’

For the first time in her life Cassidy was at a complete loss for words.

So Will kept going, his gaze locked on hers. ‘It started with message boards. Then they launched their own site and it grew from there. There are role-playing games, conspiracy theories—some of them have all the lines memorised so when they have a screening they can join in. They even dress up as the characters at conventions…’

With her emotions threatening to overwhelm her, Cassidy forcibly dragged her gaze from his and reached for another letter. ‘What’s this one?’

Will held an edge so he could read it. ‘California’s Fortune Hunters. There are chapters all over the place now, but California was the first. They organise a yearly charity screening of the movie, and let us know when it is so we can send memorabilia to auction on the night.’

‘I had no idea.’

‘I didn’t think you did.’ He waited for her to look at him before he told her. ‘The movie may have tanked at the box office, Cass, but it’s been successful in ways no one could ever have predicted. It’s brought people together—it’s even been the catalyst for a few weddings. There’s a community of amazing people out there who are making a difference to other people’s lives with their charitable causes through it. Does that sound like a failure to you?’

Cassidy shook her head.

‘No.’ Will smiled one of those smiles as he reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. ‘If you didn’t get enough of a self-confidence boost from the reaction to the pitch we just did, then maybe this will do it.’

She still couldn’t speak.

When Will’s gaze dropped briefly to her mouth she held her breath, her heart thundering against her breastbone as she waited to see if he was going to kiss her…

But he dropped his hand and stepped back. ‘Read through some of them while I make a few calls, if you like. There’s a coffee machine down the hall. Then I’ll come back and drive us home, so we can work on the changes we agreed in the meeting.’

She nodded. Then watched as he turned round and opened the door. The first tear slipped onto her lower lashes after he’d disappeared. It wasn’t just because of what he’d shown her and told her, or the fact he had known how much she’d needed to see it. It was because he’d used the word ‘home’.

As if it was her home too…

The thing was, somewhere along the way, his house had started to feel more like home than the one she had in Ireland. It would take strength to leave and close the door on their relationship for once and for all. She knew she’d be leaving even more of herself behind than he’d taken with him the first time.

They didn’t go straight to work on the script revisions when they got back to Will’s house. Cassidy couldn’t allow herself to think of it as ‘home’. She’d already allowed herself to get too comfortable in her surroundings as it was.

Unusually—since she’d arrived anyway—it was raining outside: hot, heavy, humid rain. So they had a takeaway Moroccan dinner inside—plates of a half-dozen dishes she’d never tried before spread out on a coffee table in front of them while they sat on one of Will’s large sofas.

‘I’m curious about your life,’ he said.

‘Why?’

‘I can’t ask you a simple question?’

‘Maybe I’m curious why you need to know.’ Cassidy was fully aware of the verbal game of poker they were playing over dessert, but she wasn’t backing down.

‘I thought we’d decided we’re friends again?’

She avoided his gaze, playing with the ice cream in her tub. ‘Okay, we’re friends.’

‘Friends talk about stuff. Try me.’

It took a long while for her to make a decision, and Cassidy couldn’t help but smile when he lifted dark brows in challenge. She knew he knew the reason she was reluctant to talk about her life was because it involved emotion. She knew he knew that she knew Will didn’t talk about emotion. End of story. He’d rather chew off his own arm. So it was, therefore, a case of what was sauce for the goose…

But this change for the better in their relationship had allowed them to start getting to know each other again, and she was reluctant to put a dampener on that. Especially when they were both smiling more, and working together had got easier, and he’d been so thoughtful of late…

The ice cream took several violent digs before she sighed heavily. ‘One hint of anything resembling sympathy, Will Ryan…’

When she glanced up he was continuing to smile his patented humouring smile at her.

She frowned. ‘You’re doing it already.’

‘I’m not.’ He pasted a serious expression on his face, folding his arms and jerking his chin at her. ‘Go on. I’m listening.’

‘I hate this. I tell you about my life and it’s just going to sound pathetically ordinary compared to yours.’

‘Not necessarily. Most of my life is more ordinary than people might think.’

Cassidy snorted softly in disbelief. ‘Like what, for instance? Hanging out with movie stars? Working in the motion picture industry? The fact you attend the Oscars every year? The millionaire’s beach house you live in?’

It took a second, then one of those smiles broke free, the green in his eyes glittering hypnotically. He shook his head before looking at a point over her left shoulder as he considered his answer. ‘It’s hard to find words.’

‘Will, you work with words every day.’ She kept her voice purposefully soft. ‘Can’t spell them—but you know how to use them…’

‘Very funny.’

‘Try. One ordinary thing about your life.’

‘Just the one and you’ll tell me about your life.’ He looked as if he doubted that.

‘Make it a truly mundane one and I’ll fill in the blanks.’ She lifted her spoon and made a cross in the air above her breasts. ‘Cross my heart.’

The move apparently gave him an open invitation to drop his gaze and watch the increased rise and fall of her breasts as he looked at them. Then his thick lashes lifted and he chuckled at her look of accusation before informing her, ‘I don’t have a housekeeper. So I do all my own cleaning.’

‘Oh, no—your obsession with neatness doesn’t count.’ It was something that had never ceased to astound her, but he’d always seemed to get pleasure from an organised environment. Whereas Cassidy had always lived in the kind of chaos that was reflective of her life in general. In the end she’d put his borderline obsession down to control—the same kind of control that he’d exerted over so many areas of his life.

Only in the bedroom had he ever fully lost that precious self-control. When he’d made love to her she’d never had any doubts about how he felt. But then neither had he about how she felt. They’d been stripped naked—emotionally as well as physically. Something Cassidy had never allowed herself to come close to experiencing with anyone else. Not that he would ever know that.

Will shrugged and stole a spoonful of her ice cream. ‘Still counts as ordinary. Everyone does housework. It’s a universal equaliser.’

Cassidy laughed. ‘I’ve made a valiant effort to avoid it wherever possible, believe me.’

The corners of his mouth quirked. ‘I believe you. Now I’ve lived up to my end of the bargain it’s your turn. Tell me about this ordinary life of yours.’

It was on the tip of her tongue to ask again why he wanted to know, but instead she dropped her chin and played some more with the ice cream. ‘I teach, so I work according to the school terms. In the summer I usually manage to find work at camps, or at places where working parents can leave their kids while they do their nine to fives. I have a flat. I have teacher friends I meet for lunches or coffees or whatever. I used to have a cat—’

‘What happened to it?’

‘It must have been about a hundred years old when I got it from the shelter, so it didn’t last long.’

‘Didn’t get another one?’

‘Nope.’ She smiled wryly at her ice cream. ‘Apparently I wasn’t ready to deal with another loss after my dad. I cried for weeks over that dumb cat.’

When Will didn’t say anything she stole an upward glance at him from underneath a wave of lose hair. He was studying her again. But instead of asking What? that way she usually did, she took the opportunity to say, ‘Thank you. For the card and the flowers you sent.’

He knew she didn’t mean after the cat had died. ‘I got your note. You don’t have to thank me again.’

Cassidy dampened her lips and took a breath. ‘It meant a lot. I didn’t put that in the note. And I should have. That time is kind of a blur to me now.’

‘Grief can be like that.’ His gaze shifted to her loose hair, and Cassidy wondered if he was thinking of tucking it away again. ‘You had a lot to do to wrap everything up as well. At least you had your family to help you.’

‘I did.’ Unlike the eight-year-old Will, who’d had no one when his mother had passed away; it still killed Cassidy that he’d been left so alone.

‘You could have called me if you’d needed anything—you know that.’

She did. Even if he hadn’t written it in the card he had sent. ‘Wasn’t that easy.’

Taking a deep breath, he reached forward for the remote control of his ridiculously large widescreen TV and handed it to her. ‘I’ve decided we’re taking the night off. Pick a movie.’

Cassidy blinked in surprise. ‘I thought you wanted to get this thing done?’

‘It’ll wait.’ He waved the remote in the air. ‘Pick a movie.’

Setting the ice cream tub between her knees, Cassidy took the remote with one hand, leaning forward and resting the back of her other hand against his forehead. ‘Are you feeling sick? Do you have a temperature? Maybe you caught my cold…’

He removed her hand. ‘You can’t spend an evening just sitting doing nothing with me, can you?’

‘Yes, I can.’ But she could feel her cheeks warming at the ‘doing nothing with me’ part. Because in the past sitting on a sofa watching a movie with him would have led to kissing. Kissing would have led to touching. Then—

‘Prove it. Pick a movie.’

With an arched brow she lifted her chin and curled her legs underneath her, glaring sideways at him as she pointed the remote at the TV. ‘You’ll regret this.’

Will toed off his shoes and lifted his feet to rest them on the coffee table, settling back into the large cushions. ‘No, I’m not.’

‘Oh, yes you are.’ She smirked as the screen jumped to life and she flicked through the channels to find what she was looking for. There it was. That would do, ‘Because it is now officially chick-flick night…’

When the credits played at the end of the movie, Cassidy turned her head against the back of the sofa and found Will fast asleep, his face turned towards her. He was gorgeous. Strands of dark hair falling across his forehead, cheeks flushed with sleep, full lips parted as he breathed deep, even breaths. For a long while she just looked at him, drinking in the sight and memorising every detail. Then she gave in to temptation and brushed a single strand of rich hair off his forehead with her fingertips. Her voice was a whisper, as if she was reluctant to lose the stolen moment. ‘Will?’

He didn’t react, so she smiled and tried again with a slightly stronger voice. ‘Will.’

‘Hmm…?’

Still smiling, she watched as he slowly made his way into consciousness. How many times had she watched him waking up? Probably hundreds. Yet apparently, even after so many years, it was still one of her favourite things to do.

Will blinked her into focus with heavy lashes. ‘Cass?’

Though obviously still caught between sleeping and waking, he lifted a hand and gently brushed her hair back from her cheek. ‘Cass…’

Cassidy froze when he leaned towards her. What was he—?

Oh, no—no, no, no, no, no! This wasn’t happening! Why had he—? What did he think he was—? Was he seriously—? He was kissing her! Unscripted! No, wait—it was worse than that. He was kissing her, and it was…it was—well, it was…

Oh, wow.

At first she was stunned at how fast her body responded. The heat built like a flashfire in dry scrubland, even though the kiss was soft and sweet and so tender it shredded yet another edge off Cassidy’s already ragged heart. It seemed endless, as if the world turned more slowly, while her heart pounded heavily against her breasts. Nothing had ever felt as right in her entire life—not one single thing—and knowing that scared her to death. She could not fall in love with this man again. Oh, please. But what if she’d never fallen out of love with him?

Oh. God.

Now she was kissing him back. Stupid, stupid girl! What was she doing? It was Will Ryan—the man who broke her heart and changed her life for ever, ruining her for any other man who ever showed the vaguest little interest in her! What was she doing kissing him back? Had she lost her mind?

When the moan formed low in her chest she had the fight of her life to keep it there. She couldn’t let the sound out. If she let it out he’d know. He’d know he was making her toes curl. He would know how little it would take to get her horizontal again. Who did that after eight years apart? What was it about him? Was she really so needy that she—?

Oh, it was good. She never wanted it to end.

But it had to. It. Had. To. So she dragged her mouth from his—then stared at him as she fought to control her breathing, while his eyes opened and his warm breath washed over her flushed cheeks. He stared back. Then frowned and opened his mouth…

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