Читать книгу A Modern Cinderella - Kate Hardy - Страница 13

‘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.’