Читать книгу A Modern Cinderella - Kate Hardy - Страница 15

‘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.’