His L.A. Cinderella. Trish Wylie

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