A Modern Cinderella. Kate Hardy
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