A Modern Cinderella. Kate Hardy

       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