Once Upon an Ice Queen

by Dallen, Maggie

  Kat raised one eyebrow in question. “Handle what?”

  Kennedy uncrossed her arms and spread her hands out before her as she laid it all out on the line. “Look, we don’t have many openings at the moment and most of those are high-level positions that would require far more experience than your friend could fudge.”

  Kat frowned. “Okay, that’s understandable. He’d be fine starting out entry level, he’s not picky.”

  Kennedy had a hard time believing that—not that he wasn’t picky but that a super attractive actor who was probably used to being coddled in life wouldn’t kick up a fuss about what she was about to propose. She supposed they’d both find out soon enough. “We do have an internship opening.”

  Understanding dawned in Kat’s expression and now it was her turn to muffle a laugh as Kennedy continued. “It doesn’t pay well but it would expose him to all the different departments and at the very least, it would give him some experience for his resume. If you think—”

  “Oh man, I can’t wait to tell Caleb he’s going to be an intern,” Kat interrupted with unabashed glee.

  Kennedy shot her a questioning look. “Do you think he’d go for it?”

  Kat nodded. “I know he will.”

  Six

  I’m an intern, Caleb told himself as he studied his reflection in the mirror of the midtown highrise’s lobby. I’m an intern.

  Yup, it still sounded just as ludicrous when he said it, even to himself. He straightened his tie and assessed his appearance. He looked the part. He narrowed his eyes and turned so he could study his profile. No, that wasn’t right. He looked the part of a high-level executive, not some intern.

  But then, he’d have to reverse his age by a solid ten years to look like an intern.

  He bit back a sigh as he met his gaze in the mirror. He refused to feel sorry for himself. Yes, this was a minor setback in his life but that didn’t mean he had to wallow.

  He was not a wallower, dang it. He was an attractive former soaps star with a fan club. How many people could say they had a fan club? Not many. And he’d bet good money that none were interns.

  That made him grin, albeit a rueful, mildly self-pitying grin. But it was better than crying.

  He was not one of those men who couldn’t cry or even one who was repulsed by it. Maybe it was the many years of being able to well up on demand—a manly tearful glisten when a patient died or a careful tear of happiness when his true love came back from the dead.

  She hadn’t really been dead, just presumed dead.

  Still, even though he embraced the occasional cry, he was not about to show up at his first day at work at his first non-acting job with tears in his eyes.

  He might be a thirty-year-old intern, but he had his pride.

  Sort of.

  Taking a deep breath, he turned away from the mirror and headed toward the elevators. The guard had given him his guest pass already and if the paunchy bald security guy had thought it was odd that he’d stopped to check himself out, that was his business. He refused to think about what anyone else thought of him today. Not the security guard and not Kat’s friend in HR who’d set this thing up.

  Was it a blow to his pride? Yes. But was it a job? Yes. Kind of. Well, it was a foot in the door and that was the best he could hope for considering his severe lack of skills, degree, and training.

  Not to mention his complete and utter lack of direction.

  He stared up at the ticking numbers as the elevator rose. Counting the floors as they went by was a better use of his time than kicking himself once again for not having a plan in his life. He’d spent the past week doing nothing but that as he sat around his apartment, watching TV in his boxers.

  The day he’d found himself watching Days of Love to watch Dr. Brandon Reeves’ funeral, he knew he’d gone to a very bad place. So really, this internship was a blessing. Even if the pay was nearly nonexistent and the job was demeaning, even if the role was clearly meant for someone a decade younger, it was a blessing. If nothing else, it got him out of his apartment.

  And it would give him some crucial experience.

  Kat’s voice in his head reminded him of that, she’d said it more times than he could count the other day when she’d come to his place to pitch the idea.

  She couldn’t hide her amusement, though. Oddly, her laughter about his predicament was just what he’d needed. If she’d shown any sort of pity, he might have started to cry in earnest. Not an elegant one-tear cry for the cameras but an honest to goodness blubber.

  But with Kat laughing, he’d found himself laughing too, which was what he’d needed. First he’d been killed off his show, then he’d been unceremoniously kicked out of a hot woman’s cab, then he’d been informed that the only thing he was qualified to do in the “real world,” as Kat called it, was to intern at a television station. Not just any station. One that was solely geared toward children.

  So glamorous. If only the reporters at Soap Opera Digest could see him now.

  The elevator came to a stop and he stepped out onto a plush carpet that muffled the sound of his footsteps so he was inadvertently sneaking up on the woman behind the large reception desk.

  The receptionist behind the desk was bent down so only the black bun atop her head was visible as she scribbled something on a notepad.

  He cleared his throat and her head snapped up.

  His heart stopped beating in his chest. For a second he forgot where he was and why as he gaped at the woman—his woman. His mystery woman, rather.

  She glared. Her lips were pursed like she’d tasted something sour. With her hair back and that unpleasant look on her face, she looked exactly as he’d last seen her when she’d shut the car door in his face.

  Only she didn’t seem to recognize him. Not at first. “You must be Caleb,” she said. Then her eyes widened and he could practically feel her gaze raking over him, taking in his body, his eyes, his jaw.

  “Crap.” She spit the word at him like a weapon before clamping her mouth shut.

  He realized his mouth was still hanging open. “You work here?”

  Yeah, that was not the smartest thing he’d ever said and her scornful look said she agreed. She crossed her arms over her chest. “What are you doing here?”

  Unbelievable. She’d been the jerk who’d rudely kicked him out of her car in the middle of a strange neighborhood and now she was offended that he was here? Where he was supposed to be?

  “What are you doing here?” he shot back.

  She widened her eyes and arched her brows in disbelief.

  Oh man, she was hot when she wasn’t looking like an angry schoolmarm. Actually, she was hot even then, just not nearly as approachable.

  She wasn’t exactly approachable now, but the fact that she was no longer glaring and scowling seemed to be a step in the right direction.

  “I work here,” she said, her tone dripping with condescension. “As you so aptly pointed out.”

  He gave his head a little shake at her nasty tone. Jeez, what was wrong with this woman? What had he ever done to her? Except for kiss her, obviously, but he was almost certain it had been as good a kiss for her as it had been for him. That kind of chemistry couldn’t be one-sided.

  Could it?

  It had been a great kiss, hadn’t it? Oh crap. A whole new level of self-pity swept over him as everything he thought he’d ever known about women and kissing was called into question.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked for a second time.

  “I work here too.” He watched as her eyes rounded in what could only be described as abject horror.

  “No. Not possible.” She shook her head so quickly her tight bun looked in danger of collapsing as it wobbled.

  He wished it would. A memory of that long black glossy hair popped up in his mind. She’d looked like a classic Hollywood glamour queen with her hair down and lips that siren red color. One would never guess that kind of sexy siren hotness was hiding behind these stodgy clothes
and the severe hair. He had an overwhelming urge to close the distance between them and tug the pins out of her hair so it would fall. Then he’d kiss the heck out of her until she stopped scowling and gave him that come-hither smile again, the one he’d been dreaming about every night since that night.

  “You can’t be—” She licked her lips and he found himself staring, fixating on that brief glimpse of her tongue, of her wet lips and the way they parted like she was waiting to be kissed.

  Or like she was about to yell at him again. “You cannot be Caleb Jennings.”

  She knew his name. His gaze shifted up so he could meet her stare, and that was when it clicked into place. The fact that she’d known his name when he walked in, that she’d seemed to be waiting for him…

  Oh no. Crappity crap. “You’re Kennedy?” Everything Kat had told him about this woman came rushing back. Particularly phrases like rigid, hard to impress, influential in the industry, and intelligent in the extreme.

  They stared at one another in mutual horror. This could not be happening. As if this day, this job, this new life was not humiliating enough. Now it seemed his new boss, the woman who’d offered him this pity internship, was the same woman who’d thrown him out of her car.

  After he’d kissed her.

  Not only that, but she clearly hated him—why, he couldn’t say, but if that wasn’t hatred written all over her face he didn’t know what it was.

  It definitely wasn’t like. It wasn’t even amusement. He’d seen amusement at his expense on that face, and this? This was not it.

  Contempt was probably the best way to describe the look. He cleared his throat and tried not to be intimidated by this scary woman with her practical pumps and death glare. Sticking his hand out, he gave her his most charming smile, the one he used to win over the most ardent supporters of Brent Blakely, Dr. Brandon Reeve’s arch nemesis. If those diehard fans could still fall in love with him after his character had slept with Brent’s pregnant fiancée, surely it would help to thaw this ice queen.

  “So,” he said, forcing a jovial tone as his hand hovered in the air between them. “You’re the super smart hiring manager Kat’s been telling me so much about.”

  Her lips curved into a sneer. Her glance dropped down to his hand but she made no move to shake it. “So,” she said, her tone far from jovial. “You’re the actor.”

  His hand dropped as he flinched. There was no disguising the disgust in her voice. It was shocking, really. He knew there were people out there who didn’t like actors, but he’d never actually met one.

  If the situation were any different he might have called her on it.

  He took in her terrifyingly cold eyes and the lips that were pressed together in a firm, unforgiving line.

  Yeah, okay, probably not. No matter what the circumstance, he probably would not have confronted this she-devil. It was becoming abundantly clear that the woman he’d thought he’d met the night of the party did not exist. The one who teased and flirted? The one who’d kissed him so passionately? She must have been a figment of his imagination, because the woman before him showed no signs of similarity with the sassy, sometimes funny, charismatic vixen in the taxi.

  She heaved a sigh as her lips hitched to the side in another sour expression. “Well, you’re here and you’re on time, so I guess that’s something.”

  He blinked in incomprehension at her words and her disparaging tone. What the heck had he ever done to deserve this kind of treatment?

  He was about to get irritated. Royally peeved, even.

  He’d reached that point where he could let his internal dialogue go rogue and he could rant and rave and work himself into a tizzy about how unfair this was.

  Or he could suck it up.

  Just like he wasn’t one to wallow, he also wasn’t one to rush into anger. He hated getting angry, it made him feel queasy and he avoided it at all costs.

  He tried to look at Kennedy objectively, taking in the hostile way her arms were crossed. Hostile, or defensive. Sure, she was behaving like a witch, but she’d clearly been caught off guard as well. Maybe she just didn’t handle surprises well.

  He made a mental note to never ever catch this woman unawares ever again.

  Besides, Kat liked this woman, and Kat had excellent taste in people, which meant Kennedy couldn’t be all that bad. He tried to imagine how Kat would react to this woman before him.

  She’d laugh. Kat was awesome at finding the humor in any given situation. He decided then and there that he’d try to be like Kat. He’d forget all about the other night when she’d tossed him to the curb and he’d give her another shot. He’d do his very best to look at her the way Kat did, with an air of amusement.

  She wasn’t crazy and coldhearted, she was funny. A character.

  His smile turned slightly more genuine and he watched as she narrowed her eyes at him like he’d just offended her mother.

  “Come on, follow me,” she said as she turned her back on him and led the way down a long, narrow hallway.

  Caleb bit back a sigh.

  Yup, she was a laugh riot.

  Seven

  This was a nightmare. This whole week had been a disaster. Kennedy frowned at her computer screen, wishing with all her might that the force of her glare might make this new problem go away.

  It did not.

  The problem du jour came in the form of an email from one of the network’s stars, a Mr. Hermithead. That was not his real name, obviously, but he’d created the character which was the star of a show with the same name—a show that was ludicrous in its simplicity but which was adored by children around the world. He was basically a mime, or maybe some version of a clown? She didn’t know. She didn’t particularly care. All that mattered was that the show had great ratings, and the star was a flakey, conceited dope.

  She’d just received yet another email from the show’s director, saying that Mr. Hermithead had fallen off the face of the earth. Again.

  He’d failed to show up for his scheduled taping. Again.

  This should fall on casting, but since they were understaffed, they tended to wash their hands of talent issues the moment the contracts were signed.

  Which meant, she picked up the slack. The good news was, the company owned the rights to Mr. Hermithead so this flakey actor could be replaced. But where to find a last minute replacement? And would the network go for it—this guy basically was the whole show. Sure there was a bit of animation thrown in and some irritatingly catchy jingles, but it basically came down to that guy.

  She had a feeling her higher ups would fire her immediately if she dared to fire the star. She wanted to gag at that term. Man, she hated actors.

  There was a knock on her door before it swung open. She bit back a sigh. Speak of an actor and he doth appear. Hovering in her doorway was Caleb, also known as the hottest intern known to man.

  “Can I come in?”

  No. Could she say no? She wished she could, but as his supervisor, that was probably out of the question. “Sure.”

  She didn’t have to sound happy about it.

  Caleb strode into the small office and sat down across from her, stretching his long legs out ahead of him and crossing them at the ankles. He folded his hands neatly in his lap. He looked completely at ease sitting across from her. Happy to be there, even, though she’d been nothing but rude to him from the moment she’d seen him in the reception area earlier this week.

  A flicker of guilt flared up in her gut but she suppressed it. This man was a major reason her week had been so terrible. That shocker had been the worst way to start a Monday morning and then it had only gotten worse from there.

  Every time she saw him she was reminded of that night—that total mistake of a cab ride when she’d acted like a lunatic. All flirty one minute, asking him out for a Valentine’s Day date. Or coffee. Whatever. Then being rude. Then all but asking him to kiss her.

  Ugh. She hadn’t been herself that night. What had come over her? That was
n’t her. She should have known it would come back to bite her in the butt.

  Every time she saw him, which was often, she was also reminded of just how hot that kiss had been.

  Okay, fine. If she were being honest, every time she saw him, she wanted to kiss him again. She couldn’t help it. Now that she knew what it felt like to have his lips on hers, she couldn’t stop thinking about it.

  She was starting to think his lips contained some sort of drug. Something that had turned her into an addict.

  Needless to say, she resented the heck out of this effect he had on her.

  She also hated that he didn’t seem to feel it too. He was so incredibly calm, cool, and collected. All the time. He seemed amused by her bad behavior, which only made her feel worse about being such a witch, which then made her act even more like a jerk.

  She was stuck in a sick cycle, one she wanted out of. The ridiculous thing—the thing that made her want to reach over and smack that smile off his face, was that she’d figured she’d get over this stupid attraction by now.

  After the initial shock had abated, reason had kicked in. This Caleb was an actor. She hated actors. He was clearly lacking in ambition since he was now her intern, and he lacked all the practicality which she needed in a partner. Not to mention that as an actor, he must be a conceited, self-absorbed jerk. She’d never met one who wasn’t. So, logic dictated that once she spent some time around him, she would not only be immune to his good looks and easy charm, but she’d hate his guts. She’d be filled with disgust at the sight of him.

  But now, glaring past the irritating email which was still on her screen, she took in his friendly smile and the warmth in his eyes.

  Dang it. She couldn’t hate him. It wasn’t even easy to dislike him. If anything, her plan had backfired. She’d spent a good deal of time with him this week and somehow, inexplicably… she liked him even more.

  Man, this week was the worst.

  “What can I do for you?” she asked. Her tone was so curt it was rude even for her. She’d never been one for fake pleasantries, but she wasn’t typically outright rude either. She strove for professionalism in her office, which meant reserved but polite. With Caleb, she’d been anything but polite and the fact that he upset her typical demeanor, at the office no less, made her even more annoyed with him.