by Cassie Rocca
A NEW YORK LOVE STORY
Cassie Rocca
Start Reading
About this Book
About the Author
Table of Contents
www.ariafiction.com
About A New York Love Story
Giving a present is not always easy. Clover O’Brian knows that only too well: her job consists of helping people in the arduous task of choosing unusual gifts. Christmas is coming, New York is buzzing, and Clover, who has always loved the festive period, savours the atmosphere.
Cade Harrison already has everything in life. A Hollywood actor, he is handsome, rich, famous and popular. Success, however, has its downsides; having just emerged from a disastrous relationship with an actress, he feels a need to hide away in an area unfrequented by stars, in an apartment lent him by a friend, far from prying eyes – especially those of tabloid reporters. But as chance will have it, the apartment in question is right opposite the one occupied by Clover, who until now has seen Hollywood actors only on the big screen. Two quite different lives meet by chance, at the most exhilarating time of year…
To those who still believe, in spite of everything.
Contents
Cover
Welcome Page
About A New York Love Story
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
About Cassie Rocca
Become an Aria Addict
Copyright
1
The sound of children’s laughter echoed through the streets. Everywhere you could hear the general gaiety of young and old alike, typical of a festive holiday gathering.
In a small residential neighborhood of Staten Island, families celebrated Thanksgiving. They chatted amiably around tables loaded with delicious offerings: stuffed turkeys, pumpkin pies and sweet potatoes. Outside, children enjoyed a cold sunny day at the end of November, running and trying to catch one another; but the Stevenson children were laughing louder than the others. A strange human turkey was running after them.
“So! You want to eat me? I’ll show you, cannibals! I’m sick of seeing my poor siblings cooked on your tables!”
With a croaky voice, imitating turkey gobble-gobble sounds, Clover O’Brian, delighted by their terrified shouts, was running after the three seven year old rascals on the lawn in front of the church.
“Which of you has eaten the most turkey today?” She emphasized this with a loud “Ooolullu! Ooolulluuu!”
“I did! I did!” Sam, the one missing two front teeth, shouted. “I had two servings!”
“Ahh! It’s not hard to believe it with those missing teeth! So, I will eat you first! Ooolulluuu!” She rushed at him with her head down, making the child scream with excitement. Then she continued running after the other two little ones… She began to feel out of breath, but she liked hearing the children laugh and – by the way – she didn’t have anything better to do. She was always on her own on Thanksgiving Day. Actually, to be honest, she was alone for every holiday.
She couldn’t really say she had a family, and of course her few friends spent the holidays with their loved ones. Often they invited her, but she preferred to pass on these invitations and find alternative ways of spending those days. Crashing family parties only reminded her of what she missed out on and she didn’t like gloomy thoughts.
Happiness was almost a duty for Clover, especially at this time of year. She adored Christmas. She loved the atmosphere in December. It was the best month of the year for her, and she made great efforts not to let anyone spoil those sacred thirty days, even if it meant celebrating them by herself.
Since her father’s death ten years ago, Clover had slowly grown accustomed to solitude. It wasn’t that the O’Brians expressed any great cheerfulness during the holidays when she was growing up: her family didn’t seem to have either a strong inclination towards joy, or much of a Christmas spirit. But still, she never lost the childish excitement that made her smile like an idiot in front of dozens of colorful packages under a lighted Christmas tree. And she protected this feeling with all her strength from the cynicism and disenchantment of others.
Her mother had always hated Christmas. She detested having to organize an impressive party for guests, find gifts for everybody, and smile incessantly at relatives and friends. All this created a lot of tension from which her father wisely distanced himself. Since she had become a widow things had got even worse. Nadia O’Brian had stopped organizing any kind of party or event, but she did accept other people’s invitations.
Since his marriage, her brother Patrick had lost any interest in Christmas, considering it just a children’s holiday. Honestly, many other things had changed too, and none for the better. He had withdrawn into himself, focusing only on his work and his children. He’d forgotten the strong bond they used to have. Clover thought about Patrick with nostalgia and sadness. She was left with just memories. Because her sister-in-law didn’t especially like her, her relationship with her brother had weakened and they saw each other only sporadically.
However – despite some sense of loneliness and her childhood memories – she didn’t regret the estrangement from her family. It had allowed Clover to put the right distance between her need for serenity and lightness and their tendency towards pessimism and melodrama. The death of her paternal grandmother had given her the opportunity to leave home and move away, for she had inherited the little bungalow where she had lived for three years now. Leaving Maine had been a blessing, reducing the encounters with her family to almost zero.
Now the Christmas holidays had become the domain of Patrick and his wife Sienna. Every year the O’Brian family got together at their country house. For a few days they all pretended to get along and enjoy the festivities for the children’s sake. Since she wasn’t very good at pretending and hiding inconvenient truths, she wasn’t welcome at these family re-unions. But she didn’t care much. She remembered the torment of earlier years, when she used to go to those gatherings. There were always arguments and long faces that eventually ended with headaches and sadness. Since then, there was an unspoken agreement between herself and Patrick: he invited her to Christmas Eve dinner and Christmas Day lunch, and she pretended to have other commitments; so it all became just a matter of sending gifts to everybody. This was the only thing that kept her from being permanently crossed out of the family tree: she was damned good at finding gifts!
“Clover, you’re too slow! You can’t catch us!”
Mark, the smarter of the Stevensons, woke her up from her reverie, bringing her back to reality with a jolt.
“I think I had too many children for lunch! I need to get some rest. I will eat you another time…”
“Attack!” They all shouted together, running towards her.
Laughing, she turned to run away and found an unexpected obstacle. All of a sudden an object materialized in front of her, obscuring her view. She bounced off it and fell over on the grass.
“Damn!”
“Are you ok?” At the sound of this voice, Clover looked up, a hand was extending to help her rise. The hand was the elegant extension of an arm which was attached to a well-proportioned body, covered – but not completely – with an elegant jacket.
“Bloody hell!” She got up without taking the hand, “are you Wolverine?”
“No, that’s Hugh Jackman.”
“Well, by the feel of your chest,
I would say you’re made of adamantium too!”
“Was the impact so hard? Should I call an ambulance?” He sounded amused.
Clover finally looked up at his face and she almost fell down again.
Even with the woolly hat and the collar of his jacket turned up, it was impossible not to recognize him. Cade Harrison, the famous Hollywood actor, was in front of her in all his handsome glory, with a slightly surprised and amused expression… waiting for something…? Maybe he was expecting an enthusiastic reaction, his was enough to stop her from dropping her jaw in amazement like a silly woman.
She stood up, all five foot, four inches of her – thank god the boots made her look a little taller – and brushed off her coat.
“I didn’t expect to stumble into a wall on my way home. I wasn’t prepared. One shouldn’t materialize all of a sudden behind people, especially when one is your size!”
“I won’t forget that advice next time I decide to go out for a walk…”
Clover raised her eyebrows, “Do you live here?”
“I hope there isn’t a law yet that forbids people with an imposing physique to live in peaceful neighborhoods…”
“I’ve never seen you before.” When she saw Harrison’s expression, she waved her hand and added, “I mean, around here, and I’ve been living in this neighborhood for a while now… I would for sure have noticed a famous face!”
“A friend kindly lent me his house for the holidays,” he smiled, flashing his very white teeth – perfect enough to deserve a place of honor on the wall of a dentist’s office.
Clover suddenly wondered if Cade Harrison had ever been in an ad for toothpaste, but no… he had been in an ad for a perfume. Now she remembered: six feet of sculpted muscles and tanned skin, lying down on pure white silk sheets with a slender, tall, very beautiful, sexy model… On the contrary she must have looked like a wreck: bundled up in a shapeless coat, with a long pink scarf that clashed with her red hair, her bottom stained with grass and dirty hands. She hoped that at least there was no food stuck in her teeth!
“What is a stellar actor like you doing here? I thought the very rich and famous always went to Aspen!” Clover regretted this as soon as she said it… Why the hell should she make herself ridiculous in front of a man like him?
Harrison seemed to be taken by surprise. He was certainly used to a completely different kind of approach from people he met on the street: requests for autographs, selfies, and hysterical cries. He didn’t expect to be harassed by a crazy woman who ran around making turkey calls, and addressed him as an unwelcome guest in the neighborhood.
“That is exactly what everybody expects,” he answered, putting his hands in his pockets. “And for that reason I am not going to Aspen or to whatever other place it is where celebrities go.”
“Okay, I get it… and so where is your friend’s house here? Maybe I know it.”
“It’s over there…”
Clover’s eyes followed the direction Cade Harrison was pointing in.
“But it’s in front of my house!”
Cade moved his gaze towards the small bungalow, and Clover almost wanted to jump in front of him to prevent him from looking. Compared to her neighbor’s three-story house, hers really looked like a dump, and she could only imagine how it looked to this super wealthy, famous actor. She was slowly doing some work, but she couldn’t afford a real renovation. Actually, she had only started to do inside improvements: now the rooms looked fresher and more cheerful and modern. But on the outside the small Victorian house still had the melancholic air of decay it had when her grandmother lived there.
She tried to convince herself she didn’t care about a stranger’s opinion and continued the conversation. “I’m only acquainted with your friend… anyway, it will be interesting to have you in the neighborhood. It’s very rare to meet VIP’s or celebrities around here.”
“Honestly, I would prefer it if the word didn’t spread…” He looked around with a circumspect and worried expression, “I’m here for some peace.”
Clover tried to restrain herself from laughing. “Do you think you can keep your presence secret in a place like this? You should have thought about that before showing your face on half the world’s screens! All the neighborhood will know in a few hours that Cade Harrison is among us regular human beings!”
Suddenly he stiffened up and looked tense. “If you are thinking of selling me out to journalists for money, I can tell you that they don’t pay as much as you imagine.”
“Wait… what kind of person do you think I am?!” Clover burst out. “I’m definitely poor compared to you, but I don’t need to bother others to make some extra money!” Annoyed, she stepped back. “Have a good stay, Mr Harrison.”
When she turned she saw the little Stevensons watching them. Clover went over to them with a tense smile. “What are you doing still here?”
“Who were you talking to?” Andy asked, curiously.
“I saw him on TV!” Mark exclaimed.
Clover glanced at Cade. He was still there, staring at them with his blue eyes and shaking his head…
“No Mark. He’s not who you think he is. I thought the same thing too at first, and asked him. He got really upset. He doesn’t like it that everybody confuses him with that third-rate actor! Yes, he looks like him, but if you look at him carefully, you’ll see that he’s not the same guy. He’s not as tall, he’s much less tanned and not nearly as handsome as the actor on TV; not even as simpatico!” She spoke with a tone of conspiracy, but her voice was loud enough to be heard by Mr Star.
“Then I don’t care about him!” The child said, focusing his attention on her again. “Do you want to play?”
“No, I need to go home. But watch out: sooner or later I will eat you… all of you!” She scared them off by baring her teeth, and shouting, they ran away.
Clover turned towards Cade Harrison, “Don’t worry, I diverted their curiosity.”
“On the contrary, I think you increased it. In a few minutes – in those children’s home – everybody will be talking about the man who looks like a famous actor, and they will all want to check him out.”
“Then, next time you’re looking for peace and privacy go to a desert or wear a mask! You can’t force people not to notice you…” Clover sighed. “However, if it helps, this neighborhood is inhabited mostly by kids and middle aged people. It’s unlikely that you’ll find a hysterical woman at your door asking you to autograph her butt!”
She noticed he was deeply embarrassed by her reference to the episode that all the tabloids had gleefully reported, and her animosity somehow weakened.
“I’ve always wondered how you can keep an autograph on your skin intact. I guess you must avoid washing that part of the body: a kind of disturbing idea, don’t you think?”
“In that specific case, the autograph was immediately transformed into a tattoo.” He was trying to restrain an ironic smile, while turnng towards home.
“Oh god! Are people really willing to go that far?” Clover laughed with incredulity. She was following him and was satisfied to have found something to embarrass the Prince of Hollywood with. This was the nickname that the gossip magazines had given him. “Now I understand your desire to stay away from people. It can’t be easy to have to sign a bottom every time you go out for groceries!”
“It’s not something that happens to me every day,” Cade replied and kept walking. “And anyway, these are displays of affection from my fans. I can’t complain: I owe my success to them.”
Clover had doubts about the sincerity of this. It seemed as if he were acting in a screenplay, as though he’d been instructed to answer these kinds of questions in a diplomatic way.
“If this is how you feel, then you would enjoy meeting a client of mine, she’s really sweet. She has the biggest butt you can imagine! I think she would probably like to have her right butt cheek autographed by you, if you would sacrifice yourself in the name of love for a great fan of yours…”
“Very funny.”
“It could become a new trend, actually a full time job for you: the buttocks autograph artist. I’m sure it would be a big success in Hollywood.”
When they reached the gate of his villa, Cade Harrison looked at her, said: “If you have finished with your bullshit, I will say goodbye…”
“Oh! Already? Don’t you want to sign my butt too? Maybe you would like to make a dedication on my back… if I remember correctly, I read somewhere that you did that too.”
“If you have an ice pick, I can start right now.”
“Such cruelty! I thought you just said that your fans’ requests are displays of affection, therefore they are sacred…”
“I’m not responsible for people’s craziness. I just do to my best to please them, within limits and quickly.” He sighed. “However, you shouldn’t believe everything you read in magazines: seventy per cent of those articles are pure fantasy.”
Clover faked surprise. “Are you telling me that it’s not true that you keep a spaceship in the garage of your mansion in LA?”
“No, I’m sorry to disappoint you…”
“And don’t even have a girlfriend in every continent?”
“I would be crazy! I would have to support each and every one of them.”
“… and you are not even an alien sent to earth to inseminate American women to improve our race?”
Now he looked puzzled. “Where did you read that?”
She laughed, “On a website!”
“We are bordering on the ridiculous.”
“Such a disappointment! You showed up here to deprive me of all my beliefs…”
“You already know that Santa Claus doesn’t exist, right?”
Clover, melodramatically, put her hand on her heart, “That is a low blow! You are a monster.”
“And you’re a nutcase!” He opened the gate with a sarcastic smile. “My friend should have warned me of the danger of having you as a neighbor, when he offered me his house.”