Fairytale Beginnings

by Holly Martin

  Cameron switched on the light. ‘Why are you in here?’

  ‘I didn’t think you’d want me in there.’

  ‘Why would I not want you in my room?’

  ‘Five minutes ago you were going to spend the night with Olivia.’

  ‘She’s fast asleep.’

  ‘And you called me a cow. I think I’d rather sleep alone tonight.’

  Cameron sighed and moved towards the bed. He pulled back the covers, scooped her up and carried her back to his bed. He lay her down and started undressing.

  ‘I don’t think you’re a cow, I just … Olivia’s my friend and for some reason you don’t like her. She has been nothing but nice to you since you arrived and yet I feel like you’re going to start pulling each other’s hair and slapping each other at any moment. Can you just …’

  ‘Be nice?’ She clenched her fists under the covers so he couldn’t see her reaction to that thought.

  ‘At least try.’ Cameron lay down next to her, pulling her onto his chest as if it was the most natural thing in the world. She closed her eyes for a moment as she breathed him in. Every single part of her was screaming that this was where she belonged. Maybe things would end naturally between them or maybe Cameron would get bored of her eventually like he’d done many of the women before her, but she wasn’t going to let him go without a fight and she sure as hell wasn’t going to let Olivia be the one to drive them apart.

  Her eyes shot open. Suddenly she realised that being nice was the only way she was going to win this battle. Being a bitch to Olivia and staying on the defence was not going to do anything but drive a further wedge between her and Cameron. That’s what Olivia wanted, for Cameron to see Milly’s rudeness. Olivia wasn’t going to win the fight that way.

  ‘I’m going to be super nice from now on, I promise. I’m sorry if I’ve been a cow today. It’s just because I’m scared of losing you, you know that.’

  Cameron looked at her in surprise, he probably hadn’t expected her to cave so easily. ‘I know it’s hard for you, we’re trying to get to know each other and there’s this third person in the relationship. I’m going to make sure we have some quality time together over the next few days. You’ll hardly know she’s here.’

  Milly closed her eyes for a moment as she relished the feel of his hot, velvet skin against her cheek, the intoxicating, sensual, earthy scent.

  ‘She has some things she needs to go through with me and then I can get rid of her, in the nicest possible way. It’ll just be a few days and then we can be alone.’

  Milly nodded. She could be nice for the next few days but she couldn’t help but worry about what other plans Olivia had up her sleeve to try to break them up.

  Cameron was sitting reading the paper in the kitchen when Olivia walked in. She smiled, sleepily and sat down next to him, leaning her head against his shoulder.

  He stood up, not at all comfortable with that level of intimacy from her. He ignored the flash of hurt that crossed her face.

  ‘Want a coffee?’ he moved to the kettle.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  He turned round to look at her. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well last night you were hugging me and now …’

  ‘Last night you were terrified, I was trying to comfort you. Don’t read anything more into it than that.’

  She moved closer to him, running a hand up his arm. ‘Is it Milly? I would never tell her about us.’

  His eyes widened. ‘There is no us, Liv, you know that.’

  ‘But what about that night, at the Christmas party?’

  Jesus, why was she bringing that up? They’d agreed they’d never speak about it again.

  ‘The night where you got drunk, kissed me and then vomited on my shoes? It doesn’t exactly hold any special memories for me.’

  The hurt that crossed her face was palpable this time and Cameron regretted it immediately. Olivia was a sweet, nice girl but he didn’t have any feelings for her and he thought the kiss had just been a drunken thing, she had never mentioned it since.

  ‘You spent the night with me.’

  ‘Jesus, Liv, I took you home because you could barely stand and I stayed with you because I didn’t want you choking to death on your own vomit. What do you remember from that night?’

  Olivia blushed. ‘That we kissed. I woke the next day and you were lying on the bed with me, and I thought …’

  ‘You thought what? We were both fully dressed the next morning. So did you think I took you home, shagged you whilst you were unconscious and put all your clothes back on again? Nothing happened. We agreed the next day that it was just a silly, drunken kiss and that we weren’t going to talk about it again.’

  Olivia looked down at the floor and Cameron hated that he had hurt her.

  ‘Look, Olivia. You’re a very beautiful woman, but I didn’t hire you because you’re beautiful. I didn’t hire you because I wanted to sleep with you. I hired you because I needed someone to handle my meetings and my diary, arrange transportation, filter my emails, a job which you are very good at.’

  ‘I think we should tell Milly.’

  ‘There’s no need,’ Milly said from the doorway. ‘I heard the whole thing.’

  Cameron’s stomach dropped. Crap.

  Olivia finally took her hand off his arm and he regretted not moving away from her earlier. Milly looked mad as hell.

  Milly walked round the table and put her shoes on. The silence was worse than her shouting. He wanted her to say something.

  ‘I’m taking Gregory for a walk, are you coming?’ She glanced over at Cameron and he quickly nodded.

  He pulled his shoes on, whistled for the beast and followed Milly outside.

  She walked in silence next to him, until they reached the edge of the cliff. Gregory, completely unaware of the tension between them, sniffed around the rabbit holes near the cliff edge.

  Cameron watched the waves swirl around the rocks. The tide was obviously in, as most of the rocks that he had looked down on before were completely covered.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I honestly didn’t even think about it. It was months ago, at Christmas. She was drunk, she kissed me, threw up and practically passed out. She’s never mentioned it since and I just put it down to her being drunk. She has shown no sign of having feelings for me over the last six months. I’ve never thought of her like that, I promise you. I didn’t tell you because that drunken snog meant absolutely nothing to me.’

  Milly sighed and leaned into him. He turned and wrapped his arms around her as she rested her head on his chest.

  ‘She’s trying to split us up,’ Milly said.

  ‘No, I don’t think so. She likes you. She’s worried that I’m rushing into things, but she genuinely likes you.’

  ‘I don’t believe that for one second.’

  She pulled back to look at him and suddenly her hands shot to her mouth as she gasped in horror at something that she had seen behind him. He whirled around but he could see nothing.

  Milly hurried to the edge of the cliff with tears filling her eyes. She peered over and then bolted back towards the castle.

  ‘Milly, what is it?’

  She didn’t reply. He looked down at the sea and his heart fell into his stomach. To his horror he saw Gregory desperately swimming against the tide as the waves battered him from all sides. He had quite clearly fallen over the edge whilst sniffing for rabbits. How he had survived the fall was a miracle, now the tide was likely to kill him, throwing him against the rocks. Cameron turned and ran for the castle. If he could get down to the cove, he might be able to swim out and help him. But as he realised with a new horror that Milly had run off to do just that, he suddenly found a speed he didn’t know he had. The sea was rough today, Milly would be killed if she went out into the rocky cove. Losing Gregory would be heart breaking but there was no way he could cope with losing her.

  Chapter Eighteen

  He barged into the castle
, ignoring Olivia’s shocked questions and ran as fast as he could up the stairs to the study. The secret passageway was already open as Milly had clearly been here before him. He ran down the stairs and slipped and tumbled his way down the passageway that that took him to the cove. Milly was already stripping off her T-shirt as he reached the top of the rope ladder. Standing in the knee deep water, the waves swirled angrily around her, almost trying to drag her out to sea.

  ‘MILLY, NO!’ he roared as she dived in.

  He quickly descended the ladder himself. Now the only thing on his mind was getting to Milly before she was thrown onto the rocks by the incoming tide.

  He reached the bottom and waded into the water until it was deep enough to swim. Waves crashed over his head making it difficult to see, but as he looked around frantically Milly was nowhere to be found.

  What did she think she was going to do when she found Gregory? She could hardly carry him back to shore, he was too big for that.

  Where the hell was Milly? He called her name but there was no answer.

  He tried to think about where he was in relation to where they had been standing minutes before. Had Milly gone left or right? He thought he had last seen Gregory towards the left of where he was now, so he swam through the waters, praying that Milly had gone that way too. He called her again. He rounded the rocks so he was now outside of the little cove and in the open sea and that’s when he saw her, struggling in the water as she battled to keep both herself and Gregory afloat. Gregory wasn’t co-operating at all, in fact the stupid dog was quite clearly panicking. Waves crashed over them both and Milly was clearly in danger. Gregory was going to sink them both in a minute.

  Cameron swam quickly towards them. Grabbing Gregory by the collar, he swung him over his shoulder in what was supposed to be a fireman’s lift, but he had to keep one arm over Gregory’s body to stop him wriggling around when all he really wanted to do was wrap Milly in his arms and make sure she got back to the cove safely.

  ‘Are you ok?’

  Milly nodded, clearly shaken up.

  ‘Go ahead of me. Just keep swimming. I’m right behind you,’ Cameron said.

  Milly swam past him back towards the cove, waves assaulting all of them as they traversed the rocky path back towards the rope ladder.

  Cameron winced as Milly made it back to the rocks underneath the rope ladder and slipped, banging her leg quite badly.

  She turned around ready to help him get Gregory up the ladder. He gestured for her to go up ahead of him but she shook her head. Bloody exasperating woman.

  ‘Let me help you,’ Milly said.

  ‘How do you intend to do that? We can’t go up the ladder with all three of us at the same time. Climb up and you can help me when I get to the top.’

  Milly reluctantly conceded this and he watched her go up the ladder, breathing a sigh of relief when she made it safely to the top.

  Gregory had stopped wriggling so much now, but he clearly wasn’t happy about being restrained like this. Climbing the ladder with one hand and such a heavy, uncooperative load over his shoulder was hard and slow going but as he reached the top, Milly helped him to guide Gregory to safety. As soon as Cameron released him, Gregory ran off up the tunnel, wagging his tail, clearly unharmed and finding the whole thing a hilarious game. He wouldn’t be surprised if Gregory ran back up to the cliff tops and threw himself back into the sea again shouting woohooooo as he did it.

  Cameron sat at the cave opening panting, watching Milly do the same. He wanted to kiss her and shake her in equal measure. Stupid girl had nearly got herself killed over his stupid dog.

  He finally got his breath back and glared at her.

  ‘What the hell do you think you were doing? You could have been killed!’

  ‘I was trying to save Gregory.’

  ‘I love that stupid mutt, but there is no way I would choose his life over yours.’

  ‘I couldn’t leave him down there to drown.’

  He noticed that her leg was bleeding and knelt forward, wiping away the blood gently with his sleeve and then placing a kiss on the cut.

  ‘I’m so angry with you,’ he said softly.

  She smiled, rolled forwards onto her knees and kissed him. ‘You don’t look very angry.’

  ‘I’m keeping it inside. You scared the crap out of me.’

  She shifted so she was sitting on his lap, resting her head against his chest. He wrapped his arms round her and held her tight. He closed his eyes, breathing her in as he waited for his heart to return to normal.

  Milly lifted her head from Cameron’s chest. They had sat there on the edge of the cave for hours and she hadn’t felt the need to move. There was something very peaceful about being in his arms. She looked at him and smiled. He obviously found it peaceful too as he was fast asleep.

  She leaned up and kissed him softly on the lips and his eyes fluttered open.

  ‘Hey,’ Milly said as Cameron looked around and realised where they were. ‘For someone who has trouble sleeping, you sure do sleep a lot.’

  ‘I have slept more in the last few days with you than I ever sleep. Normally I get an hour or two a night. My brain just won’t stop thinking, it’s wrapped up in stories and character conversations and countless bad decisions I’ve made. With you … I feel calm.’

  Milly smiled. She liked that she had that effect on him. She climbed off his lap and stood up, offering her hand. He took it and pulled himself up.

  ‘When I said I wanted to spend quality time with you, I didn’t think I’d be sitting on a muddy cold floor, soaking wet for several hours after rescuing you from the sea.’

  ‘I don’t think you rescued me,’ Milly said, taking his hand as they walked up the tunnel.

  ‘No but it sounds better in my head that I was some kind of hero and saved my wife from the treacherous waves, rather than that I helped her with my stupid mutt who had leapt off the cliff in the first place.’

  ‘Ok, we can go with your version. When we tell people how we met, instead of the unprofessional gold digger story that Olivia will no doubt share, we can say you saved me from the sea and had to give me mouth to mouth.’

  Cameron pulled her into his arms and kissed her, deeply. ‘I like the sound of that.’

  ‘And then you carried me back to the shower, where we made love under the hot, pounding water.’

  ‘This story is getting better and better.’

  ‘Ok, and then you made me your delicious tomato soup, because I was ravenous.’

  ‘That I can do. After the hot shower sex.’

  Milly smiled. ‘Oh, while I was out in the sea, I saw a cave that had steps at the back. I would imagine it leads up to the castle.’

  ‘Well that’s interesting, we’ll have to explore some more once the sea is a bit calmer.’

  ‘We were supposed to do that the last time we were on the beach and you distracted me with your kisses. You need to learn to control yourself,’ Milly teased.

  Cameron smiled. ‘Ok, I’ll try. After the hot shower sex.’

  She laughed.

  They walked back into the kitchen, sharing sweet glances with each other but Milly’s heart sank when she saw Olivia.

  ‘Cameron …’ Olivia trailed off when she saw their bedraggled appearance. ‘Are you ok?’

  Cameron nodded. ‘Yes, stupid dog fell in the sea, we’re going to take a shower.’

  He pulled Milly towards the bathroom.

  ‘Wait, Cam, we need to talk. Alone.’

  Cameron stopped to look at her. ‘Whatever you want to say, you can say in front of Milly.’

  Milly watched Olivia shift awkwardly and she wondered what she could possibly want to say.

  ‘I … um … I’ve done some research on Milly, like you asked, and I found out a few things.’

  Milly let her hand fall from Cameron’s in shock. He’s asked Olivia to do some research on her. He didn’t trust her.

  Cameron pushed the hair off his face awkwardly. He didn’t even
deny it.

  ‘Jamie McAllister, CEO of Extravagance, is not Milly’s brother.’

  ‘I know, he’s her cousin,’ Cameron said.

  Milly stared up at him in confusion. ‘Did Jamie tell you we were cousins?’

  ‘No, I worked it out. He’s your aunt’s son isn’t he? You said that when your Mum died it was just you and her. Plus, he referred to your mum as Emma, not his mum. I just presumed that you call each brother and sister because you were raised together.’

  ‘He’s not her cousin, she’s no relation at all to him. His name isn’t even McAllister, it’s Stevens. The only connection that I can find between them is that they lived together for five years, until very recently actually, probably as boyfriend and girlfriend.’

  Milly watched Cameron frown and turn his eyes to Milly.

  ‘Do you know how many Castle Heritage rejects she has passed his way since she started working for them?’ Olivia said. ‘Eight. Eight properties that are part of the Extravagance hotel chain were originally referred to Castle Heritage and were rejected. All of them handled by Milly.’

  Cameron stared at her, confusion and anger swirling in his eyes.

  ‘I’m sorry Cameron, she has been playing you from the very start. It’s obviously a little scam that she and her boyfriend have cooked up. When a property is referred to Castle Heritage, Milly will come out and find some reason to reject it and then pass on the details to her boyfriend who will swoop in with a deal that will make them both millions.’

  Milly knew how it sounded but there was nothing actually wrong with what she had done, she just wished Cameron wasn’t looking at her as if she had betrayed him.

  Cameron folded his arms, clearly waiting for an explanation which suddenly Milly didn’t want to give, certainly not there in front of Olivia.

  She waited for Cameron to say that it didn’t matter because in reality none of it did. It didn’t affect them. She had been nothing but honest with Cameron from the very beginning but he clearly thought she had tricked him somehow.