Fairytale Beginnings (24 page)

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.

H
e 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.

M
illy 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.

‘I think I’ll get a shower somewhere else,’ Milly said.

She walked to her bedroom, grabbed some clean clothes and went back into the kitchen again.

‘Are we not going to talk about this?’ Cameron said.

‘There’s not a lot to talk about. As far as you’re concerned, I’ve come here for the sole purpose of deceiving you.’

Milly walked past Olivia, resisting the urge to slap her stupid, smug face and out into the corridor. She walked down a few doors and went into one of the other staff rooms that Cameron had shown her on her first day.

Maybe she really would have to get that voodoo doll from Gladys, for Olivia was going to be the thing that broke them, she was sure of it.

M
illy stared
out of the study window over the darkening waves at the bright sunset that filled the sky with great big slashes of scarlet and gold. She hadn’t seen Cameron for hours and she was getting hungry. She had hoped he would come after her and apologise but he hadn’t. Then again, he didn’t really have anything to apologise for. He hadn’t accused her of anything, he had just expected some kind of explanation from her which she supposed he was due. But was it too much to ask for him to trust her? She sighed. Was she expecting too much of him? He’d said himself that the kind of trust it would take to marry someone again would take a lot longer than six months. They’d known each other for a week and just because they were somehow weirdly married now didn’t mean that he had known her long enough to put his reservations aside.

The fact that he had asked Olivia to do research on her was the thing that hurt the most, he’d asked Milly to have faith in him but he hadn’t returned that.

She turned back to the desk and picked up another book. Although Castle Heritage probably wouldn’t take the castle on, it didn’t mean that she wasn’t interested in the place. There were several books on the desk that Cameron had obviously been looking at over the last few weeks which had to do with the castle. Some of them were handwritten with drawings and diagrams, some had been published hundreds of years before. The one she held in her hand was a published one with a soft worn leather cover. Where the title had once been was now just a faded patch of leather.