Sorry this took a while. There seemed to be something wrong with the site and I couldn't log in to post it. Anyhow here it is now.

The Offer

Ryan opened the door to the crowded restaurant and stood to one side to allow Marissa to enter. Once the door had closed behind them, and kept all the paparazzi outside he started to relax a little. He placed his hand on the small of her back and guided her towards the maitre d.

"Mr Atwood, Ms Cooper." The attractive Italian greeted them by name. "Mr and Mrs Connell are already here. If you'd like to follow me, I'll take you straight through to join them."

"Thank you Donato." Ryan replied. "I'm sorry about all that commotion out the front." Ryan apologised.

"Don't worry about it. We're used to it. But be assured we will do our best to assure that you are not bothered tonight. I hope you have a pleasant evening with us. Let me know if there is anything that I can do to help in any way."

"Thank you. I'm sure we'll be fine." Ryan replied as they neared the table.

J.B stood to greet them. "Marissa, Ryan. Lovely to see you. Ryan you know my wife Judy, but Marissa I don't think you've met before. Marissa Cooper, my wife of 29 years, Judy." He said proudly.

Marissa nodded. "Judy. I'm pleased to meet you."

"The pleasure is all mine, I assure you. I've heard a lot about you, so I've been looking forward to the opportunity of finally meeting you in person. Anyone, who has finally managed to snag this young man …" she nodded at Ryan "… must be pretty special, so I knew that I would like you already."

Ryan blushed slightly at Judy's words. "J.A. You know that it's only taken me so long because I've been having trouble finding someone that could even compare to you." he said laying it on thick.

They all laughed.

"J.A.?" Marissa queried.

"Judith Anne." Judy replied. "whenever J.B. gets a bit bossy and tries to throw his weight around, I just use it to remind him that J.A comes before J.B so I put him in his place. He may be the boss at work but at home it's a 50/50 situation." She moved closer to Marisa and added. "Actually 51/49 to me but I let him think otherwise."

J.B. laughed along with her. "More like 70/30 to you. Or so it seems most of the time."

"I see.' Marissa commented. She knew at once that she was going to like this lady. It seemed that she was strong but loving. She hoped to be like that herself in years to come.

They all ordered a pre-dinner drink from the waiter and indulged in some polite chit chat until they had placed their food order and the waiter had left. J.B. looked over at Marissa and said "Marissa you've probably realised by now that, much as I was hoping that this dinner would in some way atone for the horrible behaviour you had to endure from that insufferable Jake Hammond, I guess you have also realised that there is something else that I wanted to talk with you about. I'd like to come straight to the point, then we can get it out of the way and just enjoy our dinner and the pleasant company we find ourselves with."

Marissa was a little surprised but replied. "Certainly. What can I do for you?"

"Well that's easy. Tell me you've loved acting and want to make it your full-time career." J.B answered.

Marissa was taken aback. "I'm sorry?"

"J.B. don't tease the poor girl." Judy said. "Explain what you are actually asking her to do?"

J.B. took a deep breathe. "Well, I had hoped that Ryan here might do my job for me and convince you to give modelling away, but he assures me that you make all your own decisions." He looked sideways at Ryan and added "but I'm sure he must be able to influence you at least a little."

Judy piped in. "He could influence me a lot, whenever he felt like it."

J.B. laughed. "It's a good thing that I know you're only teasing me." he added.

"Who said?" Judy asked smiling from ear to ear.

"It's best just to ignore her when she's like this. What I was trying to say was … I know the movie is almost finished filming. They'll need you around for a few more weeks until the editing is completed in case they need to redo any scenes but I was wondering what your plans were after that? We'd be very interested in working with you again if we could find the right script. But of course I don't know how you are placed work wise. Are you available? Or are you even interested?" he asked.

"Um." Marissa hesitated. She really wasn't ready to make any decisions just yet. "I wouldn't say that I'm not interested. Does that make sense? But I have a few modelling contracts in place that I have to honour and they are mostly in Europe. So until I finish with those, I'm not really available."

J.B. looked at her and then at Ryan and then back at Marissa. He had imagined that they would look to make things permanent and hence that Marissa would be moving to LA. They seemed perfect together. "But I thought that the two of you …" he stopped suddenly realising that if he had misread the situation then saying anything out loud would only make things worse.

Judy realised the situation and instantly butted in to save her husband. "were very nice to accommodate our changing the plans at the last minute."

Ryan answered quickly not wanting Marissa to be under anymore pressure. "It was no problem at all. In fact today suits us better. We like to go down to Newport on the weekends, whenever we can, but since you had originally planned dinner for tomorrow evening we were going to miss out this weekend. Now we can still go. We'll just go down in the morning."

"Well, if J.B. actually thought ahead at all he would have realised that we couldn't have dinner with you tomorrow night." Judy assured them. "It's our granddaughter's birthday on Sunday and we're flying to Denver tomorrow so that we can be there for the celebrations." She informed them.

"How old will she be?" Marissa asked happy to have something else to talk about.

"A big four." Judy replied fishing her wallet out of her handbag to show Marissa a photo of a blonde curly haired little girl.

"She looks adorable." Marissa stated and then glanced over at Ryan and passed him the photo to look at as well.

Judy watched the glances moving between their two guests. "She is." She smiled to herself. "I don't mind telling you just how proud I am of our daughter. Some people are born to have children and she's one of them. She also has a little boy who's two and she's just found out that she's pregnant again. It's amazing really. Our daughter was quite the career woman until she met her husband but now she is the happiest I have ever seen her. Her family are the most important thing in her life. I'm sure that it is not for everyone but certainly she loves it."

Ryan looked over at Marissa a silent entreaty in his eyes that didn't go unnoticed by the older two. Marissa knew exactly what he was thinking but she also knew she wasn't ready to be a mom just yet.

Judy could see what was going on and she wasn't sure whether to comment or not. "Do you want to have children?" she asked Marissa.

Marissa was startled by the very personal question. "Um …" she glanced across at Ryan feeling the intense scrutiny she was under. "Someday. But not just yet."

J.B. laughed. "Just practising?" He said as he watched the blushes rise on both Ryan and Marissa.

"J.B. behave yourself." Judy said. "I do apologise. I should never have asked you that." She said mostly to Marissa. "Put it down to excited grandmother syndrome. But I must admit if you two ever do decide to go down that path, I would just love to see your babies. I'm sure they would be something special."

Ryan reached across and took Marissa's hand under the table. Their eyes held for a moment. "Well be assured, if it ever happens, we'll let you know." He replied, hoping to put an end to the discussion that he knew was making Marissa uncomfortable.

Fortunately, the waiter arrived with their starters and Ryan could move the conversation onto less personal topics. He knew that Marissa would be pleased when the dinner was through and they could escape.

---

Saturday, after a leisurely sleep in (that didn't actually involve very much sleep but a lot of time in bed); Ryan and Marissa made their way down to the house at Newport. It was mid afternoon by the time they arrived.

As they went through the security gates Marissa couldn't contain herself. "I can't wait to get there." Marissa said sounding like a little girl she was so excited. "I know we've only missed out on one weekend down here but it seems like forever since we've been here."

Ryan couldn't help but smile as he looked over at her beaming face. "It is only a house you know?"

"I know. But" she shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know why I love it here so much. Maybe it's because it's where we got back together" she glanced over at him recalling the first night that he brought her here. "Or maybe because it's just you and me. I just love it. It's like the rest of the world doesn't exist."

"Mmm. I like the sound of that." Ryan replied. He still hadn't told her that when he had designed the house, it had been for her, or actually … for them. But the pleasure he got from knowing that she loved it as much as he did, was better than he could have ever imagined.

He pulled into the garage and unloaded the small overnight bags from the trunk. He felt the weight of hers. "I hope that this is all toiletries. I do rather like the thought of you having no clothes down here." He said smiling at her.

"Very funny. You're out of luck. Even though there aren't very many clothes in there, I did leave some here last time I came. Just in case."

"Pity. Maybe I should change the rules of the house from 'Clothing Optional' to 'Clothing Prohibited'". He suggested.

Marissa looked at his cheeky grin. "As long as it applies to you as well, I could probably go along with that."

Ryan was surprised by her reaction but delightedly so. "Is that right? Maybe I should turn up the heat right now." He suggested. "We wouldn't want you catching a chill." He added.

"You either." She agreed.

Ryan deposited their bags at the foot of the stairs and then adjusted the thermostat. "It'll take a little while to warm up. How do you feel about a walk on the beach while we wait?"

"Sounds good." Marissa replied.

"You should probably take a jacket. The breeze off the water is starting to get a little chilly these days." Ryan said.

Marissa pulled a Sass & Bide denim jacket out of her bag and put it on. "Okay set to go." She made her way to the door and then, knowing that he would need to lock up and arm the security system again and that she could get a head start she decided to challenge him. "I'll race you to the lifeguard stand." And she was gone before he could even reply.

---

Ryan caught up with Marissa at the bottom of the ramp, picked her up and threw her over his shoulder and carried her the rest of the way up.

"Ryan, put me down" she cried as she tried to catch her breath.

He started to ease his hold on her and she slid slowly down his front, each movement leaving a path that was electrically charged and deposited her gently on her feet. Her breathing was now more laboured than when she had finished running and it was more to do with the feelings that this man evoked in her than the race they had from the house. She couldn't take her eyes from his, as her yearning was reflected in his. She could feel her breath becoming more and more laboured as the expectation of his mouth joining hers became too much for her and she crashed her lips into his. His tongue entered her mouth as hers came to meet his. They entwined them as they pressed their bodies even closer together. After several minutes of heavy and passionate kissing Marissa pulled back a little, suddenly realising that were out in public and she checked up and down the deserted beach to make sure they were alone. She smiled at him. "Have I told you how much I love gated communities? Not a reporter in sight. If only life could always be like this." She sighed.

"I know it's been difficult this week. But hopefully they'll soon find something new to keep them entertained. Maybe a new Bradgelina baby? Then they'll be much too busy to bother with us."

"Yeah. But maybe they should have it in LA next time instead of Namibia. Then they could take all the heat off us. The paparazzi around here would be too busy with them."

Ryan smiled. "Do you want to sit for a while and catch your breath?" He asked.

"I'm not sure. Sometimes sitting with you makes my breathing speed up." She smiled teasing him.

"Mmmm. I like the sound of that. But maybe we should wait till we get back to the house before we go down that path again."

"Yeah. You're probably right. There may not be any reporters around but I'm sure the neighbours would notice if we took things any further."

Ryan moved to sit with his back against the wall and Marissa sat between his legs looking out at the sea as the wave motion calmed her with its constant ebb and flow.

She sighed deeply.

Ryan glanced down at her; watching as her shoulders moved up and down; thinking now was as good a time as any. "So we didn't really talk about what went on last night."

Marissa shrugged. "What's there to talk about?"