Enchantment (15 page)

“I don’t know anyone in England.”

“You should go home, Charlene. Mom is
worried.”

Charlene flopped back into the couch. The
motion looked all wrong for a guy. “Mom’s moved on. You saw for
yourself. She traded us both in for Stacey Morehouse and her
father.” Charlene suddenly began laughing. She laughed so hard
tears leaked out the sides of her eyes.

Gray frowned.

Charlene leaned forward. “Stacey is my
punishment. She took my powers. She took Mom, and she even took
your boyfriend. She got the best of us both, sis.”

“You do know that Stacey ‘Lee’ is me. Don’t
you?” Gray asked.

Charlene shrugged. “If Stacey’s my sister,”
she said, tossing in an eye roll to show what she thought of that,
“then tell me this. Who are you?”

“I’m me.”

“Whatever you say,” Charlene replied. “The
fact remains. We’re both exiles, and we’ve been replaced.”

Gray shook her head. “Speak for yourself. I
wasn’t the one sent away.”

Charlene snorted. “No thanks to you.”

Seriously?
“You killed me!”

“You killed yourself. I told Mom no one was
to eat those chocolates.”

No remorse. Even now. Well, this little
reunion was coming to an end. Gray focused on their waitress’s
hands as she handed over the cola and glass of red wine. Gray’s
hand shook when she grabbed the soda. There was no preplanning
behind her actions. One moment she was lifting the drink to her
lips, the next she was throwing it in Charlene’s face.

Charlene squealed . . . like a woman. She
looked down at her shirt. The liquid dripped down her nose.

People were staring. Gray turned to the
onlookers and said in Spanish, “This French asshole cheated on me
with my sister.”

The patrons surrounding them hissed at
Charlene. One heroic youth chucked a piece of sliced bread at her.
And with that, Gray made her exit.

Gray’s flip-flops slapped against the pavement.
Charlene didn’t take long to catch up. She stormed out of the café
as though fleeing a fire. She pulled at her ribbed shirt as though
that would help dry it out faster. “What the hell did you tell
them?”

Gray’s lips twitched. “That you were
French.”

“Very funny. I hope that’s not a place you
like to hang out because neither of us paid for our drinks.”

Gray shrugged. Hannah rounded the corner on
them. Her brows furrowed. “Are we leaving already?”

Gray smiled sweetly. “Charles had an
accident.”

Hannah’s eyes moved to Charlene’s shirt. “Oh,
no, what happened?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Charlene said.

“You probably want to go back to your hotel
and change. How about Hannah and I meet up with you later?” Gray
grabbed Hannah’s arm.

Hannah pulled away and Charlene got that
wicked glint in her eyes the way she did right before she
misbehaved.

“No need,” she said, snapping her fingers. A
fresh shirt appeared in place of the soiled one.

Hannah clapped her hands together as though
seeing a new trick for the first time.

If Gray rolled her eyes one more time they
might very well roll right out of her eye sockets. She needed to
get Hannah away from Charlene before her twin could do any more
damage. Hannah didn’t deserve to be part of Charlene’s wicked
prank—even if she was being a stubborn mule at the moment.

Charlene put an arm around Hannah and flashed
her a smile, as though reading Gray’s thoughts.

Or maybe Gray’s best bet was getting Charlene
away from Hannah.

Gray relaxed her shoulders. “Well, now that
we’ve met up we might as well get that drink we talked about.” She
looked Charlene up and down. “If you think you can get it in your
mouth this time.”

Charlene’s eyes narrowed. “If you hold onto
your drink, I’ll hold onto mine.”

“Deal,” Gray said. “How’s this?” She came to
an abrupt stop at a table lining the outer wall of a café with all
its windows and doors opened onto the street.

“Here’s as good as any place,” Charlene said
taking a seat.

“I’m surprised to see you with Charles,” Gray
said as Hannah scooted in beside Charlene. “He’s not much older
than you, and he’s French.”

“What’s wrong with the French?” Charlene
demanded.

“Oh, nothing,” Gray said. “Except that
they’re a bunch of untrustworthy, seducing scoundrels. Isn’t that
right, Han?”

Hannah blinked rapidly. “Well, as a general
rule, but there are always exceptions.”

“Tell me, have you spent much time in
France?” Charlene asked coldly.

Hannah’s cheeks filled with air as she mulled
it over. “I’ve been to Euro Disney a couple times.”

“Euro Disney,” Charlene repeated, her voice
brimming with disgust. She looked at Gray. “And people think
Americans are idiots.”

“Hey!” Hannah cried. She stared at Charlene,
clearly waiting for her to laugh and say she was teasing, but
Charlene did no such thing. “I’ve stayed in Paris many times, and
I’m sorry to say the people were rude.”

Charlene stared at Hannah’s bow as she spoke.
“Can you blame them?” she asked when Hannah was finished.

Gray crossed one leg over the other and let
the scene play out.

“Why are you acting like this?” Hannah
demanded.

“What? Like a rude Frenchman?” Other than the
accent, Charlene didn’t sound very French when she next spoke.
“Sorry, babe, but Gray was right. I enjoy seducing women, but it
was fun while it lasted.”

Hannah pushed back from the table and got to
her feet. Too bad there wasn’t a glass of water on the table for
her to throw in Charlene’s face.

“Gray,” Hannah said, roughly. “You have
the worst
taste in men.”

Gray lifted her brows as Hannah stormed away.
She re-crossed her legs. “She does have a point. I’ll have a
mojito,” Gray told the approaching waiter.

“Me, too,” Charlene said.

The waiter nodded and replied, “
Sí,
señor
.
S
eñorita
.”

Charlene placed a hand on her muscled chest.
The outline of her shirt hinted at a six-pack beneath. Gray
wondered if the body had come locked and loaded, or if Charlene had
to whip it into shape. Or maybe she snapped her fingers and
voilà! Fabio
. Then again she was French, and the French were
naturally thin, pastries be damned.

“Don’t pay any attention to her,” Charlene
said, removing her hand waving in the direction in which Hannah had
stormed off. “It’s not that we have bad taste in men, it’s that
certain types are drawn to us.” Charlene shrugged. “It’s the Perez
family charm. Take Mom, for example. First Mr. Phillips was after
her and now Mr. Morehouse.” She shook her head. “At least Mr.
Phillips knew when to give up . . . unlike his loathsome son.”

“Ryan? I thought he was your most loyal
minion.”

“Better to have him as a minion than to be
his victim.” Charlene tapped her head. “The survival instinct runs
strong in the Perez women.”

Their waiter returned with the mojitos.
Charlene began drinking hers at once.
What, no toast to their
reunion?
Gray watched her gulp it down, her Adam’s apple
bobbing when her head tilted back.

“So who is Charles? Originally?” Gray
added.

Charlene looked down at herself, a smile
forming on her man lips when she met Gray’s gaze. “Jean Luc Girard.
Only child of Francois and Angelique Girard, who own Jolie.”

Gray squinted.

Her sister guffawed in annoyance. The sound
came out very French. “Jolie! It’s a top perfume and makeup line.
God, I forgot about how clueless you are when it comes to beauty
enhancement.”

Gray rolled her eyes. “Anyways . . . you
couldn’t find a rich perfume family with a daughter?”

Charlene narrowed her eyes. “It’s not as if
there were a lot of rich kids my age to choose from.”

Gray looked skyward. “How inconvenient.”

“After being purged I did a lot of drifting.
I quickly found that I was able to go anywhere I wanted, but I
couldn’t do Internet searches or even turn newspaper pages. So I
had to drift from place to place, observing and listening.”
Charlene straightened up and smiled. “Did a bit of sightseeing in
between.” She grinned. “I’ve seen every part of Paris, Lee, inside
and out.”

Gray frowned at the use of Charlene’s old
nickname for her. It reminded her of the original Lee back in
Washington. “Don’t call me that.”

“What? Oh, right. Anyway, I checked out the
private rooms at the hospital nearly every day and then one evening
I came upon Jean Luc.” Charlene sighed, her lashes fluttering. “He
was magnificent. When I saw Jean Luc I fell in love. He made me
want to find a body and after I did, find him. But he was
unresponsive. The doctors said he’d suffered a head trauma in a
motorcycle accident. I stopped sightseeing from that moment
forward. When I wasn’t at the hospital with Jean Luc, I shadowed
his parents, learning everything I could about them and their
company. I shadowed the friends who came to visit Jean Luc. I
wanted him to get better, Gray.” Charlene blinked back tears. “I
waited until the eleventh hour to take his body. In some small way
I feel like I saved him.”

Gray nearly snorted mojito out her nose.
Charlene glared at her.

“You don’t mind being a boy?” she asked,
quickly changing the subject.

Charlene gulped down the rest of her drink
and grinned. “Are you kidding? In this body, with this accent, I
can have any woman I want.”

Gray screwed her face up. “What? So you crush
on girls now?”

Charlene smiled. “Do you have any idea what
it’s like to be a guy?”

“What do you think?”

“It’s so easy.” Charlene inhaled as though
sucking up the sweet smell of triumph. “I have but to snap my
fingers.”

Great. Charlene the high school prep had been
bad enough. Charles the French gigolo? Now that was just wrong.

“You have the ego down perfect. And by the
way, it’s not that you’re a guy. It’s that perfectly chiseled shell
you’re wearing, and it only works on airheads.”

“Like your British friend?” Charlene grinned
wolfishly. Now there was a sight.

“Hannah’s just . . . bored,” Gray finished
lamely.

“I’ve reached a higher level of being,”
Charlene said, lifting her head. “How many people get the
opportunity to be a woman and a man? Even as a witch there’s no
known spell to change genders.”

“Congratulations,” Gray said sarcastically.
Higher being her ass. “So happy to hear you found your true self
even if it meant killing me in the process.”

Charlene groaned. “You’re back to that
again?” She leaned forward on the table. “Look, the worst those
chocolates were supposed to do was give Stacey exploding diarrhea.
Ryan volunteered the mystery ingredient.”

Gray clenched and unclenched her jaw. “You
expect me to believe this is all Ryan’s fault? Not only that, but
you’re afraid of him?
You
afraid of pear-head Ryan?”

“Don’t you get it? Do you actually think I’d
willingly put up with a pinhead like Ryan Phillips? He’s obsessed
with me. He always has been.”

Charlene was so full of crap. Ryan was the
one tongue tied in her presence, not the other way around. “Then
why would he get rid of Stacey and clear the way for you to
Blake?”

“I told you he was
obsessed
. Obsessed
equals irrational. He never liked seeing me upset. That’s why he
came up with the idea to stifle your powers. I didn’t realize the
spell would end up completely blocking you in my presence.”

Gray gritted her teeth. “Touching. How nice
of Ryan to make you happy at my expense. At least I was your
sister, otherwise he might have put me in a coma instead.”

Charlene spread her arms. “Believe what you
will, but it was never my idea.”

And Gray just loved the way Charlene excused
herself of any wrongdoing. Gray folded her arms tightly around her
chest. “Was it so horrible to watch me succeed?”

Charlene’s lips pursed as though she wouldn’t
answer. Then her eyes narrowed. “No, what was horrible was
overhearing Shay Baxter tell her boy Max that all of the Perez
magic must have gone into one twin—you.”

“I really can’t stand that bitch,” Gray said.
She didn’t mean it as an exemption for Charlene’s behavior, but her
sister obviously took it as such from the way she grinned. Gray
lifted her glass then set it down. “You said you were looking for
me. What do you want, Charlene?”

Charlene tossed her head back. Somehow the
maneuver worked even as a guy. A woman two tables over looked
Charlene over with a flirtatious smile. “I want your help, of
course.”

“My help?”

Charlene leaned forward. “We need to remove
Ryan’s powers.”

Gray blinked rapidly. Was Charlene serious?
“How?”

“What do you mean how?” Charlene asked
impatiently. “However you managed to do it to me.”

“What makes you think your loss of powers had
anything to do with me?”

“Oh, please. Suddenly Stacey Morehouse comes
out of a coma and has powers. I so know that was you.”

Gray glared at Charlene in answer. “That was
Lee’s doing. I didn’t even exist at that point—thanks to you. And,
regardless, the supplies for that sort of thing are back home.”

“So, have Mom send them.”

Gray let out an exacerbated breath. She’d
come to Spain to get away from this kind of crap. “I kind of have
my own problems to deal with right now.”

Charlene snorted. “Right. Adrian. At least
you’ve identified him as a problem. Help me with my problem, and
I’ll help you with yours.”

“Adrian’s not a problem.”

Charlene raised a brow. “Oh, no?”

“No.”

Charlene smiled suddenly. “Oh, I see. You
have an actual thing for him.”

“That’s none of your business.” Gray so did
not appreciate her sister’s crude dude smile.