Phantom's Touch: Sexy Paranormal (Book 2, Phantom Series) (22 page)

“Lauren? What are your thoughts?”

Lauren snapped to attention, mortified. Michael Sharpe, her director, as well as the writers, the production assistants and the principal cast, were gathered in a conference room adjacent to the soundstage, waiting for her input on. . . what? She had no idea. She’d managed to keep her head in the game long enough to complete two read-throughs of the new scene Michael had just added to the screenplay, but somewhere amid an argument over stage directions, she’d lost her train of thought. She’d struggled to keep on track since leaving this morning without so much as a whispered word from Aiden. Now anticipation and doubt hung thick in the air as everyone waited for her to speak.

“I’m sorry, Michael. I’m still a little fuzzy. What was it you asked?”

She hated blaming her recent injury for her inability to concentrate, but Michael smiled, and the rest of the crowd chimed in with understanding words and claims that she’d come back to work too soon. She needed to focus. To earn the respect and consideration everyone seemed so willing to blindly give. Hadn’t she learned that merging her personal and professional lives was not a good idea? She had to carry this film. They all depended on her to make this film a success, especially now that Ross wasn’t choreographing her every move.

But instead of giving Lauren a chance to redeem herself, Michael called for a break. They had been working for three hours straight. She supposed she could use a moment alone.

Really alone. She’d left the house this morning without Aiden’s sword, opting to lock the silent weapon in her bedroom safe. Since then, no matter how many people were chattering to her or around her, a cold silence hung heavy in the air—an emptiness that made her stomach ache. She had to learn to fill that stillness with her character of Athena and no one else or she was going to flop.

She’d barely risen from the table when Cinda appeared at her side. “Can I get you anything?”

Lauren forced a smile. “No, I just need a few minutes.”

Cinda hung back while Lauren worked her way through the people milling around the room or heading toward craft services for a snack. She spied her trailer from across the soundstage and lowered her head, hoping to get there without anyone waylaying her. She had her hand on the doorknob when someone grabbed her by the arm.

“I’m sorry, I—”

She cut off her polite brushoff when she registered who had his hand on her.

“Let go of me,” she spat.

Ross released her. “No need to be testy, sweetheart. You’re the high queen of this little court now, aren’t you? You don’t have any reason to hate me anymore.”

She opened her mouth to list all the reasons she still had to despise him, but thought better of it. Not because he was her producer, but because she didn’t have the energy to care.

“What do you want, Ross?”

“My sword.”

For a split second she considered handing over the damned thing and being done with it. No more phantom to force her with his keen gray stare to look at her life. No more lover to complicate her ambitions or step in the way of her path to her future. No more man to try to tell her what she could do or what she should do or when.

But the confused and selfish moment passed quickly. She wouldn’t turn Aiden over to Ross for all the freedom the world had to give.

“What else can I help you with?” she asked.

“You’re turning out to be rather clever, you know, showing the video of you using the sword to Michael and the art director. I thought both of them were going to jack off right in front of me, though honestly I couldn’t tell if it was you or the sword that was turning them on.”

“Probably both,” she snapped, though holding tight to her overconfident attitude wasn’t easy when she knew she hadn’t shown that video to anyone. The last time she’d had it in her possession had been shortly before her accident in the shower. She’d locked it up after watching it, hadn’t she? Who had found it? Helen had the combination, but she’d never show something so personal to Michael and the art director. Or would she?

“Yes, well, that brings up my other reason for being here,” Ross said. “I’d like to meet the man who shared that little bit of theatrics with you.”

Judging by the continued cool confidence in Ross’s tone, he hadn’t seen the whole tape. Still, Lauren’s lungs were constricted to the point where even a sigh of relief would hurt like hell.

“He’s not here.”

“Yes, I gathered as much, since the sun is shining. You know, Lauren, I’ve heard of actors making outrageous demands before, but do you have any idea how much it will cost me to pay the union to run production all night long?”

“He’s not in every scene. Besides, you can afford it,” she said.

Ross’s focused gaze faltered for a split second, instantly alerting her. She’d been with Ross too long not to know when something was wrong.

“You
can
afford it, can’t you?”

His grin was classic Ross—overconfident and condescending. “What if I couldn’t?”

Lauren took an instinctive step forward and met Ross’s gaze dead-on. He glanced aside, and she cursed. “Ross, what did you do?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Lauren grabbed his shirt with one hand and opened her trailer door with the other, shuttling them both inside and then locking any prying ears out of their private conversation. She released him the moment she knew they were alone. “You never joke about money.”

“Who was joking?”

“ ‘What if I couldn’t?’ ” you said. “As in, maybe your financing isn’t as strong as what you reported to the studio?”

“The financing on this film is fine. I’d never put the Athena franchise in jeopardy.”

“No, but unlike me, you’ve invested in more than just this franchise. My whole future is riding on Athena. You have your hand in dozens of other pies. If you’re in trouble, Ross, tell me now.”

“Why? So you can help? Turn the tables on me and make me beholden to you after all the years that I taught you, supported you, made you a star?”

Lauren inhaled deeply. She hadn’t wanted this showdown. Hadn’t asked for it. Wasn’t even prepared for it. But now that it was here, she was surprised to find she was up to the task.

“I repaid you for your help and then some, and you know it. You’ve made enough money on my last four films to finance a war, so don’t come crying to me if you have to spend a little more this time around to make me happy. You want me to admit that you made me what I am? Fine. I’ll admit it. You made me, the good and the bad. Because of you, I can’t trust a single man who comes into my life, not even if he’s honorable and funny and sexy and would lay down his life for me if he could.”

Her voice caught, but before Ross could call her on the unbidden show of emotion, she grabbed a bottled water from her fridge, twisted off the top with a yank and chugged. He was speechless, so she decided to finish her tirade and unburden her soul.

“Because of you, all of Hollywood is circling me like vultures, waiting for me to screw up so that they can say I was never for real, never talented—that I was just a product designed and marketed by you to sell to the world. Because of you, I’m willing to betray my own personal happiness just so that I don’t fall on my face in this last Athena movie. I left you. I divorced you. And yet I’m still tied to you with iron bands that. . .”

She faltered. The parallels between her inextricable bond to Ross and Aiden’s cursed connection to the sword hit her hard. She didn’t only have to free him. She had to free herself. She withdrew a second bottled water from the refrigerator and held the cold plastic to her increasingly hot face. “Do you have any idea how that feels?”

Ross slumped onto the couch behind him and took a long minute to answer, staring at his hands while she panted with released rage.

“Yes, I know how that feels.”

His voice quavered. She half expected that when he looked up at her, he’d have tears in his eyes.

But when his hazel met her blue, his face was bone dry and his mouth was a slash of resentment and cruelty. “Welcome to my world.”

“Fuck you.”

“I did. And you enjoyed it.”

“I didn’t know any better,” she shot back.

“Now you do?”

Images flashed in her mind. She and Aiden in the workout room. In the shower. In the hospital. In the pool. In her bed. Sensations spawned a spark of need within her that she’d fought all night long, knowing Aiden was near, but that he no longer wished to make love with her. She would change that, damn it. She’d find a way to make him understand or else free him, so he could find a woman who could be the lover he needed, even if she couldn’t. He deserved that much.

Maybe more.

She sighed heavily, finished with Ross in so many ways, she couldn’t begin to count.

“What do you want from me, Ross?”

“I want to meet your new lover.”

“You mean my costar?”

“Isn’t he one and the same?”

She narrowed her eyes and was thankful she’d left the sword at home. She couldn’t imagine that Aiden would not have found a way to interrupt this conversation at some point, and she, for one, was glad she’d spoken her piece, even if Ross was still acting like a self-serving idiot.

“I told you, he’s not available.”

Ross stood. “When will he be available?”

She leveled her gaze directly into his. “His first scene isn’t scheduled until tomorrow night. I guess you’ll meet him then.”

Though she gestured toward the door, Ross made no move to leave. “I’ve done background checks and as far as I can tell, the man doesn’t even exist. He’s not even SAG.”

“Trust me, he exists,” she answered haughtily, even though, truth be told, she had no idea whether Aiden was going to appear in the film at all.

For all she knew, she’d never see him again.

As for the little details of Aiden having no identity in the modern world, she’d find a way to solve that problem as well.
If
he let her.

“He’d better check out,” Ross said, pointing a finger accusingly at her.

She smiled prettily. “Bite me.”

“I have,” he snapped back. “The putrid taste still lingers on the palate.”

Enraged, Lauren lobbed her water bottle, hitting the door just as he left, rattling the walls so that a few photographs dropped off the wall. When her throat hurt from containing a scream of frustration, she opened her mouth, prepared to let loose, when the door opened again.

“What?”

“Sorry!” Cinda said apologetically.

“No,” Lauren said, trying to steady her breathing with deep lungfuls of air. “I’m sorry. I thought you were Ross again.”

“Is everything all right?”

“Is anything ever all right when that man is around?”

Cinda didn’t reply, which was just as well.

“Does Michael want me back?”

“What? Oh, no. Not yet. But Helen called.”

Lauren nearly doubled over from another emotional blow to the gut. Helen. She’d been meaning to reach out to her all day, but had secretly hoped that her friend would simply show up on set and act as if nothing nasty had transpired between them the night before. No such luck, she supposed. She really needed to check her horoscope, because so far this day had truly sucked.

“Is she on her way?”

“To your place, yes,” Cinda replied.

“My place? Why?”

“Oh! The security company called. Someone broke in.”

Aiden sensed the presence almost instantly, alerted by a strident beep. He knew the sound. Lauren had shown him how the device that monitored the security of her house worked. The noise meant, under the current circumstances, that someone who had no business inside Lauren’s house had entered.

She’d left only a short while ago. An hour. Perhaps two? It was hard for him to measure time while in this insubstantial state, particularly without Lauren there to mark the progression. This was the first situation since she’d touched the blade that he’d been without her during the daylight hours. The isolation unnerved him—rattled him to the core.

But though he had not spoken to her directly since their disagreement last night, he knew from her conversation this morning with Cinda that neither she nor her assistant was expected back until late in the evening. And yet someone was here.

Previously she’d told him that while she employed two guards to watch her property and occasionally make rounds to ensure that the house was secure, they never came inside unless called. And if they did enter the house, they did not know the code to disengage the alarm, ensuring that the local police would be alerted to any and all unauthorized intruders.

Five successive beeps rocked the silence, followed by a long whistle.

Her security device had been deactivated.

This was not good.

Angry at Lauren’s inability to fully appreciate the severity of his situation, Aiden had acted uncharacteristically last night when he’d abandoned Lauren in her study and retreated to the garden for the duration of the darkness. Instead of spending the remainder of the night making love to the beautiful, deceptively fragile woman who’d devoted the better part of her evening researching the fate of his family, he’d thrown himself into seclusion, listening to the trickle and splash of the fountain and recounting memories of people and situations he’d spent centuries forgetting.

Only when daylight had been moments from dawning did he realize how he’d brooded more like his brothers Damon and Rafe might have. The eldest and the youngest Forsyth sons had earned reputations for dwelling on injustice beyond a reasonable period. Aiden, on the other hand, had been as likely as Logan or Paxton to drown his troubles with a pint of ale and perhaps the company of a lovely lady. Yet by the time Aiden had recognized his boorish behavior, the sun had risen and he’d retreated, unwillingly, into nothingness.

And yet, as the sunlight had streaked through her windows, he’d hovered above her bed, watching her fitful sleep, cursing himself for acting so much like her former husband that he was forced to wonder why she didn’t ship the sword off to some unknown land and banish him from her life forever. Her refusal to leave her home and ambitions behind to take him on a fool’s journey to England—where he might not find any more information about his family than he had on the Internet—had stung. Even after two centuries, he was not yet used to a woman denying his every whim and desire. In that regard he did not much like this new millennium.

Or perhaps he simply had to realize that some women deserved to honor their own heart’s desire over that of a lover. Lauren’s ability to focus on her own needs in sexual situations had excited him, but now, when his agenda contradicted hers, he questioned her choices and her loyalty.

He was no better than Rogan.

Except that he truly cared for Lauren in ways he had not experienced with any other woman. He might even love her, if he had any real notion of what that might mean.

But now he could prove his devotion by protecting her—or, at the very least, guarding her possessions. Though he suspected only one possession would be at risk.

The squeak of shoes announced the thief’s path across the marble floor in her foyer. The steps were tentative. Uncertain. Someone with permission to be inside would not walk with such a hesitant stride. And yet whoever had breached her security did so with knowledge and forethought. They had clearly entered the correct security code—and they knew she wasn’t at home.

With the risen sun blinding him anytime he ventured too close to the windows, he employed Rogan’s magic to search the house, sensing the interloper in the living room. Aiden manifested, invisible, just behind the couch. The man had masked his face in thick black wool. His eyes were unrecognizable slits.

The intruder bypassed several items Aiden had learned cost Lauren a considerable amount of gold—a television, several collectible art pieces small enough for a thief to pocket, and a diamond bracelet Lauren had been wearing last night, but had removed and left on the coffee table when it had twice snagged her costume. Clearly the burglar was not here for ordinary treasure.

The thief turned toward the staircase. Though Aiden wasn’t exactly sure where Lauren had stashed the sword, he’d felt a tug during the night that made him believe she’d taken it upstairs. With a thought, he positioned himself on the middle step. When the thief approached, Aiden focused all his power into his midsection, so that after the intruder bumped into him, he lost his footing and skittered down several steps before catching himself on the banister.

“What the f—”

Aiden
tsk
ed. “Such language,” he chastised.

The man dropped on his arse down two more stairs. “Who’s there?”

“Leave,” Aiden ordered. “Now.”

The message seemed simple enough, but the thief merely screamed in a tone not unlike a woman’s. Only when the interloper yanked off his mask to see more clearly was Aiden sure that his initial guess as to the gender of the intruder was correct.

A man. But not just any man.

Aiden’s smile seemed to fill his insubstantial body with needs he’d squelched for over two centuries. Like the need for revenge and retribution and justice.

“Nigel.”

Ross Marchand’s nasty butler nearly leaped out of his skin. He skidded the rest of the way down the stairs and landed in a heap on the marble floor.

“Who’s there?” he asked again, his voice cracking with fear.

Aiden chuckled. “Your conscience, Nigel. You’ve been a very naughty boy, haven’t you? Treating Ms. Cole with such rude disdain.”

“She’s an upstart! With no class and no. . .”

The butler stopped when he realized, judging by the look on his face, that he was talking to nothing but air. Muttering about medication, he made a mad dash up the stairs, passing through Aiden on his way, loudly questioning his sanity with every step. He stopped at the top, swung around and, with both hands braced on either side of the banister, waited.

“Come out, if you’re there!” he ordered.

Aiden remained utterly silent, the only noise a light scratching at the patio door two rooms away.

Aiden theorized that Lauren might have once owned this home with Ross. That would explain why Nigel knew the security codes and his way around. Aiden wondered about the guards, but as they were stationed on the far perimeter of the house, he could do nothing to alert them.

No, best to take care of this situation on his own. Well, maybe not entirely alone.

The scratching intensified, followed by a hungry whine.

In his mind, Aiden pictured the glass door to the patio. With a mental twist and a push, the portal swung open. He heard the telling beep, followed by the scruffle and click of four thick paws on the floor. He’d always been impressed by his lover’s choice of canine companions—especially when he recalled the enmity between the dog and the butler when they resided at the house overlooking the ocean. Aiden could only hope that absence hadn’t made the heart grow fonder.

Aiden whistled softly.

The dog stalked into the foyer, then turned his massive black and brown head quizzically toward the staircase, sniffed, then growled—a sound that was both low and menacing.

Aiden moved to the top of the stairs and whistled again.

The dog inched forward, then stopped dead and growled more loudly.

“Come now, Apollo. There’s a tasty morsel up here for you.”

The dog bent downward, his square jaw nearly touching the ground even as his hindquarters were raised high, the dog struggling between the instinct to protect and attack, and the fact that he could not see the man who had called him.

“Have it your way. I’ll bring your breakfast to you, then.” Aiden thought a moment before moving into the bedroom, where he found Nigel rifling beneath Lauren’s bed.

The man truly had no shame.

“Where is it?” he asked aloud. “Look at me, acting like a common thief. And. . .”

Nigel stopped his rant when he retrieved a long, flat box from underneath Lauren’s bed and whooped , triumphantly. He pried off the top, threw aside a layer of thin tissue paper, then gasped, pulling out what looked like a man’s private parts, cast in a rather authentic substitute for real skin.

“How disgusting!”

Aiden kicked out. The box skittered back under the bed and Nigel yelped in surprise. The cock and balls flew into the air. Aiden had no idea why Lauren owned such an authentic representation of a man’s family jewels, but he sniggered all the same.

He hovered so close to Nigel, he could smell kippers on his breath.

“Boo,” he whispered.

Nigel slammed backward, knocking the lamp off Lauren’s bedside table. He screamed, then scrambled out of the room and bolted down the stairs. Aiden did not need to watch what happened next. He heard the barks, the growls, the screams and the rending of clothes. With a yawn born of the time of day, Aiden settled into the nothingness and, satisfied, drifted into a deep and dreamless sleep.

***

Helen cursed. The last vehicles she wanted to see parked outside Lauren’s house were two police cars and an ambulance. From behind the wheel of her Jeep Cherokee she scanned the street, looking for the paparazzi, but beyond two women with fluffy dogs and a guy chatting on his cell phone, none of the ravenous photogs had descended on the scene just yet. But they had police scanners, the vultures. They’d hear Lauren’s address and be here any minute. Helen could only hope that Lauren was still at the studio.

She parked on the curb and dashed by a uniformed officer to one of Lauren’s security guards, Gino, who was sitting on a stool beside his guard stand with a paramedic hovering over him and an ice pack pressed to the base of his skull.

“What happened?”

“Damned fool knocked me out.”

“What damned fool?”

Another set of paramedics was rolling a gurney toward them, and Helen’s heart jammed into the back of her throat. Only when she saw that an older man was lying prone and bloody on it did she regain her ability to breathe.

He looked vaguely familiar.

“Who was that?”

“Nigel,” Gino replied.

“Ross’s butler?”

Gino nodded, but the action made him wince. “Idiot drove up an hour ago. Used an old code to open the gate, then nearly ran me down when I blocked the driveway. Said Mr. Marchand had left something in the house that he needed or some shit, but I knew Ms. Cole didn’t want her ex or any of his employees anywhere near the place, so I told him to move along. He got out of the car. Must have had a tire iron hidden behind his back. He clocked me. Knocked me out cold.”

The paramedic pushed Helen aside and rechecked Gino’s pupils, declared him to be suffering from a slight concussion and insisted he get into the ambulance.

“I’ll be fine,” he claimed, but Helen could tell he was just being typically male.

“Go with the ambulance. I’ll call the studio and have them send over a detail to watch the house until you’re back.”

Unsteadily, Gino stood. Helen was watching him go toward the ambulance when she spied Nigel again.

“Wait! Gino, how’d he get so beat up if you didn’t—?”

“Apollo,” he replied. “Good thing Cinda brought him home this morning.”

Helen’s knees weakened. Police were traipsing up and down Lauren’s driveway. Another squad car had just pulled up. She could only imagine what they’d done to Lauren’s dog if he’d threatened the boys in blue when they first arrived. She started running up the driveway, hampered by her three-inch heels, only to find Gino’s counterpart, Billy or Bruiser or someone or other, holding the dog by the collar on the front porch while petting him soothingly.

Relief gave way to anger.

“Okay,” Helen said to the second guard, “your partner got clocked and the butler broke in. Looks like Apollo stopped him from taking anything, but where the hell were you?”

“Taking a leak,” the man shot back. “Bad timing, I guess.”

“Looks like.”

Helen bent down and gave Apollo’s ears a scratch. “You’re an ugly, scary beast, but that’s why Lauren loves you, isn’t it?”

The dog sighed, dropped to four paws with his head in the security guard’s lap and watched with keen eyes and a still tail as the strangers roamed his domain. Thank God he was well trained. Relieved that she didn’t have to break the news to Lauren that the police had shot her dog, Helen made her way into the house.

“No press,” a uniformed officer said.

Helen smirked. “Do I look like press?”

“Anchorwoman, sure,” the cop said, flirting.