Phantom's Touch: Sexy Paranormal (Book 2, Phantom Series) (8 page)

“Would he?” Helen asked. The rumors had been insidious this time. Not like the typical gossip-culture whisperings that surrounded each and every production in town. Ross Marchand, people claimed, had some kind of money problems. Since disparaging remarks about moneymen like Ross were floated around this town more often than balloons at a kid’s birthday party, she hadn’t paid too much attention at first. But then the innuendos and scandalous blather hadn’t died away. That usually meant truth was anchoring the rumors inside the mill.

Helen hadn’t wanted to say anything to Lauren, who’d fortunately divorced herself from the Hollywood glitterati the minute she chucked Marchand. She needed to have her head in the movie, not on worrying whether her paycheck was going to bounce—or worse, if creditors were coming after her for debts incurred before the end of the marriage.

“If the movie doesn’t get filmed, he’ll lose millions. You know that,” Lauren. insisted, turning, her mind momentarily off the sword still gleaming so oddly on the ground. “Wait a minute. What aren’t you telling me?”

Sounds from outside the rehearsal room reminded Helen that this wasn’t the time or the place to discuss Ross’s dicey financial situation. Grabbing Lauren’s wrist, she glanced at the door, making the reason for her reticence perfectly clear.

“Get rid of the sword, Lauren. Go to your trailer, clean up, and meet me back here in a half hour. I have five actors coming in to do a read-through at ten, but there’s time for us to grab a cup of coffee beforehand. Off the lot, if you know what I mean.”

Lauren’s brow furrowed. She clearly wanted to know more, but a loud bang just on the other side of the door spurred her to action. She grabbed a blanket, wrapped up the sword, gave Helen a hug and then promised to return in twenty.

Once the door was closed, the tension in Helen’s shoulders relaxed somewhat, but not enough for her to cancel the masseuse who was coming at two. She tossed the folder she’d been carrying onto a trunk, then looked around, wondering, first, what the hell her friend had been doing in the rehearsal room alone all night long, and second, how she was going to weasel a confession out of her before their lattes got cold. She and Lauren were close, but since Ross had strong-armed Lauren into making this last film, she’d been edgy and sullen. The last thing Helen wanted to do was set her off right before production started in earnest.

Turning, she caught sight of a flickering red light. A flickering red light atop a video camera aimed in her direction.
Interesting
. What could Lauren have been doing last night that she felt the need to record?

Well, only one way to find out.

Lauren shot into her trailer and collapsed against the door, the sword clutched tightly against her chest, her breathing labored. Her mind swam, and she wasn’t sure what to focus on first. Joey’s accident? Helen’s quest for her new costar? Ross and the stolen sword? The parade of as yet unnamed actors coming in to read with her? Or the insane belief that she’d just spent the night with Aiden Forsyth, a man who claimed to have been cursed by Gypsies in 1747, but who had made mad, passionate love to her all night long before disappearing with the dawn?

Lovingly, she placed the sword across the coffee table, but kept the blanket closed.

“Aiden? Are you here?” she asked the air.

She heard nothing. Felt nothing. Fear jabbed at her chest. Had it all been a dream? She’d suspected it before, but the pleasure of making love with Aiden had been too intense, too complete, to come from her subconscious, Maybe she’d lost her mind? She’d always wondered if and when her lie of a life would catch up to her and start chipping away at her sanity. Clearly the divorce had pushed her over the edge. Funny. She would have put her money on the marriage doing the trick.

“Aiden?” she asked again, desperation lilting her voice.

After another tense minute, the atmosphere shifted. Warmed. Filled. Aiden’s scent, a mixture of leather and rain, reached her nostrils and eased the rapid pounding of her heart.

She sighed. “You’re here.”

“Yes,” he replied, his voice as rich as dark chocolate.

“Where?”

“Where do you want me to be?”

She closed her eyes. His hands smoothed over her hips and around her backside, which he clutched possessively. How easy it would be to surrender and indulge again in a few hours of mindless lovemaking. And with an invisible lover? Damn, how many of her private fantasies was he going to deliver?

“Let me see you,” she requested.

“I cannot,” he replied.

“We’re in my trailer. No one will find us here.”

“I do not fear discovery, my lady. I have not the ability to make myself corporeal. I suspect the dawning of a new day has changed my circumstances.”

“Convenient,” she snapped.

After checking to make sure she’d locked the door, Lauren unwrapped the sword from the cashmere blanket. She touched the handle, then remembered that she’d experienced the sword’s magical effect fully only after her skin had made contact with the blade. How many other people had handled the sword over the years? Why had none of them freed Aiden from his prison?

Why
her
?

The question would have to wait. She sat on the couch and scooted the table closer, then stretched her hands above the polished steel. The reddish silver gleam had diminished, but the sword still sparkled with potent power, causing the hair on her arms to stand on end.

“Ready?” she asked.

“Proceed,” he replied.

She took a deep breath and placed her palms flat on the sword. She glanced around, but noticed nothing different.

“Anything?” she asked. “Aiden?”

“Nothing.”

Damn
.

“Maybe you can only come out in the dark?”

She dashed to the light switch, plunged the trailer into relative darkness and then waited for her eyes to adjust to the shadows. She caught the glimmer of the sword and groped her way back to the table.

Again she touched the sword.

And again nothing happened.

“Sorry,” she apologized. “Maybe I’m doing something wrong.”

“No,” Aiden said. “The exhaustion trapping me in this insubstantial state is hard to fight. Perhaps the magic must rejuvenate during the day.”

“Magic with a time limit? Who writes these rules?”

“Rogan,” Aiden spat. “His motives for creating such a trap in the first place are incomprehensible. And right now I am too fatigued to untangle his intentions. For now I prefer to focus only on you.”

The lights popped back on. Then off. Then on.

“Amazing,” he said on a wonder-filled breath.

“Are you doing that?” she asked.

“Yes,” he replied. “I seem to possess some of Rogan’s magic.”

She couldn’t help but smile, even though Aiden didn’t seem happy about this turn of events. The man was trapped in a curse and fighting intense exhaustion, and yet the light switch amused him; the ability to manipulate it did not.

Still, she understood his conflicting emotions. She hadn’t had a chance to think too hard about last night, but she’d been lonely enough over the last year—hell, possibly the last five—to know how much she’d missed by cutting herself off from the male species. Lauren had never denied her sexuality for so long. Being touched and aroused had always been a welcome escape. The thrill of seduction. The madness of orgasm. Yet before she’d released her phantom lover from the sword, the only satisfying action she’d gotten recently had been in her dreams—dreams of a dark-haired, gray-eyed stranger whose soul had felt as old as time.

Aiden?

Of course.

She glanced at the sword.

All this time he’d been haunting her, reaching out to her. She could kick herself for not defying Ross sooner. The shame she’d fought since she’d finally grown the balls to walk out on the cheating bastard flooded over her again. She’d been so young. Starstruck. Stupid. Ross had played on her vulnerabilities like a virtuoso. Was Aiden doing the same, catering to her sexual needs as Ross had appealed to her fantasies about stardom and financial independence?

Aiden’s invisible hands curved around her, softly pressing against the small of her back with a touch that was both light and erotic. With concerted effort she pushed her desires aside. She needed time to think.

“Will you return inside the sword?” she asked.

“You do not wish that,” he countered.

Despite the ephemeral quality of his voice, she heard his surprise loud and clear.

“No, I don’t wish it,” she admitted. “I’m just wondering where you’ll go.”

“Not far,” he replied.

With a chilled whoosh, Aiden moved away from her, the sensual quality of the air instantly lost in the cold, sterile environment of her trailer. She hadn’t yet had time to personalize her dressing area with more than a few of the leftovers from the last film. Her first Athena costume, encased in glass and hanging on the wall until the charitable donation she intended to make at the premiere of
Wrath of Athena
. The hand-embroidered gold cushions left over from the harem scene in
Athena’s Revenge
. The empty picture frames that used to hold photos of her and Ross. Knickknacks and memories, few of which reflected who she really was anymore.

“Who was that woman?” Aiden asked.

“What?” Did his magic give him the ability to read her thoughts? “Who?”

“The woman you spoke with? The one who intruded on our privacy.”

“Oh, Helen?” Lauren volunteered, happy to address a topic other than her damaged psyche. “She’s my best friend and, conveniently, the casting director on my latest film.”

Lauren marched into her bathroom to turn on the shower. She untied the drawstring on her pants, shaking off the unfamiliar shyness that came from knowing Aiden was watching her undress.

“A film?”

She stopped moving.
Wow
. How did you explain video and film to a man who’d likely never even seen a photograph?

“You said you’d seduced an actress once, yes?”

She could almost feel a wink in his voice when he replied, “I believe I’m up to two now.”

“I meant in the past.”

“Ah, yes. She was portraying
Léonide
in
Le Triomphe de l’Amour
in Paris when we first met. I was in a regiment assigned to escort an ambassador to the court of Louis the Fifteenth. I was instantly entranced. I found her again in London, where she played Titania in
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
.”

Geez, could he have personally known Shakespeare? No, that wasn’t the right time period. Not that she knew shit about history, but she’d seen
Shakespeare in Love
, and Joseph Fiennes had clearly worn pantaloons. Aiden, while briefly in his clothes, had looked more like Jason Isaacs in
The Patriot
.

She shivered. In a good way. A very good way.

“A film is like a play,” she explained, “only it is recorded so that other people can see it later.”

“Ah,” he said, as if he understood.

But how could he? If he was from the past, as he claimed, then he’d have no way of knowing what a movie was. She’d just have to show him. Maybe use the video she’d taken last night.

The video
. She hadn’t turned off the machine, not even after Aiden had materialized. Which meant they’d made love within full view of the camera.
Shit
. She hadn’t removed the tape, meaning that Helen or anyone else who stumbled into the room might soon see exactly what Lauren had been doing. . .with Aiden. All night long.

Lauren shot out of the dressing room and nearly knocked over two interns in her dash to the workout room. When she flung open the door, her heart, pounding hard against her chest, dropped like a stone to the pit of her stomach.

“Helen!”

Her friend was standing at the tiny six-inch monitor, her eyes fixed on the screen and a wicked smile lighting her face.

Lauren jumped inside, locked the door behind her and dashed over to where her friend stood, her arms crossed and one manicured fingernail tapping her chin.

“You weren’t supposed to see this,” Lauren said, attempting to turn off the machine.

Helen slapped her hand away. Pleasured moans—clearly her own—issued from the tinny speaker.

“Or hear it,” she said, managing to at least snap off the volume. When she tried to shut down the power, Helen’s hand shot out and encircled her wrist.

“Don’t you dare,” her friend warned.

Lauren tried to laugh it off. “Into voyeurism much?”

Helen’s grin elongated. “Tell me watching other people doing it doesn’t get you hot?”

“It doesn’t,” Lauren lied.

Helen arched a doubtful brow. “Well, it gets me hot. Especially when. . .” Her eyes widened. “Oh, did he just—”

Lauren twisted out of Helen’s grasp and turned off the machine.

“Spoilsport,” Helen groused.

With a jab, Lauren pushed the eject button and retrieved the tape, which she shoved in her pocket.

“I’m going to forget you ever saw that,” Lauren said.

“I’m not. In fact, as a reward for letting me watch you get what you’ve so desperately needed over the last year, I’m going to cancel the auditions for your next leading man.”

Lauren eyed her friend suspiciously. “How? We start production in two days.”

“I know.”

The cat-in-the-cream expression on Helen’s face was not reassuring.

“Helen Wilhelm Talbot, what are you thinking?”

Helen reached around and patted Lauren’s back pocket, which was now hard and square with the evidence of her tryst. “I’m thinking I just found your leading man, and I’m willing to hire him sight unseen. Well, audition unseen. Otherwise, I’ve seen more than my fair share, and he’s delicious.”

Lauren jumped back as Helen headed toward the door. Her friend had clearly lost her mind. Aiden wasn’t real. Aiden was a ghost. Er, a phantom. Alive, but not completely part of this world. At least, not yet. And it would be damned hard to put him on film, since he was mostly invisible.

“You’re nuts,” Lauren announced.

“Maybe, but the chemistry you two showed on that tape nearly melted the acrylic off my nail polish.”

“That’s not chemistry,” Lauren argued. “That was sex.”

“You can’t have one without the other. The man is gorgeous. And that fight scene! He was holding back; I could see it. Toying with you. It’s been a damned long time since any of your costars looked like they could best you in a fight and make that tough-girl attitude of yours crumble with a touch. Michael is going to kiss my feet,” Helen said, her eyes gleaming now in the particular way they did when she’d made up her mind about something.

Only a few months ago Michael Sharpe, the director, had said something to Lauren about making sure the last film paired her with a hero worthy of Athena’s strength and power. He’d instructed the scriptwriters to pen a romantic story line that would satisfy the hordes of female moviegoers who had become her loyal fan base. Guys flocked to the movies, too, but it was the women who bought the tickets and the merchandise, who dressed their daughters in Athena Halloween costumes and made Oprah’s ratings shoot even higher whenever Lauren appeared on the talk show to promote a film.

Helen rubbed her hands together like the proverbial silent-film villain—only this time she was entirely on Lauren’s side. If the film did well, they’d be hot properties in Hollywood and beyond.

Lauren had to admit Aiden was perfect. Strong, clever, sexy. A combination of rogue and warrior. She could easily imagine him pulling a sword over some dishonor or slight, just as easily as she could see him seducing a theater full of women with one heady glance, magnified in breathtaking glory on a silver screen. Oh, and IMAX? The possibility stole her breath.

But she couldn’t forget that he wasn’t real. Even the latest advances in film technology couldn’t get around that little detail. However, the video proved he would show up on camera. If he was filmed at night, at least.

Still strategizing, Helen went on: “With this hunk as your leading man, Michael will get exactly what he wants, and you’ll get a little—well, maybe not so little—action on the side. And affairs between costars can be good for a film if the publicity is handled right. Can you imagine how insane with jealousy Ross will be? Oh! This is so fucking perfect! Now tell me who he is and how I can find him. Who’s his agent?”

“He’s not an actor,” Lauren insisted.

“Oh, well. . .who fucking cares? He’s got enough charisma, and intensity to pull this off. The rest we’ll fake.”

“Fake?” Lauren wasn’t sure when she had started to get offended by comments like that. It wasn’t as though she’d won an Oscar. But since she’d started playing Athena, she’d worked hard at her craft. Just
anybody
couldn’t pull it off, especially not someone from the eighteenth century.

“The only actor who has to act in this film is you. Everyone else is window dressing.”

“That’s not true,” Lauren insisted. She wanted to feel flattered, but she’d been doing this too long not to understand how having talented costars pushed her to shine. Ross Marchand had spared no expense to bring in A-list actors to play opposite her or to take high-profile cameos. She couldn’t deny that he’d done all the right things to make her who she was—but it was now up to her to keep her reputation golden.

And while that wasn’t the reason she couldn’t pursue Aiden as her costar, the excuse would work great for Helen.

“I think I rate better than amateurs, don’t you?” she asked haughtily.

Helen rolled her eyes. “You can play diva with someone else, Lauren Cole. You just don’t want to share your boy toy with the rest of the world.”

“Does he look like a boy?”

“He looks like heaven, but if you don’t tell me his name and how I can find him, we’re both sunk, and you know it. You could, of course, read with each and every model-turned-actor scheduled to show up in”— she glanced at her watch—“thirty minutes.”

Lauren opened her mouth to argue, but groaned instead. She knew Helen would punish her further by choosing a sensual love scene to read with all the auditioning actors, which would mean hours of awkward chitchat as a prelude to inept fake kissing, moaning and orgasms. She could either waste time with Helen, who would undoubtedly find no one who floated Lauren’s boat, or she could take a chance that she could. . .what? Work something out with the phantom so he’d be her costar? Demand that they shoot his scenes only at night? She supposed she’d heard of wackier demands in Hollywood. Most people probably wouldn’t raise an eyebrow.

Of course, most people didn’t have Ross Marchand as their producer.

“I’ll talk to him,” she promised, hoping to stall.

Helen’s smile was entirely too confident for someone who’d gotten just a
maybe
. Then again, maybe didn’t exist in Helen’s professional vocabulary. She was the ultimate do-or-die film executive, which was why she had so much on the line with this movie.

So did Lauren. So what did she have to lose by asking?

***

She’d left the door to the trailer open. Despite the increasing fatigue that made it hard for Aiden to remain entirely aware of his surroundings, he could not pass up the opportunity to explore. He’d been trapped in one place so long, he longed to move, survey the landscape and assess his situation from a broader angle. His instinct, born of many duels and battles, could not be waylaid. Rogan’s cursed magic would simply have to wait its turn to torment his soul.

A surge of power shot through him. He gave a cursory glance at the sword, then concentrated and pushed his diaphanous form into this new and fascinating world.

Sadly, the world he anticipated did not exist outside of Lauren’s domicile. The trailer, as she’d called it, stood within a building the size of the cathedrals of Paris or the palaces of London. The ceiling stretched six or seven stories high, and the walls, a dull charcoal gray, were obscured by stage sets the like of which he’d never seen.

To his left he spied the interior of a mountain cavern, replete with dark stone walls and a river of glistening black ooze piping through the middle. To his right a wide expanse of sheer material fluttered in an unnatural wind across walls that shimmered with angelic luster. The furnishings within were all gold-leafed and worthy of a sultan’s harem.

Everywhere he looked, men and women milled about, tools in their hands as they strung thick cords from one end of the space to the other or tested lighting that turned day into night and then back again. Some of the workers were high in the air, adjusting strange mechanisms from a web of metal frames that crisscrossed the ceiling. All of them shouted and joked with one another as they worked, or else barked orders, reminding Aiden of his regiment shortly before battle. A sizzle of excitement rang through their voices. They enjoyed their work. They anticipated the opening of their production, of which, he realized, Lauren must be the featured performer.

The star-shaped plaque on her door with her name in the middle clearly gave her away.

Two men strode past him, both wearing pants of a rough blue fabric that looked at once sloppy and incredibly comfortable. “Did you hear about Joe?”

“Yeah, freaky, huh? Hasn’t hit the news yet. Marchand must be keeping it hushed. Anyone know what caused the explosion?”

The first man shrugged his bulky shoulders. “Gas leak, probably. What else? This isn’t exactly a war zone.”

“Maybe he pissed off some bruiser whose wife he was screwing.”

They laughed heartily and disappeared around a corner. The language of this time was different in so many ways from his own, but the actions and suppositions of the people clearly were not. Gossip and interest in lurid details still existed. Men still battled against other men for the affection of women. Centuries had passed, but the basics of love and war remained the same.

Luckily, Aiden had hung with the sword in Ross Marchand’s office long enough to understand the vernacular of the conversations going on around him—about investments and the massive scope of the entertainment undertakings of one Ross Marchand.

While he was under the control of Rogan’s magic, his awareness had been limited. But now that Lauren had explained what a film was, Aiden realized that he had observed Marchand screening scenes from his films on a box that sat on his desk. While entrapped by the magic, Aiden hadn’t cared enough to be shocked or surprised by the advancements in technology, but now he couldn’t help but wonder how he could ever find a place of significance in a society that had so expanded without him.

A few feet away a man sat on a tall stool pressing buttons on a device like one he’d seen Ross use to retrieve information. Aiden concentrated on joining the worker, and soon was there.

“Hey, Gibbs,” the man shouted to a well-dressed man holding a thick book overflowing with photographs. “What’s the name of that doohickey that Athena found in the third flick? This database is useless without the right name. You know. . .the thing she wore that made her irresistible to men?”

“As if she needed any help.” The man named Gibbs chuckled as he flipped through the pages of the book.

Aiden agreed. With Lauren playing the role of the goddess Athena, any man within a mile radius was likely helpless to resist her.

Gibbs slammed his hand on the appropriate page. “You mean Aphrodite’s girdle?”

The man at the keyboard punched the buttons of the corresponding letters and spelled out the word inside a thin white block. He then clicked a button and a photograph of a thick gold belt appeared.

“Yeah, that’s it,” he confirmed. “Is she using it in this film? I didn’t see it with the costume drawings.”

“Don’t think so,” Gibbs replied.

“We should add it to the background of her room, though, don’t you think? I think it’s in storage. Hey, you. . .”

The man snagged the collar of a young woman who’d been hurrying by with a tray of steaming coffee and shouted orders for her to retrieve the girdle from “wardrobe.” She mumbled her agreement, then darted away. The longer Aiden observed, the more this organized chaos resembled the preparations before a battle. Generals and lieutenants poring over plans, shouting orders to infantry peons, who nodded their quick assent. The energy surging through the room was soothingly familiar, even if the situation was as foreign to him as the eighteenth century would be to Lauren.

He returned his attention to the machine. He had a vague understanding that the device was a repository for varied sources of information. Could it, perhaps, lead him to his family?

Stepping directly beside the man whose fingers flew over the keys, he called upon the magic that held him and whispered the name Forsyth into the man’s ear.