Phantom Series Boxed Set (59 page)

The way she could warp a few simple words into a sensual suggestion unnerved him. In his century, this Helen woman would have been either a courtesan or the mother of queens. Manipulation and cleverness brightened her eyes like jewels, though Lauren seemed so used to her friend’s maneuvering, she yawned.

“So you wish me to relinquish my role as Lauren’s on-screen lover, when my employment was initially your idea?” he asked.

She shrugged lazily. “It’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind—or haven’t you heard?”

Aiden’s frown deepened when he noticed that the man who’d accompanied Helen into the house stood transfixed, unable to rip his gaze away from Lauren. His eyes gleamed with the kind of hunger that Aiden knew all too well. He arrested the man’s attention with a pointed question.

“Who are you?” he demanded.

“This is—” Lauren started, but Aiden cut her off with a potent glare.

The man jumped as if startled, then tore his stare from Lauren and held out his hand, “David Drake.”

Their greeting was a crash and pump of male assessment. While the man had features that would have looked stunning on a woman, David Drake also possessed a decent, steady grip.

“Lauren’s new lover,” Helen announced. “Or Athena’s, at any rate.”

Lauren’s eyes flashed as she looked David over from head to toe in a manner completely unbefitting a woman.

“Then let’s do it. Got the camera?”

Helen produced a small electronic device, which she aimed at Lauren and David before Aiden could open his mouth to protest. Helen pushed Aiden out of the way, and Lauren launched herself into David’s arms. After a split second of surprise, the man relaxed and he melted into Lauren as if their bodies had been meant to meld together.

Then the bastard dropped to his knees, wrapped his arms around her legs and pressed his cheek to her thigh. “I am your slave.”

Aiden’s hand instantly shot to his waist, but he was without scabbard—without sword.

Lauren’s hand snaked down, fingering through Drake’s hair and around his jaw until she grasped his chin tightly and tugged him upward. He took his time rising, making love to every inch of her body with his eyes, lingering at her breasts, then staring into her sapphire blue irises with a mixture of devotion and power. Aiden fumed, suddenly feeling as if he had stumbled into a private rendezvous between lovers. He took a step forward, but Helen, who’d sidled up beside him, grabbed him by the elbow and held him in place.

“You had your chance, hotshot. I think they’re fabulous together, don’t you?”

Watching their kiss pushed Aiden beyond control. Before any of them could act, Aiden broke them apart and sliced the conjured sword perilously close to the usurper’s traitorous neck.

“Aiden, no!” Lauren screamed.

“Where did that come from?” Helen asked.

Aiden did not reply.

“Take it easy, there, fella,” David pleaded, his voice tremulous. “We’re just acting.”

“You will not touch her. Ever. Again,” Aiden insisted, his teeth so tight his jaw ached.

“Aiden, let him go this instant or I’ll…”

Without moving an inch except to turn his head and lock gazes with Lauren, Aiden spoke. “You’ll
what
, my lady?”

Her mouth gaped, but no words emerged. With a stare meant to convey the full depth of his displeasure, he focused on her until she closed her mouth. During their exchange David Drake, who clearly was not a fool, had backed away.

From behind he heard applause. He turned to find Helen slapping her hands together and grinning from ear to ear.

“Now, that’s machismo,” she assessed. “And quick-reflexes. didn’t even see the sword when we came in.”

“That’s…what?” Aiden lowered the weapon, perplexed. He glanced back at Lauren and caught her sniggering behind her hand.

Drake stood with his arms crossed cockily over his chest. “
Machismo
. Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of it. You practically ooze with it.”

Lauren’s hand on his arm dispelled his increasing ire. Aiden Forsyth liked a good laugh as well as any man, but he certainly did not appreciate being the butt of the joke. “This was—”

Helen clapped him on the shoulder. “Acting. When I called earlier, Lauren told me you were having a bit of trouble drawing on the right emotions. So we set up this little scenario. Of course, I didn’t expect you to nearly slice David in half.”

Aiden frowned, unable to remember fetching the sword. It was as if his anger had summoned the weapon to him—and the rage had nearly caused him to draw innocent blood.

“I would not have harmed him,” he said.

David’s eyes widened. “I’d sure as hell like to believe that, man, but I’d feel a hell of a lot safer if you put that baby down.”

Aiden complied and the moment he released the handle his fury drained. He eyed David warily, then glanced at Lauren, whose eyes, locked on the actor, had narrowed with what looked suspiciously like…suspicion.

“What is it?” Aiden asked her.

She nearly jumped out of her skin. “What?”

Aiden moved closer to her, speaking directly into her ear. “Did he harm you?”

“What? No,” she insisted, laughing off his concern. “No, he just…” She faced David directly again. “You look really familiar.”

David slipped his hands into his pockets and rocked on his feet in a move Aiden suspected was supposed to show careless confidence. “Well, I’m not a superstar like you are, but I have—”

“No,” Lauren interrupted. “I don’t mean from your work. I mean…Ross,” she whispered. Shock turned her normally forthright voice into a quaver of uncertainty. “That night. Oh, God. Ross.” She stepped around Aiden and pointed an accusing finger at David. “You were there.”

David shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Lauren might have launched herself on him if not for Aiden grabbing her by the arms. He had no idea what had upset her so, but she’d gone from relaxed and casual to nearly hysterical in a heartbeat.

“You liar!” she screamed, as near to crazed as Aiden had ever heard her. “You were there…you were there the night I died!”

Twenty

Lauren could hardly breathe. For the first time since she’d come home from the hospital, the room around her started to spin. If not for Aiden’s viselike grip around her arms, she might have crumbled.

Helen waved David back, her eyes wide and frightened in a way that Lauren had never seen before. Good. She needed to be afraid. She’d brought this lying snake into her home. Into her life. David Drake, or whatever he called himself these days, had clearly tricked one of the savviest women in Hollywood. But why?

“Honey, yes,” Helen said. “David saved you after your electrocution. He gave you CPR before the paramedics arrived. I told you about him in the hospital.”

Lauren shook her head as a fuzzy recollection of Helen chattering by her bedside at the hospital skittered across her brain. “No,” she insisted. “Not then. Before. A long time before!”

She stopped fighting Aiden, who pulled her back and pressed her to his chest. With one arm protectively across her, he held her steady as he spoke in an even tone. “I think you should both leave.”

Helen’s eyes flashed with anger. “Who the hell do you think you are? You don’t own her.”

“I do not claim to own her, but I have sworn to protect her,” Aiden declared.

The heat emanating from his body wrapped Lauren in a cocoon so soothing, she couldn’t resist folding herself into it and wishing for the rest of the world to go away. She’d tried so hard to forget that night—the night that had changed her life so dramatically. On the edge between life and death, she’d turned over her heart and soul and trust to Ross. She’d given up her sad and tragic childhood, changed her name and succumbed to Ross Marchand’s overpowering need to possess her, body and soul.

All because the boy who saved her refused to spirit her away.

God, how she’d begged him. Through eyes swollen to slits and lips puffed up beyond recognition, she’d pleaded with the young man who’d come to her aid to take her away, drag her if he had to, anywhere she could either die or heal on her own. She didn’t want the police called. They’d take her to the hospital and contact Ross. She didn’t have the strength to fight him or his promises of fame and riches and love.

If only she could escape. Start over somewhere else.

But the boy who’d scared away her attackers had refused her one request. She’d hated him for years, even after she’d fallen in love with Ross. Even after her husband had made good on every single promise he’d made her, turning the onetime street rat into an international star. And yet, somewhere in the back of her mind, she’d always wondered what might have happened if that teenage runaway with courage enough to run off the gang who’d jumped her had listened to her pleading and helped her escape. Might she have achieved her success on her own?

Never in a million years would she have expected for him to sneak into her life this way. Her savior, her betrayer, holding her? Kissing her? Craving stardom at her side in the series of films that had bound her to Ross?

“I can’t deal with this right now,” Lauren decided. “Get him out of my house. Get him out before I throw him out!”

David’s face betrayed nothing, stoic as stone. Only his eyes hinted at some emotion he wisely suppressed. Before Lauren could form the sharp words she’d longed to unleash on him, he left.

Helen took a shaky step backward. “I don’t understand. Do you know him? Honey, what did he…?”

Lauren flinched when Helen’s hand reached out to her.

Aiden tightened his embrace. “Perhaps you should go as well.”

Helen’s eyes narrowed to slits, “Back off, big boy. We’ve been friends longer than you’ve been around. You don’t speak for her!”

Lauren shook her head. No, he didn’t speak for her, even though he was saying exactly what she felt. “Helen, Aiden’s right. I don’t want to talk about this tonight. I didn’t expect to ever see him again, and certainly not in my house, touching me… Please.”

She turned within Aiden’s arms and pressed her face against his chest. She contained a sob, realizing she could deal with an electric shock better than she could an emotional one.

“But David saved your life,” Helen reasoned. “He knew what to do when I was freaking out. I don’t know who you think he is, but…”

Mustering all the strength she could, Lauren broke free of Aiden, even though he did keep one hand on her shoulder. She reached out, wanting to take Helen’s hand, but the conflux of emotions crested and she pulled back. “Find out what he wants,” she said. “Find out why he used you to get to me.”

Helen’s eyes glazed. “Used?
Me
?”

Lauren knew Helen would find this concept inconceivable. Helen had grown up in Hollywood, and as a result had a laundry list of trust-related tragedies in her past. Enough to keep her wary and careful and cool. But somehow David Drake had broken past her barriers in record time, and the fallout wasn’t going to be pretty.

“Yes, you,” Lauren insisted. “I can’t believe you brought him here. I—”

Helen, her eyes glossy, left without another word.

Only after the door had clicked shut did Lauren rally her strength. She charged to the intercom, punched the button that buzzed the guardhouse and instructed her security staff to let no one else into the house until she said otherwise. No exceptions. After delivering the code word that assured her guards that she had given this order of her own accord, she flipped off the communication device, spun and flattened herself against the cold wall, then dropped inch by inch to the floor.

Aiden stared at her, his broad arms at his sides, his fists clenched. Ready for battle. Ready to protect her. Ready to take the pain shooting through her and grind it into nothing through sheer force of will.

She forced a smile. “I’m okay.”

He tilted his head, his eyes such a piercing silver, he might as well have sliced straight through to her heart. “You may be an accomplished actress, but your claim rings false to me, my lady. Who was that man?”

She squeezed her eyes shut. God, she didn’t want to remember. But what choice did she have? The memories were flooding her, threatening to drown her, jeopardizing the strength and independence she’d worked so hard to rebuild.

“A blast from the past,” she answered.

“I do not understand,” he replied. “Did he hurt you?”

Forced to consider all the circumstances in a few brief moments, she sighed before answering, “No. Helen was right. He did save my life. Twice, now.”

“Then why did you react so cruelly?”

She shook her head, overwhelmed and confused, though she’d always been one to surrender to her emotions before thinking a situation all the way through. When she’d finally seen the boy he’d once been in David’s deceptively contact-colored eyes, she’d reacted from her gut—striking out from a mixture of shock, resentment and humiliation. She hadn’t even known his name then. She’d never seen him before that night or as far as she knew, afterward. Not until he’d marched into her home on Helen’s recommendation, given a pass into her sanctuary on her best friend’s word.

“He came under false pretenses,” she explained. “I shouldn’t have been so emotional, but I guess I…”

Aiden fell to his knees in front of her and smoothed his hand over her cheek. “You reacted on instinct. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”

His gentle touch and tender tone reminded her of the boy who’d saved her, the man she’d just thrown out of her house. How could she have treated him like that? Okay, so he’d lied and misled people in order to get close to her—she supposed if he’d tried to contact her through normal channels, he might have revealed her sordid past to the press. She could only imagine how much cold, hard cash he could have gotten from the tabloids for the story. And yet he’d chosen instead to work his way into Helen’s good graces and approach Lauren in private.

And he’d actually been a pretty damned good actor. Guilt made her stomach hurt even worse.

“You don’t know enough about me to understand,” she said.

Aiden curled a lock of her hair behind her ear. “I know only what you have told me. If there is more to tell, then please, I am willing to listen.”