Phantom Series Boxed Set (64 page)

“Who would even know to look for you?”

His eyes turned such a stormy gray, she gasped as if the air had just been sucked from the room. “My brothers.”

Lauren’s head swam. “Do you really think someone in your family is alive?”

“I am here, am I not? Could it not be possible then that one of my siblings suffered the same fate as I while in the village, but is now free and searching for the rest of us using this technology your world so relies upon?”

“I suppose…”

He jabbed his finger at the monitor. “No one associated with my father would have known about Rafe and Sarina except for family. Even if some of the Gypsies survived, they would not have returned to England, and they certainly would not have reported on the earl’s family to anyone of consequence. Servants would have been well paid to keep the secret, and even if they told, who would have cared enough to record Rafe’s and Sarina’s names? My father was disgraced. The king sent mercenaries to reclaim his lands, but the mission went awry. The Gypsies had mysteriously disappeared. This could explain why there is no record of Valoren or the experiment to colonize the Gypsies outside of England. Only kings have the power to change history. And to erase it.”

“What about his wife?” she asked. “She would have kept records of her children’s birth.”

He rubbed his chin, thinking hard. “Alyse was a pragmatic woman, but illiterate. And Gypsies, for the most part, did not keep written records. If Alyse lived beyond that night and returned with my father to England, she would have insisted she take a place in my father’s household to keep their marriage a secret. He loved her. He would not have abandoned her. But this information shows that he never again served in the House of Lords once he returned from out of the country. The museum site says he lived a quiet, secluded life until the end of his days, meaning he shut himself away with his secret wife, mourning the loss of his children. Never knowing about the curse. Never knowing we lived, although, with us in a state so crude and cruel, knowing might have been more punishment than believing we were dead.”

He looked up, and his eyes gleamed silver with both determination and regret. Lauren’s heart ached, thinking about how the earl had grieved for seven children—his entire legacy—without knowing that they’d never truly died.

His voice snapped her back to the present.

“I have to go to London,” he said decisively. “The answers must be there.”

Lauren’s stomach dropped. “Yes, but you can’t. I mean, I can’t. And you can’t go without me.”

He scowled, his hands balled into tight fists. “You told me about your modern means of travel. We could be there by tomorrow.”

She covered her mouth, certain her sudden queasiness came from the fact that she could not give him what he so desperately wanted. “I can’t go now. Rehearsals start tomorrow. We shoot the first scenes in a few days. I can’t just pick up and leave right before we start the movie. Making the arrangements to film your scenes only at night has already pushed my limits.”

“Then call back that David Drake. Have him take the part. Send the sword with your assistant. You claim you trust her. Tell her my secret. Order her to help me find my family.”

Lauren’s eyes widened. The thought of telling Cinda about Aiden tore at her insides like swallowed glass. It was one thing to believe in magic herself, because she’d seen it with her own eyes, but it was something else to share this insane tale with a girl who’d pinned her Hollywood ambitions on the stability of Lauren’s career. She’d asked Cinda to do so much already—wasn’t this above and beyond?

Or was she just making an excuse?

Was jealousy, perhaps, keeping her from acting as Aiden asked?

She
wanted to help him.
She
wanted to be there for him when he found the freedom he so desperately needed.

For once, she wanted to be the one to help someone else, rather than the other way around. Wasn’t that what her karma required to undo the years of taking while she’d lived with Ross?

“I can’t drag Cinda into this,” she decided. “It’s too much to ask of her. Someone has already attacked me trying to get your sword. I can’t put her in danger.”

He continued to pace as she spoke, his hands clasped behind his back.

“Is that truly your reasoning, or do you simply not wish to help me? Perhaps I am just a means to an end for you. A reason not to confront David Drake or your past?”

A lick of fury fired her belly. “This has nothing to do with David.”

“Then call him,” Aiden insisted, pointing at the phone. “Tell him he can play your lover in your insignificant film. Or can you not, because he knows your secret? That you were once a child of the streets who lifted herself to greatness through the calculated lust of a man who never loved you, but wanted only to possess you? Does your greatness now embody that same cold selfishness?”

Lauren’s eyes burned, and in her chest a sensation much like a crack bled icy resentment around her heart. He was right. She was being selfish. Selfishness had gotten her this far, hadn’t it? If she hadn’t been selfish, she would have ended up just like her mother—dead on a dirty L.A. street corner. Unwanted. Unloved.

Better to have a fake name than a name no one would ever know, right?

“Fine,” she answered coolly. “I’ll make sure David is hired for the part, but I still can’t take you to England or put anyone else at risk. I have obligations to fulfill. People are counting on me. I have a contract.”

“Break it.”

“I can’t.” Her pride couldn’t withstand the heartbreak in his eyes, and her voice cracked. “Why can’t you understand? My whole career was built by Ross. Planned, manufactured, executed. This is the first film I’ve made without him pulling my every string. If I’m unreliable and cost the studio millions, I’ll never work in this town again. What am I going to do then with my life?”

He shot across the room and grabbed her by the arms. His gaze captured hers with such ferocity, her heart slammed hard against her chest.

“Be with me.”

She couldn’t stop the tears. They dripped down her cheeks like plump raindrops, splashing off the tip of her chin. How could he understand? They were from two different worlds. Two different centuries. Any delusions she might have had, unspoken and unnamed, about a future with Aiden were ripped from her by his easy, insistent reply.

She swallowed her disappointment and forced out three simple words of her own: “That’s not enough.”

His scowl broke her heart, but the way he dropped his hands from her and gave her a curt bow cut even deeper.

She blinked. He was gone. She gasped and fought for breath, even as she dashed into the living room and found the sword. Dropping to her knees beside the couch, she fought the instinct to grab the handle or touch the blade.

He did not want to be with her anymore. She would not give him what he wanted, even though she wished with all her soul that she could. He deserved freedom, but damn it, so did she. Clearly the fact that she wanted to help him, that she cared about him more than she could say, wasn’t enough. He wanted more than just her love. He wanted her to give up everything she’d worked for—which was more than she had the capacity to give.

Twenty Five

Cat recognized Helen Talbot immediately, not from her days as a child star—the woman barely resembled the fresh-faced, blond-haired, blue-eyed teen queen she’d once played on television—but from the cunning and suspicious took on her face as she entered the hotel bar. Their brief conversation on the phone, facilitated by Amber Rose, the most connected concierge Cat had ever met, had nearly ended ten words after “Hello.” Mentioning the name Aiden Forsyth had convinced the woman to meet with her. And Ben, of course. Clearly, the casting agent and reported close friend of Lauren Cole was a natural-born skeptic with no time for bullshit. And what she and Ben had come to tell her wouldn’t exactly be easy to swallow.

“I think you should do the talking,” Cat said out of the corner of her mouth while Ms. Talbot chatted with the pretty blond concierge as she pointed in their direction.

Ben’s eyebrows shot up. “I thought you were the silver tongue and I was the brass knuckles.”

She stifled a laugh. To the rest of the world Ben looked more like Indiana Jones about to lecture to his lovelorn students rather than a man who could jump chasms and work magic with a whip, but Cat knew differently. From the widening of her big blue eyes as she approached, Helen Talbot noticed the delicious maleness of Cat’s lover as well. The woman raked Ben with a blatantly appreciative stare. Appreciative, but still wary.

Ben stood.

The concierge made the introductions. “Dr. Ben Rousseau, this is Ms. Talbot. And this is…

Cat extended her hand. “Catalina Reyes. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Helen’s hand was in and out of hers so quickly, Cat didn’t have a chance to register a single emotion other than impatience. But the woman did give Ben more than ten seconds worth of attention before sitting down.

Amber excused herself. The hotel bar, with its rich paneling and warm candlelight, possessed a seductive atmosphere even in the middle of the day. Cat suddenly felt a bit like a third wheel, which prompted her to speak.

“Thank you so much for agreeing—” she began.

The casting director quickly interrupted. “You wanted to meet with me regarding Aiden Forsyth?”

“We’re looking for him,” Cat replied…

Helen glanced at Ben. “Why is that?”

“He’s my uncle.”

Helen snorted, accepting what looked like a pomegranate martini that a waiter delivered before anyone had even ordered. Clearly, the woman was a regular.

“He’s younger than you are,” Helen said.

A muscle in Ben’s jaw ticked, but his smile was smooth as glass. “My father—his much older brother, had me very late in life.”

Her eyes remained narrow and assessing. “You don’t have the same last name.”

Ben leaned forward. Cat could only imagine what Ben’s potent sandalwood cologne was doing to Helen’s senses.

“Not a very trusting person, are you?” Ben challenged.

“This is Hollywood,” she answered simply. “What was it Jay Leno said? If God doesn’t do something about Hollywood, he owes Sodom and Gomorrah an apology.”

Ben chuckled. “Then you’ll understand when I tell you that my father had some questionable dealings in his past that forced him to change his name. But Aiden is still his brother. Clearly, you know him…”

She waved her hand as if she would not verify this fact one way or another.

“…or you know how we can contact him,” Ben continued. “If you can arrange a meeting as soon as possible, he’ll verify that we’re family. Trust me.”

Helen took a smooth sip of her drink and laughed. “Well, at least I’ve verified that you are indeed new to this town. Only an out-of-towner would ask me to do that.”

With a snap, she instructed the waiter to bring over drinks for Ben and Cat. She filled the silence between ordering and delivery with innocuous questions about their stay in Los Angeles, turning the topic back to Aiden only after all three of them had vodka-pom concoctions sitting in front of them. “So, your uncle…or whatever. Is he in trouble of some sort?”

Ben eyed her quizzically. “Why would you ask that?”

“Just wondering why you had to go through a stranger in order to make contact with a relative. Couldn’t you call his cell phone?”

Ben smiled again. “Pretty sure he doesn’t have one. He’s an old-fashioned guy.”

Helen’s eyebrows lifted, as if Ben’s words had just verified that he did indeed know the man he claimed was his uncle.

“And you have no other way to reach him?” After a sip of the tart martini, Ben shook his head with just the right touch of vulnerable charm. Cat had to squelch the instinct to reach over and pat his hand. Man, he was good.

“I’m afraid he hasn’t been in touch with his family for what seems like centuries.”

He kept his eyes trained on Helen.

“Family squabble?” she asked.

“Something like that. He and my father haven’t spoken for a very long time. And, to be honest, my father isn’t doing well, health-wise, so I took a chance in coming out here and seeing if I could work out some sort of reunion.”

Cat lifted the martini glass to her lips to hide her grin. Damn, but Ben really was brilliant. And handsome. And sexy. After a mouthful of flavored vodka passed over her lips, she gave herself a little shake and concentrated again on how smart he was. Keeping to the truth would bypass the highly tuned bullshit detector Helen Talbot seemed to have plugged in to her sharp blue eyes.

“We heard that he came out here to see Lauren Cole,” Ben continued. “But she’s not exactly in the white pages. Cat is practically family with Alexa Chandler, who, of course, owns this hotel, so we came out and had the concierge help us track you down in hopes of making contact with Ms. Cole and, subsequently, my uncle.”

Helen rubbed a fingertip along the edge of her glass. “I don’t know. Ms. Cole is very busy.”

Cat decided to turn up the heat. “We’re not asking for a private audience. We just need to get a message through to Aiden.
Uncle
Aiden.”

Helen turned to Cat, folding her arms in the process. “How do I know you’re not from the tabloids, trying to get an inside source to verify some torrid affair?”

“Anyone on the hotel staff, all the way up to the manager, will verify that we’re personal friends of Alexa Chandler,” Cat explained. “She’s out of the country, but she’s reachable by phone if you wish to speak with her directly.”

Helen finished the rest of her drink, then stood.

Ben did the same. “Ms. Talbot, we realize that you have to be very careful about facilitating contacts between strangers and someone as famous as Lauren Cole, but we really don’t need to speak to her so much as we need to speak to my uncle. Maybe if you give him this, he’ll know that I am who I say I am.”

Ben pulled a gold button out of his pocket and pressed it into Helen’s hand.

“What is this?” she asked.

“A family heirloom,” Ben replied. “It’s become something of a lucky charm for my father, though it once belonged to Aiden. Please give him this and explain to him that we need to see him. That we can help him win the freedom he’s looking for.”