Lover Mine

by J. R. Ward

Chapter Thirty-one

  Gregg Winn woke up with Holly curled against him, her lush fake breasts a pair of twin pillows pressing into his side.

  A quick glance at the clock and he saw that it was seven a. m. Might as well get packed and head for Atlanta.

  "Holly. " He nudged her with his hand. "Wake up. "

  She let out something close to a purr and stretched, her body arching into his and turning his morning hard-on into a raw need that he was inclined to do something about. Memories of how she'd ended up in his bed curbed that impulse quickly, though.

  Proving that he was a gentleman in some ways.

  "Holly. Come on. Wakey-wakey. " He pushed her hair back and smoothed it down her shoulder. "If we get a move on, we'll be in Atlanta by late afternoon. "

  Which, considering he'd cost them a day chasing after this Rathboone thing, was going to come in handy.

  "Okay. I'm up. I'm up. "

  Actually, he was the only one of the two who got vertical. Holly just nestled into the warm space he'd left and went right back to sleep.

  He took a shower and then filled up his suitcase as loudly as he could but she was dead to the world. Not so much asleep as in a coma.

  He was just about to go a round with Stan, who was even worse at the whole rousing thing, when a knock sounded on the door.

  Could the stoner fool already be awake?

  Gregg started talking to his cameraman as he opened the door. "Listen, let's pack up the van--"

  It was the tight-ass butler. Looking as if someone had dumped red wine all over his couch.

  Gregg lifted his palm. "We're leaving, okay. We're taking off. Just give us--"

  "The owner has decided to allow you to film here. For your special. "

  Gregg blinked like an idiot. "Excuse me?"

  The butler's tone grew even more disgusted. If that was possible. "The owner spoke to me this morning. He said you are permitted to host your show herein. "

  One day too late, Gregg thought with a curse to himself. "Sorry. My team and I are--"

  "Thrilled," Holly finished for him.

  As he glanced over his shoulder, his narrator was pulling her robe into place and getting off the bed.

  "That's great news," she said pointedly while smiling at the butler.

  Who seemed to be yo-yoing between disapproval and enchantment at the sight of her all fuzzy and warm and au naturel.

  "Very well then," the butler said, after he cleared his throat. "Do let me know if you need anything. "

  With a bow, he disappeared down the hall.

  Gregg shut the door. "I thought you wanted out of here. "

  "Well. . . I was safe with you, right?" She sidled up to him, stroking his chest. "I'll just stay with you. "

  The satisfaction in her voice made him suspicious. "Did you play me. About that whole sex thing with. . . whoever it was?"

  She shook her head without hesitation. "No. . . but I truly think it was all a dream. "

  "What about the fact that you said you'd actually had sex. "

  Her plucked brows furrowed as if she were trying to see through frosted glass. "It's just too hazy to have been real. Last night, I was totally confused, but in daylight. . . it all seems silly. "

  "You were pretty sure when you came in here. "

  She shook her head slowly. "Nothing except a really vivid, incredible dream. . . it didn't actually happen. "

  He searched her face and found nothing but certainty.

  Abruptly, she put her hand up to her temple. "Do you have any aspirin?"

  "Headache?"

  "Yeah. It just came on. "

  He went over and took his dopp kit out of his suitcase. "Listen, I'm willing to give it a shot here, but if we decide to stay, there's no pulling out. We need to fill our time slot, so we can't just bolt for Atlanta in a day or two. "

  Frankly, they were already in last-minute land.

  "I understand," she said as she sat on the bed. "I absolutely get it. "

  Gregg brought her the aspirin, then went into the bathroom and snagged her a glass of water. "Listen, why don't you go back to bed. It's early yet and Stan's no doubt still passed out. "

  "What are you going to do. " She yawned as she handed him back the Bayer and the empty glass.

  He nodded to his laptop. "I'll take this downstairs to the living room and start going through the footage we captured last night. It should have all uploaded from the remote cameras. "

  "Stay here?" she asked as she shifted her manicured toes under the sheets.

  "You sure?"

  Her smile as she put her head down on the pillow revealed her perfect caps. . . and the sweet side of her personality. "Yes. I'll sleep better, plus you smell nice after your shower. "

  Man, she had some kind of way about her: With her looking up from his bed like that, it would have taken an army to drag him out of the room.

  "Okay. Go to sleep, Lolli. "

  She smiled at the pet name he'd given her after he'd first started sleeping with her. "I will. And thank you for staying with me. "

  As she closed her eyes, he went over to the wing chair by the window and fired up his laptop.

  The feeds from the tiny cameras they'd hidden out in the hall and downstairs in the living room and outside in the big oak next to the porch had indeed uploaded.

  Given what had happened, he wished like hell they'd put a remote in Holly's room, but that was the thing. As ghosts didn't actually exist, why would they have bothered? The shots had been taken just for selling the atmosphere of the place. . . and for doctoring up later when it came time to "call forth the spirits of the house. "

  As he started to look through the images that had been captured, he realized he'd been doing this for how long? Two years? And he had yet to actually see anything or hear anything that couldn't be explained.

  Which was fine. He wasn't trying to prove the existence of spirits. He was out to sell entertainment.

  The only thing he'd learned in the past twenty-four months was that it was a good job lying had never been a problem for him. Matter of fact, his total comfort with falsity was why he was a perfect television producer: It was all about the goal for him and the particulars, whether they were locations, talent, agents, home owners or whatever was on film or tape, were nothing but soup cans in a cupboard to be positioned at his will. To get the job done, he'd lied about contracts and dates and times and images and sounds. He'd fudged and misled and threatened with fallacies.

  He'd manufactured and cued up and--

  Gregg frowned and leaned into the screen.

  Moving the cursor to the rewind button on the Windows Media Player, he replayed the segment that had been recorded in the hallway.

  What he saw was a dark shape moving along the corridor outside their bedrooms and. . . disappearing into Holly's. The time on the lower right- hand corner: 12:11 a. m.

  Which was just about forty-five minutes before she came to him.

  Gregg replayed the segment, watching that huge shadow walk down the center of the dimly lit hallway, blocking the illumination that came in through the window at the far end.

  In his mind, he heard Holly's voice: Because I had sex with him.

  Anger and anxiety swirling in his head, he let the recording play on, the minutes ticking by in that right-hand corner. And then there it was, someone leaving Holly's room, stepping out, blocking the light, about thirty minutes later.

  The figure headed off the opposite way it came almost as if it knew where the camera had been mounted and didn't want to show its face.

  Just as Gregg was getting ready to call the local police. . . the damn thing disappeared into thin air.

  What. The. Fuck.