Fantasy Man
Jenny Schwartz
Marc Gentil is the Fantasy Man, a billionaire who makes dreams come true—and makes a lot of money in the process. Claire Jade is his unwilling assistant. Their relationship is strictly business until she proposes that he buy Labyrinth House in Hollywood and restore it to its 1920s glamour. The mansion would make a stunning boutique hotel, but it’s also personal for Claire. She risks bringing Marc into her world because decades ago, her great-grandmother was mistress to the movie producer who built Labyrinth House and who died there in mysterious circumstances.
“Fantasy Man” is a paranormal romance novella originally published as part of the DARE collection, which is no longer available.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
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Chapter One
Claire Jade stood in the warmth of the late October sunshine and sighed as her boss prowled around the dilapidated courtyard of Labyrinth House. Another woman would have found Marc Gentil well worth watching.
He’d left his jacket in her car and with his shirt sleeves rolled up and suit trousers molding to the powerful muscles of his thighs, he looked devastating. The clear Californian light emphasized the gleaming darkness of his hair and the arrogant angles of his face.
“Fantasy Man.” A social blogger had coined the title, and from gossip columns to financial pages, it had been taken up with enthusiasm. Marc Gentil was a publicist’s dream. He’d started life poor, but a pitching arm that attracted baseball talent scouts from all over, changed everything. Even when his shoulder busted, Gentil hadn’t skipped a beat. He’d moved into business circles with the predatory instincts of a shark.
What Gentil sold was dreams, and he possessed an uncanny knack for sensing trends.
“It’s rundown, but the bones are solid.” He frowned around at the alternating light and dark of the colonnaded walkway that framed the courtyard.
Claire nodded. A structural assessment report had been part of the paperwork she’d sent him. She leaned against a dingy, once-white column and studied the ground.
The Hollywood producer who’d built the house back in the late 1920s hadn’t spared any expense. The result was a weird but beguiling amalgam of Art Deco and a hazy notion of Arabic traditions. Even here in the central courtyard she could see a mosaic, dirty and littered with junk, but showing here and there traces of a compelling ancient design. Persian? Turkish? She lacked the knowledge to judge.
“The location is good.” Marc stopped in front of her. His shadow stretched out, touching her feet. “Near everything, and the arty crowd has moved into the neighborhood.”
“You could offer them a couple of rooms in the hotel as a gallery.”
“Hmm.” He rolled his shoulders. “How did you hear of this place? Do you know one of the artists?”
That was Marc. Always suspicious.
“I’ve slept with them all,” she lied.
For once she saw her formidable boss taken aback. His eyes widened and skipped over her body.
Sure, she wasn’t model-thin. But she wasn’t Medusa, either. He didn’t have to look so appalled.
And for a man who sold dreams, he had an irritating disdain for anyone who followed their own. She was getting darned sick of his attitude towards those with artistic or academic interests. That was her world, and she knew how hard people worked to carve out a living for themselves and their families.
“Have you ever posed nude?”
Her annoyance shattered in shock. Her gaze connected with Marc’s.
The corner of his mouth curved up in faint, amused self-satisfaction.
Oh yeah. He thought he had her pegged.
She knew how he saw her. Far from sleeping around, she was Miss Goody-Two-Shoes. Well, and so what if she was? It didn’t mean she imposed her standards on everyone else. She practiced tolerance—even with Marc.
Perhaps, especially with Marc. In the beginning, she’d needed the job too badly to risk annoying him. Now she simply knew no other job would be as intriguing.
But this was the first time their conversation had veered into the personal. From the start, she’d maintained a professional distance. Now her comment had opened the door for him—but even as she went to slam it shut, she paused. Her mind flickered to the small painting in her living room.
“I’ve posed nude once or twice,” she said with a sudden evil urge to shock him.
His amused smile died. “And here I thought you went to bed in your business suit.”
She straightened away from the wall, belatedly remembering that she wasn’t wearing her casual jeans and t shirt, but one of the three suits she kept for her rare face-to-face dealings with him. The suits were both camouflage and armor. “So now you know better. If you’ve seen enough of the house, I’ll drive you back to the airport.”
“A hotel will do.”
She slipped her sunglasses on to conceal her eyes. Hotels and a virile man brought to mind fantasies of illicit sex. She forced her tone to bland disinterest because she was curious. He usually flew in and flew out the same day. “How long will you be in Los Angeles?”
He fell into step with her and they walked back through the main hallway of the house. Light drifted in lazily, as if slowed by the heavy dust in the air. The stained glass windows scattered the light in purple and green and deep pools of blue.
“A week. There are a couple of other projects I’m interested in.”
He invested in everything. From music to real estate, toy design to travel. If it could fulfill a fantasy, Marc was interested.
“Anything you need me to research?” She reached for the front door handle, but he beat her to it.
He turned the ornate knob and shouldered open the carved wooden door.
Recalling how she’d struggled to shift its weight earlier, she watched his shirt shift with the play of his muscles.
“Too early to tell yet.” He dismissed her offer of research help. “How did you hear about Labyrinth House?”
They stopped midway down the uneven path and looked back at the neglected building.
“I’ve seen photos of it since I was a kid.” She felt his gaze on her, but kept her own attention on the familiar roof line, with its ever so slightly leaning turret. “My great-grandmother lived here when it was first built.”
“You’re kidding?”
“Nope.” She turned and walked on to her well-maintained little car. Marc struggled to fit his long legs into it, but that was his problem. The car was practical, reliable and cheap to run.
On the other hand, its lack of size did mean he invaded her space.
She inhaled the sandalwood and spice scent of him as she buckled her seatbelt. It was such an intimate thing, as if each breath brought him inside her. Hastily she wound down the window, but fresh air didn’t dilute her sheer awareness of him. She was accustomed to driving solo in the car, or with her German shepherd Leo riding in the backseat. Not sharing a small space with a man who made her burn.
“So how did your grandma come to live in the Arabian Nights?”
“She was an early Hollywood actress, Rosa de Mure.”
“Demure?” Marc coughed.
“Rosa was only seventeen when she started in the industry. She would have thought the name sounded glamorous.”
“Uh huh.”
Claire pulled into the stream of traffic. “Which hotel?”
“One of the newer ones, the Seagull’s Perch.”
“Isn’t that a bit whimsical for you?”
“It’s called checking out the competition.” He gave directions.
; She recognized the area. “Convenient. I won’t have to backtrack. It’s only ten minutes from my place.”
“Yeah.”
She slanted a look at him, but Marc was watching the street, assessing the neighborhood. From an upstairs window, a dummy dressed as a flower child, leaned an arm out. A large peace sign hung from its arm.
How did he know where she lived?
She’d only returned to her cute Arts & Crafts cottage a month ago. She’d had to rent it out for two years while she lived with her dad and helped him recover from the car crash. The rent from the cottage had covered the mortgage she’d taken out to pay for his rehabilitation.
The high wage and bonuses Marc paid could now be funneled to paying down the mortgage—now that her dad was painting again and could look after himself.
“I hear your father’s recovered.” Marc brought his attention back to her.
“He’ll always limp, but the bones have knitted and he’s regained muscle tone.” Beaten the depression, too, but that was no one’s business outside the family. She rubbed her neck. It had been a tough two years. “How did you hear?”
It wasn’t like their lives crossed, other than—
“John Caverly told me.”
John Caverly, the rancher, lawyer and old family friend who’d gotten her this position with Marc. There she’d been, a new PhD with only a waitressing job to support her, and trying to deal with the fall out of the crash that had killed her stepmother and left her dad disinclined to live. The tragedy had capped a devastating year.
“Tell me about your great-gran. I knew about the artists in your family, but not the actress.”
She hesitated, but it was clear Marc wasn’t going to say anything more about how and what he knew of her private life—or why he even cared to know.
Then again, if he started on their crossed histories, who knew where it would end? The more distant past was safer. “Rosa was never famous. She made seven films in Hollywood’s early years, before she met my great-granddad. He was a set designer until his paintings started selling.” Even Marc had heard of Oliver Jade, the American surrealist.
“She must have done well out of the movies to build Labyrinth House.”
“Hardly.” Claire braked for a red light and glanced across at him. “I saw one of her movies once. She couldn’t act to save herself. No, Rosa was mistress to the producer who built Labyrinth House. According to family legend, Oliver swooped in and carried her off with him to France. He wanted to meet Picasso and to paint. Three days after they sailed, the producer died at the house, in ‘mysterious circumstances’ according to the newspaper reports.”
“A romantic story.”
She grinned at his unimpressed tone. “You haven’t heard the best bit. Oliver painted a picture of the house while Rosa lived there. He hadn’t gone all surrealist then, so Labyrinth House looks new and vibrant and recognizable in the painting. The thing is, on full moon nights, when you’re all alone in the house, the trees on the canvas writhe into new shapes and it’s as if souls of the dead are shouting ‘Beware. Stay away’. Then in the morning, all is normal again.”
“The ghost story wasn’t in the briefing you gave me,” Marc said.
She took her attention off the traffic to scowl at him. “Is that all you can say?”
“Haunted houses put some people off. I don’t think a haunted hotel—”
“Forget it.” She took a corner too sharply and was pleased to see him grab for the door handle. “It’s my family’s legend, and we certainly haven’t shared it with anyone else.”
“No,” he agreed thoughtfully. “I expect you’ll wait for the hotel’s opening to do that.”
Chapter Two
“What the hell do you mean by that?” Claire’s husky drawl tightened till it bit with suspicion.
Marc stretched his legs, banged a knee on the glove box and cursed. “Your car’s too small.”
“Forget your wretched knee.” She flicked him an irritated glance before concentrating again on the traffic. LA traffic was lethal. “I want you to spell out what you’re implying.”
“Revenge.” He was as angry as her. He stopped rubbing his abused knee and clenched his fist instead. “John Caverly told me your stepbrother, Ian, is back on the scene. This is the sort of plot he’d adore. I spend millions buying Labyrinth House and bringing it up to hotel standard, and then you skewer the whole project with talk of a ghost. Poetic justice, your precious Ian would call it.”
“He’s not my Ian.”
“Oh but he is. All of last year he spent in your father’s house, being coddled by you.”
“He’d just lost his mom.” It had scared her, the depths of Ian’s misery. He’d been erratic and self-pitying and obsessed that every disaster was Marc Gentil’s fault. She’d played down the fact that she worked for the villain in Ian’s life, but some of Ian’s wary suspicion of the man had rubbed off on her.
“He’d just lost all your father’s savings, too,” Marc retorted. “John told me how selling all the paintings, even your great-grandfather’s, barely covered Ian’s debts.”
“We had to do something. Dad promised Yvette he’d help Ian, and then, when she died.” Her hands were white knuckled on the steering wheel. “When she died, Ian went to pieces.”
“You mean he left the mess for you to sort out.”
“There wasn’t much. He’d already sold Lost Horse to you. I just…tidied up.”
“Ian didn’t sell Lost Horse to me.” The controlled force in Marc’s voice was as emphatic as a shout. Even he heard the tension, and grimaced. “I bought the ghost town from the bank. They’d already foreclosed. Your Ian is good at spending money, but he can’t make it. He’s too busy making himself important.” He looked around. “Why are we stopping? Are you kicking me out?”
There was a moment of fraught silence.
“I lost my temper and drove straight home. And the way I’m feeling, you can walk or get a taxi from here. I really don’t care.” She yanked the keys out of the ignition with a savage movement and flung herself out of the car.
He got out with more caution. He still banged his knee. “If you hadn’t spent all your money on Ian, you’d have a decent car.”
She whirled around, stalked back and poked a finger at his chest. “I did not spend my money on Ian.”
“You sure spent it on your dad—and he didn’t have the money to pay his own rehabilitation because he’d covered Ian’s debts. All looks the same to me.”
“It’s not.”
A loud woof answered her raised voice.
“Quiet, Leo.”
Through the wrought iron gate, a German shepherd regarded them with pricked ears and a swishing tail.
Claire folded her arms and tapped her foot. “Why on earth did you employ me if you knew I was Ian’s stepsister and you distrusted him so much?”
“Because John Caverly asked. And he said I’d get a better response from locals to the family-friendly resort I planned to run at Lost Horse if I showed myself sympathetic to you—if not to your pretentious stepbrother. Apparently your family’s been holidaying in the valley long enough to be counted as locals.”
“So you hired me and just waited for me to betray you.”
He looked down at her militant chin and challenging eyes and his anger cooled into weariness. It had been a long three weeks in Seattle. He was tired and this wasn’t the conversation and situation he’d hoped for. “Let’s just say I hired you.” He walked over to the gate and extended his hand for the dog to sniff.
Claire watched him angrily, but didn’t issue a warning. Of course, she could be hoping her dog would bite him. But by Leo’s wagging tail and relaxed ears, that didn’t seem a likely prospect.
He scratched the dog’s ears and made a friend for life.
“Leo has no discrimination.” She wandered over and her dog panted happily, clearly showing off now that he was the center of attention.
“Does Leo like Ian?”
&nb
sp; “Yes.” But her eyes slipped away. “Ian’s just a bit scared of him. Not everyone likes big dogs.”
“Claire, look at things from my perspective. I respect loyalty—and you have it in spades. You re-arranged your life to look after your dad.”
“What else could I have done?” Her anger was subsiding, too. Her shoulders lowered and her voice was even and husky again.
That voice. On the phone, it wrapped around him like velvet cords. In person…he took a deep breath. After sitting so close to her in that ridiculously small car, he knew his fantasies were way too vivid. They fed his frustration. He wanted to hear that voice in bed, whispering her needs, screaming his name.
She unlatched the gate and Leo trotted out to explore the front yard.
“Plenty of people would have left your father to cope—or not cope—by himself. He’d just sold your heritage, your great-grandfather’s paintings, to pay for Ian’s grandiose plans.”
“They were only paintings.” She whistled Leo back as he approached the mailbox. “And Great-aunt Jess left me this house. This was Rosa’s home, one she bought and lived in with Oliver.”
The cottage was solid and cared for, but nothing sparkled with newness. The sage green paint had faded and the white framed windows were subdued. Roses lined the bottom of the front porch and the crazy-stone paving was worn with decades of use. It looked like a home.
“Can I come in?” he asked abruptly.
She looked startled.
“If we’re going to argue, I’d rather we did it off the street.” Not for worlds would he have admitted his sudden need to be invited in.
“I hate arguing, but I guess you could have a coffee or something.”
All old houses have their own unique smell. Claire’s home smelled cleanly of lemon polish and baking. The narrow hallway and well-proportioned front rooms opened into a sunlit, newer addition that housed the kitchen and a relaxed living space.
Leo leapt onto a shabby sofa covered in an Aztec-inspired throw rug. Evidently, it was his couch. On the wall above it hung a painting of a baby lying in a patch of daisies and surrounded by soft toys. The baby had Claire’s light brown hair.
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