by Julie Leto
He winced. “Is this a new form of greeting?”
She pulled his hand closer and watched as nail marks swelled.
“You feel pain; you have a heartbeat and blood flow,” she assessed.
Damon attempted to gently remove his hand from her grip, but she held tight. With no need to demonstrate his power at the moment, he simply arched a brow.
She released him but showed no repentance for her audacious behavior.
“You have not yet reciprocated,” he reminded her.
“Excuse me?”
Absently, he rubbed the spot where she’d marred his flesh. “Your name?”
“Oh.” She thrust her hand at him. “Alexa Chandler, president and CEO of Crown Chandler Enterprises.”
He glanced skeptically at her hand. He gave her a sweeping bow, then stepped aside.
She pulled her hand back. “You weren’t solid before,” she said.
“I daresay you know nothing of who I was before, Miss Chandler. Or is it Lady Chandler?”
She snorted. “I take it you’re from England originally.”
“We are not in Britain now?”
“You’re in the United States.”
He searched his brain but found nothing. “Where?”
“Sorry. The colonies. Only we’re our own country now. You are now in the United States of America. But,” she said, her eyes narrowed as she dismissed the information she offered as insignificant, “when your hand went through the window upstairs, you were not solid. Now you are. Care to explain?”
Damon pursed his lips. This woman was incredibly observant and wholly single-minded, and didn’t exhibit the least indication of fear in the face of the unknown or supernatural. Either the world had changed completely from when he last lived free, or else she was a remarkable woman of courage. From the painting, he’d watched her command the crew of sailors that had searched the castle for signs of his existence. He’d heard her negotiate and issue orders to the young man who’d shown concern over her safety, which she’d promptly dismissed. Clearly, this Alexa Chandler was a woman of importance and power.
Just the sort of woman who might be able to set him completely free.
“Yes, ‘twas I in the window, but no, I was not solid then as I am now.”
“What changed?”
“You. You unlocked my soul from the portrait.”
“Your soul? You said you weren’t a ghost.”
“I do not believe I ever died.”
“How can you be sure?”
He took a deep breath. “How can a ghost, whose body has perished, take solid form?”
She nodded, chewing on her bottom lip charmingly while she pondered the situation. A thinker, this one. Practical and logical. He wasn’t sure he knew many women of her ilk in his day. Clearly, he was frequenting the company of the wrong women.
“Okay, I’ll give you that one. Ghosts are not, to my limited knowledge, ever solid. Then what are you?” Her luminous eyes fixed on him, even as her voice pitched with desperation to understand. “Some sort of lunatic?”
He smirked, though he supposed the possibility existed. The whole of the situation teetered on the absurd, but he knew enough about Rogan’s black magic to accept that this situation did not exist within a damaged mind. “I cannot say, but since you are presently the only person who can see or hear me, the onus of sanity would be on you, would it not?”
She nodded. “Right. Can’t argue there. However you became trapped in the painting, you certainly aren’t stuck there any longer.”
His gaze darted toward the door. The reins had loosened, but he was still trapped by Rogan’s curse.
He’d emerged in a different era, but he doubted that outcome had been part of Rogan’s grand design. More than likely, the sorcerer had laid magical traps in his castle to stop anyone from interfering with his and Sarina’s escape. Rogan had known about the coming horde, just as he’d known Sarina’s brothers would come for her. The trap may not have been meant for Damon specifically, but it had been sprung nonetheless.
“There’s so much I don’t understand,” she admitted.
“I’m sure I’d be additionally fearful for your sanity, my lady, if you did comprehend my situation fully.”
She snorted, but he found the sound quite charming.
“Because of the Gypsy curse, I have stepped out of my time and into yours. When I was entrapped in the painting, the year was 1747, a year after the defeat of the Great Pretender at Culloden.”
Her eyes widened.
“What year is this?” he asked.
She bit her bottom lip, drawing instant attention to the fullness of her mouth. “Oh, only 2008. I think I need to sit down.”
Even as she made the confession, he saw no weakness in her. Her skin had bloomed with color. If she swooned now, he’d have to suspect her action was a weak attempt at gaining his sympathy.
Yet why would she need to play such games? As far as he knew, she could leave the castle anytime, the same way she entered—unencumbered and free to move about at will. But if she left, how would he escape? He needed her. She’d already helped him breech one barrier. Chances were, she could help him progress further once he determined the means she’d used to get him this far.
Unless, of course, her touching the painting had trapped her as well.
“I’m sorry,” he said, gesturing to the empty landing, “there is no furni—”
A chaise appeared a few feet behind them. She spun around.
“Where did that come from?”
He arched a brow. “I’m not entirely sure,” he replied, glancing at the flames flickering in the sconces.
Rogan had built this castle. On more than one visit, Damon had suspected that a common magic allowed the sorcerer to keep the place running with only a small number of servants. Perhaps the magic still existed, now at his beck and call.
What did that mean about Rogan?
What did it mean to the curse?
Anger and confusion surged through him, but Damon held his emotions in check. First, he had to ensure that Alexa Chandler didn’t leave until he was able to follow.
“The chaise looks comfortable enough,” he assured her. “Why not have the seat you so desire.”
He allowed his voice to deepen at the word desire, and he could tell from the indignant flick of her eyes that she felt the effects of his suggestive tone.
Sharp, this one. And sensitive to sensual hints. She’d prove either woefully easy to seduce or ridiculously resistant. Either way, he didn’t doubt his ultimate victory. He was, after all, the Forsyth heir. Challenges fed the men in his family with as much nourishment as meat and wine.
At the thought, a table appeared beside the chaise, laden with steaming brisket, a pewter decanter and two matching goblets.
“Stop that,” she ordered, spinning on him with fire in her decadent green eyes.
He crossed his arms tightly over his chest. “I’m afraid that is easier said than done.”
She matched his stance, tilting her chin in a valiant attempt to mask her lack of height. “Why?”
“Because, my dear lady, I have no idea what, exactly, I am doing.”
Alexa Chandler narrowed her gaze, assessing him with cunning worthy of a man, but incredibly alluring when coming from a woman. “I find that incredibly hard to believe.”
His gaze locked with hers in a battle Damon knew could have serious repercussions.
For both of them.
“Then I’ll just have to convince you.”
Five
“Clearly, you’re a man who likes a challenge,” she assessed. “Should make life in this little dreamworld of yours very interesting.”
His chuckle echoed off the bare stone all around them, then injected directly under her skin. The sound skirted the edge between sinister and genuine mirth. Perhaps she should have heeded both Cat’s and Jacob’s warnings for caution. Maybe—just maybe—for the first time in her life, she was in over her head.
<
br /> “I assure you, Miss Chandler—”
“Alexa,” she corrected, ignoring the sudden acceleration of her heartbeat.
“Yes, of course. Alexa.”
He exploited every vowel, his accent emphasizing the keen feminine sound of her name even as he stepped an inch or so closer. Her instincts battled between running like hell and leaning in those last few inches, to see if his skin was indeed as warm and his muscles as hard as she imagined.
“I assure you that this dreamworld, as you call it, can be very real if you so wish.”
She locked her feet in place, determined to remain unaffected by his proximity. And yet, anticipation thrilled through her, electrifying the space between them with a raw, natural magic that she understood very, very well—even if she hadn’t experienced it firsthand for a long time.
To cover her attraction, she eyed him with as much skepticism as she could muster. “A moment ago you told me you didn’t know how the magic worked here.”
“ ‘Tis true,” he said, “but I did not say I would not attempt to manipulate the magic to my advantage.”
His curve of a grin emphasized the sharp angles in his cheekbones and square jaw. His snug breeches, loose-fitted sleeves gathered at the wrist and finely embroidered waistcoat conjured images in her mind of Jason Isaacs in The Patriot—or better yet, from the richness and quality of his garments, of Richard Chamberlain in The Slipper and the Rose. She remembered swooning over that particular video during her incredibly romantic and tragically lonesome youth.
Well, she wasn’t a starry-eyed Cinderella wannabe anymore. This castle belonged to her. And she wasn’t going to let some superhandsome ghost or whatever he was trick her into believing this situation was anything less than real and, therefore, primed for her control. She was here. He was here. And he was not from this time.
Not. From. This. Time.
The realization struck her hard and she dropped onto the chaise, her brain spinning. With a tilt of his head and a practiced gesture with his hand, he asked permission to sit beside her—which she granted after scooting over to provide a safe distance.
“You have no reason to mistrust me, Miss Chandler.”
“Please, call me Alexa. I like to be on a first-name basis with all the…phantoms I free from cursed paintings.”
He chuckled again, the sound no less effective the second time around. “You have a sharp tongue.”
“You have no idea,” she quipped. “Look, I’m not afraid to admit that I’m feeling a little bit foggy. Maybe we need to take a deep breath and back up and try and figure this all out.”
He leaned across her to the table and retrieved the goblet and decanter. His linen sleeve brushed against her skin, injecting the air with a tantalizing scent that was decidedly male and inherently intoxicating. Before she could stop herself, she’d inhaled deeply.
He smelled exactly as she’d expect of a man of his time and station. Like leather and spices and pure maleness. No designer fragrances or masking colognes. Once he took a draft of the wine, his kiss would return the full-bodied flavor of the vintage, with nothing minty or artificial to impair the taste.
“Perhaps this will help,” he said, pouring the scarlet liquid into the goblet.
She eyed him skeptically. “I don’t think drinking magic wine is the answer to my problem. Water will suffice.”
He took a long sip from the pewter cup himself, humming with pleasure. Her mouth watered, then, with a swallow, quickly dried.
“You’ll not trust any water I conjure, true?”
“I have some in my bag. Just there.”
After a pause, he moved to retrieve her backpack. Clearly, this wasn’t a man accustomed to fetching items for anyone, much less a stranger. He placed the pack at her feet, and while he sipped his wine, she fished the bottle out and unscrewed the plastic cap.
The crisp flavor of the water refreshed her, but the continued cloudiness in her mind made her wonder if maybe she was trapped in some sort of dream. Certainly that would make playing along with him easier. She was used to seductive dreams, wasn’t she? She’d had little else in her love life lately. Of course, she couldn’t deny he was solid, at least in her imagination. She’d felt his pulse and the heat of his skin all at the same time—and muscles like his didn’t fill out pants the way his did unless there was something rock hard underneath.
But the bump on the back of her head was the size of a Ping-Pong ball. She knew as well as anyone that head trauma could cause all manner of problems.
Including powerful hallucinations.
“Tell me why you’re here,” she said.
“My best guess?” he asked casually, as if sitting on a chaise lounge with a woman from his future and sipping wine was something he did on a daily basis. “I was trapped by a sorcerer’s curse, and somehow you freed me. What do you know about this castle?”
“That I own it,” she replied.
His eyes widened. “Truthfully?”
“I never lie about real estate.”
He sat forward, clearly intrigued. “Do you know its history?”
While toying with the cap on her bottled water, she decided there was no harm in telling him the truth. Whether he was a figment of her imagination or a real manifestation of a man who’d been trapped by a curse, the facts were the facts. “About sixty years ago, a mysterious and as yet unnamed entrepreneur bought the castle in Europe and had it moved, piece by piece, to this island off the Florida coast.”
“Florida? Isn’t Florida controlled by the Spanish?”
Luckily, researching the castle’s origins had allowed her to brush up on her history. “Not for about one hundred and fifty years, give or take.”
He swirled the wine in the goblet, then took a hearty swig. “This world is very different.”
“That’s an understatement,” she said, taking a long drink of water. “According to my sources, this man rebuilt this castle in as much secrecy as he could manage, hung your portrait and, apparently, disappeared. I don’t suppose he showed up in the painting with you?”
“I would have noticed,” he said ruefully. “I have a vague memory of a journey. Of darkness. Of being enclosed. But nothing I can hold on to.”
She frowned. When Jacob had first brought her the deed, she’d never envisioned that the land would bring with it such a perplexing puzzle. And in this case, she wasn’t even sure which pieces—if any—were entirely real.
“At some point,” she continued, “this man transferred the ownership of the island to my father, and I inherited the land and everything on it from him. Property I intend to use as soon as I can make it habitable.”
Damon looked scandalized, and Alexa couldn’t help grinning. She supposed if he really was from the seventeen hundreds, he wasn’t accustomed to dealing with a woman like her—one who owned property as opposed to one who was property. Well, he’d have to catch up to the twenty-first century sometime or another.
“So, do you want to be my resident ghost?”
It was so easy to fall back on her original plan, no matter how distant the scheme seemed now. But she couldn’t allow herself to fully accept that Damon Forsyth was now a real force in her life, or at least her castle. That would change everything. He would change everything.
“I told you previously, madam,” he said with a haughty sniff, “I am not a ghost.”
“Phantom, then,” she decided, with equal snobbery. “Here, but not here. Can you make yourself transparent?”
Alexa really should be careful what she wished for. In a split second, Damon disappeared. She dropped her water and threw herself off the chaise lounge, scooting away from where he’d vanished even as her lungs struggled for breath.
Slowly, like a ray of sunshine gleaming through a window, he rematerialized. He was staring at his hands, as if he were as surprised as she was.
Once he was completely solid again, he crossed his arms on his chest. “The answer to your question, my dear lady, is yes.”
&n
bsp; Alexa squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them again, all pretense gone. Damon still stood above her, his expression handsomely smug.
“Maybe this is a dream,” she muttered.
“Perhaps. There is also the distinct possibility that instead of you freeing me from the portrait, I sucked you in with me.”
“You’re just trying to scare me.”
His brow furrowed as he considered the possibility. “Frightening women for sport is not the measure of a true man.”
“What is?” she asked, annoyed at the unwelcome fear coursing through her.
His smile was pure sin.
She scowled to mask the sudden flare in her blood. “I can’t be in the portrait. Can I?”
“Can’t say for certain. I appear to be free of the portrait,” he said, nodding toward the painting of the room that no longer had a sexy, sardonic man in the center, “yet I cannot leave this castle.”
“How do you know?”
“While you were unconscious, I attempted an escape. I was not successful.”
“Can I leave?”
“I’ve no idea,” he admitted, then leveled his ocean gray stare at her. “Why don’t you try?”
A sudden wave of dizziness struck her. She braced her hands on either side of her, willing the sensation away. She’d experienced enough vertigo for a lifetime after the wreck. She didn’t need a reminder of the pain and discomfort now.
She was healthy. She was strong. She was a survivor.
She repeated the mantra silently in her head until the wooziness subsided. After blinking away the last of the fog, she shot a glance down the stairs and to the door, then back at Damon.
His hopeful expression vanished nearly as quickly as he had.
But not quickly enough.
“No,” she said.
“No?”
She arched a brow. “Not used to being contradicted?”
His glower was powerful. “Of course not, but I assumed you’d want to ensure that freedom was still yours to take.”
She smiled. “You let me worry about my freedom. You’ll soon discover that I’m very good at taking care of myself and getting precisely what I want, when I want it.”
