by Julie Leto
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 b
last 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.”
The last couple of days were a blur, but she was pretty sure their pillow talk hadn’t included anything significant about her shady past.
“I used to live on the street.”
His eyebrows scrunched together as he mulled over her meaning. What must he think, this eighteenth-century son of a nobleman? In his century she probably would never have even exchanged a civil word with him, except, perhaps, for words of gratitude as payment for services rendered.
He slipped his hands into her hair, cradling her temples, pressing her head to his shoulder. His warmth surrounded her, but did not penetrate the images flitting through her mind. For a second, impressions of her in a dirt-encrusted dress with the décolletage yanked down and her skirts hiked up while Aiden pounded into her from behind became even clearer. More vivid. As if it were becoming real…
Then he yanked his hand away.
She met his eyes, which were wide with surprise.
“You are above such depravity,” he snapped.
“What did you see?” she asked. “What just almost happened?”
Aiden pressed his palms to her cheeks and stared potently into her eyes. “I would never treat you as such,” he replied. “I would never subject you to such—”
His words cut off as his gaze flashed toward the sword. The bright light in the room normally muted the shimmering blue glow of the blade, nestled among the cushions on the couch. But at this moment the steel had turned nearly cobalt, as if aflame, and the handle glowed a fiery red.
“What’s happening?” she asked, breathless.
Aiden glanced at the sword, then stood, alarm darting across his face.
“I know not,” he replied. “But I believe it is time we found out the true nature of Rogan’s magic.”
“But you said it was evil,” she warned, her muscles bunched as Aiden stalked to the weapon.
He grabbed the hilt and held the sword aloft. “It is, but I believe the time has come to vanquish this evil once and for all.”
Twenty One
The moment Lauren’s door closed behind her, Helen nearly doubled over with an ache that was half anger, half humiliation. What had just happened?
Helen had never seen her friend so out of control. Not when she’d caught Ross with another woman. Not when she’d come to terms with the clause in her contract that required her to finish the last Athena film. Not when she’d confessed to Helen soon afterward how much of her life had been a total and complete lie. Enraged by the gash in her friendship with Lauren, Helen launched herself at David, who stood, stunned to silence, just feet from Helen’s car.
“What did you do to her?”
David twisted her into a hold that pinned her arms to her body, but still left him one hand free to press over her mouth. Terrified by his constraint, she kicked harder and struggled until she propelled them backward against the car. He lost his footing on the gravel drive and they fell in a tangled heap.
“Calm down,” he ordered.
She twisted and squirmed, but he was too strong for her. Forcing her mind clear of rage, she achieved a temporary calm—enough to assess her situation. He’d shifted her against him, but to the side, so that her butting back with her head would not gain her freedom. She tried going slack, but he countered her easily, tugging her hard underneath her rib cage.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he insisted. “And I wouldn’t hurt her. Ever. If you’ll just calm down, I’ll explain. I swear.”
She hadn’t known David long, but she’d already decided that his acting skills were above par. How did she know that the sincerity in his voice now wasn’t just another act? Well, she’d done her share of stage and film work between the ages of five and nineteen. She had the freaking Emmy to prove it. Mustering all her rage into a tiny, potent stone she could hold tightly in her hand, she allowed her body to relax to the point where he’d let her go.
And when he did, it took all her self-control not to either pummel him with her fists or run like hell, screaming for the security guards she knew were just fifty yards down the winding driveway. Instead she stood, dusted the gravel off her clothes and forced a single word through her clenched teeth.
“Explain.”
He combed his hands through his thick hair “I’m not here to hurt her. Or you.”
Helen did not react, biting into her bottom lip from the inside to keep herself from interrupting.
“I knew Lauren years ago,” he went on. “Well, ‘knew’ isn’t accurate. I met he.” He shook his head frantically, as if he had his own store of rage he was fighting to keep under control. “She wasn’t even Lauren then, and I wasn’t David Drake. We were both runaways. My first night on the damned strip, scared to frickin’ death, spent my last dollar the day before. She showed up out of nowhere in expensive clothes. Bought me dinner—burgers, fries, the works. Hardly spoke the whole time, but there was something in her eyes—something special. Then she just left. An hour later I saw her getting the shit kicked out of her. I didn’t know what to do. I made a racket, scared the punks away. Then I called the police and waited with her until they came; I talked to her, went with her to the hospital.”
Helen listened, half disbelieving. She knew all about the night in question, but while Lauren had told her the story, she’d never mentioned any runaway savior.
“And for that she hates your guts?”
He shoved his hands into his pockets and stared at the ground as if he hoped it would open and swallow him. “I didn’t expect her to recognize me. I’ve changed. A lot. On purpose. But I didn’t think she’d be so angry just because I…”
“Just because you what?” This time he didn’t fight her off when she grabbed his shirt and twisted the soft fabric around her fist. “What did you do to her?”
“I didn’t help her run away. She begged me not to make her go back to Ross. Not to let the hospital call him. I didn’t know what she was talking about. I thought she was delirious. Now I know she was afraid of him.”
Helen shook her head. “Lauren’s the b
ravest woman I know. She wasn’t afraid of Ross. She was afraid of who she’d become if she stayed with him. God!” she exclaimed, spinning in frustration. “Why am I still talking to you? You’re lying! Lauren told me everything about that night, and she never mentioned any runaway helping her or refusing to help her. What game are you playing?”
And yet Lauren had clearly recognized the man, and she couldn’t imagine that he’d made up such an elaborate story on the spot. Only three people in the world could connect the attack on the Hollywood street kid who’d wandered back into her old haunts, only to be nearly killed, to the actress who now called herself Lauren Cole—Lauren, Ross and Helen. The doctors and nurses who had treated her that night knew her under her old name. Her real name. Even Helen didn’t know what that real name was.
Lauren Cole had been Ross’s creation, a name he’d helped her choose shortly after she’d been released to his care. Now that Helen thought about it, Ross’s first wife must have known about the situation, too, but in all this time she’d never said a word to the press. She was, according to all accounts, living the high life as the wife of a New York politician, producing theater and winning Tony Awards. She’d divorced herself not only from Ross, but from any connection to Hollywood.
“Who sent you here?” she asked.
“No one,” he said. “I came on my own.”
“You used to be an actor in New York, where Ross’s ex-wife produces plays. Maybe she’s been waiting to exact revenge on Lauren for stealing her husband?”
“Stealing him?” David asked, incensed. “She was trying like hell to get away from that monster.”
Helen nearly lost her footing. “How do you know that?” Recovering herself, she tightened her grip on his shirt and asked again.
“Lauren told him when he arrived at the hospital. His address had been on her driver’s license, so the nurse called him. I grabbed scrubs and blended in so I could wait around. I heard her confess why she’d left him.”
“You are some sort of crazy stalker.”
“No,” he answered. “No. I was just there. It was…just…how things happened.”
