by Tara Rose
The Doms of Sybaris Cove 7
Imaginary Lover
Dom and IT department head Tom Raleigh has always considered cargo pilot Ivy Balloux his imaginary lover, until Tom’s sister steals Ivy’s fiancé. Convinced she’d rather eat glass than look at another Raleigh family member, Tom continues to keep his distance.
Dom and project manager Merrick Durante is so infatuated with Ivy that he has her flight days and times memorized. But the impending trial of Merrick’s brother for arson and murder has him keeping a low profile.
Ivy Balloux has worshipped Tom and Merrick from afar for years, but the convoluted history between their families has forced her to keep her distance. When the three finally get together, they work hard to overcome outside forces that would just as soon tear them apart.
When Tom’s sister plays a cruel joke on Tom and Merrick, they risk the curse on their families to leave the island and save Ivy from danger. Will they survive the curse?
Genre: BDSM, Contemporary, Ménage a Trois/Quatre
Length: 42,997 words
IMAGINARY LOVER
The Doms of Sybaris Cove 7
Tara Rose
MENAGE EVERLASTING
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Ménage Everlasting
IMAGINARY LOVER
Copyright © 2014 by Tara Rose
E-book ISBN: 978-1-63258-726-8
First E-book Publication: December 2014
Cover design by Harris Channing
All art and logo copyright © 2014 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
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DEDICATION
Thank you to the Universe for everything.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
About the Author
IMAGINARY LOVER
The Doms of Sybaris Cove 7
TARA ROSE
Copyright © 2014
Chapter One
Ivy Balloux navigated the Cessna 208 onto the designated runway at Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, then glanced over at her co-pilot and sister, Elaine. “All this fucking way to bring some university professor a diary.”
“Hey, we’re getting paid big bucks to do it.”
“The goddam plane is empty. We could have brought this along on a regular flight instead of wasting our time and the company’s fuel.”
Elaine chuckled. “Maybe we should go shopping before we head back to Sybaris Cove? We have an entire cargo bay to fill up.”
Ivy laughed as she taxied toward the terminal. “Yeah. And charge it all to Asa.” Asa Durante, one of two current CEOs of Phoebe’s Playthings, had paid her parents a ridiculous sum of money to fly Shona Durante’s diary to this airport, where Jan Beale, a language and ancient cultures professor at Pepperdine University, intended to board a plane and fly with the diary back to Los Angeles.
“Tell me again why this freaking diary is so important,” said Elaine.
Ivy rolled her eyes. “You know the story of the infamous curse as well as I do.”
“And this supposedly will unlock the mysteries, right?”
“I don’t know about all that.” Ivy and Elaine began their post-flight routine as they talked. They’d done this so many times now that both women could anticipate each other’s moves. “But allegedly this diary gave Professor Beale the key she needed to translate the writing on all the other clues.”
Her grandfather’s company, Cove Cargo, belonged to her parents now. They employed twelve pilots, six of whom were their children, but the one Ivy preferred to fly with was Elaine. “But she was having trouble reading some of the scanned pages, so she asked if she could see the actual diary.”
She and Elaine stopped chit-chatting long enough to take care of business, then once they were finished and had deplaned, they continued while they searched the terminal for Jan Beale.
“Why couldn’t she simply fly to the island and get it?” asked Elaine.
“Apparently she gets horribly airsick on small planes. She was able to get a direct flight from LAX to here on a commercial jet, so she asked Alaina Pembrooke if we could bring the diary to her. That way she wouldn’t have to catch one of those puddle jumpers McMurphy Flight uses to fly passengers to and from the island.”
Even thinking about McMurphy Flight, all these months later, still gave Ivy a knot in her stomach. How much time would pass before she could hear or think Scott’s name
without the anger building up inside?
“Jesus H. Christ. The island is only one hundred miles off the Louisiana coast. It’s less than a half hour flight, including the time spent taxiing both runways.”
Ivy shrugged. “I know. But Alaina is determined to break this curse. You know how it is. She’s not from the island. She has to work harder to prove herself. Blah, blah, blah.”
“She’d head of sales now at Phoebe’s Playthings. What does she want? Asa’s job?”
“She was promoted to head of the department along with Mark Raleigh. So now she has even more to prove.” Ivy winced inwardly. She didn’t want to talk about the families right now, and especially not the Raleighs. Particularly Nadine Raleigh, who had stolen Scott from her.
If he had really loved you, no one could have taken him away.
Reminding herself of that fact didn’t help. Would it ever?
Elaine snorted. “Is there anything Raleigh and Durante money can’t fix?”
Ivy nodded. “Yeah. It can’t lift the curse.” She didn’t care if the fucking curse was ever reversed. Right now, she hoped they all walked into the ocean one day and drowned.
They spotted a tall, thin woman with salt-and-pepper hair, holding a sign that said, Jan from Pepperdine. Ivy smiled and shook her head. “Big as life. There she is.”
Jan’s smile was warm and full of relief as she shook their hands. “I can’t thank you enough for this. And I hope it wasn’t too much trouble.”
“No trouble at all,” said Ivy, handing Jan the pouch containing the diary. “Just promise me you’ll guard it with your life.”
“Oh, absolutely.” Her voice was full of reverence. “My flight doesn’t leave for LA until this evening. Do you two have time for lunch? My treat.”
They glanced at each other. “Sure,” said Elaine. “Why not? We have no regular run today.”
Jan frowned. “You mean you came all the way over here just for this? I assumed you’d be bringing it along with other cargo.”
Ivy shook her head. “No way. Once Alaina got permission from Graham to let the diary off the island, she went to Asa and convinced him how important this was to both families, and he called our parents. This is an extra run.”
Graham Raleigh owned the diary. It had been passed down from Shona Durante, his grandmother. He and Nando Durante were Doms to Leta Da Costa, a local artist, and she and Alaina were friends. All the submissives on the island were friends with each other. Ivy thought they were all out of their minds. Not because they lived a BDSM lifestyle. Most people on the island did, and those who did not simply accepted it as part of the culture. Ivy had more than a passing curiosity about it, but that wouldn’t happen now. Not for her, anyway.
Ivy thought women like Leta and Alaina were out of their minds for becoming involved with both a Durante and a Raleigh. They were trouble. All of them. The only reason she’d agreed to bring this diary to the mainland was because her parents had been well paid for it, and business was business.
“Come on,” said Jan. “Let’s grab something to eat. I want to hear everything you two know about this curse, and about the current generation of both families. The more I learn, the quicker I’ll unravel this mystery. And I haven’t yet had the chance to talk to anyone who isn’t intimately connected to either family, so this is perfect. You have no stake in this like each of them do.”
Ivy shook her head. “Well, we’re not connected in the sense that neither of us is married to or dating a Durante or Raleigh, but you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone on that island who has never had dealings with them, or has been connected in some indirect way, at the very least.”
They left the airport, and Ivy suggested The Brick Oven Café. Once they were seated and had given their food and drink orders, Jan asked again if there was any further information the women could give her.
“What do you know about the curse so far?” asked Ivy.
“Only as much as Alaina told me. William and Robert Raleigh came to the island in 1945 with money from rum-running and other illegal activities, to find it inhabited by escaped convicts from various Caribbean islands. There was infighting and restlessness, and the crafty brothers promised peace and order. They threw their money around and began buying chunks of land for pennies on the dollar.”
Ivy nodded. “Yep. That’s the story they all tell. And then when the brothers brought over their friends, Agapito and Iago Durante, who were cousins and just as ruthless, things really went downhill fast. They renamed the island Sybaris Cove, bought the rest of it, and made poorly-paid employees and servants of most of the natives.”
“And no one knows who summoned the demon to cast the curse on the original four and their male descendants,” said Elaine. “If they try to leave the island, they die.”
“The original four died while trying to leave, right?” asked Jan. “I mean, it’s been confirmed the curse is real?”
Elaine nodded. “Oh yes. All four died in freak accidents associated with their trying to leave the island. Several of their sons did as well. No one has tried it since.”
“But one strange thing did happen several months ago,” said Ivy. “A hurricane struck the island, and Santos Augustine, one of our police sergeants, became trapped in a storm drain near the cemetery on the western edge of the island. A group of teens discovered the storm surge had unearthed coffins, and while they were trying to dig up others, a few of them got washed out with the currents and became trapped.”
“That was so creepy,” Elaine said, hugging herself. “Santos got wedged in one of the drains after freeing one of the trapped teens. Anyone on the island who could help was already in the water trying to rescue the kids, and any assistance from the coast here would have taken too long to arrive. So Estevan Durante and Liam Elliot put on scuba gear and were able to wade underwater for hundred of yards to free Santos from the storm drain. No one knows how they could do that. They were underwater for over half an hour, and pretty far out.”
“Maybe because they weren’t trying to leave?” asked Jan. “Either that, or the curse is already lifted and no one knows it.”
Ivy pointed toward the bag where Jan had put the diary. “That’s one thing I’m sure Alaina is hoping you can tell them from Shona’s diary.”
“I’ve identified four demons from the various clues so far,” said Jan. “Not one, like they were all told had cast it, but I’m not certain they are actually the ones who cursed them.” She took a manila folder from her bag and removed a sheet of paper. “Part of the problem is that the clues are so obscure. Two medallions and scraps of documents, really. That wasn’t much to go on until I had pages from the diary.”
Jan took out additional papers and placed them side by side. “The medallions from Estevan and Jagger Durante allegedly contain the name of the demon who cast the curse. Phyllis correctly identified the magick in Jagger’s as female, not male like the magick in Estevan’s medallion.”
Phyllis Trudeaux was a voodoo priestess who had a shop downtown. She and her granddaughter, Nita, had recently been instrumental in collecting all the clues for Alaina to make copies of and send to Jan. Ivy had already heard all this from her mother, Susan, who was as fascinated by the curse as any Durante or Raleigh.
“So, was it a female or male demon who cast it?” asked Elaine.
“I don’t know. The names on both medallions aren’t demons. They’re the names of loa. One male and one female. The only thing I haven’t been able to figure out is why both men can’t touch the medallions themselves without having nightmares and feeling unsettled.”
“There are bad and good loa,” said Ivy. Her mother visited Phyllis often, and could probably teach anyone on the island as much about voodoo, vodun, and Santeria as Phyllis.
“That’s right,” said Jan, “but they don’t curse or cast spells. They’re like Catholic saints. People use them for intercession. I think these particular loa are associated with the demons whose names I discovered, and that’s why they contai
n the dark magick that can be felt. The medallions might have had spells placed on them preventing anyone from discovering more.”
“Why would someone do that?” asked Elaine.
“Plenty of reasons,” said Jan. “To keep anyone from knowing the curse had been placed, to prevent them from finding out who cast it, or simply to cause yet more pain to the Raleighs and Durantes.”
Ivy tried to stir up sympathy for the Durante and Raleigh men who were stuck on the island because of the curse, but it was difficult to do so. As far as she was concerned, they got what they deserved. Reminding herself that it had been a Raleigh woman who had taken away the only man she’d ever loved, and not a man, didn’t change her mind. From what she’d seen of the men, the current generation were just as ruthless and cold as their great-grandfathers must have been.
“But what about the documents?” asked Elaine. “Don’t they spell out who cast the curse?”
Jan shook her head. “I haven’t figured that out yet. Several of them are supposed to contain the actual curse itself, but I can’t figure out if any of them do or do not. That’s part of why I need the diary. I have more information from the pages I was able to read than any of them had before, but there is still so much missing.”
“How long do you think you’ll need it?” asked Ivy.
Jan shrugged. “No clue. But I promise you it will be safe. Should I contact you or Alaina again once I’m finished with it?”
“Better contact Alaina. We’re only the messengers.”
Jan laughed good-naturedly. “Got it. I wouldn’t want you to step on any toes. Which brings me to my original question. Tell me about the Durante and Raleigh men.”
