Seducing Cecilia (Divinity Healers)
By
Michelle M. Pillow
Seducing Cecilia (Divinity Healers) © Copyright 2013, Michelle M. Pillow
Cover art by Natalie Winters, © Copyright 2013
First Electronic Printing September 2013, The Raven Books
ISBN 978-1-62501-056-8
Edited by Suz Gower
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Published by The Raven Books at Smashwords
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This novel is a work of fiction. Any and all characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or events or places is merely coincidence. Novel intended for adults only. Must be 18 years or older to read.
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Seducing Cecilia (Divinity Healers)
By
Michelle M. Pillow
Seducing Cecilia
Alternate Reality Romance, Part of the Divinity Universe
Divinity Healers Book Two
In a world obsessed with medical advancement, Dr. Gerard Fauchet longs for something more. When he’s assigned as the liaison to an off-plane dignitary, he never imagined she’d be so stunningly beautiful, or so damned frustrating. One second she’s kissing him, the next she’s pretending nothing is between them. The passion is scorching, everything he ever dreamed of having with a woman. He’ll make her admit she wants him—or die trying.
Dr. Cecilia Markos is keenly aware that she’s been shoved through a portal to an alternate reality for one reason—to bring home medical advancements for the betterment of her people. Unfortunately, she only has two months to learn a world’s complete medical knowledgebase. It’s an impossible task made even more so by the distractingly handsome Gerard who she can’t seem to keep her hands or her mind off of.
As the erotic clash heats up between Gerard and Cecilia, the clock is ticking, and the time for seduction is running out.
Divinity Series
Divinity Warriors
Lilith Enraptured
Fighting Lady Jayne
Keeping Paige
Taking Karre
Divinity Healers
Ariella’s Keeper
Seducing Cecilia
Linnea’s Arrangement
Divinity Magic
Divining Helena
More Coming Soon!
Dedication
To My Awesome Readers.
Thank you for your emails, wall posts, tweets,
and for letting me do what I love by reading my books.
Chapter One
City of Asclepius, Country of Chiron, Dimensional Plane 187
Dr. Gerard Fauchet tried to hide the spark of jealousy he felt when he looked at his childhood friend, Dr. Sebastjan Walter. Sebastjan nodded politely as his guests moved through the receiving line to congratulate him on his new marriage. The son of the Medical Supreme, Sebastjan had lived an easy life. His family had money, position and political power. Medical Supreme Walter was easily the highest ranking official on the planet and he was in charge of allotting all of the planet’s medical research funding. To a world obsessed with medical advancements, research funding was like air and bodily sustenance.
Gerard focused his attention on his friend. It wasn’t Sebastjan’s birthright or money or power or position that made the pang of jealousy filter over Gerard. It was Sebastjan’s new wife—Ariella. A true, exotic beauty, Ariella came from an alternate dimension of reality. Ever since Gerard heard about inter-dimensional plane travel, he’d become obsessed thinking about it. He’d never really wanted to be a doctor. It was just what everyone on his plane was expected to become. He’d much rather spend his days reading and learning about culture and social history, than studying the readily available medical books that filled every home and office.
Like most nice homes in Asclepius, the front room of Supreme Walter’s mansion was excessively sterile, each surface hard and unwelcoming but for a few engraved curls and wisps decorating the marble borders on metal walls. However, the Medical Supreme did have a vast array of items collected from other parallel universes. Gerard found himself staring at them, wondering about those other worlds. What kinds of places were they to dedicate so much time to books that told unreal stories, and to creating things of elegance and beauty for the mere sake of elegance and beauty?
When he looked at Ariella, he thought of all the things she knew—non-medical things, small facts that would mean nothing to her but would provide endless fascination for him. The women on his plane talked like doctors, thought like doctors, were mostly doctors. Not Ariella. She was a Sans, a non-doctor. Sans Ariella. And the very idea of her captivated him.
“Dr. Fauchet, how good of you to come,” Sebastjan said.
“How could I not?” Gerard answered his friend. The loneliness that welled within him as he looked at Ariella became almost unbearable, so he hid it behind a playful smile and flirtatious wink.
“Couldn’t miss my reception?” Sebastjan asked, skeptical.
“I couldn’t miss the Medical Supreme’s summons,” Gerard corrected. “You didn’t think everyone was here to see you, did you?”
Ariella gave a short burst of laughter at the insolent joke.
Gerard winked at her but continued talking to Sebastjan. “Apparently, I am to host two off-plane dignitaries coming here to learn our secrets. However,” he turned his full attention to Ariella, “while I am here…”
He wasn’t a fool. All the thoughts running through his head would never come to fruition. Though he found her very pretty, he didn’t know her, not really. He simply liked the idea of her. He would leave the mansion and perhaps only cross paths with Ariella a handful more times in his life. Her tiny secrets would remain hers as she lived out her days as a doctor’s wife.
“Sans Ariella,” Sebastjan introduced, “my childhood playmate and local lawbreaker—”
“That is distinguished gentleman and dignitary host,” Gerard corrected.
“Dr. Gerard Fauchet,” Sebastjan finished.
“A great pleasure,” Gerard said, playfully studying Ariella’s face. “And it was only one tiny law fourteen years ago. There was a medication mishap, it was hot and it was only the male chairmen who complained about my nakedness. I swear I am a reformed man.”
Sebastjan cleared his throat.
Gerard laughed, not showing a single second of remorse at having been caught flirting with the new bride. Leaning in to Ariella, he whispered, “An even greater pleasure to see you’ve managed to make Sebastjan jealous over you.”
Ariella blushed. Sebastjan frowned at them. Gerard bowed his head and moved on.
“What? No present?” Sebastjan grumbled after him. Gerard laughed, but didn’t turn back around.
* * *
New Order Society, Dimensional Plane 303
Dr. Cecilia Markos stared
at her foot, absently following the lines of her citizen number with her eyes. “One. Zero. Eight. Seven. Five.” She didn’t need to read it to know it. The tight, neat script had been inked into her flesh the day she was born. It concealed the newer implants the government had instated as an enhancement to the anti-chaos movement. She still remembered the day, as a child, she had watched the government trucks pull into her school armed with brightly colored animal costumes and silly songs. The characters danced and sang as the coded implants were injected beneath every child’s number.
One. Zero. Eight. Seven. Five.
Those numbers were everything—her money access, her workout logs, her doctor credentials, her purchasing rations, her identification. Everyone living in New Order Society had a designation. It was the only way a society could thrive. There had to be order to avoid chaos. Citizens needed to be monitored and watched. Control needed to be maintained.
Cecilia knew this, agreed with it fundamentally. Yet, despite her political beliefs, at moments like this when she was alone and unmonitored she couldn’t help but wonder what chaos would be like. She didn’t want wars or anarchy in the streets. That would be insane. But what about a night of passion that didn’t include consent forms and planning? She knew it was wrong and she could never tell anyone her most secret thoughts, but when she closed her eyes she imagined spontaneity.
Just thinking about it made her heart race. What would it be like to break free? To kiss a man without waiting for an exchanging of permission? To feel passion, true chaotic passion that didn’t make sense. It was something she could never act on. If she did, if the man she kissed complained or anyone found out, she would be fired. Her life would be over and she would spend the rest of her days in disgrace...if not jail.
Living in such a controlled world, it seemed strange then that she would be going to a place where those numbers on her foot meant nothing. A tiny shiver of fear washed over her. A few months ago, she’d never dreamed that visiting an alternate universe was possible. Now, she was to be one of two women going to a new world—another plane of existence, another reality, their world but not their world. Excitement mingled with fear, but she didn’t allow herself to fantasize about the kind of men and sex laws this new reality would have. It wouldn’t matter. On her plane or any other, she would be expected to exude anti-chaos values. She represented her people to the rest of the known universes.
An entity called Divinity Corporation had mastered the science of inter-dimensional travel and, two years ago, they had made contact with Cecilia’s plane. Already a few of her people had gone through the portal gates to new dimensions. When Politician Shinclus first approached her, she’d thought he needed medical attention. The existence of the portals wasn’t common knowledge amongst her people. But she’d since seen it for herself. She watched as people appeared out of nothing, carrying strange objects traded from other realms.
A few short months and so much had changed. All the waiting and planning, reading and studying, worrying and pretending not to worry, had all led to this day. Today, she would be traveling to an alternate reality.
The New Order Society plane was only one of four-hundred-thirty-six mapped dimensions used by Divinity—each as different as the last. Some had vampires and werewolves, some had faeries and gnomes, and some had humanoids so alien her dimension’s species were hardly compatible. Many of them, like hers, had never even heard of dimensional travel or portals until Divinity arrived. Some societies were obsessive to the point of compulsion and some so brutal they enjoyed watching gladiators fight to the death. One thing many of them seemed to have in common was chaos. Utter, uncontrolled chaos. New Order Society thrived on anti-chaos—no unconformity, no inappropriate behaviors, and absolutely no crime. Well, minimal crimes anyway. There was definitely no tolerance for criminal activity.
Looking at an alternate reality was supposed to be like seeing your world had history unraveled differently. There were many similarities. Languages were comparable. Some people had the same appearance, but were not the same people. Certain events like natural disasters could be shared. People were human-like in appearance and functions, though she had been told of a race of people that didn’t have toenails.
Cecilia wiggled her toes, wondering what they’d look like without nails. Then, sighing, she stood and reached for her best one-piece suit. Red material belled around the legs and led up to tightly-fitted hips and a looser bodice. The sleeves were long, falling past her hands. She brushed her hair back from her face, trying not to think about the fashionable crimson red streak she’d been forced to get rid of. Apparently, this medical plane she was going to didn’t have the same fashions. In New Order Society everyone sported a bright streak of color in their hair. Just because they were orderly didn’t mean they couldn’t be fun too. Well, that and the streak proved the wearer had been to their mandatory grooming appointment by the lack of a line of demarcation where the new growth came in.
Taking a deep breath, Cecilia pulled on her boots, whispering, “It’s only for a couple of months. It will be fine. It’s only two months. I’ll be able to make it back. Everyone else has made it back home.”
Despite her words, she wasn’t so sure.
* * *
A couple of months looked like an eternity when staring into a Divinity portal. A pyramid roof set atop four square columns which framed a platform. Cecilia had memorized the literature on the device. The columns were constructed of a dense material which created its own gravitational field and drew objects to it. They hid a complex configuration of liquid crystals, electrical currents, mirrors and vacuums. It was held in check by the wavelength of a specific blue light, which kept the portal inactive. Should the light change, a dimensional shift would occur, taking whoever stood on the platform to a new parallel universe.
Cecilia didn’t move. All the facts in the world were doing little to calm the increasingly fast beat of her heart.
“You know, Politician Shinclus told me that people sometimes get rematerialized into solid objects when going through these things,” Linnea Nel, Cecilia’s new assistant said.
Cecilia glanced at the woman. Such occurrences had been reported in the early day of portal travel. Now Divinity sent out microscopic probes first. Even so, it wasn’t exactly what she wanted to think about at the moment.
Linnea hugged a stack of papers to her chest a little too tightly. Cecilia had only known the woman for a few weeks, but already she didn’t care for her. Before this assignment, Linnea had been in and out of trouble with the authorities. Plus, she was a non-conformist. For some reason, the New Order Society implants didn’t work inside Linnea’s body. They believed it had to do with her natural magnetism and electrical current—not that she shot lightning out of her fingertips or anything absurd, just that for some reason computers didn’t always work around her. Without an implant, Linnea was like a ghost, uncontrollable, untraceable, chaos waiting to happen. Sure, she had the identifying tattoo, but one had to look at her foot to see it.
“He was just trying to scare you,” Cecilia answered, refusing to let any fear show. She was already nervous enough about traveling through the portal. “Politician Shinclus is known for his bad humor. It is true accidents happened in the past, but that is why they send out the probes first. Besides, where we are going is a known destination and an opposite portal will receive us on the other side. Everyone there works for the central hospital government in some capacity. It should be like going to a giant hospital.” She turned to study Linnea. The blue light from the portal reflected in the woman’s eyes, giving them an eerie glow. The woman’s black hair was shorter with a streak of dark purple to match the purplish grey of her eyes. Her bodice was tight, less conservative in design. A thick, black belt wrapped her ribs, dark purple over black material. “Weren’t you supposed to change your hair?”
“I didn’t make it to my appointment. Something else came up.” Linnea arched a brow. “I don’t really think it matters all that much. I�
�m sure they’ll make allowances for our alien customs.”
“The plane we’re traveling to does not know of our fashion customs. We might unintentionally insult them. Did you read the recommendations report put together by the Committee for Interplane Diplomacy?”
“I was going to,” Linnea drawled, “but I was in the middle of a different book at the time. I wanted to finish it before we left.”
Cecilia closed her eyes, too weary to argue at the moment. She had too much on her mind. She had to represent her entire planet in what could possibly be the most important trade agreement ever negotiated in the history of their society. Who knew what kind of medical advancements this plane would be able to show them? What if they could advance their medical technology by years, hundreds of years, thousands of years? She would need to focus and learn and observe. Glancing at Linnea, she frowned. And by all evidence she would be busy apologizing for the controversial woman they were sending with her. How Linnea managed to get sent on such an important mission was beyond Cecilia’s reasoning.
Linnea smirked as if she hadn’t a care. Workers began filing out of the room, leaving them alone with the portal. Cecilia frowned, saying, “It’s too late to do anything about your hair now. We will be leaving soon.”
Without waiting for Linnea to speak, Cecilia moved toward the platform. Her luggage had already been sent ahead. It had been strange to see it disappear into seemingly nothingness. A low, steady hum sounded moments before a voice could be heard overhead, ordering, “Dr. Markos, Citizen Nel, please report to the platform.”
Cecilia concentrated on keeping her legs steady and her chin up. She was in charge. This job, this mission, would open so many doors for her career. If she worked really hard and kept the delinquent at her side in line, she could do great things. Such an opportunity for advancement would not show itself again.
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