With an expression that hovered somewhere between a skeptical smile and an out-and-out smirk, Helen slid the button into the pocket of her slacks, gave them both a curt nod, then turned to leave. About five steps out, she spun back. “I can reach you here?”
Ben flashed a golden-boy grin. “Absolutely.”
“Wait for my call, then,” she announced. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Once Helen Talbot bad disappeared out of the bar, Cat relaxed into her seat. She expected Ben to follow suit, but instead he remained standing, staring after Helen Talbot as if he could will her to act on their behalf.
“Ben?”
“She’s seen him.”
Cat gave a little tug until Ben sat down again. “Well, it looks that way, but she didn’t really say for sure. She was pretty sly about it, actually.”
Ben downed the last of his drink, then signaled the waiter for another. “If she’s seen him, you know what that means?”
“That other people may have seen him as well.”
“If he’s already in the phantom state, we don’t have much time to find him. He doesn’t have the protection of the castle to keep him from being stolen by the K’vr.”
“But he has the magic,” Cat reassured him.
“And if it’s still as corruptible as what Damon had to fight against…”
His voice drifted away. He was thinking. Formulating. Planning. Meshing together all the information they had and trying to work out a plan. Unfortunately, Cat knew there was nothing they could do unless Helen Talbot came through. Aiden simply had to fight the infectious nature of the magic on his own.
Twenty Six
“Lauren? What are your thoughts?”
Lauren snapped to attention, mortified. Michael Sharpe, her director, as well as the writers, the production assistants and the principal cast, were gathered in a conference room adjacent to the soundstage, waiting for her input on… what? She had no idea. She’d managed to keep her head in the game long enough to complete two read-throughs of the new scene Michael had just added to the screenplay, but somewhere amid an argument over stage directions, she’d lost her train of thought. She’d struggled to keep on track since leaving this morning without so much as a whispered word from Aiden. Now anticipation and doubt hung thick in the air as everyone waited for her to speak.
“I’m sorry, Michael. I’m still a little fuzzy. What was it you asked?”
She hated blaming her recent injury for her inability to concentrate, but Michael smiled, and the rest of the crowd chimed in with understanding words and claims that she’d come back to work too soon. She needed to focus. To earn the respect and consideration everyone seemed so willing to blindly give. Hadn’t she learned that merging her personal and professional lives was not a good idea? She had to carry this film. They all depended on her to make this film a success, especially now that Ross wasn’t choreographing her every move.
But instead of giving Lauren a chance to redeem herself, Michael called for a break. They had been working for three hours straight. She supposed she could use a moment alone.
Really alone. She’d left the house this morning without Aiden’s sword, opting to lock the silent weapon in her bedroom safe. Since then, no matter how many people were chattering to her or around her, a cold silence hung heavy in the air—an emptiness that made her stomach ache. She had to learn to fill that stillness with her character of Athena and no one else or she was going to flop.
She’d barely risen from the table when Cinda appeared at her side. “Can I get you anything?”
Lauren forced a smile. “No, I just need a few minutes.”
Cinda hung back while Lauren worked her way through the people milling around the room or heading toward craft services for a snack. She spied her trailer from across the soundstage and lowered her head, hoping to get there without anyone waylaying her. She had her hand on the doorknob when someone grabbed her by the arm.
“I’m sorry, I—”
She cut off her polite brushoff when she registered who had his hand on her.
“Let go of me,” she spat.
Ross released her. “No need to be testy, sweetheart. You’re the high queen of this little court now, aren’t you? You don’t have any reason to hate me anymore.”
She opened her mouth to list all the reasons she still had to despise him, but thought better of it. Not because he was her producer, but because she didn’t have the energy to care.
“What do you want, Ross?”
“My sword.”
For a split second she considered handing over the damned thing and being done with it. No more phantom to force her with his keen gray stare to look at her life. No more lover to complicate her ambitions or step in the way of her path to her future. No more man to try to tell her what she could do or what she should do or when.
But the confused and selfish moment passed quickly. She wouldn’t turn Aiden over to Ross for all the freedom the world had to give.
“What else can I help you with?” she asked.
“You’re turning out to be rather clever, you know, showing the video of you using the sword to Michael and the art director. I thought both of them were going to jack off right in front of me, though honestly I couldn’t tell if it was you or the sword that was turning them on.”
“Probably both,” she snapped, though holding tight to her overconfident attitude wasn’t easy when she knew she hadn’t shown that video to anyone. The last time she’d had it in her possession had been shortly before her accident in the shower. She’d locked it up after watching it, hadn’t she? Who had found it? Helen had the combination, but she’d never show something so personal to Michael and the art director. Or would she?
“Yes, well, that brings up my other reason for being here,” Ross said. “I’d like to meet the man who shared that little bit of theatrics with you.”
Judging by the continued cool confidence in Ross’s tone, he hadn’t seen the whole tape. Still, Lauren’s lungs were constricted to the point where even a sigh of relief would hurt like hell.
“He’s not here.”
“Yes, I gathered as much, since the sun is shining. You know, Lauren, I’ve heard of actors making outrageous demands before, but do you have any idea how much it will cost me to pay the union to run production all night long?”
“He’s not in every scene. Besides, you can afford it,” she said.
Ross’s focused gaze faltered for a split second, instantly alerting her. She’d been with Ross too long not to know when something was wrong.
“You
can
afford it, can’t you?”
His grin was classic Ross—overconfident and condescending. “What if I couldn’t?”
Lauren took an instinctive step forward and met Ross’s gaze dead-on. He glanced aside, and she cursed. “Ross, what did you do?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Lauren grabbed his shirt with one hand and opened her trailer door with the other, shuttling them both inside and then locking any prying ears out of their private conversation. She released him the moment she knew they were alone. “You never joke about money.”
“Who was joking?”
“ ‘What if I couldn’t?’ “ you said. “As in, maybe your financing isn’t as strong as what you reported to the studio?”
“The financing on this film is fine. I’d never put the Athena franchise in jeopardy.”
“No, but unlike me, you’ve invested in more than just this franchise. My whole future is riding on Athena. You have your hand in dozens of other pies. If you’re in trouble, Ross, tell me now.”
“Why? So you can help? Turn the tables on me and make me beholden to you after all the years that I taught you, supported you, made you a star?”
Lauren inhaled deeply. She hadn’t wanted this showdown. Hadn’t asked for it. Wasn’t even prepared for it. But now that it was here, she was surprised to find she was up to the task.
“I repaid you for your help and then some, and you know it. You’ve made enough money on my last four films to finance a war, so don’t come crying to me if you have to spend a little more this time around to make me happy. You want me to admit that you made me what I am? Fine. I’ll admit it. You made me, the good and the bad. Because of you, I can’t trust a single man who comes into my life, not even if he’s honorable and funny and sexy and would lay down his life for me if he could.”
Her voice caught, but before Ross could call her on the unbidden show of emotion, she grabbed a bottled water from her fridge, twisted off the top with a yank and chugged. He was speechless, so she decided to finish her tirade and unburden her soul.
“Because of you, all of Hollywood is circling me like vultures, waiting for me to screw up so that they can say I was never for real, never talented—that I was just a product designed and marketed by you to sell to the world. Because of you, I’m willing to betray my own personal happiness just so that I don’t fall on my face in this last Athena movie. I left you. I divorced you. And yet I’m still tied to you with iron bands that…”
She faltered. The parallels between her inextricable bond to Ross and Aiden’s cursed connection to the sword hit her hard. She didn’t only have to free him. She had to free herself. She withdrew a second bottled water from the refrigerator and held the cold plastic to her increasingly hot face. “Do you have any idea how that feels?”
Ross slumped onto the couch behind him and took a long minute to answer, staring at his hands while she panted with released rage.
“Yes, I know how that feels.”
His voice quavered. She half expected that when he looked up at her, he’d have tears in his eyes.
But when his hazel met her blue, his face was bone dry and his mouth was a slash of resentment and cruelty. “Welcome to my world.”
“Fuck you.”
“I did. And you enjoyed it.”
“I didn’t know any better,” she shot back.
“Now you do?”
Images flashed in her mind. She and Aiden in the workout room. In the shower. In the hospital. In the pool. In her bed. Sensations spawned a spark of need within her that she’d fought all night long, knowing Aiden was near, but that he no longer wished to make love with her. She would change that, damn it. She’d find a way to make him understand or else free him, so he could find a woman who could be the lover he needed, even if she couldn’t. He deserved that much.
Maybe more.
She sighed heavily, finished with Ross in so many ways, she couldn’t begin to count.
“What do you want from me, Ross?”
“I want to meet your new lover.”
“You mean my costar?”
“Isn’t he one and the same?”
She narrowed her eyes and was thankful she’d left the sword at home. She couldn’t imagine that Aiden would not have found a way to interrupt this conversation at some point, and she, for one, was glad she’d spoken her piece, even if Ross was still acting like a self-serving idiot.
“I told you, he’s not available.”
Ross stood. “When will he be available?”
She leveled her gaze directly into his. “His first scene isn’t scheduled until tomorrow night. I guess you’ll meet him then.”
Though she gestured toward the door, Ross made no move to leave. “I’ve done background checks and as far as I can tell, the man doesn’t even exist. He’s not even SAG.”
“Trust me, he exists,” she answered haughtily, even though, truth be told, she had no idea whether Aiden was going to appear in the film at all.
For all she knew, she’d never see him again.
As for the little details of Aiden having no identity in the modern world, she’d find a way to solve that problem as well.
If
he let her.
“He’d better check out,” Ross said, pointing a finger accusingly at her.
She smiled prettily. “Bite me.”
“I have,” he snapped back. “The putrid taste still lingers on the palate.”
Enraged, Lauren lobbed her water bottle, hitting the door just as he left, rattling the walls so that a few photographs dropped off the wall. When her throat hurt from containing a scream of frustration, she opened her mouth, prepared to let loose, when the door opened again.
“What?”
“Sorry!” Cinda said apologetically.
“No,” Lauren said, trying to steady her breathing with deep lungfuls of air. “I’m sorry. I thought you were Ross again.”
“Is everything all right?”
“Is anything ever all right when that man is around?”
Cinda didn’t reply, which was just as well.
“Does Michael want me back?”
“What? Oh, no. Not yet. But Helen called.”
Lauren nearly doubled over from another emotional blow to the gut. Helen. She’d been meaning to reach out to her all day, but had secretly hoped that her friend would simply show up on set and act as if nothing nasty had transpired between them the night before. No such luck, she supposed. She really needed to check her horoscope, because so far this day had truly sucked.
“Is she on her way?”
“To your place, yes,” Cinda replied.
“My place? Why?”
“Oh! The security company called. Someone broke in.”
Twenty Seven
Aiden sensed the presence almost instantly, alerted by a strident beep. He knew the sound. Lauren had shown him how the device that monitored the security of her house worked. The noise meant, under the current circumstances, that someone who had no business inside Lauren’s house had entered.
She’d left only a short while ago. An hour. Perhaps two? It was hard for him to measure time while in this insubstantial state, particularly without Lauren there to mark the progression. This was the first situation since she’d touched the blade that he’d been without her during the daylight hours. The isolation unnerved him—rattled him to the core.
But though he had not spoken to her directly since their disagreement last night, he knew from her conversation this morning with Cinda that neither she nor her assistant was expected back until late in the evening. And yet someone was here.
Previously she’d told him that while she employed two guards to watch her property and occasionally make rounds to ensure that the house was secure, they never came inside unless called. And if they did enter the house, they did not know the code to disengage the alarm, ensuring that the local police would be alerted to any and all unauthorized intruders.