Alexandra Sokoloff - Keeper of the Shadows

It was a huge lead. What if Tiger had died here , with Mayo? What if—

Her breath momentarily stopped at the next thought.

What if they both had been killed here? Together?

She had to contact Brandt right away.

She swallowed to be sure her voice was steady and said, “That’s ridiculous. The ghost of Johnny Love? The hotel must be getting a kickback from the ghost tours.”

Townsend laughed, a rich, genuine sound that made Barrie’s face suddenly flush warm. “I bet they are.” Then he looked at her, a long look that made her even warmer. “I think we should have dinner and talk about it.”

She was caught totally off guard. “It’s almost two in the morning,” she pointed out.

“Breakfast, then,” he said. “Brunch. Cocktails. Whatever your body clock has in mind.”

She was itching to get to Brandt, which was why she responded without thinking. Really without thinking. “All I have in mind is bed.”

Townsend half smiled, but even his half smile sizzled through her whole body. “Even better.”

“I meant sleep,” she mumbled.

“Sleep is always good,” he said seriously. “Eventu-ally.”

Feeling completely out of control, Barrie said, “‘Eventually’ won’t work for me. Have a good night.” She turned and walked out of the lobby with whatever was left of her dignity, and immediately ducked into the ladies’ to avoid running into Mick again. She sat in front of one of the makeup mirrors and was extremely annoyed to see the red in her cheeks.

“You look like you’re in heat,” she muttered. But looking in the mirror gave her an idea. She put her hands flat on the top of the vanity, and as she stared into her reflection in the mirror, she slowed her breathing and concentrated on her auric body, the energetic field that a shifter manipulates in order to shift. As her eyes bored into the mirror, she began to see the faint outline of light around her own reflection. She pushed with her mind…and slipped on a different kind of glamour, what she thought of as a beauty spell, that would at least temporarily make her devastatingly attractive to anyone who looked at her. She closed her eyes, and felt the glamour float over her head and settle delicately over her entire body, like a gauzy dream of a dress, a sexy and intoxicating softness… .

She opened her eyes. …

The woman who looked back at her from the mirror had her features and coloring, but magically enhanced: a classic Hollywood goddess, too beautiful to be real. In this moment she could have given Lauren Bacall or Myrna Loy or Rita Hayworth a run for her money.

Barrie breathed in, feeling the pure power of that beauty. Then she stood and went out in search of the bellhop.

With the glamour on all she had to do was smile at the young male desk clerk and say she would just love to talk to the man who’d seen the ghost. The clerk pointed her toward the bell stand with a felled-by-lightning sort of look on his face.

The bellhop was in his late twenties but still had the gangly awkwardness of adolescence, and looked equally starstruck to see Barrie coming toward him.

“M-may I help you?” he stammered.

She gave him a dazzling smile. “I hope so. Did you really see the ghost of Johnny Love?”

“I’m not supposed to talk to any more reporters,” he said without much conviction.

“Good thing I’m not a reporter, then,” she said, and watched him waver, captivated by her false loveliness.

He glanced around to see if anyone could overhear them and then leaned toward her. “It wasn’t a ghost, it was a real person. He just looked exactly like Johnny.”

Not a ghost, then. A shifter , Barrie thought, and felt her pulse spike. Was it Tiger?

“And he checked in with Mayo?” she asked.

“I’m not supposed to say that,” the bellhop said, still enraptured.

“Good thing you didn’t, then.” She twinkled at him. “It will be our little secret.”

As she was turning away from him, she heard footsteps and an already achingly familiar voice speaking behind her. “Ah, there you are…darling.”

Darling? And what’s with the British accent?

As she turned, Mick Townsend was at her side, taking her hand, lifting it to kiss her fingers.

Whoa!

Even as desire rushed through her bloodstream at the feel of his lips on her skin, Barrie was reeling with confusion. What is this?

Mick gave her a look that sizzled through her to her toes as he spoke. The British accent was perfect, one of her perpetual downfalls, as intoxicating as catnip to a kitten. “I’ve just been telling this gentleman about our dilemma, and he’s been kind enough to find us a suite for the night.”

Barrie realized that the desk clerk was hovering behind him, and from the look he gave her it was clear the glamour she’d put on was still working.

She tried to focus and sort out what was going on. Our dilemma? A suite? Even as she wanted to rip into Townsend for whatever game he was playing, her intuition was telling her to go along with him, at least until she knew what was going on.

“It’s a bungalow, darling,” Mick said pointedly, and stroked her cheek, making her pulse skyrocket. “Pool-side.”

Bungalow. Mayo died in one of the bungalows . Her eyes widened, and although she kept her thoughts to herself, she saw Mick give her the barest nod. Can he really have talked his way into Mayo’s suite?

“That’s so very lovely of you,” she told the desk clerk, smiling as sweetly as she could. “We were—”

“—not looking forward to spending our wedding night at the airport,” Mick finished for her smoothly, his fingers now tracing an erotic pattern on her forearms.

Wedding night? Now, that’s just too much . She shot Mick a blistering look, and he smiled at her with mock adoration. “I explained all about the flight delay, our bags being held hostage. But none of that matters tonight. We have this beautiful place, we have each other… .”

He bent suddenly and kissed her. A lingering, promising, maddening touch of that full, firm mouth. Barrie felt the ground cartwheel beneath her.

Mick drew slowly back, his eyes on hers…then slid his fingers down her arm to take her hand and turned her so they both faced the desk clerk. “May we see it?”

Mick steered her after the desk clerk, and Barrie followed along in shock, down an abbeylike hall toward a set of heavy wooden doors. “He’s really putting us in Mayo’s room?” she whispered to Mick. It was a crime scene, or at least under investigation. She couldn’t imagine how he’d managed it.

“Not exactly,” he said, barely moving his lips.

She opened her mouth again, and when he put a finger on her lips to silence her, she could feel the tingle start from somewhere in her core. He nodded toward the desk clerk, and she went along in silence.

The clerk held the door open for them and they stepped outside into the junglelike plaza. The landscaping of the Chateau was lush and tropical—with tiny lights sprinkled in the trees for a fairy-tale glow—and designed for maximum privacy; as they followed the clerk, Barrie could barely see the outlines of the bungalows down the paths that curved off into the foliage. She was hyperconscious of Mick’s hand closed warmly around hers, his thumb stroking her fingers with a light, sensual touch…and hyperconscious that he was one of the most beautiful men she had ever seen. He carried himself like a rock star. She might have put on an artificial glamour, but there was a natural glamour about him that was almost hypnotic. She felt like the mistress of some exotic celebrity, suddenly transported into a Hollywood fantasy.