Linda Conrad - Reflected Pleasures

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Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Epilogue

“Take it,” the old gypsy, Passionata Chagari, demanded. “The mirror is meant for no one else.”

She narrowed her eyes and watched as Tyson Steele glanced over his shoulder at the empty French Market square behind him. Passionata snickered as he looked for the cameras that would mean this was some kind of practical joke. She knew nothing but darkness would meet his gaze at this late hour.

The gypsy sensed Tyson setting his shoulders with determined skepticism. This young Steele heir had appeared tall and strong-willed as he’d swaggered to her corner. She was well aware that an hour ago he’d been at a meeting with his cousin, Nicholas Scoville, who’d claimed he had been given a gift of an antique book from a strange gypsy earlier in the evening at this very place.

She chuckled, knowing that pure curiosity was what had brought the young Texas native out into the quiet New Orleans night. This heir to the gypsy magic would not be so easily won over as was his cousin. But she knew her duty.

On her father’s deathbed, she had given her word.

“I’m not accepting anything from you until I know the scam,” Tyson Steele told her with a scowl.

“I want nothing. I bring your legacy.”

“Legacy? I’m not in the mood for games. What the hell are you talking about?”

The gypsy spread her lips in an enigmatic smile. “I know the reason for your somber mood, young man. You spent the better part of the day at your great-aunt Lucille’s funeral. And you have already been told that you were not mentioned in her will.”

“That doesn’t matter,” he insisted. “I don’t need her money now. She gave me everything I needed years ago, when it mattered the most. I could never have repaid that debt in a thousand lifetimes.”

“This gift comes not from Lucille Steele,” Passionata told him sharply. “But it is because of her kindnesses that you have been so honored by the wise and powerful gypsy king who was also in her debt.”

“Excuse me?” Tyson backed up and put his hands in his pockets, trying fruitlessly to keep her from placing the golden mirror into his hands. “What king?”

“My father, Karl Chagari, king of the gypsies, master tinker and magician.” She lowered her voice and took the proper deferential tone. “He has at long last gone ahead to the ancestors…as has Lucille. But he charged me with settling his debts.”

Tyson eyed the antique mirror in her hands and she could hear him wondering to himself if it was stolen property. “Sorry about your father, ma’am. But uh… I don’t think so. Thanks anyway.

“I shouldn’t have come here,” he argued. “But my cousin Nick said something so ridiculous that I just had to see for myself.”

“It is magic, Tyson Steele,” the gypsy hissed. “And it is your legacy…designed just for you. It will take you to your heart’s desire.”

“The only thing I desire is someone to fill the vacant fund-raising assistant’s position at my charitable foundation,” Tyson muttered. “And it isn’t likely that a ‘magic’ hand mirror will be helping me with an applicant.”

Passionata knew that at the exclusive personnel office where Tyson Steele had met his cousin earlier this evening, the young heir hadn’t been able to find anyone who would agree to relocate to his remote town in deep south Texas. Tyson was frustrated. She’d planned it that way.

The gypsy shoved the mirror in his direction and concentrated her efforts on making him want a better look.

At last Tyson reached out and took the mirror from her hands, turned it over and inspected the back. Passionata saw his amazement when he spotted his name engraved in the gold-leaf scrollwork, adorning the sides and back.

“What the devil…?” he stammered.

“You see? It belongs to you, and you alone.”

Tyson flipped it over to inspect the mirror’s front side, and Passionata nearly laughed aloud.

“I don’t see my image,” he complained. “This isn’t a mirror. It’s simple glass. I don’t understand.”

“The true nature of that which you seek will be reflected in the depths of the glass when the time is right,” she said. “It’s made to reveal the truth, no more.”

Passionata took the easy opportunity to slip out of sight while Tyson Steele stared at the mirror and tried to comprehend what he held. When he finally glanced up with more questions, he was all alone.

“That’s just creepy,” he mumbled to himself. “So far, I haven’t managed to get any answers for my cousin. I haven’t been able to locate an assistant fund-raiser. And now I have to worry about some old gypsy’s magic mirror, too?”

Passionata nodded as she watched him in her crystal. “Just until you accept the gift of sight and use the magic, young Steele.”

Serve his coffee? Sheesh. Served her right.

Merri Davis clamped down on her smart mouth, turned around and stalked out of the office to go get her new boss his cup of coffee. Tyson Steele had only been back from his New Orleans trip for a couple of hours and already in the first few minutes of their acquaintance the two of them were testing each other.

He apparently wanted to see how far he could push her—she was a fund-raising assistant, not a gopher after all. And she wanted to find out if he was truly the macho chauvinist that he appeared to be. Well, duh. The coffee request put him right there in the proper category.

She’d initially been wary of Mr. Tyson Steele anyway, wondering if he would recognize her from the tabloids. But her model’s training had apparently worked a miracle in the disguise-makeup department. Good enough, so that he never really used those startling blue eyes to look at her twice.

She swallowed hard at her silent slip of the tongue about his eyes. Merri Davis was not interested in men’s eyes. Startling or otherwise. That was simply not her mission or her concern.

At least not since Merrill Davis-Ross, high-fashion and jet-setting model, had effectively become Merri Davis, quiet and plain-looking fund-raiser’s assistant.

Now she could only pray that the tabloid reporters, who normally snooped on her every move, would not be able to pick up the scent of where she had disappeared to this time.

So far, so good, she congratulated herself. This nowhere hick town in Texas should be the perfect hiding place. And the perfect place to find the simple life she had always dreamed of too.

But Merri cautioned herself to keep walking on eggshells around her new boss and to save any of her regular snappy comebacks. If she was going to maintain the charade, he would have to believe she was just the person she was now claiming to be.

Tyson’s attorney, Franklin Jarvis, might suspect the truth, or at least a version of the truth. But he’d gotten her this job as a favor to his old friend—her own attorney from back in L.A.