Cara Summers - Led into Temptation

“Wait for it,” Jillian urged.

Seconds ticked by. They stood side by side staring into the mirror as the air chilled around them.

Jillian squeezed their hands. “Can you feel the drop in temperature? ”

“You could hang meat in here.” Reese’s voice was hushed.

Naomi suppressed a shudder. Later, she decided that if she’d been there alone, she would have chalked it up to an overactive imagination. But when the mirror suddenly flashed as if it had caught a beam of sunlight and then shimmered, she heard all three of them catch their breath simultaneously.

For an instant, there’d been a fourth image in the dusty glass.

“Did you see her?” Jillian whispered.

“Tall, beautiful, in a filmy white dress,” Reese said.

“Red-gold hair,” Naomi murmured. It nearly matched the shade of her own. And it had fallen in a tumble of curls nearly to her waist.

“And her feet didn’t touch the ground,” Jillian said. “Did you notice that? I did some research. Ghosts float. Their feet never touch the ground.”

“Well, I’ll be,” Reese said.

“She’s here.” Jillian’s tone was triumphant. “And if she didn’t want us here, we wouldn’t be.”

For a moment there was silence in the room.

Naomi swallowed hard and wondered what had happened to her practical, sober side. She’d seen that image in the mirror. She should be telling her sisters that this wasn’t going to work. They couldn’t possibly live in a tower that was already occupied. But what she said was, “So we’re going to build our new home in a space that’s probably haunted.” And as she let her gaze sweep the room again, she realized she’d made a statement, not a question.

“There’s something else,” Jillian said. “Something I haven’t told you yet.”

“What?” Naomi and Reese asked the question in unison as their eyes shot to their sister.

“There’s a secret room.” Jillian hurried over to the one wall that didn’t have windows and pulled a lever. A panel slid open.

“Of course, it has a secret room,” Naomi murmured.

“And it’s just like Jillian to spring it on us,” Reese said.

Even in the dim light pushing through the windows, Naomi could see that the room was small, no larger than a closet. She and Reese waited in the doorway as Jillian stepped in.

“There’s more. Wait till you see.” Jillian picked up a linen-covered hatbox, turned and held it for her sisters’ inspection.

As she and Reese moved closer, Naomi noticed the piece of parchment fastened to the top of the box. It read:

Fantasy Box. Choose carefully. The one you draw out will come true.

Reese shot Jillian a suspicious glance. “This isn’t a joke.”

Jillian shook her head. “I swear it’s not. I found the room the first time I came up here. I was looking into the mirror and I saw the door open behind me. But I waited for the two of you before opening the box. Naomi, you’re oldest. You go first.”

Naomi firmly ignored the chill working its way up her spine as she lifted the cover off. Inside were folded pieces of the same parchment as the note. Curiosity warred with a firm tug of apprehension. There had been a definite warning in that message.

She met her sisters’ eyes, then carried the box to a table and set it down. “Let’s all take one on a count of three. One.”

“Two,” Jillian said.

“Three,” Reese finished.

They reached into the box and together pulled out a parchment each.

For a moment there was no sound in the tower room other than the muffled crash of waves on the rocks below.

Reese whistled softly. “I don’t know about the two of you, but the fantasy I drew out seems pretty sexual in nature.”

“Me, too,” Jillian said.

“I guess we know what Hattie Haworth did to amuse herself after she retired from her film career,” Reese commented.

Only Naomi remained silent. She didn’t think she could talk. She certainly couldn’t seem to take her eyes off the words written on the parchment. What she was reading was the secret sexual fantasy that had fueled her imagination when she’d been a teenager in that French Catholic boarding school.

But who would have known about it? She’d never even shared it with her sisters. It was forbidden. Unthinkable. Yet there’d been a time in her life when she’d thought of little else. Still, there was far too much guilt associated with it.

And pleasure? A little thrill moved through Naomi as she thought of the message on the box.

The one you draw out will come true.

One year later …

I HAVE TO GET TO Haworth House. I have to get to Haworth House.

The words had formed an ongoing chant in Naomi’s mind on the short ferry ride from the mainland and they’d become more insistent once the gray turreted tower had come into view. From the moment she’d seen it, she hadn’t been able to tear her eyes away. In spite of the chill wind that had driven other passengers into the main cabin, she’d remained outside. Even now that the boat had docked and passengers were queuing up to disembark, she lingered at the railing.

Two weeks ago the life she’d built for herself in Boston had begun to unravel. First, she’d lost her fiancé and become a person of interest to the FBI. Then, two days ago, she’d been fired from her job at the law firm of King and Fairchild. The FBI thought she had something to do with the one-hundred-million-dollar-plus Ponzi scheme her ex-fiancé had been running during the six months they’d been engaged.

When she’d learned of their suspicions, she’d felt just like Humpty Dumpty after his fall—completely shattered. Every time she replayed the pivotal scenes of the past two weeks in her mind, she felt as if she were watching clips from a reality TV series. Everything seemed to have happened to someone else.

Only, they’d happened to Naomi Brightman.

But if she could just get to Haworth House, she’d figure out a way to put the pieces of her life back together. After all, Hattie Haworth had.

In the distance, a gull circled the tower, then soared into the brilliant blue sky. Little had she known a year ago when she and her sisters had toasted each other with champagne in Hattie’s boudoir that her life was going to run such a close parallel to the original owner’s. And Hattie had come here.

Naomi knew she was running away, something she’d never done before in her life. How could she? She’d been the oldest. It had been her job to provide a role model for her sisters. Some role model. In the space of half a month, her life had gone from girl success story to girl failure.

She simply had to get out of Boston. She needed a break from that damned prickling sensation at the back of her neck that told her she was being watched—24/7. By the FBI, the Boston police and perhaps by her ex, Michael Davenport, too. Everyone seemed convinced that her ex-fiancé was going to contact her.

The sudden sting of tears blurred her view of the tower. Blinking rapidly, she turned from the railing and bit down on her lower lip to keep it from trembling. No tears. She never cried. If it was the last thing she did, she was going to figure out how she could have been so wrong about Michael Davenport.

For a moment, she let her mind drift back to the night he’d ended things between them. He’d invited her to meet at the Four Seasons. That’s where they’d first run in to each other six months ago. She’d been entertaining clients with her boss, Leo King, senior partner and her mentor at King and Fairchild.

Michael had claimed it was love at first sight for him. Had it been the same for her? She’d certainly thought so. Their romance had been a whirlwind one, and Michael was really good at the romantic side of things. There’d been flowers and little gifts, funny little trinkets that he’d given her to commemorate everything they’d done together. The Michael gifts, she’d called them. She’d kept them lined up on a shelf in her apartment.