Submission by Cherie Feather

Author:Cherie Feather
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2010-03-01T00:00:00+00:00

Ten

Ethan and Kiki sat on the balcony attached to his suite. Dusk had long since fallen, and the sky shimmered in soft, silken hues. Ethan couldn’t have painted a prettier picture, particularly with city lights spinning pinwheels into the night.

“Now I’m even more fascinated,” Kiki said.

“With Nicole and Javier?” He could tell the other couple was firmly rooted in her mind. But they were rooted in his, too.

“All I can think about is their wedding night and what it must have been like. Do you know how badly you’re torturing me, making me wait to read the next letter?”

Yeah, he thought. Power was a beautiful thing. “A Dom’s gotta do what a Dom’s gotta do.”

She made a pissy expression. She was so cute, so sweet and feisty, he tapped the tip of her nose just to watch it wrinkle.

“What happened to everyone?” she asked, throwing him off-kilter.

He dropped his hand. “Everyone who?”

“Nicole’s father, Lenore, Candace. What happened to all of them after Javier and Nicole died?”

“Why do you care about what happened to Candace?”

“Why wouldn’t I care? She was part of the past, and that makes her seem like part of what’s happening now.”

He knew she meant the haunting, the ghost, the Curtis House legacy that hadn’t existed until Kiki had showed up to claim it.

Not that he didn’t identify with her interest in the past. He’d made a point of knowing everything there was to know about the people who were once connected to his house.

“Candace made a few of those old swashbuckling films,” he said. “But her biggest claim to fame was being the mistress of a studio head from Famous Players-Lasky Corporation.”

She frowned her confusion. “Famous Players who?”

“That was Paramount before it became Paramount. Of course after the studio head replaced her with a younger mistress, she was out on her ear. She did some vaudeville stints to survive, but vaudeville was starting to die out, so that didn’t last long. After that, the Depression hit and she went through some hard times, washed-up and penniless.”

“Now I feel sorry for her.”

“She came out of it all right. Lenore befriended her.”

Kiki’s eyes went wide. “Lenore?”

“Apparently there was this love-hate thing between them. No matter how much they bickered, there was always something drawing them together.”

“I guess that makes sense, considering that they looked somewhat alike. That they vied for the same roles.” Kiki’s hair blew across her cheek, and she did her best to tame the curls, batting them gently away. “Did Lenore ever make any movies?”

Fascinated by his lover, Ethan studied her. She was perched on the edge of her chair, immersed in their conversation. “She had a few film irons in the fire, but they never panned out. It didn’t matter, though, because she gave up her career to help Nicole’s father run the hotel.”

“Oh, wow. He inherited Curtis House?”

“Javier didn’t have any family left, and since his wife died with him, it went to her next of kin.”

“Tell me more about him. What was his name?”

“Theodore West.

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