“And Kaseybelle grows geraniums in the window boxes, I know,” DeeDee added. “I saw them on her program.”
Shannon couldn’t seem to stop the tide that was sweeping her along with its force. “All right, Mrs. Butter, where is my office?”
“Past Mr. Jonathan’s office, second door on the right.”
She should have expected what she found, but she didn’t. Nobody had the power to act that quickly. He’d duplicated her office exactly. Her desk, her drawing table, her books and supplies, just as they’d been left in Atlanta, were all there. And Jonathan Dream was sitting behind her desk as if he’d been waiting.
“If there’s anything else you need, just tell me and it’ll be here in a matter of hours.”
“What I need, Mr. Dream, are answers.”
“Ask the questions.”
“I’ve seen pictures of you and they don’t show either a scar or an eye patch. Are you really Jonathan Dream?”
“I am. I lost my eye and gained the scar in the same accident that killed my wife three years ago.”
“I see, and you’ve managed to keep all that a secret from the world? I don’t think so.”
“If you have enough money, you can do almost anything. This castle gave me the idea. When I need to meet with the outside world, I do so as John, my assistant. No one knows that the scarred man is Jonathan Dream except Mrs. Butterfield and Lawrence. And now you.”
“I would never betray a confidence. I promise to keep yours, in exchange for your honesty.”
“Agreed.”
“About your wife,” Shannon persisted. “You didn’t kill her. A man who cares so much about a child couldn’t kill anyone.”
“Not with my hands, but I was responsible for the accident. As far as I’m concerned, that’s enough proof of guilt.”
“That’s fantasy. What I need is reality and control.”
“Why?”
“Because this is my life, and I’ll make the decisions about what I do with it.”
“Once I thought that was possible. I know now that we have very little control over what happens to us. Fantasy makes as much sense as anything else.”
“But I’m not a fairy. That’s wrong. You’ve made your daughter believe that I’m Kaseybelle, and I’m not.”
“No?”
In profile she would see a hesitant smile play about the corner of his lips, a smile she was certain he wasn’t aware of. And that smile subtly altered the darkness around him. She felt an absurd urge to smile in return, an urge that she forcibly swallowed.
Jonathan watched her change of expression play across her face. He had known how appealing she was from a distance. He hadn’t expected to feel such fire when they met face-to-face. He’d always been a man of few words, now even those escaped him.
Not Kaseybelle? Could she not know what she’d done? Perhaps she’d never seen herself dressed like this. Perhaps he, too, was bemused and seeing only what he wanted to see. She didn’t look real. No matter what she said, Shannon Summers was a spirit, a creature from some make-believe world that existed in the imagination or in a dream.
It was time she learned some reality.
Jonathan didn’t realize he’d moved until he was standing beside her. “Take my hand, Shannon, and turn around.”
“No!”
He held out his hand. “Yes.”
She allowed him to direct her movement so that they were facing a mirror hanging above the fireplace. In the moonlight he’d been hidden. In the shadows of his office his face hadn’t been exposed until he’d come into the firelight. Now he was inviting her to look.
His long hair flowed across the top of his shoulders in a rippling black mass. Like the highwayman she’d compared him to, he was wearing a black shirt, open at the neck, and black trousers and polished black boots.
But it was his face she saw, the face he apparently wanted her to see, and the black satin patch that covered his left eye. The patch didn’t conceal the disfiguring scar that ran from his eyebrow to the top of his cheek.
He simply glared at her, waiting.
“I’m not afraid of your face, Jonathan Dream. You don’t have to hide in the darkness on my account. Your face neither intimidates me nor frightens me. I don’t judge a person by his looks. It’s what’s inside that counts.”
“Looks count, too, sometimes. Face the mirror, Shannon, and you’ll see what I mean.”
She forced her gaze from the man in black in the mirror to the woman beside him. No, not the woman, the spirit in the familiar fairy clothing.
She gasped. Why had she never before understood? Kaseybelle, the fairy she’d lovingly brought to life as the embodiment of love and caring, was her, not as she was now but as she had been as a little girl. She’d created a friend for a lonely child, and the only model she’d had was herself.
“You see what DeeDee sees and what she needs?”
“No, I won’t have it,” Shannon whispered raggedly. “I’m real. I have needs too. What about what I need?”
“Just say what it is and I’ll get it.”
To be loved, is what she wanted to say, intensely. By a man who feels as passionately as I do. “My freedom,” was her desperate answer.
He felt the muscles of his stomach contract. “Anything but that. I can’t let you leave. But if you stay here, I may destroy you. Everything I touch is left tarnished.”
He was still holding her arm, clasping her in such a way that he could feel her pulse thrumming beneath his fingertips. Or was it his? Even in the mirror he could see her apprehension. Like some night creature frozen in the light, she seemed ready to flee, yet unable to move. Her lips parted, and her breath, fast and shallow, barely moved her lungs.
“Shannon, don’t be afraid,” he said, and knew that he couldn’t let her go. “Give DeeDee one month, until Christmas, and if you still want to go, I won’t object.”
He was asking, not demanding, and she knew she couldn’t refuse.
“Why do I feel like Scheherazade?” she finally asked.
His eyebrows were question marks. “Who?”
“Have you never read The Arabian Nights?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“There was an ancient Persian king who discovered his wife plotting against him. He killed her. In order to prevent any woman from deceiving him again, he married a wife in the morning and killed her the next morning. Then Scheherazade came along. She conceived the idea of telling a story on the morning before her execution. She so captured the king’s fancy with her tales that each morning he let her live another night.”
“Do you think you can capture my fancy?” The suggestion of a half-smile spread across his lips, and he let out a genuine laugh that surprised them both.
“Oh, no. But, like Scheherazade, I must remain here and please you by telling stories to your daughter, whether or not I wish to stay.”
Now she was smiling, too, and in the mirror he could see the visible altering of the tension between them. “Yes. I suppose that’s true. I’m sorry it must be that way. I wish you’d stay willingly, because you choose to.”
He turned her away from the mirror so that she was gazing at his face, so that he could be certain her fear was gone. And what he saw in the mirror behind was a reflection of himself, glaring at her with all the heat of the coals in the fire the night before.
She started to speak, but the connection between them intensified and the power of his presence immobilized her, took her words away. “Mr.—”
He cut her off. “Don’t make me into something I’m not, Shannon. You’re right to be afraid of me. I always hurt the ones I care about. And no matter how impossible it may be, I think I could care for you.”
“No, please don’t. You mustn’t. Let me go.”
“I can’t.” He inclined his head, bringing his lips closer. His grip changed from desperation to a plea. With a soft caressing touch, he drew her hand to his chest and felt her fingertips slip beneath the shirt, where they found
bare, hot skin.
“Jonathan?”
She didn’t know whether she was asking him to release her or to carry her farther into the sea of emotional intensity he’d created. What she was feeling was all new to her, new and powerful and frightening.
He was so very tall and strong and foreboding. Desire, wild and hypnotic, rushed through Shannon, even as she realized the danger. Part of her wanted to push him away, while another part wanted to stand on tiptoe to reach him.
“Will you, Ms. Summers?” He brushed her lips with his own lightly, leaving a trail of heat like powdery sugar on a hot fried doughnut.
“Will I what?”
“Stay with us? Help my daughter?”
“Yes.” She heard her answer, the soft, uncertain yes, so unexpected and so strange that her answer could have come from someone else.
“Thank you!” Jonathan heard his voice turn hoarse. His control was dangerously near being broken. His head felt light. What in hell was happening? Almost angrily he dropped her hands and stepped away, staring at her as if he’d been sleepwalking and suddenly awakened.
“I’ll have suitable clothing provided, and your phone will be connected. Whatever you need is yours. I’ll leave you now.”
And he was gone.
Shannon shook her head, trying to throw off the sense of unreality that had swept over her. What had she done? How had he managed to get her to agree to his demand? He’d captured her with his voice, his words, his pain. She still couldn’t believe the sequence of events that had transpired over the last forty-eight hours.
Twice in her life she’d faced the unrelenting power of another person’s control and failed to conquer it. The first adversary had been her mother. Now she’d succumbed to the magnetism of Jonathan Dream.
But there was one difference. Her mother had dominated her under the guise of motherly love and the constant demand for unending adoration from her child in return. Jonathan wasn’t asking for anything for himself, but for DeeDee. And he used the threat that he’d buy the chocolate company to force Shannon to accede to his wishes. He couldn’t know that his real control came from the power of his own magnetism. She could only hope that he didn’t understand how deeply she’d been affected.
Shannon collapsed into the chair behind her desk and rested her face on her arms. She’d never found a way to escape her mother’s dominance; she couldn’t let that happen again. She’d stay for a month. She’d spend every moment with DeeDee. Once she’d accomplished her assignment, he’d be forced to let her go. In the meantime she’d find a way to avoid Jonathan Dream.
With the back of her hand she rubbed her lips.
The friction only increased the warmth. And her fingertips continued to tingle.
Four
DeeDee’s tutor had come and gone for the day. From the loft above the sun room Jonathan watched his daughter having her legs manipulated by her therapist. Music was playing, happy music spilling across the room like the calliope from a traveling circus. Instead of tears there was laughter.
Because of Kaseybelle the Chocolate Fairy.
Because of Shannon Summers.
The first thing Shannon had done was to move the therapy equipment into the solarium so that DeeDee didn’t feel so intimidated by the sterile atmosphere. Jonathan didn’t know why he hadn’t thought of that. The mood changed even more when the therapist, an energetic young woman who lived in the castle, was persuaded to don one of the fairy costumes and turn the exercises into part of a story that Shannon composed during their sessions.
Jonathan had tried to stay away. Always before, the pain DeeDee had endured had so unnerved him that he couldn’t bear to watch. It was his fault, and every tear she’d shed fell like ice on his emotions. He wished he could endure it for her, then cursed because he could not. For so long she’d been so brave, and so alone.
He was alone, too, but that and the scarred face was all he deserved. He’d forfeited any chance at more long ago when he’d surrounded himself by people who were dishonest. And it had been Mona, beautiful and innocent, who’d traveled down a long white corridor sweetened with a different kind of snow.
Jonathan had never needed anything but his own energy to get high. But without his knowledge he’d been the provider. He could have claimed ignorance of what his money had done to the young women who’d hungered for fame, but he didn’t. He should have known about the secret drugs being funneled into his Dreamland estate, but he’d been so caught up in building a dynasty that he’d been blind to what was happening.
Until Mona had announced her pregnancy … until he’d learned that in spite of his attempts to maintain his emotional distance from those he kept around him, he’d fathered a child … until he’d learned that Mona was taking drugs. He’d done the only right thing: He’d married her.
Mona had expected the good times to continue, the bright lights and fame to be enhanced. She’d never expected him to change everything. But he’d completed the castle on top of the North Carolina mountain and moved them there. He’d quickly learned that isolation was the only way of making certain that Mona took care of herself, that his baby had a chance.
But Mona hadn’t been able to change. If he’d really loved her, everything might have been different, but he’d only been able to love her as the mother of his child. That hadn’t been enough.
And in the end he, too, had died. Until now, watching his daughter smile and laugh, work at the exercises to strengthen muscles and tendons, work toward reaching a goal that as yet lay unstated, he’d thought that his life was over. Now, like DeeDee, he felt the stirring of something he couldn’t allow himself to name.
Jonathan had intended to stay away from the loft, but he couldn’t. At first Shannon had fought against his demands that she stay. His threat to destroy Kaseybelle, the thing she loved most, hadn’t entirely worked. Not until he’d pleaded with her to stay had she agreed. Not until he’d laughed out loud. Then, once she’d agreed to help, she’d thrown herself into the program with such enthusiasm that he’d been drawn to the solarium to watch.
Looking like little more than a child herself, she seemed to understand and share DeeDee’s anxieties and find a way to soothe her concerns. Though Jonathan had arranged for other clothing, she’d continued to wear the soft gold-and-pastel-colored fairy costumes around DeeDee.
“It hurts, Kaseybelle. Why do I have to do it?”
“We often have to do things we don’t want to. Look at that squirrel, running about digging in the snow. He had to spend all summer and fall burying nuts instead of playing squirrel games. I’m sure his hands were very sore from digging.”
“Squirrels have hands?”
“Certainly they do. How else could they have tea parties if they couldn’t hold the acorn shells?”
“Squirrels have tea parties? I don’t believe it.”
“Well, they aren’t really tea parties. They take the nuts and boil them. Then they drink their juice from little acorn hulls.”
“Ah, you’re telling me fairy stories now, Kaseybelle. Where do they get the fire?”
“They borrow it from the sun. But they have to be very careful. If they take too much sunshine, it will burn the nuts up and start a forest fire.”
“My daddy wouldn’t let them start a fire around here. He works very hard and he’s very careful.”
“Of course he is, and so are the squirrels.”
“But my daddy doesn’t have sore hands like the squirrels.”
“No.”
“But his face hurts,” DeeDee said softly. “I know because when he doesn’t know I’m looking, sometimes he rubs it. Do you think that you could help my daddy fix his face?”
Jonathan winced. He hadn’t been aware that he touched his face. It was an involuntary gesture, not from pain but to remind him that his world was under control. He leaned forward, interested in Kaseybelle’s reply.
“I don’t know, DeeDee. Sometimes there are things that we can’t fix.”
“Bu
t you could use your fairy magic. I know you could.”
“Perhaps your daddy doesn’t want anything to change.”
DeeDee thought about that for a moment. “Yes, he does. He wants me to walk. That’s why my legs have to hurt.”
From above, Jonathan acknowledged the wisdom of his daughter’s words. She was right. That’s why people suffered pain, to change. But sometimes the change hurt others and that’s when the pain became a constant reminder of guilt.
Jonathan found it hard to concentrate on the business of running NightDreams Lingerie. He knew that during DeeDee’s school time Shannon dealt with her world of chocolate and cartoons from the office he’d provided for her use. He didn’t intrude, using the time to run his manufacturing plants, his chain of retail stores, and his catalog business. But he’d find himself, at the oddest moments, thinking of flannel nightgowns instead of slinky teddies and flowing negligees.
And he couldn’t seem to stay away from the solarium.
Today Shannon had surprised him by doing something he’d never done, donning one of the swimsuits he’d provided and going into the pool with DeeDee. He didn’t know why he’d never been in the indoor pool he’d had built.
Moments later he was walking through the solarium in a swimsuit. When DeeDee looked up and saw him, it made his decision worthwhile. When Shannon smiled in approval, it didn’t matter whether her approval was because of DeeDee or because she welcomed the visit.
They’d held on and kicked like whales for nearly half an hour. Mrs. Butter had fetched DeeDee and left Jonathan and Shannon sitting on the side of the pool, watching a light snow fall across the trees in the late-afternoon light.
“How’d you find your castle?”
“By accident. I wanted something special as far away from my past life as I could find. Lawrence found this place. The original builder had started the castle, then fell into bankruptcy, leaving it half done. The facsimile to the Paris Opera House caught my fancy.”
Jonathan’s body was lean and firm. She was reminded of some sleek jungle animal, a panther perhaps, always tightly wound and ready to spring. Yet this afternoon he seemed to relax. The aura of mystery was there, yet it was no longer ominous.
Night Dreams Page 4