Unauthorized Passion: Unauthorized Passion / Intimate Knowledge

She couldn’t do it. She’d waited too long to start her new life. Returning to her hometown just wasn’t an option, Cassie decided. Besides, the threat of a Mafia hit man paled in comparison to facing Minnie Cantrell’s wrath. The old woman was a witch in every sense of the word. She claimed to have not only the power to remove warts and divine water, but could also hex, conjure spirits and wreak all manner of havoc on those who crossed her or her kin.

Cassie had never personally witnessed any of the woman’s powers, nor did she believe in them. But there were plenty in her hometown who did, and once Minnie Cantrell cursed you, you might as well pack it in. You became a pariah in the community, a social out-cast to be shunned and scorned, and if there was anything worse than being stuck in the sticks, it was being stranded there without a single friend to your name.

Cassie had wanted to leave for years. For as long as she could remember, she’d dreamed of moving to Houston or New Orleans, settling into her own little place and getting a job at an art gallery where she might someday exhibit her own work. But while her mother had still been alive, Cassie couldn’t leave Manville.

Her mother was gone now, after losing a long battle with lung cancer and emphysema, and there was no one left from the Boudreaux clan—as ornery a bunch as the Cantrells—who Cassie felt any special affinity for. Celeste’s call had come at a most opportune time. The art department at Manville High School had suffered major budgetary cuts, which meant that most of Cassie’s classes had been dropped from the fall schedule. When the school district declined to renew her contract, she’d suddenly found herself unemployed, unattached and just itching for an adventure.

Be careful what you wish for, her mother had always warned.

“Good advice, Mama,” Cassie murmured as she headed off for bed. She’d just slid under the covers when the phone on the nightstand rang. She hesitated to answer at first, then figuring it might be Lyle checking to make sure everything was okay, she picked up the receiver.

“Hello?” she said carefully.

“You are a hard woman to track down,” a female voice accused.

Cassie didn’t have a clue as to the woman’s identity, but she tensed, anyway. “Who is this?”

“Who is this?” the woman asked incredulously. “It’s Olivia. Olivia D’Arby? You know, your roommate? The girl you left holding the bag when you skipped out on the rent?”

Roommate? What roommate? Celeste had said nothing about a roommate.

The whole situation was getting more complicated by the minute. And it had sounded so simple at first. Spend a month in a luxury hotel pretending to be her cousin, and in return she would be treated to a new wardrobe, a little cash and ample opportunity to decide what she wanted to do with the rest of her life.

But now, in addition to everything else, a mysterious roommate was calling, and if Cassie said or did anything the least bit suspicious, the whole scheme could unravel. And she had a bad feeling that if that happened, she would be the one left holding the bag.

“Well? Aren’t you even going to ask how I found you?” the woman demanded.

Cassie’s hand gripped the phone. “How?”

“You left your itinerary on the computer. Not too smart for someone in hiding. What if the press or Margo Fleming had somehow gotten hold of it? But don’t worry,” she rushed to assure Cassie. “I deleted everything.”

“Thanks.”

Olivia paused. “What’s wrong? You sound kind of strange.”

Cassie cleared her throat, then lowered her voice. “I think I’m coming down with something.”

“You’re sick? Well, that’s the least of your worries.” Cassie couldn’t detect even a drop of sympathy in the woman’s voice. “That’s why I’m calling. Some guy’s been around asking a lot of questions about you. He talked to some of the neighbors, and he managed to corner me in the parking lot yesterday when I got back from my interview. Since I didn’t get the part, I wasn’t exactly in a friendly mood. He got an earful, but I don’t think it was what he was after. Anyway, I thought you’d probably want to know what she’s up to now.”

“She?”

“Margo Fleming, of course. Who else would have sent that guy?” Olivia hesitated again. “Are you sure you’re okay? You seem kind of out there. Maybe you’re taking too much medication or something.”

“I’m fine,” Cassie rasped. “Thanks for the call.”

“Wait a minute, damn it. You can’t just blow me off like that. I went to all the trouble of tracking you down, the least you can do is give me the juicy details.”

Juicy details? What was she talking about?

“Oh, I get it.” Olivia’s tone dropped conspiratorially. “He’s there, isn’t he?”

“Who?”

“Oh, for the love of…Owen. Remember him? Your rich, married lover? The man who gave you that huge diamond and promised to make you a star?”

Was that resentment Cassie heard in the woman’s voice?

“Since I saw him first, the least you can do is be straight with me.”

Definitely resentment, Cassie decided.

“Is he there with you or not?” Olivia persisted.

“I’m alone.”

“I don’t believe you. You leave town in the middle of the night, and a few days later, Owen disappears. You can’t tell me that’s a coincidence.”

Cassie had no intention of telling her anything. All she wanted to do was get off the phone, pronto, before she said something to tip her hand. Honestly, what had Celeste been thinking when she left her itinerary on the computer? She must have known her roommate would find it.

Or…was that the point? Was this some sort of test? Maybe Olivia D’Arby was in on the ruse, and she was calling to make sure that Cassie didn’t cave under pressure.

“I appreciate the call, but I’m not feeling well.” Cassie lowered her voice to a hoarse whisper. “I really think I should get to bed.”

“You do that,” Olivia said coolly. “But if Margo Fleming shows up at your door, don’t say I didn’t warn you. I shudder to think what that woman is capable of.”

Was that a note of glee she detected in the roommate’s voice now? Cassie wondered.

* * *

WELL, SHE’D FLUNKED that little test, now hadn’t she? Evelyn thought gleefully.

It was just as she’d suspected. The woman was a complete fraud.

The whole story about their chance encounter in an elevator at the Beverly Hills Hotel had been a spur-of-the-moment fabrication. There had been no Chanel outfit and certainly no quip about the beginning of a beautiful friendship between Chablis and that…that horrid little dog she called Mr. Bogart.

“As if my princess would ever show the slightest interest in such a creature,” Evelyn crooned. Chablis’s responding sigh was one of pure bliss. Undoubtedly she was dreaming about Zoë von Hendenburg’s shih tzu or William Kendall’s Lhasa apso. But a Chihuahua?

Evelyn shuddered. Over her dead body!

Still, the next few days promised to be…interesting. It was possible, of course, that the woman who had been in her suite earlier was, indeed, Celeste Fortune. Perhaps she’d pretended to remember the meeting in the elevator to spare Evelyn’s feelings. After all, it was always awkward when one party remembered a brief encounter that the other did not.

And had that been the only incident, Evelyn might have been able to shrug it off in just that way.

But her suspicions had already been aroused before this evening, hence, the test.

Pleasantly buzzed from the vodka, Evelyn lay back against the sofa and smiled as she recalled the night she’d first seen Celeste Fortune in person. A little birdie had told her that the actress had booked herself into the Mirabelle, and so Evelyn had arrived ahead of her. She’d been waiting in the lobby behind a potted palm to get her first look.

Celeste had arrived in a cab, completely alone, wearing a cap pulled low over her face much as she had been tonight. She’d thought it a clever disguise, no doubt, but Evelyn, who was something of a movie buff, especially when it came to Owen’s productions, would have recognized her even without being tipped off. Even without that infamous diamond sparkling on the woman’s hand.