Penmort Castle (Ghosts and Reincarnation #1)(4)

And he had a way about him that translated in print when some journalist described it (and she’d witnessed it firsthand) and in pictures when the paparazzi captured it. This was probably due to the fact that he was not the kind of man who wanted people to write about him and take photos of him and print them in papers and he made that pretty clear in a variety of dangerous, action man ways.

This behaviour only threw fuel on the fire.

For instance, a couple of times he made it clear by ripping a camera out of some photographer’s hands and destroying it (and, on one occasion, giving the photographer a broken nose).

He’d had some trouble with that, something about which he also didn’t care.

He had enough money to pay fines and attorneys and buy new cameras. His job, due to its rarity and danger, paid well. At least it did in the movie and if the way he dressed (the navy suit with the deep lilac, expertly-tailored shirt and expensive tie he wore that afternoon was lush) and the easy way he could spend a couple hundred thousand pounds on a pre-paid girlfriend proved this as fact.

There were probably some women out there (maybe not just some, maybe scores, maybe thousands) who’d pay Cash Fraser that amount of money for just one smile directed at them (Abby had already had two, she’d counted, and they were good).

And, Abby figured, these women would no doubt pay a whole lot more to have a shot at servicing him in his bed.

The very idea of Cash Fraser paying them wouldn’t even be considered.

And she had to face it, the bottom line was, Abby needed the money.

Further, she no longer had anything to lose. Jenny knew that. Everyone knew that. Even her neighbour, nosy, crazy, maddening “keep your cat out of my garden” Mrs. Truman knew that.

Yes, Abigail Butler had a lot to gain from this deal – two hundred thousand pounds to be exact.

At least this was what she preferred to focus on, not the fact that she’d just become a very highly paid prostitute even if it was to a good-looking, wealthy, industrial spy ring breaker who had an action movie based on his life.

Abby pushed these thoughts aside and said softly, “Jenny, calm down.”

Jenny’s dark brown eyes grew wide.

“Calm? You want me to be calm?” she asked then yelled, “You just agreed to sleep with a man for money!”

Abby let her legs go and stood, taking a quick step across her living room to get close to her friend. “Be quiet!” she snapped. “Pete’s here!”

“I don’t care!” Jenny snapped back but thankfully quieter this time. “Since you’ve apparently lost your ever-loving mind, I’m considering this a one-woman intervention. If Pete wants to join in all the better!”

Abby had known Jenny since they met as roommates their freshman year at university twenty years ago. Over the decades, even when there were sometimes thousands of miles between them, they’d stayed very, very close.

Regardless of her auburn hair, Jennifer Kane was usually pretty mellow and laid back.

Unless she was inebriated or angry, then she was pretty crazy and very loud.

Like, for instance, now.

Abby tried to use logic. “Tell me what’s changed since Kieran went to James and offered my um…” Abby hesitated then forged on, “services.”

“Well,” Jenny started, her voice dripping with sarcasm, “when I overheard James talking to Cash Fraser at that party and came up with my wild scheme to pretend you were a high-class, very discreet escort after thinking about my stubborn, silly, stupid best friend not letting me and Kieran help her, even though we can, even though we don’t mind, even though we both love her like crazy and we want to help, I thought my brilliantly stupid idea may be a good way for you to earn some quick money to get you out of a pickle. At the time I talked you and Kieran into the idea, and Kieran into approaching James, which I’ll remind you he really didn’t want to do, as in really –”

“Jenny –” Abby began with a warning in her voice that her friend was digressing to oft-gone-over ground.

“At the time,” Jenny continued, ignoring Abby’s warning, “you were just going to be a paid escort, wearing fancy clothes and eating fancy dinners and being on the arm of a hot guy. So you’d have to pretend to be his girlfriend and sleep in bed with him at a spooky castle. It was supposed to be platonic! It was supposed to be easy money! It was supposed to be a reason for us to go shopping for fancy clothes! But no…” Jenny drew out the “no” with exaggeration, “now, you’ve agreed to have sex with him while in said spooky, haunted castle where, I will remind you, over the centuries five, that is five…” she held up five fingers, “women, all of them blonde, which you also are in case you hadn’t noticed, and all of them the lovers of the man of the house, which you will be if you go through with this, God help you. And all of them were murdered by a malevolent ghost!” she finished on a shout.

Abby had heard the story of the famously homicidal ghost of Penmort Castle. Everyone had, it was lore. Though many people had claimed to see the ghost of the raven-haired woman floating around doing nasty things to guests and servants but never to family, unless that family happened to be sleeping with the man of the castle, as in, say, his wife (which it was always his wife, only on one occasion was it his mistress), no one had proof that she actually killed anyone.

Of course, all the possible witnesses were dead.