“Necrophilia. It’s disgusting.”
Saint piped up. “Technically it’s not necrophilia. No one made out with a decomposing body. Rory’s spirit is very much alive. Although I can see how you would be confu—”
“Just as disgusting as bestiality. I really thought you were different, Margo Sheffield. Thought you were a savvy businesswoman, not a whorish groupie. Sadly, I was mistaken.” Stan looked pointedly at Margo, all the kindness she’d seen on the flight in replaced by bitterness and repulsion. It made her stomach knot, all the hate she could see in his eyes.
Thomas snarled beside her, but it was Mac himself who stepped between them. “You are a guest in my home, but I warn you now the line you are walking gets thinner by the moment.”
Stan sat back down warily, his fingers gripping the arms of the chair like talons. Mac went to stand by the fire, his attention focused on Stan. “Saint, you may continue.”
“Someone here thinks they recognize Margo. She says she used to go to a certain biker bar in Los Angeles about eight years ago. And she distinctly remembers a singer by the name of Margo with a voice that would make an angel sin. You never mentioned that, Ms. Sheffield. Your contest form said office assistant, not vocalist.”
Mac sent her an encouraging smile. “I love music. You should have told us. I could have shown you the castle’s music room.”
She felt Thomas’s gaze on her as well, and he raised a questioning brow. “Biker bar? Margo?”
“That was another life. I don’t sing anymore. And I didn’t lie. I do work in an office.” Her hands were shaking. She’d been afraid of something like this. The bar was the least of her worries. It was the video she’d always been concerned would surface. The video that had destroyed her dreams and broken her father’s heart.
“What video?” Saint tilted his head, looking at her without malice. Merely curiosity. She shook her head.
“The better question is what office? Tell them where you work, Margo Sheffield. Tell them what the paperwork hidden in your carryon is for. Share with all the viewers why you’ve been bending over backwards to please Thomas.” Stan leered in her direction, jumping when Mac took a step toward him.
“You looked through my bag on the plane.” That was why he’d made her join the others. He’d somehow managed to rifle through her things without being caught on camera. “You looked through everyone’s things, didn’t you?”
Stan looked proud. “I had to know my enemies from my allies. And secrets are the surest way to earn loyalty. Unfortunately after the first night it was clear you had another agenda. One I simply couldn’t countenance.” His sneer in Thomas’s direction was gleeful. “I take comfort in the fact that you fooled them all. They were taking care of you, not knowing they were protecting a circling shark.”
Mac turned his searing blue gaze in her direction. She felt strange. She couldn’t look away. She was mesmerized. “What is he referring to?”
Margo didn’t want to tell him, but she felt compelled. She listened in horror as the words came pouring out of her mouth. “The contract. Rights to develop and produce Shifting Reality as a feature film. When I was named as one of the contestants, my boss told me to come and get you to sign or my job would be in jeopardy.”
“You were forced to come here? For a job?” Oh God she could hear the disappointment in Thomas’s voice. The anger.
“Cool.” Bryan glared at Kasey Lynn, but she glared back. “What? A movie would be sweet.”
“Unfortunately Shifting Reality is finished when you leave. Which I believe is going to happen sooner than we’d originally thought.” Mac shook his head. “I also think it is time to end this online request debacle. We have satisfied our part in this, let it be done.”
Saint held up his hand. “We have one last question from Keepsake_Hrt.”
“Julie?” Liam strode over to the desk, camera and all, angling his head to see Saint’s Blackberry.
Mac sighed. “Go ahead.”
“It’s more of a request. She wants Margo to tell Thomas why she hasn’t mentioned the contract once all week.”
Margo looked down at her interlaced hands. She knew what Julie wanted her to say. She wanted her to tell him she had feelings for him. That she’d been so addicted to his touch, his lovemaking—that everything else, including her career, had ceased to matter.
Thomas knelt in front of her so she couldn’t avoid him. She bit her lip so hard she tasted blood, but she couldn’t make herself tell him. She was scared. Not of him. But of what she felt for him. And she knew he could see her fear. Smell it.
“Okay, we’re done.” Thomas growled out the words, and before Margo could mistake his meaning, he’d flipped her over his shoulder and was striding from the room.
Margo heard Saint chuckle, and then they were headed up the stairs. She saw Esther and Rory, along with several other spirits hovering outside the game room, obviously eavesdropping, and she closed her eyes. There was only so much a sane woman could take, after all.
But she hadn’t felt sane since she’d arrived. Since she’d met Thomas. And now it was over. She had no delusions. He was mad as hell. He would confront her, thankfully in private, and send her on her way. She could only hope Dugan was waiting outside with the bus.
They got to her bedroom through the bookshelf-cum-doorway, and he set her on her feet. She started to speak but he held up his hand, walking across the room to lock the door that led to the tower stairs.
She felt a shiver of true fear when he pushed the bureau in front of the bookshelf. “What are you doing?”
He turned to face her. “I know the movie business. Did your boss tell you to do whatever was necessary to get my signature? To fuck me if you had to? Was all your time on the site a part of the plan too?”