Read Online Phantom Pleasures: Sexy Paranormal (Book 1, Phantom Series) by Julie Leto - Free Book Online

“Do you know its history?”
    While toying with the cap on her bottled water, she decided there was no harm in telling him the truth. Whether he was a figment of her imagination or a real manifestation of a man who’d been trapped by a curse, the facts were the facts. “About sixty years ago, a mysterious and as yet unnamed entrepreneur bought the castle in Europe and had it moved, piece by piece, to this island off the Florida coast.”
    “Florida? Isn’t Florida controlled by the Spanish?”
    Luckily, researching the castle’s origins had allowed her to brush up on her history. “Not for about one hundred and fifty years, give or take.”
    He swirled the wine in the goblet, then took a hearty swig. “This world is very different.”
    “That’s an understatement,” she said, taking a long drink of water. “According to my sources, this man rebuilt this castle in as much secrecy as he could manage, hung your portrait and, apparently, disappeared. I don’t suppose he showed up in the painting with you?”
    “I would have noticed,” he said ruefully. “I have a vague memory of a journey. Of darkness. Of being enclosed. But nothing I can hold on to.”
    She frowned. When Jacob had first brought her the deed, she’d never envisioned that the land would bring with it such a perplexing puzzle. And in this case, she wasn’t even sure which pieces—if any—were entirely real.
    “At some point,” she continued, “this man transferred the ownership of the island to my father, and I inherited the land and everything on it from him. Property I intend to use as soon as I can make it habitable.”
    Damon looked scandalized, and Alexa couldn’t help grinning. She supposed if he really was from the seventeen hundreds, he wasn’t accustomed to dealing with a woman like her—one who owned property as opposed to one who
was
property. Well, he’d have to catch up to the twenty-first century sometime or another.
    “So, do you want to be my resident ghost?”
    It was so easy to fall back on her original plan, no matter how distant the scheme seemed now. But she couldn’t allow herself to fully accept that Damon Forsyth was now a real force in her life, or at least her castle. That would change everything.
He
would change everything.
    “I told you previously, madam,” he said with a haughty sniff, “I am not a ghost.”
    “Phantom, then,” she decided, with equal snobbery. “Here, but not here. Can you make yourself transparent?”
    Alexa really should be careful what she wished for. In a split second, Damon disappeared. She dropped her water and threw herself off the chaise lounge, scooting away from where he’d vanished even as her lungs struggled for breath.
    Slowly, like a ray of sunshine gleaming through a window, he rematerialized. He was staring at his hands, as if he were as surprised as she was.
    Once he was completely solid again, he crossed his arms on his chest. “The answer to your question, my dear lady, is yes.”
    Alexa squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them again, all pretense gone. Damon still stood above her, his expression handsomely smug.
    “Maybe this is a dream,” she muttered.
    “Perhaps. There is also the distinct possibility that instead of you freeing me from the portrait, I sucked you in with me.”
    “You’re just trying to scare me.”
    His brow furrowed as he considered the possibility. “Frightening women for sport is not the measure of a true man.”
    “What is?” she asked, annoyed at the unwelcome fear coursing through her.
    His smile was pure sin.
    She scowled to mask the sudden flare in her blood. “I can’t be in the portrait. Can I?”
    “Can’t say for certain. I appear to be free of the portrait,” he said, nodding toward the painting of the room that no longer had a sexy, sardonic man in the center, “yet I cannot leave this castle.”
    “How do you know?”
    “While you were unconscious, I attempted an escape. I was not successful.”
    “Can I