And then someone had gone and destroyed that comfort zone by hiding a camera in the dressing room.
Thinking about the photograph taken without permission depressed her. In some strange way, Grace felt it was a judgment against her personal choices. Something essential to her mental well-being—something she’d gained only in the past year—had been stolen from her.
The thing was, she knew how to hide what she was really feeling. She’d learned from the best. No matter the situation, she could breathe and smile and pretend whatever someone did to her didn’t matter. She would project the image necessary for the evening as well as any other woman present.
Determined to forget about Declan and the blackmail scheme for the moment and put her mind to the cause of the evening, Grace stepped into the shower.
DECLAN DECIDED to stop by the office before heading home and was surprised to find his cousin Ian had returned from his field trip and was sitting at the receptionist’s desk at the computer. Ian was McKenna through and through—tall and broad-shouldered, with the black Irish good looks of all the men in their family. The one thing to set him apart was the color of his eyes.
Ian had forever taken a bashing over their muddy-violet hue, never as evident as when he looked up at Declan. “I finished earlier than expected.”
“Did you get what you needed?” Declan asked him.
“More than enough to convince Mrs. Randolph that her husband is not only having an affair, but also that he’s giving away marital monies. He bought the blonde an estate in the Lake Charles area worth upwards of a million dollars.”
“Does it ever bother you? Breaking up marriages?”
“I would say hold Mr. Randolph responsible for that, not me. I’m just reporting the truth of the matter. You need to loosen up, Declan. What private investigators do is a lot less structured than police work.”
“And usually less rewarding.”
Declan had worked for several years as a detective in the Criminal Investigation Division in Santa Fe. He wished he could say being a private investigator was equally fulfilling, but more often than not, his cases in the past six months since they’d opened their own investigation agency had been simple, bordering on boring. So far, Declan had avoided marriage disputes—Ian didn’t mind them—but he figured it was only a matter of time before his number came up.
“The thought of getting in the middle of someone else’s love life doesn’t appeal to me,” Declan said.
“You’ll get used to it.”
“No one could ever accuse you of being a romantic.”
Ian snorted. “You’re romantic enough for the both of us. Turning in your resignation on a job that was your life and leaving town all because of a supposed curse by some jealous witch of a woman.” He shook his head.
“Hey, it affects you, too, Ian.”
“If I believed in curses.”
“How can you not when you’ve seen the things that have happened to other McKennas who were descendants of Donal?” Declan asked. “Or what happened to my mother? Nothing like a scorned witch good at casting spells.”
Should Donal McKenna’s descendants find love and act on their feelings, they would put their loved ones in mortal danger. McKenna loves had died from illness, accident and even murder—and they’d all been young. Considering their McKenna relatives all had abilities that regular people didn’t, how could Ian shut his mind to the possibility that Sheelin O’Keefe had indeed cast a powerful hex on them all?
“As a private investigator, I’ve seen all kinds of terrible things happen in relationships,” Ian said. “Maybe we’re all doomed to heartache and unhappiness and we just aren’t aware of it until it happens to us.”
“Not everyone loses the love of their life to death.”
His mother had died from a mysterious fall before Declan was even born—he’d been taken surgically from her lifeless body. His survival had been a miracle. His father had remarried and Declan had several half siblings, but that relationship had been built on respect, not on romantic love. As an empath, Declan was as aware of that as he was of his father’s limited love for him. Padraig McKenna blamed him for the loss of the love of his life—not that he ever said so. But from the time he was a boy, Declan had sensed it, had sensed the difference in what Da felt for him compared to the others. It was something he had to live with, something he would never pass down to a child of his own.
“Now you’re just being dramatic,” Ian said. “There are McKennas very happily married.”
“But not without overcoming danger … and some of them aren’t married to their true loves,” Declan countered, wondering if Grace had ever found hers and had her heart broken. Thinking of the woman, he said, “Back to the new case I took on last night. I’m going to a charity event tonight where I’ll meet with Grace Broussard.”
“Lucky man.”
“It’s business, Ian.”
“She is single.”
“And a client.” Though a very beautiful, very desirable, very vulnerable woman.
“Which means you need to act in her best interests. whatever that entails.” Ian winked.
Sensing a surge of unadulterated lust wash over him from his cousin, Declan said, “Don’t get any ideas.”
“I appreciate the package, but she’s not my type. I want a woman with drive and big appetites for everything.”
Despite himself, Declan asked, “How do you know Grace doesn’t qualify?”
“I might not know Grace Broussard personally, but I know of her. At least enough to read her.”
Having grown up in New Orleans, having worked for a major private investigations firm before they started their own, his cousin had the pulse of the rich and famous, knew where the bodies were buried, so to speak.
“There’s more to her than you give her credit for,” Declan said.
Ian shrugged. “Grace Broussard has gone through life without goals. She went from school to school, job to job, never earning a degree, never settling down to a career, never developing a long-lasting relationship with a man.”
“Until Voodoo.”
“If you call that a career.”
“What would you call it?”
“A distraction. It won’t last, Declan. Nothing with Ms. Broussard ever does.”
“I didn’t get that from her.”
“Using your abilities to read her, are you?”
“You have an argument against my using another tool to help my client?”
“If that’s your story …”
“It’s not a story. Grace Broussard came to me for help. She thought it was an annoyance—a stalker—but there’s more to it. Someone is trying to blackmail her.”
“That’s a new turn. For doing what?”
“For doing her job.”
“You mean photographs?”
“Someone installed a hidden camera in her dressing room.”
Ian whistled. “What does the blackmailer want?”
“Don’t know yet. The demand will be