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• ISBN: 0373710763
• Publisher: Harlequin
• Pub. Date: August 2002
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Child Of Her Dreams

Harlequin Enterprises

Chapter One

Geena sucked in her stomach, and the Italian seamstress wielded needle and thread to take a tuck at the waist of her ivory silk creation. Holding her breath made Geena feel even fainter; she hadn't eaten for two days in preparation for the launch of a new collection of Milan's hottest designer.

Throbbing techno music swirled through the dressing room as models returned from the catwalk, hurriedly stripping off one set of clothes in exchange for another. Geena's tightly strung nerves jittered with the warring effects of too many pills and too little food and sleep. She reached for another cigarette.

Lydia, her agent, glided over and ran a hand down Geena's back, pinching as though testing for flab. Penciled eyebrows lowered under a fringe of jetblack hair. "You look ... fabulous, darling."

Geena tweaked the strands of her waifish coif and shook her head in self-disgust. "I need to lose five pounds before the Paris show."

"You seem on edge, Geena." Lydia eased the cigarette from between Geena's fingers and took a drag. "I've got plenty of girls for Paris if you want some time off at a Swiss spa."

Geena's heart raced at the thinly veiled suggestion that she wasn't needed. "I'm fine. Honestly."

"Think about it," Lydia said, blowing smoke overher shoulder as she drifted off to another client.

Geena's worried gaze followed her agent in the mirror. If Lydia wasn't insisting on her coming to Paris, if Lydia wanted her to take time out to go to a spa, Geena must be overweight. Maybe even on her way out.

Glancing at her image, she saw haunted blue eyes shrouded in gray and purple eyeshadow. Maybe Lydia wanted to replace her with some dewy-skinned teenager. At twenty-eight Geena was getting old to be a supermodel.

She was aware suddenly that her breathing was shallow and her rapidly beating heart had taken on an irregular rhythm. Please, no, not palpitations now; she was due on the runway in seconds.

She gulped air, trying to fill her lungs, scrabbled in her tote bag for a vial of pills and swallowed two with a gulp of mineral water. This was crazy. Forget Paris; after Milan she needed a break. After pushing her feet into a pair of four-inch heels, she made her way to the stage entrance.

The master of ceremonies detained her with a hand on her arm. "You okay, signorina? Your face, she is blanca - white."

Geena ignored the spinning in her head and gave him a brilliant false smile. "I'm fine."

She willed herself forward with an exaggerated sway of her hips and emerged into a blaze of klieg lights and popping camera flashes. Beneath the music and blinding lights she was uneasily aware of her erratic heart. For whole seconds she couldn't feel a beat. Then, just when she was sure she was about to die, blood thundered through the chambers as her heart raced to make up time.

She wanted to turn around right then, but the designer had paid big money for her to make an appearance. Smile, Gee. You can do it.

Midway down the catwalk, she faltered as pain traveled along both arms and a massive hand seemed to reach into her chest to squeeze her heart. She stopped dead and half turned, as if to go back to the dressing room. The next instant, everything went black.

Geena drifted upward, confusedly wondering where she was, what was happening. Below, a model lay facedown on the catwalk, long limbs sprawled awkwardly. A crowd had gathered around her, and people were shouting, gesticulating. Someone rolled the model over. With a jolt, Geena saw her own face staring unseeingly at her.

She was high above the room, floating among the klieg lights. Odd, she couldn't feel their heat. With detached interest she contemplated the hysterical urgency of the people trying to revive her. Some of the other models were crying. Excited shouts for a doctor yielded a small man in a black suit pushing his way through the crowd. Help was on its way, but it was too late.

She was dead. The babble of voices formed a wall of sound that she turned away from, wanting peace. A tunnel appeared before her, and she went into the cavernous darkness, marveling at the soft, warm atmosphere. Then she was moving, traveling faster and faster through the darkness amid strange whooshing noises that came from nowhere. A pinprick of brilliant white light came into view. As she came closer the light grew larger and brighter, like the light of a trillion suns.

The light was good; she yearned toward it and eagerly allowed herself to be drawn in, for the light was love. Love and joy transcendent, bliss greater than anything she'd ever known. She felt incandescent, glowing with love and peace like the filament of a million-watt lightbulb. Was this a dream? Had doctors pumped some reviving drug into her veins? Perhaps any second she would wake up.

The light vanished. She was in a small room with pale-green walls. Brown vinyl settees stood catercorner to an end table strewn with magazines and comic books. On one wall was a poster of a giant tooth being scrubbed by a cartoon dolphin, and in another corner stood an empty coatrack.

Geena looked again, and on one settee sat a woman reading a tattered copy of Good Housekeeping. She had long straight honey-blond hair parted in the middle, and her slim figure was clad in a seventies-style lime-green pantsuit.

The woman shut the magazine. Eyes glistening, she rose and reached out. "Geena. My baby."

"Mom?" Tears came to Geena as she was folded in loving arms. She was only three years old when Sonja Hanson had died, but deep in Geena's heart and mind was the indelible memory of her mother's scent, the loving timbre of her voice, the safety of her embrace. "Mom, is it really you?"

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Excerpted from Child Of Her Dreams by Joan Kilby Copyright © 2002 by Harlequin Enterprises
Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

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