The Dark Glamour (666 Park Avenue 2)

He had even kissed her goodnight in the elevator – a long, slow, deep kiss that sent two completely different sets of shivers down her spine and into her legs. She had ridden the last two floors alone, breathing as hard as if she had just sprinted a mile. By the time she had stumbled into her suite, she had decided to wait and see . . . behind a well-reinforced door.
    A soft tapping came from the other side, and Jane realized that it was the sound that had woken her up. ‘Housekeeping,’ a tentative voice warbled from the hallway.
    Jane popped out of bed, on the alert and ready to read the mind outside the door.
Although it’s not like I could let her in, anyway,
she realized quickly, and rolled her eyes at herself. The barricade might realistically gain her a moment or two if angry witches were at the door, but for anyone else it was just an inconvenience. ‘Come back in an hour, please,’ she called through the door, and heard a shifting noise as the woman moved along down the hall.
    Out of the corner of her eye, Jane saw movement in the bathroom, and she flattened herself against the wall beside the door. It had been a person, she was sure: tall, with shoulder-length dark hair.
Like me,
her brain supplied.
Now, anyway.
She sighed heavily; she had got so used to the sight of her new face in the mirror that it didn’t usually startle her any more.
Will I jump at first when I see the old Jane again?
she wondered sadly, peering around the doorframe into the bathroom just to be completely sure there was no one there. Ella’s dark, almond-shaped eyes blinked back at her, and she straightened and returned her attention to her makeshift barricade.
    ‘All right,’ she murmured to herself, eyeing the taupe couch resentfully. ‘You first.’
    It took much longer to put her sitting room back in order than it had to demolish it. Jane felt sweaty and dishevelled by the time she had finished, but with the door unblocked, she felt perversely unwilling to turn her back on it long enough to take a shower.
I’m losing it,
she decided, but after the previous night’s drama it was hard to get her thoughts in order.
But if that’s what it takes to relax long enough to brush my teeth . . .
    Something rustled just on the other side of the door, and Jane jumped in the air, stifling a scream. But instead of the wood splintering to reveal a horde of angry witches, a thick ivory card slid anticlimactically under the door of her suite. She clenched her hands into fists, focusing on her breath until her heart stopped racing. Finally, she crouched and scooped up the card, fumbling until it was out of its envelope and right side up. It was unmistakably Lynne Doran’s stationery, but it took Jane a moment to make sense of its contents. Instead of the handwritten notes she had grown used to at the mansion, this was a printed invitation.
I guess that’s a message all on its own,
she thought, tracing the slightly raised lettering. Lynne had invited Ella to a cocktail party the following Friday . . . at 665 Park Avenue.
    ‘I’m in,’ she whispered. ‘How the hell am I in?’
    She paced the hall, her bare feet padding on the plush runner. André had clearly intended to bring Ella to the party as titled and tabloided arm candy to impress the Dorans – a tactic Lynne had apparently seen through. Once Jane arrived, though, someone on André’s side – maybe the ‘battleaxe’ sister that Laura Helding complained about – had pegged Jane as a witch. The Dalcaşcus couldn’t have known at first whether Ella was a Doran spy or a free agent with an agenda, but they had obviously realized quickly that it had been a mistake to allow her anywhere near the pending ‘merger’. But it had got completely out of their control, Jane realized thoughtfully, right around the time that she had obliquely mentioned Malcolm to Lynne. Lynne’s interest made Ella too valuable to attack or even just cut off. André would have to keep her close now . . . and his family would be waiting for any chance to turn the tables on her. This wasn’t the time to give up on her disguise; it was the time to work it for all she was worth.
    She had to be Ella – and only Ella – for a little over a week, and then she would be in the mansion and on to the next step in her search for Annette.
    Jane stepped into the dim, sticky-floored bar where she was supposed to be meeting Dee. Jane would be heading into the lion’s den tomorrow night, and Dee had agreed to