Mal stayed where he was for a moment, clinging to the broken step. Beneath him, there was no scream, only the sound of the surf. Not even Archer MacDonald could survive a fall like that. He was dead, gone, that quickly, after such an interminable time. So why didn’t Mal believe it?
He took a deep breath and began to pull himself up onto the remaining flight of stairs. It shook beneath him, and it wasn’t going to last long. With his final ounce of strength he surged upward as the rest of the wooden structure let go and crashed down on top of where Archer MacDonald would be lying, and Mal landed on the crumbling cliff just as the lightning split the sky once more, and the rain poured down on his weary body.
Sophie thought she heard a scream. She’d fallen asleep on the sofa again, a little creeped out by the darkness overhead, and she woke up with a start. She could hear nothing but the wind, which had picked up once more, and then, a few sleepy moments later, a huge clap of thunder followed by another deluge. She sighed. She’d known the storm wasn’t over yet, but she’d hoped.
It was marginally lighter outside, but with the storm she had no idea whether it was dusk or dawn or even high noon. She’d left her watch upstairs. Time had been so meaningless over the past few years, and keeping track of it only made things worse—she’d stopped thinking about it, structuring her solitary days on her own terms. There was no clock in the vast living room, or if Archer had added one it was lost in the shadows. She was exhausted—and until the power came on there was nothing she could do but think about the man she’d tossed into the cellar and wait to hear whether he survived, whether he made enough noise . . .
It was driving her crazy. She was going back to bed. The short-lived calm of the storm disappeared, and it was raging with a vengeance, and even if the mad scientist in the cellar had managed to get here in one piece, she had very strong doubts she’d be able to leave—at least, not quite yet.
She headed up the stairs, leaving the remains of her picnic dinner and Chekowsky’s drugging on the glass coffee table. The sofa, for all its enveloping, even smot
hering comfort, provided very little support, and she was used to sleeping on her hard-as-nails mattress. She got to the top of the landing and hesitated.
Goldilocks had rejected too soft in the living room, and now the thought of her own hard bed was less than appealing. Hell, she could make all the excuses she wanted, but she was going to sleep in his bed, in his sheets, and she’d always planned to.
The door to the balcony had blown open in the storm, leaving the floor of Mal’s room wet, the room filled with the fresh ozone of a tropical storm. Leaves and flowers scattered the room, blown in by the wind, and she wanted to laugh. The bed itself was unmade—Archer must have sent the servants off-island before they finished their morning routine. Of course he had—he’d clearly wanted everyone gone before she woke up.
After setting the gun down on the bedside table, she shoved her shorts and underwear down her legs, then untied the dress shirt and pulled it over her head. It had felt good wearing those clothes today. It had been a spit in the eye of an undiscriminating fate, a way to take back what had been stolen from her. She slid into bed, pulling the bamboo sheets around her body.
It had been so long since she had slept naked, and the feeling was heavenly as she stretched between the soft sheets. She closed her eyes in the semidarkness, and Mal was all around her, the feel of him imprinted in the bed, the sheets wrapping around her like strong arms.
She’d had too much wine, too much stimulation. She was half drunk and well past making any sensible decisions. When she woke up she’d shower if the gravity-fed water still allowed her to, dress, and head down to the beach to find a way off this place. No matter how violent, storms couldn’t last that long, and it should start to clear before much longer. The seas would be choppy for a while, and she’d put it off as long as she dared, but in the end, what better reason was there to risk her life but for freedom?
She rubbed her face against the pillow like a kitten rubbing against a stroking hand. She could smell his skin, she thought, not sure how she recognized it. Not sweat or cologne, just something indefinable that made him there with her, and she knew she should get up and go to her own room, knew this was dangerous in her current condition, but she couldn’t bring herself to move.
She sighed, settling in more deeply, but the exhaustion that had been chasing her downstairs seemed to have traded itself for unruly thoughts. She had every right to luxuriate in this bed. In his bed. She’d spent enough time in her own narrow bed to last her a lifetime, and where else was she going to go, Archer’s vast bedroom? Not if she wanted to keep from throwing up.
There was just one problem, she thought, opening her eyes to the murky darkness. Lying naked in his sheets effectively stripped away whatever defenses she had left. She was the very essence of vulnerability where she lay, and her choice was simple. Leave his bed, and all uncomfortable thoughts of him, or stay where she was and accept things.
She wasn’t moving.
All right, she thought. Let’s look at this from a practical standpoint. Her reaction to him was completely logical—it would have been odd if she hadn’t responded. A, he was gorgeous in his lean-hipped, clever kind of way. B, even if he hadn’t actually offered her a way out of this mess, his appearance on the island had been a catalyst for change, and it was normal to feel grateful. C, he was . . . sexually capable. He had aroused and then satisfied her more than anyone she’d ever been with, but she could blame her long abstinence for that. Besides, wasn’t danger an aphrodisiac?
E . . . or was she on D? Anyway, he was the first and only person who knew the truth about her, that she could walk, that she was filled with fury, not forlorn love for Archer. The very thought of that made her ill, but she’d been playing her part so well for the past few years that a lesser woman might even start to believe it.
So why else was she so infatuated with the man? He’d given her a gun, then taken it away from her, putting her in danger, but then returned it, and it had to qualify as the best present, under the circumstances, in the history of present giving. His light mockery annoyed and aroused her. He was a smart man, and not a sociopath, and she’d always had a weakness for smart. He’d stood up to Archer for her, the first person ever to do so, and he’d succeeded. He’d kissed her when she thought she’d never be kissed again. He’d held her when she shook and wept. He had wickedly clever hands, and she wanted . . .
Damn. Erotic fantasies had no place in this bed, she thought, moving beneath the sheets. She had to stop thinking about him, about his body, the smoothness of his skin over taut muscles, the taste of him in her mouth, the warmth of his body against hers, the . . .
“Oh, fucking hell!” she said out loud in total disgust. The more she fought it, the more power it had over her. She might as well accept the fact that she had a . . . a crush on him. Like a lovesick teenager.
She tried that notion on for size, but it didn’t feel right. There was no fluttering in her heart when she saw him, no worrying about what he thought of her. He probably disliked her as much as she disliked him. Which was monumental, of near-nemesis proportions, and . . .
There’s a thin line between love and hate. Where did that come from? And how stupid was that—if you loved someone, you cared about him, worried about him, wanted to do things for him . . . you loved him. If you hated them, you wanted them dead. Very simple and mathematical.
There was an easy way to put it in perspective, she told herself, rolling over in the bed. The mattress was perfect, neither too hard nor too soft, the sheets were like smooth silk, and she couldn’t get comfortable.
Love was sacrificing your own good for others. It was about compromise, about letting go. If someone wasn’t getting off this island alive, and it was up to her to choose, would she choose Mal or herself?
On the face the answer was easy. She’d fought long and hard to survive—there was no way she was giving up now. She hadn’t killed anyone just yet—unless she’d accidentally offed Dr. Chekowsky—but Malcolm had. She was basically a good person, determined to do the moral thing within the ruthless confines of the Committee. She doubted the same thing could be said of Malcolm. He wasn’t evil, but he certainly wasn’t good.
She’d been a complete idiot, surprising considering the time she’d spent in the State Department. The Committee was responsible for some very bad things. Collateral damage kind of things. Innocents killed. Stable governments destroyed. Bad people getting their way. If Mal were to die, his death wouldn’t have any impact on her life. Once she got off this island, she was never going to see him again anyway.
If she ever had to make some kind of Sophie’s choice and decide whether she or Mal survived, there was no question. She closed her eyes, picturing a firing squad aimed at the two of them, and only one of them going down, riddled with bullets. No, her choice of who would live was simple.
Malcolm Gunnison.
“Stupid bitch,” she said out loud, disgusted with herself. But the bottom line was that it mattered. Whether she ever saw him again or not, she needed to know he was still alive, was still being a pain in someone’s ass. She tried to talk herself out of it—picturing him in bed with all the other women who would follow, picturing his snark and mockery. He was the one who should get the bullets, not her.