Cold as Ice (Ice 2)

Little Fox Island could have been designed just to his specifications, Peter thought a few hours later. The main villa was on a hill on the east side of the island, with a long, sloping path leading down to a pristine beach. The island was well out of the way of the normal shipping lanes, with a dangerous riptide that discouraged all but the most foolish of tourists, and the treacherous water took care of the rest. There were sharks as well—Peter didn’t know for certain but he expected Harry had had them brought in. As far as he knew, no one had managed to train sharks, but with Harry’s limitless resources he’d doubtless found a way to keep them nearby to ward off unwanted visitors. It would put a damper on swimming in the ocean, but Harry had both a traditional pool and a seawater tidal pool to make up for it. And it would keep interference at a minimum.

Renaud and Hans had lugged Harry’s unconscious body to the small shed by the dock and tied him up there. Not that it was necessary—the dose had been perfectly calibrated to keep Harry semicomatose until the time came. He wondered whether Harry deserved the kind of death he was about to get. He’d never know what hit him. Was it too harsh a punishment for his sins? Or was he, just maybe, getting off too lightly?

It didn’t matter. He didn’t waste his time second-guessing—as far as he knew no innocent person had ever been brought down by careless intel, at least by the Committee. The jobs were well researched, justified, and necessary for the greater good. Even if the details of this current mission were maddeningly vague, there was still no doubt about the catastrophic danger. The longer he stayed with Harry Van Dorn the more he’d discovered about the man’s rampant evil, and he suspected he’d only seen the tip of the iceberg.

He just wasn’t so sure of Ms. Genevieve Spenser.

She’d come with him docilely enough. He hadn’t bothered to tie her up or blindfold her—in the end it wouldn’t matter. Little Fox Island, or the greater portion of it, would be gone in an explosion—a faulty gas connection, they’d rule it. Unless he could figure out a way to get her out of there, she’d be gone as well.

She looked a little too damn good in the cutoffs. She thought she was wearing Harry’s clothes, and it gave him a wry kind of pleasure to know they were actually his. She wouldn’t like it. She was convinced that poor old Harry was the victim of terrorists, and she was going to keep fighting to save him. Which made her more than a pain in the ass, it made her a liability. He could tell her the truth, but keeping information on a need-to-know basis was instinctive. It didn’t matter whether she thought Harry was a good guy or a bad one. The results would be the same.

They’d gotten rid of the maintenance staff a couple of days ago, and there was a damp, abandoned air to the million-dollar villa. Unavoidable, he supposed. He’d been there before, during his tenure as Harry’s flawless personal assistant, and he knew everything he needed to know about the place. He hadn’t taken his current companion into his calculations, but he was professional enough to be able to adjust to changing circumstances.

He’d been holding on to her arm. She didn’t like it, and it wasn’t necessary. If she tried to run she wouldn’t get far, but for some reason he didn’t want to risk Renaud or Hans catching up with her, so he’d held on. He waited until they stood alone in the middle of Harry’s massive living room before releasing her, and he watched with amusement as she did exactly what he expected of her, yanking her arm away and taking several steps out of his reach. If she continued to be that predictable she’d be very little trouble at all.

“You can take the bedroom at the end of the hall,” he said, nodding his head in that direction. “You might even find some new clothes, though I doubt it. Harry’s guests were usually anorexic models wearing Victoria’s Secret. Not that you wouldn’t be delicious in sexy underwear, but I don’t think that’s what you have in mind right now.”

“You’re not going to lock me in?” she asked, clearly astonished.

He shrugged. “There’s no place to run to. The yacht is already gone.”

“Then how are you going to leave?”

“They’ll be back, though the SS Seven Sins will be looking like an entirely new boat. In the meantime there’s not much you can do, and I’d suggest you steer clear of Hans and Renaud. They’re not nearly as charming as I am.”

She made a low, growling noise at the back of her throat, but he kept his face impassive. It was no wonder he wanted to kiss her again. How many women growled at him?

“I’m hungry,” she said.

“There’s a kitchen. Find it.”

“What about the servants? Harry must have kept a skeleton staff out here.”

He could see the way her mind was working. She was looking for an ally, but in this case she was shit out of luck. “Long gone,” he said. “I’ve seen to it we’re on our own.”

Genevieve looked shaken. She probably thought he’d cut their throats and fed them to the sharks, when in fact they were enjoying an unexpected holiday at their employer’s expense several hundred miles away. It wouldn’t be the first time they’d been sent away—there were some things Harry enjoyed that were better off without even well-paid witnesses.

Genevieve was still standing in the middle of the room, staring at him. “Aren’t you hungry?” she asked.

He gave her his most charming smile, the one that his ex-wife had told him made her want to kill him. “Just a beer and a sandwich,” he said.

She threw a vase at him. He’d known it was coming, of course, because he’d been goading her to it. She had no idea of the cost of the particular vase, which was probably a good thing. He ducked, of course, and it smashed into a thousand pieces on the tile floor, seventy-three hundred dollars’ worth of antique French ceramic ware.

“You need more work on stealth,” he observed, opening the sliding doors to the cool tropical breezes. Harry had always kept the place air-conditioned, but the house had been well designed, and the trade winds cooled the place perfectly without the artificial air.

She didn’t throw anything else at him, though he was prepared. “You know what you can do with your beer and sandwich,” she said in a conversational tone. “Are you going to just let me wander around this place, unwatched? Aren’t you going to tie me up?”

“Only if you really want me to. You didn’t strike me as that kinky, but I’m game if you are.”

There were no more vases within her reach. “What’s to keep me from escaping?”

He dropped down on the couch, kicked off his shoes and put his feet up on the coffee table, stretching. “Number one, Renaud and Hans are wandering about, and while I told them to keep their hands off you they’re not very good at following orders. Number two, there’s nowhere to go—the yacht has gone, we’re hundreds of miles from the nearest island. And number three, there are sharks in the water surrounding the island. I think mines as well, thoug

h I’m not sure.”

“You’re kidding!” But she knew he wasn’t. “So what am I supposed to do, wait until you’re ready to kill me?”

“Or try to think of some way to escape,” he suggested.