Cold as Ice (Ice 2)

“It matters.” She could be cryptic, too.

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Except that he could read her so well. “If Harry’s dead you don’t have to factor him into your escape plan. If I were you I wouldn’t give Harry Van Dorn a second thought. His fate is sealed, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it. Concentrate on yourself.”

“I thought my fate was sealed as well, as you put it so dramatically.”

He smiled at that. “I’m a melodramatic kind of man. It’s part of the job description.”

A sudden stray chill danced across her exposed spine, and she wondered whether his implacable determination was finally getting to her. But he, of course, noticed and was far more pragmatic.

“You’re cold,” he said. “And it’s getting late. Much as I hate to suggest it, you should probably change out of that fetching bathing suit while I make us something to eat. As a matter of fact, it might be better for everyone if you stayed covered up. You tend to have a lascivious effect on me.”

He was mocking her again, and she wasn’t in the mood for it. “Yeah, right. You’re a helpless mass of frustrated desires.”

“I’m never helpless.”

There was something in his voice that stopped her, and she looked at him more closely. There was nothing to see. Despite the shadows, his face was rendered blank by the mirrored sunglasses and her mind reading hadn’t advanced this far.

“I don’t think—”

“You think too much,” he interrupted. “Stop trying to annoy me and go change your clothes. Trust me, I’m impervious.”

She believed him. At least for the moment. Another chill swept across her exposed skin, and she realized she was being stupid. No man in her lifetime had ever been rendered powerless by her supposed beauty, and it certainly wasn’t going to happen with an emotionless, cold-blooded killer. Even if he did have the mouth of a fallen angel.

She rose with all the dignity she could muster, but the effect was slightly ruined by her need to tug the strapless neckline higher. And she knew the eyes behind the mirrored sunglasses were following her every move. She just didn’t believe why.

“I just hope you know how to cook,” she said. “I’m starving, and I have no intention of dying on an empty stomach.”

And for once he let her have the last word, and she stalked away, refusing to look back.

“Wanna give me some more of that stuff?” Harry’s voice was slurred, more than it needed to be, but it managed to scare the hell out of Renaud, who’d been sitting outside the little hut smoking a cigarette.

“What the fuck?” he demanded, scrambling to his feet. “You’re supposed to be out of it.”

Harry knew the power of his smile, and he gave the squat little Frenchman full wattage, the one that made the most paranoid men in the world trust him and made presidents want to be his best friend. A little turd like Renaud was hardly immune. He must have been there on the boat—he looked vaguely familiar, but Harry seldom paid attention to the hired help.

“Hey, it takes more than that pussy drug you’ve been shooting into me to knock me out. It’s not even that good of a rush. Got anything stronger?” They’d tied him to a chair in the little shed, and he was stiff and uncomfortable. One more insult he needed to pay back, with interest, when the time came, and the little Frenchman was only one of many.

“You’re crazy, man,” Renaud said, leaning against the open doorway of the shed. “They’re going to kill you.”

Harry grinned. “The hell you say. I’m a lot harder to kill than most people would think.”

“You don’t know who you’re dealing with.”

“That’s right, I don’t. Am I being held for ransom?” He already thought he knew the answer to that one. He’d only been half out of it during the time in the stateroom, but he’d managed to gather that this wasn’t a financial operation but an execution.

He didn’t bother to wonder why—the problem was there were far too many people and organizations who’d want to kill him, and it would take days to even remember them all. It didn’t matter who right now. He just needed to get out of it. And for that he needed Renaud.

“No ransom. It’s not about the money,” he said.

“It’s always about the money, my friend,” Harry drawled. “You look like you’re a Pisces to me.”

“What the fuck is that?”

Idiots, Harry thought. “You must have been born in late February or early March.”

“Oh, that astrology crap. Just goes to show how much you know—I was born on Christmas Day,” Renaud sneered.