Ice Storm (Ice 4)

She froze. He was between her and the door in their tiny cabin, and there was no way she was going to be able to get past him, at least not now.

She took a deep breath, certain that only she could hear its shakiness, and he stepped away, no longer touching her. She could breathe again, the iciness of her skin slowly warming.

“So sit down, Mary Isobel,” he said. “I’ll make another drink and you can tell me all about yourself.”

There was a banquette opposite the bed—the lesser of two evils. She sat stiffly. “I don’t care for another drink, thank you. You’d probably just drug me.”

“The notion is tempting, but I think I need you awake right now.” He stretched out on the bed, seeming perfectly comfortable, and with anyone else she’d be able to escape. She already knew his reflexes were equal or superior to hers. She wasn’t going anywhere unless he decided to let her.

She leaned back against the banquette, forcing her tight muscles to stop screaming and relax. If she stayed on high alert they might cramp, and she couldn’t afford to let that happen. She had to be ready to run.

“All right,” she said with deceptive calm. “What exactly do you want to know?”

The flash in his eyes was so brief she might have imagined it, if it weren’t for the shard of fear that spiked through her body.

“Time to catch up on old times. I want to know what was happening to you during the last eighteen years. Were you happy with Stephan?”

“What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

“Humor me. I was quite surprised to hear he’d married you. I wouldn’t have thought he was the marrying kind.”

“If that’s your way of sayin

g he was gay, then yes, he was. He also considered me his masterpiece, and he was enamored of his finest work.”

“That explains Stephan. It doesn’t explain you. Why did you marry him?”

“I didn’t have anything better to do at the time.”

He ignored her caustic statement. “I imagine you were grateful. He saved your life, after all. I gather you were a pretty mess when he first worked on you.”

“Yes.”

“Yes what?”

“Yes, I was grateful. That’s the only reason I fuck.”

He said nothing, not rising to the challenge. “So you marry Stephan, became a proper French housewife for a while, and then join a covert group of operatives intent on saving the world from scum like me. I suppose I can take pride in motivating you.”

“By that time I’d forgotten all about you. I don’t remember much of that night, but I believed you were dead and that I’d killed you. Case closed. I met a great many people through my husband’s work. It was nothing more than being available when they needed someone. I joined the Committee. When Stephan died I became a professional.”

“Very professional. So what about James Reddy?”

“Shut up.” Her reaction was so strong and instantaneous that she didn’t have time to shield it.

Killian leaned back on the bed, apparently at ease. “I know you got over me easily enough, but James was another matter. Your one true love, I gather. Too bad he died so poorly.”

“Shut the hell up,” she said, feeling desperate. No one, not even Peter, had spoken that name out loud to her in more than ten years.

Killian sat up. “What’s the problem, princess? Is that guilt rearing its ugly head? You didn’t kill him—he died in a helicopter crash in Somalia.”

He wasn’t going to let it go. She could shut her eyes, cover her ears and start screaming, as she so desperately wanted to do. Or she could pull herself together.

She really didn’t have any choice. Peter had been right to worry about her. If she was at the top of her game Killian wouldn’t be able to mess with her head like this. She wouldn’t feel as if she was about to explode.

She’d never had a problem with a mission before, no matter who or what it had involved. It made no sense that this ghost from her past would be making her crazy, unless she was a little off to begin with.

That was it. It wasn’t him, it was her. She’d been under too much stress. All she had to do was get through the next day or so and she’d be safely back in her flat, where she could let herself go in privacy. For now all she had to do was keep it together so he didn’t realize just how fragile she really was.