Black Ice - Anne Stuart [94]
He wasn’t going to the States, that was one thing that was absolutely certain. America was a huge country, but if he set foot inside its massive borders he’d be aware of only one, dangerous thing. One woman. He wouldn’t do anything about it, but he would be unable to concentrate on anything else until he left again. Even Canada might be too close.
Switzerland might be a good choice, with its rigid neutrality. Or Scandinavia, maybe Sweden…
Christ, no! He was never going to be able to think of Stockholm again with anything other than…hell, he didn’t even know what he was thinking. His world was awash in her, contaminated by her. There was no place he could run that didn’t make him think of her. Maybe he did want to die after all.
Or maybe it was just part of his penance.
He was drinking too much, but what else could he do as he lay out in the sun trying not to think? Drinking and smoking, sleeping with the pretty waitress when he was drunk enough to forget. It was a good life, he told himself, settling his sunglasses on his nose and closing his eyes to the bright Portuguese sun. Maybe he could just stay that way forever.
His sun was blotted out, and he waited, patiently, for it to reappear. And then he opened his eyes to see Jensen standing beside his chaise.
He looked very different from the last time Bastien had seen him, across the room at the Hotel Denis where he’d been attending to Ricetti. His brown hair was longer and deep black, he was dressed in designer denim, and although his eyes were covered with sunglasses Bastien had no doubt they were some color other than his natural blue.
“Are you here to kill me?” he inquired lazily, not moving from his chaise. “It’s a pretty public place, and I’d hate to see you get caught. We’ve always gotten along well—why don’t you wait until I’m back in my room or alone on a deserted street?”
“You’re being melodramatic,” Jensen said, taking the chaise next to him. There was no visible sign of a gun, but Bastien wasn’t fooled. No operative would go out unarmed. There were too many unknown, unseen enemies. “If I wanted to kill you I would have done it back in Paris, when Thomason ordered me to, instead of letting you go.”
Bastien smiled faintly. “I thought it would be you. What made you change your mind?”
“Thomason is an asshole. He’s not going to be around forever, and you were too valuable a commodity to simply flush away.”
Bastien smiled faintly. “Sorry, Jensen. My services are no longer available. Go ahead and flush.”
Jensen shook his head. “I only kill when I’m paid to,” he said. “Don’t you want to know why I’m here?”
“If it’s not to kill me then I suppose it’s to talk me back into the fold. And you’re wasting your time. Tell Thomason he can go fuck himself.”
“Thomason doesn’t know I’m here, and he wouldn’t be very happy if he did.”
Bastien lifted his sunglasses to peer at his companion. “Then who sent you?”
“You and I weren’t the only Committee members at the meetings.”
“Tell me something I don’t know. Like who else was on our payroll.”
Jensen shook his head. “That’s need-to-know information, and as long as you’re out of the fold then that knowledge is too dangerous to spread around.”
“Fine,” Bastien said, pulling his sunglasses back down again. “I’m not coming back, and you can tell them that. You can either kill me or go away.”
“I’m not here to bring you back, I’m here to warn you.”
“I don’t need warnings, Jensen. I’ve managed to keep myself alive for this long, I can continue as long as I’m in the mood to.”
“Not you, Bastien. We both know you’re always in danger. It’s your little American. We think they’ve found her.”
Spring came early to the mountains of North Carolina, but Chloe was in no mood to notice. Her parents pampered her, her brothers and sister hovered, her nieces and nephews delighted her, but the raw, torn place inside her was still bleeding. Every time she thought it had scarred over something would remind her, and she’d start shaking again.
Maureen, when she fell in the snow, the knife flying out