Black Ice - Anne Stuart [98]
She’d actually forgotten about the necklace. She’d taken it off, halfway across the Atlantic, and her father had locked it up in the safe once they got home. If only she’d remembered she could have figured out some way to send it back to him.
Or could she? She didn’t know his name, who he worked for, where he lived. She knew absolutely nothing at all about him. Except that he killed.
The evening light was an eerie blue-gray, and she glanced at the window, wondering where his car was. Wondering how he’d managed to get past the alarm system. Silly question—he could probably materialize through stone walls if he wanted. A commercial security system would be child’s play for him.
She watched with stunned disbelief as a few flakes of snow began to fall. It shouldn’t snow in April, not with the daffodils and the rest of the beautiful landscape about to bloom. He must have brought the storm with him, like the coat of black ice surrounding his heart.
He’d cleaned up the broken pie dish by the time she arrived back in the kitchen, and he’d made coffee. It annoyed her, but not enough that she refused the mug he handed her, rich with cream and no sugar, just the way she liked it. She wondered how he knew. In their time together she couldn’t remember having time for a leisurely cup of coffee.
“Here,” she said, dumping the diamonds into his outstretched hand, careful not to touch him.
He put the necklace in his pocket. Black, he was always wearing black, and today was no different. Whose blood was he hoping to hide?
She was being ridiculous. She took a sip of the coffee and couldn’t quite stifle her soft sigh. She hadn’t had as good a cup of coffee since she’d left Paris.
He was sitting at the breakfast bar, looking oddly at ease among the clutter. He didn’t belong there, she reminded herself, and she took another sip.
“How did you get past the security system?” she asked.
“Do you really need to ask?”
She shook her head. “I suppose that means it won’t be any protection at all if someone wants to come after me?”
“And why would they?”
“I don’t know. But then, I never understood why they wanted to kill me in the first place.”
“They’re all dead, Chloe. No one wants to hurt you anymore. And the security system is very good. Just not good enough.” His eyes ran down her body, and there was just the faintest trace of a smile at the corner of his mouth. “You look well.”
“Do we have to do this? You got what you wanted. Why don’t you get on a plane and go back to France and we can forget we ever knew each other.”
“I’d like to,” he said with his customary lack of flattery, “but there seems to be a small problem.”
“What’s that?” she said. She should sit. The hours in the hot tub, followed by the spring chill of an open window and the shock of seeing Bastien once more made her disoriented. If she blinked maybe he’d disappear.
“I don’t want to blink,” she said out loud, her voice sounding peculiar. Bastien looked odd as well—prettier than she remembered, which was certainly unfair of fate, and she would have said as much but she seemed to have lost the ability to speak.
“Then don’t blink, chérie,” he murmured. “Just close your eyes.” And the blackness closed in around her.
He caught her as she fell. He’d lied to her—nothing new. She didn’t look well at all. She’d lost weight, and she had circles under her eyes as if she hadn’t been sleeping well. It shouldn’t have been a surprise, but he’d hoped…he’d hoped to find a healthy, buoyant American female ready to hand him his head on a platter. She’d had time to recover, to move past things.
But she hadn’t.
He picked her up, carrying her into the living room. The big old sofa was covered with books and newspapers, and he swept them on the floor before laying her down. He’d probably given her too much—he’d calculated the sedative in her coffee based on her Paris weight and she was down at least ten pounds from that.
Still, it would just