Cold as Ice - Anne Stuart [45]
She balked when he brought her into a huge bedroom, but he pulled her past the bed as if it didn’t exist, and into a separate bathroom, half the size of her apartment. He pushed her down on the toilet seat and began to rummage through one of the many cabinets.
She regretted the loss of her wine more than the pain in her hand. She regretted that he touched her, held on to her so that she wouldn’t escape, more than anything at all.
She stopped thinking about it. She looked past him, out the screened window to the Caribbean night sky with its lopsided moon. It was a beautiful evening, the time and place for lovers, not death.
When she looked back at Peter he was almost finished bandaging her up. “Not as bad as it looked,” he said. “There shouldn’t be any permanent damage. The next time you slam a wineglass down on a granite countertop remember to let go of it faster.”
Next time. He’d released her hand finally, and she pulled away, looking up at him.
There was an unexpectedly gentle expression in his eyes. “Stop baiting me, Genny,” he said. “It doesn’t do any good, and it only upsets you.”
“And you’re so concerned about my well-being.” No one called her Genny anymore—that name belonged to someone younger, happier, more hopeful. Someone who thought she could make a difference in the world.
That girl was long gone, and there wasn’t much to be hopeful about in the current situation.
“Actually, I am,” he said, his voice light. “Now, come back with me and eat something, or I’ll carry you back, tie you up and force-feed you.”
He’d do just that, and probably enjoy it, she thought bitterly. And she wasn’t about to give him that satisfaction, or any other satisfaction at all.
She rose. She was almost five foot nine in her bare feet, but he was much taller, and even in the cavernous bathroom she felt crowded, alarmingly aware of his closeness.
“You win,” she said. “But then you always do, don’t you?”
“Not always,” he said. And his icy eyes were bleak.
He did what he had to do, Peter reminded himself, watching as the night breeze drifted in from the patio and stirred her long thick hair. He followed orders and seldom had reason to question them, even in the ruthless days of Harry Thomason’s reign. Madame Lambert was a more pragmatic soul, and if the hit was ordered he could trust that it was with the best of reasons. He was well trained, a veritable artist at his job, and he could make Genevieve Spenser’s eventual demise his masterwork.
Demise. Stupid word for an execution. Did you even call it that when it was a case of collateral damage? More like the fortunes of war, not execution. But Genny was no soldier, just someone in the way.
She didn’t eat much, picking at the food he’d prepared. A few more weeks of this and she’d lose the fifteen pounds that curved her body so nicely. Unfortunately she didn’t have a few more weeks.
He knew women’s bodies well enough to know exactly what she weighed and how much she considered to be unwanted extra. She wanted to be an anorexic clotheshorse like Harry’s recent taste in sexual partners. He’d be better off if she was. Maybe.
There was no question that her strong, curvy body was rapidly becoming an uncomfortable obsession. Seeing her in that poured-on bathing suit had only made things worse, and in his role as Harry’s majordomo he knew exactly what kind of clothes and underwear she would have found in that room. Was she wearing some enticing bits of lace and ribbon beneath that ridiculous, nunlike caftan? Or was she wearing nothing at all?
Neither thought was particularly comforting. She was doing her best to ignore him, and he was happy enough to let her get away with it. Because her undeniably luscious body wasn’t nearly as involving as her spirit.
She was a bundle of fascinating contradictions. She used her little pills to stuff down any unwanted emotion.