Cold as Ice - Anne Stuart [66]
She let out a soft cry, sitting up, then moaning as her head began to pound once more. Harry’s sheets, Harry’s house. But where? And how, and why? Her memories were jumbled… She could see herself kneeling in the sand. But she couldn’t remember how she got there.
Then on a small plane that took off in a swoop that almost left her stomach behind. Renaud hadn’t been on it, and she should remember what happened to him but she couldn’t.
Instead, she remembered what she didn’t want to remember. The huge yacht being blown to ashes, with Peter Jensen on board.
And she started to cry.
Once started, she couldn’t stop. The sobs racked her body, so heavy that she was shaking, and the more she tried to stop them the more powerful they became. She fell back against the pillows, and the tears ran down her face. She shoved a fist in her mouth to quiet the sobs, but it did little good. She finally she gave in, rolling over on her stomach and burying her face in the pillow.
Wherever the woman had disappeared to, it was taking her a blessedly long time to get back to her. Slowly, slowly her tears began to lessen, her sobs quieted, as reality began to drift back in odd-shaped puzzle pieces.
She wasn’t crying over Peter Jensen.
He who lived by the sword died by the sword, didn’t they say? A man in his profession would court death on a daily basis. It was only logical that one day the match would be made.
No, she had no reason to cry over Peter. It was only a natural response to the horrific few days she’d spent, a normal release of built-up tension. She would just as likely weep over Hans’s murder; she’d been forced to witness that in all its horror. Surely that was having a more powerful impact on her than Peter’s antiseptic death.
But she hadn’t slept with Hans. She hadn’t opened her arms and her body and God knows what else to him, letting him strip everything away.
No man had ever done that to her, leaving her so lost and vulnerable. And no man ever would again. She was delighted he was dead. Triumphant. She had complete revenge for what he’d done to her, how he’d made her feel.
And she burst into tears again.
“Come now, little lady.” Harry Van Dorn’s bourbonwarm voice slithered through her misery. “No need to cry over spilt milk. You’re safe and sound right here— no one’s going to hurt you.”
It was like a glass of cold water being thrown in her face—strange, when his voice was so warm and smooth. She wiped her face on the expensive sheets, her tears cut off, and looked up at him.
He looked the same—tanned, well dressed, wide, friendly smile. There was no sign of his recent imprisonment, whereas she was covered with bruises and scratches from her trip through the island paths. Either he was remarkably resilient or he had a good makeup artist.
She swallowed the last lingering shudder. “How are you feeling?” she asked.
“Hell, Genevieve, I’m fine. I’m as strong as a horse. It would take more than a few days knocked out on drugs to get me down. You’re the one who’s been through the wars. You’ve got stitches, and the doc says you suffered a concussion.”
“Where am I? How long have I been here? What happened?” Her voice sounded anxious, almost hysterical, and she wished she could call back her questions, sound calm and professional.
“Now, now, don’t you worry your pretty little head about a thing. We’ve got you safe here. And there’s no way anyone can get to you.”
“Get to me? Who would want to?” The concussion explained the pain in her head—was it also responsible for the fact that nothing seemed to make any sense to her?
“The people who are out to get me are a very smart, very powerful group of terrorists. They’ve been after me for a long time, and you screwed that up. Thanks to you we’ve now got a pretty good idea who they are and where they come from.”
“Thanks to me?”
“They found a crumpled-up note tucked in your shorts, and they were able to trace it to the man who wrote it. The man calling himself Peter Jensen. His real name is Madsen,