Fire and Ice - Anne Stuart [43]
Her sneakers were a little trickier, but she got them off and put them on the small platform before stepping inside. The apartment smelled musty, closed up, as if no one had been there for months, and Reno quickly strode across the small space, pushing open the door to the narrow balcony, letting in the cold winter air while Jilly looked around her.
Somewhere she’d gotten the impression that Tokyo apartments were small and crammed with possessions. This particular one was certainly small, but it had a Zen-like simplicity. There was a futon couch on one wall, a computer on the other. Bookshelves neatly organized, every space used, what looked like diplomas framed and hung on the walls. One was in French, from the Sorbonne, given to Hiromasa Shinoda, summa cum laude, from the school of engineering.
“Your friend is an engineer?” she said. “I thought you’d only know biker gangs and gangsters.”
“And secret agents,” he added. “Masa was a childhood friend and a wonk. We live very different lives, but we still share certain things.”
“Where is he? Isn’t he going to mind that we’re taking over his apartment?”
“He’s out of the country. Besides, I had a key, didn’t I? He knows I come here.”
“But why? Don’t you have your own apartment?”
“I do. Obviously the people who are working against my grandfather would know exactly where it is. This is where I go when I want to disappear.” He headed toward the small kitchen alcove, looking through the packaged foods. “We’ve got dried octopus here if you’re hungry.”
“Tentacles,” Jilly said glumly. “I don’t eat tentacles.” She wasn’t going into the tiny kitchen with him—it would put her too close and she was feeling too skittish. “I’m sure I can find something.”
“Are you trying to get rid of me?”
“You said you were going out to talk to your grandfather again. If you survive, you could bring some food back with you.”
“Nice,” he said. “If they kill me you can make do with octopus. In the meantime the bathroom’s behind you.”
She glanced over her shoulder. “I suppose he has one of those space-age toilets that do everything but cook dinner.”
“It doesn’t work from across the room, Ji-chan. You have to go in and sit.”
She glared at him. “And when I come out, you’ll be gone. What if you don’t come back?”
“I’ll come back.”
“What if they kill you?”
“I’m hard to kill. Go and use the toilet, Ji-chan. You’re making me uncomfortable standing there with your knees together.”
“You really are crass, aren’t you?”
“And you’re a puritanical American. People need to use toilets, even if you want to pretend they don’t.”
She was so tempted to stomp over to the sofa and sit, waiting for him to leave just to prove a point, but her body wasn’t giving her that option.
“You know I hate you, right?” she said, turning her back on him.
“I hope so. That’s what I’ve been trying to do for the past three days.”
She ignored him, sliding the door shut behind her. Just once she wished she had a door to slam, loud. There’d been no time for her to even catch her breath since she’d arrived in Japan, no time to even think about whether she loved it here or hated it, but one thing was definite—she missed slamming doors.
Not that she made a habit of it in her normal life, but recently things had been far from normal. And she’d never been around someone as deliberately infuriating as Reno.
But why? Why was he trying to infuriate her? It made no sense.
The uber-toilet, however, made perfect sense, and for the time being she had more urgent matters to contend with. Maybe later she’d find out why he was trying to make her angry. And why she was jumping for the bait so readily.
Jilly was pissed off, just the way he needed her to be. As long as she was angry she wouldn’t be frightened, and as long as she wasn’t frightened he could handle things.
He should have known she wouldn’t scare easily. Wouldn’t run, as he’d told her to. For a supposed genius she was damned stupid when it came to her own safety. And when it came to him.
He’d