Ice Blue - Anne Stuart [53]
The bathroom door opened and he came back into the room, dressed in different clothes, his shirt buttoned, the leather jacket in place. “We’re leaving in half an hour. If you want to take a shower you’d better do it now.” His voice was flat, cool. The voice of a stranger.
She’d managed to pull herself to a sitting position, leaning against the wall, but hadn’t fixed her clothing. “Where are we going?” Although the words were familiar, the body she inhabited, the feelings she felt, were foreign.
“To get the Hayashi Urn, so I can complete my assignment. Don’t look at me like that. You know you’re a job. You were easier than I expected, but in the end it doesn’t make any difference. Everyone’s expendable, even your sister.”
“My sister?” she echoed through a blind haze of pain.
“The Shirosama has her, and he’ll be able to find out what he wants from her very quickly. And not as pleasantly as I did. We need to get to the urn before he does.”
“No…” Summer protested, but he simply moved forward, grabbed her arm and hauled her to her feet. “She doesn’t know anything.”
“The Shirosama won’t believe that until there’s nothing left of her to prove it. You can take a shower and try to wash away what just happened, or you can go like that,” he said. “Either way, we’re leaving in another twenty-seven minutes.”
“How do I know you’ll help her? What if I refuse to go with you?”
He shrugged. So beautiful, so cold. “Then I suppose I’ll have to leave you here…I can make it fast and painless—you won’t suffer. But I’m not leaving you to talk.”
The room was like an ice locker; the chill that emanated from him reached into her bones. If she exhaled she’d probably see her breath. But she couldn’t breathe.
“I’ll be ready.”
He watched her go, staring after her for a long, contemplative moment. He’d told her nothing but the truth. In the long run the pride of one California princess was a small price to pay for the safety of thousands, maybe millions.
Though in truth she wasn’t that much of a princess. She might be connected to Hollywood power and status, but there was none of the air of privilege and entitlement he found in most of the beautiful women he met, both American and Japanese.
But then, she wasn’t, in fact, a beautiful woman. She was pretty, an odd sort of thing. Pretty eyes, pretty soft mouth that he would have liked to explore, warm skin and gentle curves. Pretty, but unremarkable. The perfect Japanese bride his grandfather had chosen for him would make mincemeat out of her.
But that was a different life, one Taka would deal with when the time came. For now he was on assignment, and all that mattered was getting what he’d been assigned to get, no matter the price.
He grabbed his small duffel bag he’d found in the closet and headed out into the hall. He could hear her shower running, and he paused, wondering if beneath the steady beat of the water she was crying again. She’d been dry-eyed when he’d come back into the bedroom. Had he done enough to her to make her cry?
He shook his head, moving on down the stairs. She was tougher than that, he reminded himself. She’d pulled the tattered remains of her dignity back around her, shutting out of her mind what he’d just done to her. Right now he had to stop thinking of her as anything but a liability. Did she have any other bombshells hidden? Two kimono and a book. They could just be the last remnants of a life, or something more important. And in a situation where nothing was as it seemed, he was guessing Hana’s legacy was more important than Summer thought.
He made fresh coffee, finishing up the sashimi in the refrigerator. He heard her come down the stairs, but he didn’t turn, reaching into the refrigerator for the heavy cream. “Do you want some coffee?” he asked in a neutral voice.
“No.” Her voice was equally expressionless, and when he glanced at her her