Ice Blue - Anne Stuart [96]
Taka set the dead mobile unit on the table, leaning back to stare at the poster on the wall. Battle Royale—dead teenagers and a bloodbath. Just Reno’s style.
Taka turned off the light. There was enough neon in the streets outside to fill the room with an unearthly glow through the slatted shutters, but he could make himself sleep in any situation, and his instincts told him a few hours rest was acceptable right now. Not actual sleep, but he could close his eyes.
And open them again, as he heard her move in the next room. She was restless and he knew why.
Summer had never done anything so insane in her entire, careful life. She had spent years avoiding pain, avoiding betrayal, avoiding everything that could rip her soul apart.
And she had been wise. At the age of twenty-one she’d chosen the safest, most gentle, least threatening lover, to prove to herself that there were no lingering shadows. She had three months of gentle lovemaking, all of it pleasant, all of it forgettable. And when Scott had left, knowing she could never love him, she’d had no interest in repeating the experience. It was enough to know that she could.
Instead, she’d filled her life with friends who wanted nothing from her and kept a watchful eye on her alarmingly bright little sister.
But Summer’s careful life had been shattered, invaded, body and soul, by the mesmerizing man who lay asleep in the next room. The man who’d showed her what her body was capable of, when she’d been better off not knowing. The man who’d saved her, threatened her, destroyed what she loved and taken the rest. The man who thought of her as a mission and nothing more, who used sex as a weapon, who killed without remorse. The man who would send her away tomorrow and never think of her again.
If she let him. It was the fastest, surest way back to some semblance of her safe life. She would never work at the museum again. She couldn’t leave L.A. as long as Jilly was there, but she could find something, anything else—some way to earn a living.
She could be a coward, and who would blame her? She’d faced death half a dozen times in the last few crazy days—surely she had the right to take the easy way out and just hide in her safe little world. She would know whether he’d managed to stop the Shirosama; either the world would descend into chaos or the cult would quietly disappear.
Takashi O’Brien might die and she’d never be told. He lived a dangerous life, and he had no regard for his own safety. He could die, and the only way she’d know would be from the hollow, aching wound inside her that never healed.
Maybe she’d lost her mind. Jet lag, lack of sleep, the stress of having people try to kill her had all combined to make her snap.
Except she didn’t feel weak or lost, but stronger and more sure of herself than she ever had.
She rose from the mattress on the floor, knotting the belt of the silk gown around her waist. The final message, from Hana-san’s hands. Would her beloved nanny have left it, and the urn, if she’d known the kind of trouble it would bring? The danger that would follow?
Summer knew the answer. Hana had protected her as a child and would have given her life for her. But she’d also made Summer the strong woman she was. Hana Hayashi had protected her heritage; she would have expected Summer to do the same, with no excuses.
What would she have thought of the man lying in that bed? Would she have approved? Approved of the crazy, inescapable fact that Summer had fallen stupidly in love with a man who could kill her? Or would Hana have given her a sharp pinch and told her to stop fussing? That was more like Hana-san—never one for sentiment when common sense would do. Never one for hiding from unfortunate truths.
And the unfortunate truth was that Summer had fallen in love with the wrong