Ice Storm - Anne Stuart [63]
“That explains Stephan. It doesn’t explain you. Why did you marry him?”
“I didn’t have anything better to do at the time.”
He ignored her caustic statement. “I imagine you were grateful. He saved your life, after all. I gather you were a pretty mess when he first worked on you.”
“Yes.”
“Yes what?”
“Yes, I was grateful. That’s the only reason I fuck.”
He said nothing, not rising to the challenge. “So you marry Stephan, became a proper French housewife for a while, and then join a covert group of operatives intent on saving the world from scum like me. I suppose I can take pride in motivating you.”
“By that time I’d forgotten all about you. I don’t remember much of that night, but I believed you were dead and that I’d killed you. Case closed. I met a great many people through my husband’s work. It was nothing more than being available when they needed someone. I joined the Committee. When Stephan died I became a professional.”
“Very professional. So what about James Reddy?”
“Shut up.” Her reaction was so strong and instantaneous that she didn’t have time to shield it.
Killian leaned back on the bed, apparently at ease. “I know you got over me easily enough, but James was another matter. Your one true love, I gather. Too bad he died so poorly.”
“Shut the hell up,” she said, feeling desperate. No one, not even Peter, had spoken that name out loud to her in more than ten years.
Killian sat up. “What’s the problem, princess? Is that guilt rearing its ugly head? You didn’t kill him—he died in a helicopter crash in Somalia.”
He wasn’t going to let it go. She could shut her eyes, cover her ears and start screaming, as she so desperately wanted to do. Or she could pull herself together.
She really didn’t have any choice. Peter had been right to worry about her. If she was at the top of her game Killian wouldn’t be able to mess with her head like this. She wouldn’t feel as if she was about to explode.
She’d never had a problem with a mission before, no matter who or what it had involved. It made no sense that this ghost from her past would be making her crazy, unless she was a little off to begin with.
That was it. It wasn’t him, it was her. She’d been under too much stress. All she had to do was get through the next day or so and she’d be safely back in her flat, where she could let herself go in privacy. For now all she had to do was keep it together so he didn’t realize just how fragile she really was.
“I sent him to Somalia,” she said, marveling at her ability to sound calm and detached. A cigarette would have done wonders for the image she was determined to project, but there was no way she was going to incite another wrestling match. “He got careless and he died. End of story.”
“Then why are you carrying around such a buttload of guilt? He can’t have been the only man you sent to his death. Not even the first man.”
“I loved him.”
She wanted to slap the slow smile off Killian’s face. “Tragic,” he said. “But you didn’t marry him.”
“We didn’t need to get married.”
“You didn’t live with him.”
How the hell did he know that? “That was unnecessary, as well. We had an understanding. And I still don’t see why you’re so interested in my ancient history.”
“I’m interested in everything about you, princess. Including why a medium level operative like James Reddy would have made the kind of fucked-up mistake that got him killed. You shouldn’t have sent him to Somalia in the first place—he wasn’t properly trained.”
“Goddamn it, how do you know…?”
“I know,” Killian said. “Just accept it. Why did you let him go to his death?”
Hiding wasn’t going to help. The only way out of this trap was to tell him the truth, calmly. “James and I were…close. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to have the kind of relationship he wanted, and he thought proving himself might change my mind. Instead he died. Badly. Not in the helicopter crash—he was still alive when they dragged him out of it. It took him anywhere from two hours to two days to finally