Page 13 of Icebound

“It’s fucking complicated,” Jean-Marc snapped. “I’ve spent the last weeks working on blueprints and itineraries and the like, figuring out a way to make this foolproof. I can use the woman, get rid of her afterward.”

“I don’t know.”

“It isn’t your decision to make. You can report back to Le Fauçon, tell him to get someone else if he doesn’t trust my judgment,”

“You know he does. There’s no one he trusts more for this kind of job,” Luc said in a pacifying voice.

Jean-Marc watched him, his temper simmering. The moment he thought of using the woman, the more he liked the idea, and he had no hesitation at all about its success. He knew how to bend women to his needs. The woman in the bone room was already attracted to him, simply because he resembled her missing husband. A couple of nights and he’d have her eating out of his hand. A few more and he’d have her handing him the gun.

“All right,” he said with deceptive affability. “What do you think we should do with her?”

Luc considered this. “Keep her with us,” he said finally. “Whether you use her in the hit or not, she could have value. I’ve seen your effect on women—I have no doubt you can tame her. I’ve got to warn you, though, Flambeau won’t like this.”

“And I’m supposed to worry about…what did she call him? A henchman? He has no say in the matter.”

“Then it’s decided. We keep her alive. In which case, I’d better feed her.”

“Untie her and bring her in here. She needs to get used to her new lover.”

“Don’t rush things,” Luc said uneasily. “American women mistake clumsy flirting for rape.”

“You think I’d be clumsy about it?”

Luc laughed. “Of course not. Then is she sleeping with you tonight?”

“You’re right—there’s no need to rush things. We’ll give her time to get used to the situation. Put her in here—you can find a pallet somewhere, can’t you?”

“Sure, boss.”

Jean-Marc narrowed his eyes. Like Flambeau, Luc had a habit of calling him boss that annoyed him, but he let it go this time. He was the boss. Le Fauçon had sent Luc and Flambeau to help him, nothing more—in the end, he was the one who made the decisions.

And he’d decided. Killing the woman made sense, but for some reason, he didn’t want to. He had a use for her, and that was enough to keep her alive. He could always change his mind later. “Go get her,” he said, and Luc gave him a mock salute.

She was a pitiful sight when Luc brought her back in. Her blond-streaked hair was down, her face pale, and she was having trouble walking. Jean-Marc looked at her impassively. She’d clean up well—she had good bone structure, a patrician bearing that would work perfectly for the gala. All he had to do was convince her, and knowing American women, all he had to do was fuck her and she’d fancy herself in love. It would be easy enough—he looked enough like her errant husband to make it child’s play. He just had to regain a little lost ground.

There was a comfortable chair Luc had salvaged from some street corner, and he led her to it with a certain amount of solicitude. She stumbled, and he caught her, and she flashed him an automatic smile of thanks. Yes, she was quite pretty beneath her bedraggled appearance—she’d do the job well.

She sat bolt upright in the chair, long legs together, looking at him with ill-disguised distrust. “Are you going to kill me?” she said in a husky voice.

“No.”

Some of the tension left her shoulders and she sank back into the chair. “Are you going to let me go?”

“I’m afraid the answer is no to that one as well. I have a job for you. If you agree and perform it well, then you can go back to searching for your runaway husband. If not…”

“If not, you’ll kill me?”

“You’re an inconvenience and a liability. What would you do in my place?”

“Let me go,” she said promptly.

He shook his head. “I can’t do that, chérie. What is your name? I can’t keep calling you Madame or Chérie.”

For a moment he thought she wasn’t going to tell him, but she raised her head and her eyes met his. “Chloe,” she said with a trace of defiance. “Chloe Toussaint.”

If she expected some sort of reaction, she was going to be disappointed. He’d never heard the name in his life, just as he’d never seen her before. “Well, Chloe Toussaint, do you realize I’m not your missing husband?”

She looked at him quite fearlessly. “You’re not. Bastien would never stand aside and let a man hit me.”