Page 64 of Icebound

“Ah, the irresistible Jean-Marc strikes again. Don’t fuck her so well—she’ll be long gone.”

“I’m not fucking her at all. She’d probably give me some disease that would make my dick fall off.”

Luc made a face. “That means she’s probably going to go after me,” he said glumly.

“She’s all yours,” Jean-Marc said generously. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“I think some time off is a good idea,” Luc said, changing the subject. “I was getting worried about you.”

“Worried about me? Why?”

“I think you got a little too fond of our unwanted guest. Holding onto Chloe for as long as we did wasn’t the smartest thing to do.”

“She saved my life,” he said briefly. “I’d call that a smart choice. Did you have any luck finding out who the other shooter was?”

Luc shook his head. “There was no sign of him the next day. If he was hoping to protect LaDonna, he failed.”

“Yes,” Jean-Marc said. “We have you to thank for that.”

“I was happy to take care of it. We really had no other choice since you were missing that morning. Where were you?”

Jean-Marc shrugged, but he suspected Luc wasn’t fooled. “Trying to come up with a new scenario. Instead, you took over and got it done. Le Fauçon is very pleased with you. Me, not so much.”

“He won’t stay mad for long,” Luc said soothingly, and Jean-Marc resisted the urge to growl. He didn’t need to be soothed, particularly by the likes of Luc.

He didn’t need anything. Not even their semi-willing hostage with her large brown eyes and her soft mouth. He was perfectly fine.

She wasn’t made for solitary confinement, Chloe thought three days later. The only person she saw was one of the guards, bringing her to the toilet far too infrequently and providing meals. It wasn’t bread and water, but it wasn’t much better, a kind of watery stew with unrecognizable meat swimming in it. She could barely touch it.

It gave her too much time to think. About Bastien’s betrayal, about the dead woman in Como. Killing a modern-day saint was a bridge too far, and she wondered what Peter Madsen would do if Bastien ever remembered who he was. Kill him anyway, for the horrendous crime? No, Peter was a realist—he wouldn’t blame Bastien.

Which meant, if she ever got out of here, she couldn’t turn to Peter until Bastien knew who he was. Her children were safe with Peter and Genny, though she missed them desperately. It was up to her, and her alone, to see if she could make Bastien remember.

Would Swede and Sylvia notice she hadn’t called them in the last two weeks? Probably not—they were having the time of their lives at the archeological dig, and Genny would make sure they felt secure. She didn’t have to worry about them.

But she did. Her whole family was splintered, and she was alone in this fucking room with no idea how long they would hold her or how she was going to get out. And she really needed to pee.

He would have been fine, if he hadn’t dreamed about her. He never dreamed about women—he didn’t care enough. He should probably be taking Luc’s goddamn pills—they would make the dreams go away, wipe out the vague sense that something was wrong. He didn’t need to question things; he knew who and what he was. Didn’t he?

He woke with the scent of her, the feel of her, in his bed. Was that imagination or a hallucination? She was gone, back to her safe life in America, probably to her husband who looked like him. She would have what she’d been looking for. What had he been looking for?

It was in the drowsy minutes between sleep and waking when it was bad. He’d automatically reach for her, and she’d be gone. He’d wake up, furious at himself and her. How could one woman leave such a mark on him? He only knew that when he reached for her, it felt like home.

She was there now—soft and sweetly feminine, and he wanted her, needed her, needed to know she was safe, needed to know she was his. What the fuck was wrong with him? Did he really need those blue pills after all? It didn’t matter—he reached out, half-asleep, and started to pull her into his arms.

It was the smell of whiskey that woke him up, the excited little mewing noises, and his eyes shot open. It wasn’t Chloe—of course it wasn’t. She was long gone. It was a drunken Maddelena in his bed, her hands all over him, and he shoved her, hard.

She rolled out of bed and landed on her butt with a cry of pure frustration. “What’s wrong with you?” she demanded in Spanish. “Don’t you want a woman who loves you? What did that little bitch do, cut off your dick?”

He wasn’t in the mood to deal with her. “Go away, Maddelena. I’ve told you, I don’t want you.”

“You want your little plaything!” she shot back. “Well, she’s dead, so you might as well get over it.”

He froze, and then he was out of bed so fast that Maddelena couldn’t move in time. He grabbed her, yanking her to her feet, and shook her.

“What do you mean?” he demanded. “She’s back in America—Luc saw to it.”

“Luc killed her!” she screamed at him. “You don’t think my father would let her get away, after all she’s seen? He left her body in Como!”