Black Ice

She wouldn’t be answering for another six hours at least. He laughed, at himself, and sat up. There was time. With no weapons, her clear mission was to gather information, and he could ensure that anything she discovered didn’t make it past the walls of the château.

There was time.

Chapter 5

Chloe had never been one to wake up slowly. She tended to be alert immediately, and she was nauseatingly cheerful, while her sleep-fuddled siblings and parents threatened her with death or dismemberment if she didn’t stop the damned humming.

That morning was no different, except when her eyes popped open she had no idea where she was.

She decided not to panic, since panic tended to be a waste of time. She lay still, unmoving, and let memory sink back in. The château, and her sucker agreement to take Sylvia’s place. Too much wine last night, and Bastien Toussaint’s practiced mouth.

She hadn’t been kissed in months, so it was no wonder she could still feel the pressure of his lips against hers. Too bad she couldn’t have just let herself go with it. So what if it had been a performance on his part? He probably performed very well indeed.

But she’d always been too picky and too stubborn, and as her friends would tell her too American to really enjoy the pleasures of casual sex. And while a roll in the hay with someone like Bastien would be memorable, she didn’t really like having nothing but memories to hold on to.

She sat up slowly, putting her hand to her head in anticipation of the searing pain she absolutely deserved for drinking all that red wine, but it didn’t come. She gave her head a tentative shake, preparing for the delayed blast of pain, but felt nothing.

She glanced at the bedside table. She’d had a final cognac before she’d fallen asleep—she thought she could remember that much. She hadn’t been more than tipsy; it was odd that she couldn’t remember more. She’d had some cognac, and she thought she remembered dropping it. Falling.

But she was lying in the big, comfortable bed, the brandy snifter was sitting on the tray with just a trace left in the bottom, and she must have drunk even more than she realized.

She pushed back the cover and swung her legs over the side of the bed. And then stopped. Her…or that is…Sylvia’s nightgown was made up of silk and a row of tiny ribbons, but half those ribbons were unfastened, from the hemline to the waist. What had she been doing?

Nothing much fun, she decided after she’d showered and dressed and arranged herself in a decent repetition of Sylvia’s borrowed chic. She eyed the fawn leather shoes with their pointed toes and high, thin heels, and moaned. Maybe she could tell them she had Japanese blood and needed to go without shoes.

No, that probably wouldn’t fly. Much as she would have liked to have an interesting bloodline, she was depressingly, blandly WASP, and no one was going to be fooled into thinking otherwise.

She made it downstairs without getting lost, just in time for a light breakfast of coffee and fruit before the work began. The participants were seated on either side of a long conference table, and a number of them were accompanied by assistants. Except for von Rutter, who was accompanied by his sleek and beautiful wife Monique.

Hakim was at the head of the table, and he gestured to one of the empty places to his right. Toussaint wasn’t in the room, she realized as she sat, setting her cup of coffee down on the burled walnut carefully. Maybe fate was going to be kind after all.

She should have known better. He appeared a moment later, with his own coffee, and took the remaining seat. Beside her.

She listened to the proceedings with only half an ear. A moment of silence for their late colleague, Auguste Remarque. She’d heard that name before, but she couldn’t remember where. It would drive her crazy until she found out—maybe she could simply ask someone. Or maybe she should just keep quiet and try to blend into the background.

There wasn’t much to keep her mind occupied over the next few hours. The organization of food importers were arguing about redistributing territory, and while Chloe had a great fondness for lamb and oranges and a well-cooked chicken, there was a limit to her fascination. The discussions she was asked to translate were dull to the point of madness, she’d always found numbers tedious, and units of chickens and piglets and barrels of corn couldn’t even excite the failed chef inside her. The others at the table seemed to find the discussion endlessly fascinating, and given some of the numbers she was translating she could imagine why. In euros, dollars or pounds they were talking a very great deal of money. She hadn’t realized grocery importers amassed that kind of wealth.

Because she was seated at the top corner of the table she had to turn to look at the speakers, and the man next to her was always just in her line of vision. Despite her hyperawareness, he seemed to have lost all interest in her, barely registering her existence. Since he spoke both French and English she wasn’t required to translate for him, and she could lean back in her chair and pretend to ignore him as well while she doodled on one of the pads of paper they’d set in front of them.

There was only one moment of trouble during the long, tedious morning. There was a word she didn’t know—no great surprise, though she was very fluent.

“What is ‘legolas’?” she asked, “apart from a character in The Lord of the Rings?”

Dead silence in the room, only the sound of a cup rattling in a saucer. They were all staring at her as if she’d asked them about their sex life or, even worse, their yearly income, and then, for the first time that day, Bastien addressed her.

“‘Legolas’ is a breed of sheep,” he said. “Of no particular concern to you.” Someone in the room snickered, whether at his cool dismissal or something else.

“Don’t ask questions, Miss Underwood, simply translate,” Hakim said. “If you’re incapable we can find someone else. We don’t want our progress impeded by incompetence.”

Chloe had never responded well to public reprimands, and she’d already decided she didn’t like Hakim very much. At that point she would have liked nothing better than to be driven back to Paris in that luxurious limousine and never see any of these people again.

Wouldn’t she? She kept her glance away from the man beside her, but she knew perfectly well she wasn’t going to leave before she had to.

“I beg your pardon, monsieur,” she said in French. “If I don’t need to know the meaning of a word I certainly won’t ask. I just thought it might help if I had a better understanding of the subject.”

“Better watch it, Gilles,” Monique said with a throaty laugh. “Bastien wouldn’t like it if you bullied his little pet.”

Bastien lifted his eyes from the table. “Jealous, my sweet?”

“Stop it!” Hakim snapped. “We don’t have time for these petty little squabbles.”

Bastien turned to Hakim, and in doing so, had no choice but to look at Chloe. His smile was beatific, and he lifted his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Forgive me, Gilles. You know I’ve always been easily distracted when a beautiful woman is around.”

“I know you’re only distracted when you want to be, and so do the others. There’s too much at stake to waste time with this kind of thing. This is too important.”

Ducks and pigs and chickens were too important? Fortunately Chloe simply blinked. It was only natural that an importer would think that whatever he imported would affect the fate of the world. The people at the table seemed totally devoid of any sense of humor, but then, financial matters had a tendency to make people deadly serious. She would have to control her own random frivolity.

Hakim rose. “We’ll break for lunch. There’s nothing more we can do at this point.”

“Good,” Bastien said. “I overslept, and I’m hungry.”

“You’re not going to be eating.” The other people were filing out of the room, and Chloe was doing her best to go with them, but she was essentially trapped between the two men. “I need you to do me a favor,” Hakim said.

Too close. “Excuse me,” Chloe interrupted, trying to sidle past him.

“You’re part of the favor, Miss Underwood,” Hakim said, putting a hand on her arm to stop her.

Men in France liked to touch women. For that matter, men in North Carolina did as well, and friendly touches were a matter of course.

But she didn’t like the feel of Hakim’s hand on her arm. Not one bit.

“Of course,” Bastien said immediately, glancing at her stubborn face with palpable amusement. “What would you like us to do?”

“I have an errand for Miss Underwood, and I’d appreciate it if you’d drive her. I need some books.”

“Books?” Chloe echoed.

“For my guests. They won’t be working all the time, and they must have something to occupy them in their off-time. You would know what’s needed, I’m sure, given your experience in the publishing business. Just get a handful in the most common languages. French, English, Italian and German. Something light and escapist—use your judgment.”

“But what about the limousine?” she stammered. “It seems a shame that Monsieur Toussaint has to waste his time on an errand like this instead of continuing with the work.”

“Monsieur Toussaint is more than happy to have a chance to escape for a bit, aren’t you, Bastien? Particularly in the company of such a lovely young lady. And the limousine is being serviced—it’s unavailable.”

Now why on earth would he lie to her? He wouldn’t—there was no reason for him to trump up an excuse to get rid of her. He could simply fire her ass and have done with it.

“And the work this afternoon?” Bastien sounded completely unconcerned. “We wouldn’t want to miss anything.”

“Don’t worry, Bastien. I’ll be looking out for your best interests, you know that. We all rise and fall together. And we’re far from coming to any kind of conclusion as to who will take over as head, not with Mr. Christopolous still absent. This afternoon will be simply jockeying for position. You can safely take the afternoon off and enjoy yourself. Take Mademoiselle Underwood for a nice long lunch in St. André. There’s no hurry.”