The Man She Loves To Hate

There would have been no coming back from that.

His mother the society maven would have crumpled completely.

Hannah, his sister, was stronger than that. Hannah would have made him pay dearly for subjecting the family to yet more scandal.

Only the gossip mongers would have been satisfied, but not for long. They never were.

He’d wanted a woman to lose himself in—and there were plenty around—but even that small comfort reeked of his father’s legacy. Of thoughtlessness and recklessness and appetites not easily sated. And maybe Cole had outgrown thoughtlessness a few years back, and maybe he did his best to check his recklessness, but on that third count he was as guilty as sin.

When it came to women and sexual relationships he didn’t satisfy easily. When it came to the mindless use he would make of a woman’s body tonight and how little chance she had of engaging his emotions, well … no woman deserved that. Better for everyone to simply practise what his late, great father had never practised and do without.

His mother had organised a wake for after the funeral, but Cole didn’t intend to put in an appearance there, either. He’d come up the mountain instead. To mourn his father in his own way and in his own sweet time.

If at all.

The enclosed ski lift was a new addition to the mountain and one he’d been in favour of. It had replaced a series of ageing four-man chairlifts and doubled Silverlake’s profits overnight. The sport of skiing had changed. Braving the elements and putting some effort into getting uphill was no longer part of the on-slope experience. Not any more.

These days it was all about comfort.

He looked up at the gondola control-tower windows and sent his father’s ski-field manager a wave. Why Hare hadn’t been at the funeral was anyone’s guess, but the big Maori always had been a law unto himself.

Loyal to James Rees though. Utterly.

A bundled-up youth stepped out of the tower and headed towards the waiting gondola, slipping into step some distance behind Cole and locking down doors and gates behind them. Cole shrugged the snow off his coat and swiped a hand through his hair once he got beneath the boarding station roof. The gondola door stood open and a duct-taped box sat just inside the door. Cole crossed to the opposite wall of the gondola and leaned back against it, hands in his coat pockets for warmth as he waited for the boy to finish closing up.

Cole wasn’t dressed for the ski fields. Beneath his heavyweight woollen overcoat he was dressed for a funeral. The only concession he’d made towards the mountain had been to exchange dress shoes for snow boots.

It hadn’t been enough. Not for this weather.

The youth finally reached the gondola and slipped inside, shedding snow as he shut the door behind him. Small for one of Hare’s chairlift workers, thought Cole absently. Hare usually employed them bigger. Brains aside, brute force was always an asset on the mountain and everyone who’d ever worked a mountain knew it.

Hare’s sidekick—hell, he was just a kid—settled in beside the box. Feet body width apart, knees slightly bent, he leaned against the wall and window in much the same way as Cole had done. Snowboarder, if the stance was anything to go by. Hardcore, given the mismatched clothes. No fancy be-labelled outfit, no swagger at all, just a quiet competence that drew the eye and held it. This one would be all about the thrill that came of mastering a peak, and the next one and the one after that. Nothing to prove to anyone but himself.

Cole envied him.

His next few months would be all about proving to bankers and shareholders that he was every bit as good as the old man when it came to managing the family holdings. As if he hadn’t been raised from the cradle to just this position—learning the Rees businesses from the ground up at his father’s command. No quarter asked for and none at all given.

James Rees had been told he was dying two years ago. He’d been handing Rees management over to Cole ever since. Teaching by example. What to do. What not to do. And how to recover. Making Cole admire him in so many ways. Making Cole care about the businesses under his control and the people employed within them.

Always two steps ahead of any game, James Rees. Except when it came to thinking that his high-born wife and his stunningly sensual mistress could coexist peacefully in this town.

When it came to that, James Rees had been a fool.

Cole knew what his father had seen in Rachel Tanner—he hadn’t been blind as a boy and he wasn’t blind now. A simmering sensuality that hit a man hard. Unapologetic awareness of a man’s deepest desires. Full knowledge of how to satisfy those desires—a knowledge that Cole’s puritan, well-mannered mother had wholly lacked.

James Rees had wanted. James Rees had taken. He might have even got away with it if he’d left it at that. If he’d only done it once. Or twice.

Instead he’d had to have it all and to hell with the pain it had caused those around him.

The gondola moved off smoothly while still within the protection of the station walls and roof. And then the wind hit, and snow peppered the windows, and the ride got considerably rougher. It was an automatic response for both Cole and the kid to look up at the cable join, just checking, as the wind lashed against fibreglass walls.

The kid glanced at the intercom on the wall of the cable car next, as if assessing the need to contact Hare. Cole glanced at it too.

‘The front’s still a way off, according to the forecast,’ said the boy finally, his voice cracked and barely audible beneath his scarf.

Cole nodded. He’d seen the storm rolling in from the lookout. The kid would have been monitoring radar loops on Hare’s computer deck. Cole adjusted the boy’s probable age upwards a couple of years on account of his composure and conversation. No point trying to judge the boy’s age from his face—about the only thing visible was his mouth.

Lord, what a mouth.

Cole looked away. Fast.

What the hell was wrong with him?

Another gust of wind shook the gondola, slinging it sideways, causing both him and the youth to look up again, always up, to what held them.

Again, the boy glanced at the intercom.

Again Cole studied what he could see of the boy’s face beneath the hat and the goggles and the scarf. And looked away, disquieted.

The wind settled, the gondola steadied, nothing to worry about there. Nothing to worry about when it came to his reaction to Hare’s chairlift operator, either. Today he was just … off. For too many reasons to count.

Only eleven more minutes of this ride to go.

No point staring out of the window at the view; visibility was down to zero.

Nor did it seem advisable to stare at Hare’s lift operator.

That left the box.

Grey-brown in colour, with a removalist’s name stamped on the side. Wet at the bottom with one corner slightly concertinaed in. The top of the box patchy damp too, and hastily taped shut. All function over form, just like the youth standing next to it.

The kid shifted restlessly. Cole beat back the urge to look at him and kept his gaze pinned to the box. Just a wet and battered box. Nothing noble about it at all.

Ten minutes to go.

The gondola began to rise as it neared the first of seven cable tower connections. The hair at the nape of Cole’s neck started rising too. Hare’s youth was studying him now; he could damn well feel it.

And his reaction was pure heat.

The lift shuddered, jerked and stopped.

Cole’s heart thumped hard and settled to an uneasy rhythm. Probably Hare just slowing them down on account of the wind and the approaching tower. But the gondola did not start inching slowly forwards. It stayed right where it was, swinging hard.

Keeping his hand lightly on the handrail, Cole made his way to the two-way and pulled it from its bracing. Just like the kid, he’d worked the lifts on this mountain and plenty else besides. He knew the drills. ‘Hare, you there?’

But Hare did not reply, and neither did the operator supposedly manning the base station. Not good. The kid said nothing, just watched him through those blasted ski goggles and chewed on his full lower lip. Cole’s own lips tightened in reply.

‘Hare,’ he barked. ‘Can you hear me?’ And when there was still no reply he shoved the two-way back on the wall and fished his mobile phone from his coat pocket. No signal. Not that he’d held out much hope for one. White-out did that.