The Man She Loves To Hate

‘Is that statement supposed to make me want to know what’s in the box less?’ asked Cole. ‘Because—trust me—it doesn’t.’

The kid shrugged and declined to answer. Cole studied the boy anew and wondered about the box and what might be in it that would make the kid reluctant to open it in Cole’s presence.

‘Look, kid. Suppose something has found its way into that box that shouldn’t be there. A chocolate bar or fifty. A computer no one’s using. Ski gear that doesn’t belong to you. Do you really think I’m going to give a damn, under the circumstances?’

‘Do you really think you won’t?’ countered the boy. ‘Given that it’d be your family I was stealing from? Anyway—’ the boy’s phone went back in his pocket ‘—there’s nothing stolen in the box. It’s just junk.’

‘If it’s just junk,’ murmured Cole silkily, ‘why are you protecting it?’ And when the kid seemed disinclined to reply, ‘So … you know who I am.’

The kid, teenager, young man, philosopher thief, whatever the hell he was, nodded.

‘Should I know who you are?’

‘No.’

‘Because you seem familiar.’

‘I’m not.’

‘Grew up in Queenstown, though, didn’t you?’ The kid wouldn’t even look him in the eye and for some reason that bit. Was it asking too much to want to get a good look at another person’s eyes?

‘You don’t know me,’ the kid said doggedly. ‘You don’t need to know me.’

‘Seeing as we’re stuck here, I disagree.’ Not a pick-up line, emphatically not. He just wanted to get a handle on what the kid was trying to hide. ‘Didn’t anyone teach you to observe the niceties? Show you how to introduce yourself?’

‘No.’

‘Time you learned.’ It wasn’t as if a handshake would be required. No touching at all. ‘I’m Cole Rees. Cole to most. Rees, if you prefer. I’ll answer to either. Now it’s your turn.’

‘Josh,’ offered the youth with extreme reluctance.

‘It’s customary to provide a surname.’

‘Not where I come from.’

‘Fair enough.’ He’d won one concession from young Josh. Time to make the boy relax before hitting him up for more. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t pull the youth’s employment record easily enough once they got out of the gondola. Right now, though, he wanted something other than information. He wanted to see the kid’s eyes. ‘You ever going to take those goggles off, Josh?’

‘Wasn’t planning to,’ said the youth with a curve to his lips that made Cole suck in a hard breath. The kid’s chin came up. The goggles stayed on. The boy’s stance changed subtly, drawing the eye and confusing Cole’s senses.

‘Rees, if you want me to undress, just say so,’ murmured the boy. ‘Although if we’re observing the niceties, you might want to buy me a drink first.’

CHAPTER TWO

SHE shouldn’t have said that. Fifty feet up and with no way of escape, Jolie had just challenged the sexual orientation of a man who’d been loving—and leaving—women since his teens.

Word had it Cole Rees knew exactly how to please a woman. Word had it that he could play all night when the mood took him. Keeping Cole Rees’s interest for more than one night, on the other hand, had thus far proven impossible. For a woman.

No rumour had ever come to her ears about Cole preferring men, but the way the air seemed to have sucked out of the gondola since her rash words … The way his eyes had flashed and his gaze had rested on her mouth before he’d swiftly looked away …

Which would be worse?

Cole Rees’s fury?

Or his acquiescence?

And then Cole looked back at her and something in those sharp green eyes of his made her feel as if the ground were falling away from her feet.

Jolie glanced down, adjusted her perch on the box and planted her feet far more firmly on the floor. And waited for his reply.

‘Sorry, kid,’ he said gruffly, as if he’d been chewing on nails and couldn’t quite swallow them. ‘You’re not my type.’

Silence rained down on them then, heavy and smothering.

‘Try the two-way again,’ she offered by way of an out, and he did but no one responded.

Cole fell silent again and the silence stretched into eternity. He shoved his hands deep in his coat pockets and stared at his shoes, which left Jolie free to study his face. Not an imperfect line on it. Everything right where masculine beauty demanded it be, with a mouth that spoke of sensuality framed by laughter.

No laughter in him now, but at least he’d stopped hassling her about the box, and he certainly hadn’t asked her to take her ski mask off again, only now she was starting to think that there were things in the box that they could use. Mittens for starters. They’d probably be miles too small for him, but there were waterproof mitten covers in the box too, and those ones would fit. Herbal teas her mother liked were in that box, along with any other food that might have made a person wonder what it was James Rees had done up in his little mountain cabin. The almond biscotti. Godiva soft centres. The bbq salted corn kernels that had come from the bar.

Incidental things like Rachel’s shampoo and conditioner. Moisturising cream smelling of jasmine and sandalwood, citrus and rose. Hairbrush and toothbrush. Not a man’s things.

Not so incidental things like a digital photo frame full of Rachel’s photography.

And then there was the bedspread.

‘It’s a thousand kinds of black and blue, it’s textured like a Van Gogh, and it’s soft,’ Rachel had told her with a smile that had broken Jolie’s heart. ‘It’s like sinking into a piece of midnight sky.’

Where it had come from Jolie didn’t ask and Rachel didn’t say. It was enough that Rachel had wanted to collect it and worried about the when.

Not stolen, Jolie would stake her soul on it.

Given.

A gift for Rachel from her lover.

Quite possibly the only gift Rachel Tanner had ever accepted, for she was no whore, no matter what people thought.

She’d just been painted as one.

The next twenty minutes felt like hours. The weather got worse, more snow—a lot more—and the wind, it just kept coming. Time to get off this ride, past time, but right now that didn’t seem likely. If Hare had mechanical trouble up there on the mountain, chances were that the gondola wouldn’t move until tomorrow at the earliest—and that was assuming mechanics could even get up the mountain tomorrow morning given the amount of fresh snow on the ground. Not that snow wasn’t welcome on the ski fields, but this much snow in such a short time boded ill for all.

As for rescue—that’d have to wait until the weather cleared too. The gondola was enclosed—they were out of the worst of it. Crashing to the ground didn’t seem likely, in spite of all the swinging. No, the danger most likely to creep up on them throughout the wait would be the cold.

Jolie felt fine. Jolie had more layers on than she needed at this particular point in time.

Cole Rees, on the other hand, didn’t.

Scowling, she scooted off the box and ripped off the tape. The gloves were near the top, the bedspread was at the bottom and protected by plastic. Maybe they’d need it eventually. Jolie wasn’t quite ready to admit that they needed it now. ‘Here,’ she said when she’d found the mitten inners. ‘Try them.’ She held them out.