“Ah. Mr. Mackey, I presume.”
Raine spun around at the sound of Victor Lazar's cool, ironic voice. He was lounging in the kitchen doorway, taking in the scene with silver gray eyes that missed nothing.
The pirate gave him a courteous nod. “Mr. Lazar. Glad to meet you.” The words and tone were polite, but the caressing roughness that had characterized his voice was gone. It was as clear and hard as glass.
Victor's smile assessed him coolly. “You've met my assistant?”
“In the elevator,” the pirate said.
Victor's eyes flicked from him to Raine, lingering for an endless three seconds on her hot face. “I see,” he murmured. “Very well. Since you're here ... shall we? The others are waiting.”
“Of course.”
Tension throbbed in the air. The two men regarded each
other, smiling identical bland, impenetrable smiles. People usually jumped at Lazar's lightest wish, but this dark stranger had his own gravitational field. He would move when it pleased him, and not before. Raine was suspended between them, afraid to move.
A faintly amused smile flitted across Victor's face. “This way, please, Mr. Mackey,” he said, as if humoring a small child. “Raine, bring in breakfast, please. We have a great deal to discuss.”
The pirate shot her one last, fiercely appreciative glance as he followed Lazar out of the kitchen.
No blushing or stammering allowed, she told herself sternly as she filled the silver pots with coffee and tea. No tripping over the carpet or running into doors. She had to learn to take encounters like this in stride. And while she hadn't factored a sizzling affair into her mission scenario, it wasn't necessarily such a bad idea.
That delicious, rebellious thought sent a flood of knee-wobbling panic through her. She stopped in the corridor and silently talked herself down, her arms trembling from the weight of the tray. Maybe with an act of such uncharacteristic boldness, she could prove to herself that she had the guts to act instead of being acted upon. Maybe it would be good, not just for her, but for her quest. To accomplish this impossible task, she needed to become a different person altogether. Bold, fearless, ruthless. What better place to start than her sex life? That certainly needed a massive overhaul.
She pasted a geisha girl smile onto her face and pushed open the door to the conference room with her foot. There were several people in the room besides Victor and the pirate. She smiled at each of them in turn as she poured the coffee and tea, but she was careful not to look at the pirate as she handed him his cup. Just a glimpse of his long, graceful brown fingers as he accepted it made her pulse flutter.
The conversation in the room was an indistinct wash of sound She forced herself to focus and follow the sense of it. Any information at all could prove useful to her quest The pirate was talking about transponders, radio frequency identification. Data collection. Smart labels and data locks and programming cycles. GPS tracking, data streaming, wireless modems. Cold, technical stuff, the type that had always flown right over her head.
But his voice was so deep and resonant and sexy. It made the back of her neck tingle, as if he were caressing it with his hands, with his lips, with his warm breath, ft was incredibly hard to concentrate. Her own name jerked her to attention, making the cup she held rattle in its saucer.
“... trust that will be convenient, Raine. Please let Harriet know,” Victor was saying.
Raine gulped and laid the cup and saucer carefully down at Victor's elbow. “Let her know, ah ... what?”
Impatience flashed across Victor's broad, handsome face. “Please pay attention. You will accompany Mr. Mackey and me on a tour of the Renton warehouses tomorrow. Be ready at three.”
His face was so like her father’s, at close range, but harder, more angular. His short hair was startlingly white against his olive skin.
Her father hadn't lived long enough for his hair to go white.
“Me?” she whispered.
“Is this going to be a problem?” Victor's voice was silky soft.
She shook her head quickly. “Ah, no. Of course not.”
Victor smiled, and a shudder of dread raced down her spine. “Excellent,” he murmured.
She murmured something acquiescent and fled, stumbling through the office cubicles until she reached the women's rest room. She hid in the farthest stall, pressed her hot face against her knees and hugged herself, trying to calm the violent trembling.
She saw her father's face as clearly as if it hadn't been seventeen years since his death. So gentle and soft-spoken. Reading her poetry, telling her stories. Showing her beautiful pictures in his monographs of Renaissance art. Teaching her to identify trees and wildflowers. He visited her in her dreams sometimes, and when he did, she woke up missing him so badly, it felt like her heart would shatter like glass under the pressure.
Get a grip already, she told herself furiously. She should be celebrating, not having a meltdown in the bathroom. This was the pirate queen's chance to strut her stuff.
But more and more, she felt like the helpless creature in her dream; swimming naked in trapped, restless circles around the limits of her transparent world. Blind to the larger implications, but still haunted by a shadow of approaching doom.
Chapter 3
“Sir? Excuse me, but there's a Mr. Crowe on the line, requesting permission to come to the island” Victor did not turn his gaze away from me waves that lapped against the pebbled beach below the patio. He took a sip of his whiskey and savored the complex, smoky flavor. “What does he want?”
The young female attendant cleared her throat delicately. “He says it's regarding the, ah... heart of darkness.”
A smile of satisfaction curved Victor's mouth. The perfect ending for a stimulating day. Whoever would have thought that Crowe had a poetic side? Heart of darkness, indeed, “Tell him to proceed,” he said,
'Thank you, sir.” The young woman retreated silently through the French doors into the house.
Victor sipped his Scotch, letting his eyes rest upon the dim silhouette of the windswept pines that adorned Stone Island It was his favorite residence, despite the inconvenience of the eighty-minute boat ride through Puget Sound, and woe betide the person so stupid or unfortunate as to approach it uninvited. Here, in splendid privacy, he could gaze out at the Sound and contemplate the panorama of nature in all its beauty and savagery. Bald eagles and ospreys and great blue herons, dolphins and killer whales. Spectacular.
The wind was cold, daylight long gone, but he savored the pleasant burn of the fine liquor as it trickled down his throat, unwilling to go inside. He was absurdly pleased with himself. He liked the game he was playing and the element of chance that he had factored into it. His needs were changing as he aged, the need for power and control giving way to his hunger for diversion and stimulation. He must be aging backwards. Soon he would start having problems with impulse control. He raised his glass, toasting the ridiculous thought.
He looked forward to finally resolving his security problem. His patience was wearing extremely thin. Seth Mackey and his consulting firm had better be good. Rumor certainly suggested that they were. Ever since he had begun to make discreet inquiries, the name of Mackey Security Systems Design had continually cropped up. The firm was frequently used by foreign governments, government agencies, national P.I. firms, defense contractors, diplomats and famous corporate executives, and was quietly famous for its cutting edge surveillance equipment and custom designed software, as well as for demonstrated prowess at protective technical surveillance countermeasures. Best of all was Mackey 's reputation for discretion, vital for Victor's purposes; as he certainly could not report the recent rash of slick, professional burglaries that had been plaguing his warehouses to the police.