“It was stupid, okay? I slept with the boss’s wife. And then one day, he came home early with someone I shouldn’t have seen.”
Jed blinked. Wasn’t he just thinking about emotional distance? That the inability to do so led to one’s downfall?
“Was it worth it? The sex?” he mused aloud.
Dimitri shrugged. “She was a lonely woman. Look, I was not thinking. Are you going to kill me or not? It is not right, sitting here in a place like this, talking calmly about sex and women when my life is at stake.”
Jed cracked a smile at that bit of bravado. He looked down at the top of the man’s head. From where he stood, it would be a simple matter to break his neck, a swift and relatively clean way to cancel a life.
He dropped his hand. “Go,” he ordered quietly.
Dimitri stiffened. He jumped to his feet and whirled around to stare at Jed.
“Just like that? Do you not want to know who I saw?”
Jed studied the shadowy face, the panic receding just a little. “Keep something for a later bargain with me, Dimitri. I might not feel so generous in the future.” He cocked a brow. “Now, before I change my mind...”
The man didn’t need a second prompting. Without another word, he turned, stumbled, then ran.
HELEN TOOK IN A DEEPbreath. The chilly air helped clear her head. She took a long look at the lone figure standing at the edge of the cliff, the magnificent scenery of the morning sunlight dappling the wintry mountainside and the ice-tipped lake emphasizing his dangerous aloofness. He had his back to her, seemingly absorbed in the view, but she knew better. He was certainly as aware of her presence here as he had been back at the monastery.
He looked terribly alone, like an ancient conqueror surveying his land. A ridiculous thought, since Jed McNeil was in faded jeans and battered jacket.But that was beside the point, wasn’t it, Hell?Jed McNeil in any kind of clothing, speaking in that emotionless tone of voice, was the scariest thing she’d seen and heard in a long time.
He turned. And gestured imperiously. Helen approached cautiously. One did that at the sight of a hungry predator.
He stood as still as the waters below as she studied him. It dawned on her that he was waiting for her to make the first move, to show her reaction.
After all, he’d looked directly at her in the darkened monastery, a piercing stare that had jolted her out of the mesmerizing sight of Number Nine in action.
As usual, her foolhardiness took over. “Should I curtsey? Your Lordship commanded my presence at Lake Matka a day early and here I am.”
The corner of his lips lifted. His silver eyes, though, still held that disquieting menace. “You didn’t come at the specified time.”
Helen canted her brows. “No pleasing Your Lordship, is there?” She thumbed toward the trail from which she’d just came. “Back there, you complained about a man being late, and here, you aren’t happy that I’m early.” When he didn’t say anything, just stood there looking at her, she sighed, and added, “Okay, you said noon. Perhaps you didn’t want me around when you were doing your job, but I didn’t know you had an assignment this early. I would have sat in there waiting for noon but seeing that you knew I was already hiding in there, I figured you wouldn’t mind me interrupting your morning walk.”
She hadn’t actually come out immediately. A man on the verge of violence was better left alone for as long as possible. But damn, it was cold sitting in that monastery, not doing anything.
Jed turned from her again. The view appeared more interesting to him than her presence. Her instincts were telling her this man was literally at the very edge, that if she wasn’t careful, he might turn and devour her. Yet, she didn’t feel afraid of him at all. She took the last few steps so she could stand beside him.
“Tell me, Number Nine,” she began casually, trying to push away the image of herself putting her head inside a lion’s mouth, “why didn’t you finish the job?”
He slanted a glance in her direction, the lightness in his eyes catching the sunlight—a flash of silver heat—and then he looked away again.
“I know what your job entails,” Helen continued, ignoring another mental image of herself offering honey to a hungry bear. What could she say? She was curious. “Back there, I know what you were going to do. Yet you didn’t. You looked straight up where I was and I felt you changing your mind. You gave that man a reprieve, something I’d bet my entire hat collection that you seldom, if ever, do. Why, Jed?”
There. If he turned and growled at her, she would retreat and leave him alone. The silence went on for so long, she began to wonder whether he was just going to ignore her until noon.
“I didn’t want to start our day with your seeing me take a life.” He turned and met her shocked eyes. “I didn’t want our first date to begin with death.”
Helen put her hand on her chest. The world just stopped spinning. “Our. First. Date?”
“Yes, our first date,” Jed reiterated calmly. “It was supposed to start here at noon. Not at the monastery where you were hiding, spying on me. You were thinking of catching a glimpse of the real me. Are you sure you did?”
“Our first date?” Helen asked again, ignoring the rest of what he said. “I thought I was here to be part of the team casing the summit.”
“In Skopje,” Jed affirmed. “You’re here at Lake Matka to be with me.”
“You didn’t ask, so it isn’t a date,” she declared.
