Page 2 of Guilty as Sin
“I could,” Lily said. “Honestly. I could. But it’s not him. It’s everybody else.”
“Everybodywhoelse?”
Lily sighed. “OK. They—the development company, the ones who bought the ski area from the Albertsons, who werefine—they want to build a Nordic ski area and another lodge. A bigger one. A whole lot fancier. They want to upgrade the whole area, and this—my land—would be a big part of it. And I know I got it in the divorce, and I know that should mean I don’t want it, but I do. Antonio never liked it. I did. Ido.”
“And they want it because…”
“It’s the last piece on the east side downhill from where the ski mountain starts. From where it starts getting steeper. On the west side, and on the east, past my place, it’s Forest Service land, and they can lease that. But they want varied terrain, and around the mountain, for the cross-country part. Which means me. And you know—it’d be tourism and money andjobs.There’s a town meeting coming up to discuss it before the commissioners can vote on the project, and how do I say no without even listening? How do I not go, when I know so many people still need jobs, or better jobs? But if I go, how do I stand there and refuse? How do I say I don’t care, that my happiness is more important than everybody else’s?”
Her sister looked truly troubled. Paige said, “That still doesn’t mean you have to sell. You’re not responsible for everybody else. You certainly aren’t obligated to give up the land you legally own just because somebody else wants it. That’s ridiculous.”
“You’re right. I know. Never mind. Come on.” Lily stood up and settled her angel robe around her. “Let’s go get a tea. Lavender heals your crown chakra, you know. Well, if you add rose petals and nutmeg, it does. It probably tastes terrible, but your spiritual self will be more open to enlightenment. Maybe you’ll even quit making that face during meditation time.”
Paige stared at her in astonishment. “You drank the Kool-Aid.”
“Nope.” Lily waggled her brochure in the air and smiled. “I read the flyer. Come on. Let’s go cleanse our chakras. Get our money’s worth.”
The telephone rang while Jace Blackstone was killing somebody.
Killing a woman, to be exact. But she was a woman who really, really needed to die. He ignored the phone.
His adversary smiled, cruel and slow, the darkness inside visible at last behind the gorgeous façade, then dropped into a crouch. The filleting knife she held sliced patterns in the hot, stale air of the abandoned warehouse as she taunted him. “All out of bullets, then? Pity. Strong man. Big man. You won’t be so big when I’ve cut some pieces off you. And you won’t be strong at all after an hour or so. You’re going to be screaming. You’re going tobegme to let you die.” She waved the knife again, the conjurer distracting you with one hand while the other one picked your pocket.
There was nothing as hypnotic as a weapon in the hand of your enemy. A weapon that was a heartbeat away from slicing your guts out.
He didn’t tense. He relaxed, coiled his energy into himself like a spring, and…
The phone rang again.
He jumped and swore aloud. In the corner, Tobias raised his handsome head. Jace’s beautiful adversary, though, just looked at him, those I’m-yours-if-you’re-man-enough eyes mocking him the same way they had when he’d first caught sight of her in the opulent lobby of the Four Seasons, and purred, “Poor baby.”
Jace picked up the phone and said, “Bugger off. I’m killing people.”
Tobias’s skinny tail thumped twice. He always knew when it was Rafe.
Rafe’s dark Aussie drawl took up more than its fair share of airspace even when he was wasting his star power on his big brother. “How long have you been sitting on your arse?”
“An hour.”
“As a liar, you’re bloody useless. Close to the end? Ready to emerge into the real world again?”
“Nearly there. Final action scene.” Jace considered telling Rafe that the real world was the last place he wanted to be, but he didn’t.
Weakness. You didn’t go around confessing to it, even if you weren’t a six-foot-five near-superhero ex-Delta Force operative with a mind like a computer who could disable four attackers at once. On a bad day. Tied to a chair.
No. Even if you were just a reasonably tall, moderately fit Aussie bloke who used to do real things and now made up stories for a living, you didn’t admit weakness. Even to your brother.
“Brilliant,” Rafe said. “Walk while you talk, though. A few press-ups, maybe. If you don’t get moving, you’re going to get fat.”
“When you’re chopping wood for heat like I am,” Jace said, “you can give me stick about not moving enough. I don’t have an assistant to fetch my latte, and I worked out this morning. Ran as well. Ask Tobias.” The Ridgeback raised his head again, his gaze alert. Jace could swear he saw too much. “My heart’s all good,” he told RafeandTobias, “if that’s what you’re worried about, so you can shut your gob. I’m doing a knife fight, though. It’s not coming out right. If you’ll walk through it with me, I may forgive you for ringing me in the middle of it. I’m killing somebody here, mate.”
“Right.” Rafe was all business now. Turning up in the nick of time, as always. Rafe had been born to save. “Who am I?”
“A woman. Smoking hot.”
“It’s a big ask,” Rafe said, “but I’m very good.”
“Girl, more like,” Jace clarified. “Beautiful enough to stop a man’s heart, and an ice-cold assassin, as it turns out. Russian mafia. Matt’s been sleeping with you. You think he won’t be able to bring himself to kill you. You think you’re better than he is. You’re overconfident.”
