Frances Housden - Honeymoon With A Stranger

As he followed her example by using English, his hand forked through her curls, holding her head in an apparently passionate embrace that meant she couldn’t move.

“Don’t worry, chérie, you’re safe from me. Just take a little time to remember who walked into whose territory.”

The hand on her neck stroked, a subtle caress that drew a reluctant shudder from her. “Time to compromise, chérie, you help me out and I’ll look after you. Just keep in mind that this is my show, not yours, and everything will turn out fine and dandy.”

It seemed she had no choice but to follow his lead.

Earlier, before she’d fallen asleep, she’d stared out into the wine-dark countryside and railed against the impulse that had brought her to this place in time.

Annoying though it felt, Mac was her lifeline.

He was big and tough, and at least she was aware that she couldn’t trust him as far as she could throw him.

While it suited her, she would go along with his suggestions.

Mac at least acted as if he knew what he was doing.

Fully awake now, she observed Yves and Zukah exit the front of the minivan, then latched onto a new subject. “How long would you say we’d been on the road?”

“Without being able to read my watch I’d say around four hours, probably more. It took almost an hour to get out of Paris. But judging by lack of lights and noise, this is pretty rural.”

Did Mac have to be right all the time?

The small château they were ushered into didn’t look grand but it was more than a farmhouse deep in the heart of the French countryside. Not a lit window for miles.

Roxie blinked, blinded as she stepped onto a floor laid in ancient gray flagstones. Compared to outside, this was obviously where the owner had spent his money.

The rug covering them, although old, glowed like a ruby.

Half a dozen large sconces lit gold-paneled walls, explaining the glare that had dazzled her as she entered.

Mac had no such problem, asking, “What, no welcome party?”

Zukah fussed, as if out of his comfort zone surrounded by impressive antiques. In his crumpled suit, he looked more like a hostage than they did. “Le patron hopes to be here tomorrow.”

Did that mean she might be back in Paris by tomorrow evening? It felt childish, but she couldn’t help crossing her fingers.

All she wanted was to get back to her own world.

She would put up with bitchy models and the complaints of the patternmakers without a murmur if they could leave this place as soon as possible.

She desperately needed to talk to her boss—to Charles—but Yves had destroyed any hope of that by wrecking the cell phone he’d found in her purse when he searched her.

Mac’s reaction to the news was “Might as well go to our room, then, since there’s nothing to be gained here. No point in talking to the dummy when the man you need is the ventriloquist.”

To herself, Roxie admitted she was in awe of Mac. All that air of control should have been on the other side.

They were armed, he wasn’t.

She wished she could take a leaf from his rule book and act as if she were a VIP instead of a hostage.

“Everything is ready for you, though we weren’t expecting your petite amie. The bed will be a squeeze, but I don’t suppose you’ll mind.”

The bed, as in one bed?

She was caught up in her own nervous interpretation of what that meant, when she realized Mac wasn’t overjoyed with the arrangement, either.

A soft growl issued from his throat that throttled back into a curse. “You’re a twisted bastard, Zukah. If you wanted me here, I only needed an invitation, not this French farce. When word gets out, no one will want to deal with you. And it’ll get out.”

Mac left the words, “And I’ll see about it,” unsaid.

“Calm yourself. I’m only granting your wish to meet the head of our organization.” Zukah’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Of course, word will only get out if you leave the château.”

She would never understand why Mac had trusted this guy in the first place. One look convinced her Zukah was the kind of guy she would rather cross the street than pass on the sidewalk.

She watched Mac’s whole demeanor poker-up as he noted the threat. His big body loomed over Zukah, and Roxie’s stomach sank level with the tops of her knee-high boots.

She would never understand men, and men like Mac had never come within whistling distance of her before tonight.

Which meant she had no idea how to handle him.

No idea how to handle sharing a room with a virtual stranger. A man who might be no better than the thugs he was dealing with. A man looking as if he was about to create mayhem.

“When you threaten someone, Zukah, you have to be prepared to back it up. You can thank Roxie for the fact you’re still breathing. I don’t like to see her upset.”

She knew his words comprised an explicit warning, though his tone and expression scared her most.

Maybe she should have ignored Mac’s advice and taken a chance on being shot. Something told her it might have been wiser than taking a chance on Mac.

They’d located them in the attic, which Mac found promising. It showed him that even unarmed Zukah considered him dangerous.

The window was barred and behind it lay a sheer drop, at least forty feet straight down. The only way out was through the door that Yves and Jean-Luc would more than likely lock as they left.

As he looked around, the Frenchmen remained standing immediately inside the threshold, Yves armed with Mac’s own Glock.

Narrowing his gaze to laser intensity, Mac dismissed Jean-Luc’s status and took a dig at Yves’s manhood. He glanced down at Roxie to emphasize her lack of inches. “Well, I’ll be…don’t tell me you’re in awe of an unarmed man and woman?”

Yves’s glance slanted in Jean-Luc’s direction. “We will leave you in peace. What can you do? There is no way to escape. We will quell any attempt you make. So save your energy.”

“Never entered my mind,” Mac lied. “I’m willing to stay here as Zukah’s guest until the boss man arrives to negotiate the deal. Just remind him that, though my resources are almost limitless, my patience has a use-by date.”

He let the indictment hang in the air for a moment then turned the tables on them. “We’ll expect breakfast around seven-thirty, eight o’clock at the latest. Lock the door on the way out, we’d like a little privacy.”

Before they could leave, Roxie asked, “Hey, this place is like an icebox. What do we do for heat?”

Yves smiled, the first one to cross his face since he’d followed the Algerian into Mac’s apartment. “You have each other,” he mocked, earning a ferocious look for his trouble.

Walking desultorily, Roxie left Mac’s side and sat down on one of the small blue-painted wooden chairs on either side of a table that had been placed in front of the uncurtained window.

Though his back was to the door, he heard it close, listening with interest to the tumblers clicking in the old-fashioned lock.

So, two covert agents alone at last.

He wondered which one of them would break their cover first?

Mac shrugged off the notion it would be him, but he hoped Roxie knew better than to reveal the nature of her mission while every little thing they said was most likely being recorded.

“Are you always so confrontational when a guy’s holding a gun on you?” she asked as she unbuttoned the top button of her coat.

Mac raised his eyebrows in mock surprise. Maybe she wasn’t as green as he’d thought. “Talk about me? I saw you cut those guys off at the knees with a glance.”

Her small heart-shaped face scrunched into a grimace. “It’s a French thing,” she said reverting to English. “Those guys should be used to it. I learned that look at my grandmother’s knee.”