by Anne Stuart
“No problem. I don’t like American women and I don’t like California.” That wasn’t strictly true—he’d always liked Los Angeles the few times he’d visited. “How long do you think it’ll take her to get over me?”
“Don’t sound so self-satisfied. Teenage crushes are usually short-lived.”
“But your sister isn’t a normal teenager, is she?” He still couldn’t believe how young she’d been. He’d always had a preference for women at least a couple of years older than he was—more experience, less emotion. She was the oddest combination of young body, old soul. And he hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her.
“She’s twenty. And as long as you keep your distance, then everything will be all right. She’s probably outgrown you by now, but I don’t want to risk anything.”
“I’m not going to hurt your sister, Su-chan.”
“Reno, you hurt anyone who cares about you, and my sister is vulnerable. I don’t want you breaking her heart.”
“I promise I won’t go anywhere near her. I don’t want to have a lovesick child hanging all over me any more than you do.”
She hadn’t looked convinced, probably because Su-chan was a very smart woman, and she knew people. “You promise?”
He’d let out a sigh of resignation. “I promise. The last thing I want is someone thinking she’s in love with me. I like my sex casual.”
She still didn’t look happy. “No sex with Jilly,” she warned.
“No conversation, no getting within five thousand miles of her. You can trust me.”
And Su-chan had had no choice but to do so.
But that was before Russian mercenaries had been sent to kill them and anyone who mattered to them. Summer might have preferred if someone else had come to Japan to save her sister’s life, but in the end it was her life that mattered, and Summer wouldn’t be picky about who helped her. Besides, Reno was making sure Jilly was so annoyed with him that she’d never want to see him again. They’d worry about the rest of it once the Russians realized they were chasing a ghost mission.
In the meantime, they needed to disappear. His grandfather’s summerhouse in the Saitama Prefecture would be perfect. It would be closed for the season, but there’d still be staff on call, just in case his austere grandfather decided he wanted a steaming mineral bath. Saitama was known for its hot springs and their restorative effects—known to cure cancer, increase a man’s virility and promote long life—and his grandfather’s trips had become more frequent. Maybe he was going for a shot of virility, but he doubted it. His grandfather looked old and frail. The man who’d seemed indestructible was suddenly looking mortal.
And the last thing Reno needed right now was a surge of virility. Jilly Lovitz was providing enough of a challenge when he was determined to keep his hands off her. He didn’t need more stimulation.
It didn’t help the way she looked at him, when she thought he wouldn’t notice. He could get her on her back without half trying. As far back as he could remember he could have any woman he wanted, and Jilly was just one more.
He didn’t want this one, and not just because Su-chan had asked him not to. Jilly Lovitz came with too many problems, too much baggage. He needed to dump her, fast. He was counting on Ojiisan to get Taka out of hiding long enough to take over. Taka could keep her safe from Russian mercenaries and stray assassins. And him.
They followed the rail line north. He wasn’t sure whether she slept or just pretended to get out of talking to him. He didn’t give a shit. He just wanted to get rid of her.
He stopped at one of the train stations and ran in to get a couple of their justly famous bento boxes. Jilly didn’t open her eyes when he returned, so he set the packages on the backseat and took off again.
Three hours later they were climbing the narrow, twisting road that led to his grandfather’s summerhouse. She’d woken up long enough to devour the contents of the bento box, all without a word of complaint. He’d thought the raw eel might stop her, and he was half tempted to encourage her with the wasabi, but she seemed to know her way around Japanese food.
“Aren’t you going to eat?” she asked.
“When we get there,” he growled.
She was clearly unintimidated. “Get where? Or are we still driving in circles?”
He ignored her.
She poked him with her chopsticks. He was so astonished he almost veered off the narrow road.
“Don’t do that!” he snapped.
“Don’t annoy me,” she replied in a sweet voice. “Where are we heading?”
“An onsen belonging to my grandfather. A traditional bathhouse,” he explained when her forehead wrinkled in confusion.
“I think I’ve had enough of Japanese baths,” she said in a dry voice.
Not that he had any reason to explain further. “It’s closed for the winter, and it’s up in the mountains. No one will be able to find us. We’ll wait there until Ojiisan gets in touch with Taka.” He glanced at her. She’d survived the wasabi—there was just a spot of it at the corner of her full mouth, and he had the sudden insane desire to lick it off. “You want to see your sister, right? That’s why you came to Japan in the first place, isn’t it?”
“I had a number of reasons,” she said. “Seeing Summer was the main one, but I was planning on touring the country, doing a little research, taking care of some old business. At this point the research can wait—I just want to get home.”
He couldn’t blame her. She wasn’t used to running for her life.
Though, she’d had to do it once before, when she’d been kidnapped by a lunatic cult. But that had been a blip in her safe little American world. Still, she was handling it well enough.
She was like her sister in many ways—fearless, strong, adventurous. Most of the women he slept with would have been babbling hysterically by now. But Jilly had merely endured, even as she passed the dead bodies and escaped hired killers.
Though there was no reason to compare her with the women he slept with. Because he wasn’t going there. Not ever.
Night fell early, as they drove north, and the headlights speared weakly through the night as they climbed higher. The tiny commuter car wasn’t made for steep inclines, and his booted foot was pressed all the way to the floor.
She hadn’t said a word for the past few hours—he could be grateful for that much. He didn’t need some gaijin yammering at him, making idiot demands.
Not that he had any reason to think Summer’s sister was demanding. She was bearable so far, and with any luck he’d get rid of her before she turned shrewish.
He glanced over at her. She was looking out the window, and her reflection was mirrored in the glass. Pretty. It would be foolish to deny it—Jilly Lovitz was pretty. She had big brown eyes—round, baby eyes with thick lashes. Her mouth was a little too big, but he liked it, even if he couldn’t stop thinking of things she could do with that mouth. Her hair was short, curling as it dried, a blond color that he knew was entirely natural. He just wished he could forget that part.
He drove over the rise and started down the steep little road that led to the sheltered summerhouse below. There were no lights at the end of the road—a surprise. His grandfather had told him he’d have the caretaker open up the place for them. It was getting colder, and there was the smell of snow in the air.
He stopped the car in the middle of their descent, so abruptly it skidded for a moment, and stared at the elaborate house through the misty darkness.
“We’re walking?” Jilly said, reaching for her seat belt.
“Something’s wrong,” he said. The road to the summerhouse was deliberately narrow, to keep the approach quiet and soothing, and he was damned if he could think of a place to turn around, even in this tiny car. He stared down at the bathhouse, then shoved the car into Reverse and began backing up the steep, winding road as fast as he could.
Lights flared on at the seemingly deserted house, and then he heard the pop, pop, pop of what could only be gunfire a
s the wheels spun. A moment later one shattered the windshield.
“Get down!”
Jilly was fumbling frantically with her seat belt, trying to refasten it, and he couldn’t afford to give her even a moment of attention. “Forget about it,” he snarled, pushing her down into the well of the car as he turned to guide the car back up the incline as fast as the damned thing would go.
He could see headlights of another car now, down at the house. They were coming after them, and whatever they were driving was bound to be faster than the anonymous piece of shit he’d stolen. If he didn’t figure a way out of this, they were going to die.
She was crouched down, and all he could see was the top of her blond head. He swore under his breath as he backed the car up, the tires spinning on the dirt road, faster, as the lights in front of him were getting brighter.
“When I tell you to, I want you to jump out of the car, roll into the bushes and stay there.”
“Do what?” Her voice was finally getting a panicky edge to it.
“I’ll slow down. There’s a curve up ahead, and we’ll be out of sight for a few moments. You’ll jump out of the car and hide in the woods until I come to get you.”
“And what if it’s not you who finds me?”
“Then I’ll already be dead,” he said. “And you’ll be on your own.”
“I don’t want to leave you.”
If he had the time he’d think about the odd tone in her voice, the way it hit his stomach. Maybe later. If there was a later. “You don’t have a choice. If you don’t jump I’m shoving you. Be ready.”
They were almost at the curve. The car was gaining on them, fast, and it was going to be a close call. He rounded the curve, slammed the car into the turnaround, opened the passenger door and got ready to shove.
She was already out, diving into the bushes before he could touch her. He shoved the car into Drive, spinning the wheels as he headed up the winding road, going forward. A moment later the headlights appeared behind him as they rounded the corner, never slowing down. They didn’t realize he’d dumped her.
The day he couldn’t outdrive Russian mercenaries on his own turf was the day he deserved to die. Even in this piece of shit he outclassed them. He shoved his foot down harder on the accelerator, the cheap tires spun, and he was gone, the Russians trailing behind him.
5
Jilly scrambled into the bushes, flinging herself over a slight rise and then sliding down the other side into a narrow depression. She froze, barely breathing, as she heard the cars from up above. If they stopped she was screwed, if they kept going she was safe. Until Reno came and found her.
The sound of the car was heavier than the small car Reno had stolen, and she heard the heavy groan of the engine as it shifted into a lower gear. It sped up, the small amount of light fading, and she was suddenly alone. In a forest in Japan in the middle of winter, with nothing more than a sweatshirt for warmth and thin sneakers on her feet.
She let out her pent-up breath, leaning back against the outcropping behind her, and closed her eyes. He’d come back for her. As soon as he lost the Russians, or whoever they were, he’d come back. He said he would. He might find her a pain in the butt, an inconvenience disturbing his perfect life, but she couldn’t doubt his sense of responsibility. Could she?
At the very least, she had no doubt that Reno’s cousin, Taka, could be a very scary man indeed if crossed, and he wouldn’t like it if Reno abandoned her. All she had to do was wait.
Unless the Russians caught up with him. The stolen car was underpowered, and even if Reno seemed frighteningly efficient, he was hardly immortal. The people of the world her sister married into were living dangerous lives—she’d seen that firsthand. What if Reno wasn’t able to outrun them?
They’d come after her. It was that simple, that finite. If he didn’t lose them, come back for her, then she’d die. All because she’d run off to Japan without thinking it through. She’d just wanted to put the embarrassment of her one lousy night of sex behind her, one stupid mistake with an un-caring jock who looked just the slightest bit like someone who was turning out to be a walking nightmare. She wanted her sister, she wanted to immerse herself in the magic-strewn Heian period of ancient Japan. And she’d wanted to get over any lingering fantasies about Reno, the ultimate bad boy.
She’d accomplished that much, and the unpleasant night with a graduate student should seem more like a comedy than a tragedy. As for the rest of it, she wasn’t ready to die because she’d been impulsive. If she was going to die, she wanted it to mean something.
She opened her eyes. It was cold—the scent of snow was on the air and ice was sinking into her bones. She’d spent most of her life in Southern California—her blood was too thin for winter in the mountains.
Was he coming back for her? What if he didn’t? What if the Russians killed him? Was she going to wait here and let them find her and kill her? Or was she going to sit here and freeze to death?
Neither seemed particularly pleasant. If she hadn’t jumped out of the car, he would have pushed her—she had no doubt about that. He was entirely ruthless and unsentimental—a punk samurai with loyalty to his cousin and not much else.
So why had she thought he was so deliciously romantic? He was unlike anyone she’d ever known. Edgy, absurd, exotic and beautiful, and every man or boy she’d met since she first saw him had always paled in comparison. Even Duke had been a quarter Chinese—probably why she’d chosen him in the first place.
She’d been an idiot, but then her experience with men was pretty pathetic. She’d always been the odd one out. It was no wonder she’d never had a real boyfriend. There’d been no prom, no parties, no group of girls to giggle with. On top of being freakishly smart, she was too tall. If she had to be so smart, couldn’t she have at least looked small and helpless, instead of being a strapping almost-six-foot tall?
And the depressing truth was, she was likely to die a virgin. A twenty-year-old virgin with the mind of a scientist and the experience of a twelve-year-old. And the sappy romantic longings of an adolescent.
The worst mistake had been to try to remedy that particular problem. With another graduate student, albeit someone ten years older than she was. She’d had enough sense to keep her distance from the predatory professors, who seemed to take pride in going through the female population of their classes.
Duke had been just as big a mistake. She should have known that from his name. She’d waited too long to tell him she was a virgin, which he’d found both a turnoff and a joke, and even now she wasn’t sure if his rough, fumbling attempt at intercourse had actually de-virginized her. She’d bled, and he’d spilled all over her, leaving her covered with blood and goo, and then he’d walked out, not even kissing her. And she’d been too stupid to realize the story would be halfway across campus by the next morning. It was no wonder she’d run.
Any lingering romantic fantasies should have been wiped out by the harsh reality of Reno. He wasn’t the stuff of her daydreams, he was a man who killed when he had to. A man who clearly found her—a huge, gawky, inconvenient female—less than charming.
Maybe she’d rather freeze to death in the woods than face him again.
No, that was being melodramatic. At least he had no idea she’d once had a mad crush on him. One that was vanishing swiftly, the colder she got. She wrapped her arms around her body, trying to hug some heat into her, and tucked her hands in her armpits. If she started shivering, she wasn’t going to stop. She gritted her teeth, tensing her body so she wouldn’t shake. Cold, it was so damned cold. Where the hell was Reno?
Maybe she should try to make it out of the woods on her own. She’d made such a mess of her life she should probably want to die, but she wasn’t that far gone yet. She had every intention of living a long, vigorous, probably celibate life.
They’d passed through several small towns on their way up the mountain—if she managed to reach civilization, she’d be able to find help. They wouldn’t
like that she had no money or identification—both those things were in her backpack in Reno’s stolen car—but they’d probably help her anyway. And if worse came to worst, a Japanese prison was probably a lot warmer than a mountainside in winter, and her powerful father would be more than able to extricate her quickly. Ralph Lovitz was a force of nature, a self-made man, a billionaire and full of sheer protective rage where his family was concerned. He had more money than God, and he’d always make sure nothing bad happened to her. She’d be perfectly fine, she told herself.
The first flake of snow drifted down and settled on her nose. She’d lost feeling in her feet, her hands, her butt on the cold, hard ground. She’d given up the fight to keep from shivering, and she sat huddled in a ball, her arms around her knees, shaking with the cold. Snow began drifting down rapidly, covering everything, and the bright winter moon made the landscape look like a fairy-tale setting. A fairy tale of death.
She was crying. Good thing Reno was either dead or had given up on her—he already found her annoying enough. If she kept crying, and that seemed more than likely, he’d probably want to strangle her himself.
She let out a tiny sob, followed by a hiccup. Tears never helped anything—her sister would have told her that. No, she wouldn’t. Summer would put her arms around her and tell her everything would be all right.
But Summer had disappeared. Maybe she was dead, as well. Maybe Lianne Lovitz was going to lose both her daughters. And no one would ever find her body—she’d just freeze to death and maybe twenty years from now a hiker would come across her corpse….
She let out another sob. At least freezing to death didn’t hurt. You just went to sleep; everything got numb and then you slept and then it was over.
But she didn’t want it to be over. Where the hell was Reno? It didn’t matter how much of an asshole he was, it didn’t matter what a pain he thought she was, she wanted him to come back and save her. How could he have abandoned her like this?