She swallowed hard and he saw her back straighten up as she snapped into drill sergeant mode. “The small white boxes have specialty cakes in them,” she said briskly. “Get as many as you can. The cheese plate, the ham roast and the fruit are all in the two big white boxes in the fridge. Get both. There’s beef and vegetables. And condiments. Don’t forget the prosecco. It’s chilling in the door of the fridge. Get as many bottles of wine as you can carry. I think we’ll need all the help we can get.”
Nick pounded up the back staircase and vaulted off the deck which curved around the huge outcropping of granite that the house had been built around. Clambering down that way put him at a thirty-yard uphill slog to the Sloane house, which he covered in seconds.
Once inside, he assembled the stuff Becca had asked for, tossing it helter-skelter into the boxes, packing wine bottles into plastic bags.
A thought occurred to him. He left the kitchen, and searched through the house until he found it. A little black purse. He dumped the contents, pawed through them. House keys, lipstick, tissue, comb.
He put the lipstick in his pocket for no very good reason.
Cell phone. Wallet. He thumbed through it, plucking out the plastic, the driver’s license, everything with her name and address printed on it. The wallet he tossed into an empty drawer by the bed. The credit cards and cell phone he shoved in his pocket, to bury under a rock outside.
He loaded himself up like a donkey, and took off. Sliding and scrambling through clinging vines and thorny bushes, all to make the perfect three-cheese soufflé for the evilest scum-sucking motherfucker in the known universe. It was surreal.
A sound jerked out of his chest, so rusty, he almost didn’t recognize it. Laughter.
Mr Big? How the fuck had she come up with that?
Better not to speculate.
Chapter
7
K eeping busy was the trick. Squinting fiercely, she located bowls, utensils and small appliances. Whiz, bang, and there it all was, neatly assembled on the central island. God, how she loved a kitchen with counter space. Too bad she was using it to feed her potential murderers. Or rapists.
Yeah. Bechamel first. Then the crepe batter. Watching butter melt and flour sizzle soothed her rattled nerves. She counted the slow stirs until the sauce thickened, up to ten and back down to zero, over and over, so she wouldn’t fall to screaming pieces.
No disasters so far. She set the white sauce aside to cool and whipped up batter for the crepes, grateful for the well-seasoned electric griddle she’d found in a bottom shelf. She’d be able to do six crepes at a time on that thing. Some day, when she’d finally landed Mr. Right and had the perfect kitchen, she’d get herself one of those. A professional-grade food processor, too.
Good girl. Keeping it together. Cool as a cucumber.
The door burst open. Startled, Becca sprang into the air and made a sound that only dogs could hear.
It was Mr. Big, laden with boxes and plastic bags. The wine bottles clanked together. She was so relieved, she almost burst into tears. “Oh, thank God.”
“This shit is heavy,” he grumbled.
She tore into the boxes. Mr. Big watched, his mouth dangling open. Ingredients for the soufflé, arrayed in a row on one section of the counter, elements for the crepes on another. Her mind whirled with logistics, timing, sequence. Should she get the soufflé in the oven before starting the sauce for the crepes? If the soufflé was done too soon, they wouldn’t be ready to serve it on the spot. It might fall. She couldn’t serve a flat soufflé to those guys. They had guns. They would shoot her.
She decided to grate and chop the savory ingredients, then whip up the orange sauce, then assemble the soufflé and pop it in the oven, which left exactly twenty-five minutes to bake the crepes on the griddle and get the ham browned, the fruit blended and the bread toasted. Assuming she had six arms, and that somebody else would deal with linens, dishes and cutlery. And she thought she had job stress at the club.
Mr. Big proved to be worse than useless as a line cook. He was slow, sullen, clouded and uncomprehending.
“What do you mean, orange zest?” he grumbled. “What the fuck is fucking orange zest?”
“If you have to ask, never mind,” she snapped. “Grate the cheese into this bowl, fast. Then wash the grater. I need it for the zest. And cut these herbs. Very fine. That should be simple enough for even you.”
“Stop bitching,” he muttered. “Nobody asked you to get mixed up in this.”
“I just came back for my glasses and my keys,” she whispered fiercely. “I had to! I’m blind as a bat without my glasses! You might have warned me about this last night! Instead of—instead of—”
“Warned you?” he shot back. “Jesus Christ, I tried to scare you away from here last night. At least until I—we, I mean—got distracted. But any female with half a brain would have run like hell. What was the matter with you?”
Her fault, huh? Asfuckingif. She wrenched the bowl of grated cheese away from him and dumped it into her warm bechamel.
Half a brain, her ass. Hah. Scare her? Sure, if scaring her included kissing her senseless and giving her a transcendental orgasm. And now the jerk was mangling her herbs, too.
“Stop that,” she snapped. She yanked his cutting board away and tossed him a peeled onion. “Chop this,” she ordered. “Very fine.”
He whacked his knife down on the board. The two halves of the guillotined onion flew off the board and rolled to opposite corners of the room. “Christ,” he said, in a savage undertone. “What a fucking mess.”
“Tantrums do not help,” she pointed out sweetly.
He collected the onion, chopped it with a glower that would have intimidated her if she had the time to be intimidated, which she did not. She stared at his chopping technique. “Finer,” she said snippily.
“What do you mean, finer? Any finer than this, and it’ll be paste!”
“Finer,” she reiterated. “Then put them in the saucepan, and stir them constantly. Do not let them burn. They need to caramelize.”
He muttered, dumped, stirred. She turned her back to deal with the eggs, sifting through the words he had just said as she separated the whites from yolks.
She dropped the yolks into her bechamel, stirred them gently into the mix until the mixture was tinged with bright sunny yellow. “So, what you’re saying is…last night you were trying to scare me away? You didn’t want me and I just didn’t catch on?”
He grabbed a paring knife off the counter and stabbed it into her cutting board, in the midst of her heaps of chopped herbs. They scattered. She stepped back with a soft gasp.
“Wrong,” he snarled. “We did what we did because we both wanted to. But I sure as hell didn’t think you’d come back. I hoped you wouldn’t. Now shut up, do as you’re told, and do not fuck with me. Clear?”
She plucked the quivering knife out of the board, and delicately reassembled her piles of herbs, before sprinkling them into the mix.
“I think all this macho bullshit is just for the camera,” she whispered. “I really think it is. You’re as scared as I am.”
“Fuck and double fuck. On top of it all, you’re delusional. For the love of Christ, Becca. Shut up and cook.”
Clink, clink. The utensils against the china made a delicate, musical sound. Becca bent over Zhoglo’s plate to lay another slice of ham on it, at such an angle so that her tits practically fell out of her blouse. Her face was pale, but composed. Eyes demurely lowered.
Mouth closed, for once. Zhoglo’s poisonous vibe shut even her up.
She had class, he had to admit. Iron self-control, too, except when Nick needled her. Most girls he knew would be curled up in the fetal position sucking their thumbs under this kind of performance pressure.
The meal had gone well, so far. The fragrant, steaming food had been completely demolished. The platters were bare.
Becca leaned over again with the crystal pitcher of mixed fruit and fizzy wine, filling champagne flutes with a geisha’s detached but sensual grace. Four sets of male eyes fastened onto her body. Five, if he counted his own. His jaw hurt from clenching so hard.
She’d make a good undercover agent, he thought. Who would guess what lay beneath that sex bunny exterior? Watching the woman put that meal together had been like watching an Olympic sporting event. Every gesture choreographed for maximum efficiency.
So far, so good. The cook ruse was holding. The meal had been consumed. They had made another shuffling step forward on the tightrope over the pit of man-eating lions. If only she weren’t so fucking pretty, she might have a chance in hell of getting through this alive.
Zhoglo polished off the grilled ham, wiped his mouth, and turned his pale gaze upon Nick. “Does she understand this language?” he asked in Ukrainian.
“No,” Nick replied.
“I would like for her to satisfy some other appetites, after I digest, of course. The food was delicious. I was betrayed by greed.”
A fist grabbed Nick’s vital organs and squeezed. “That wasn’t part of our understanding when I engaged her services,” he said. “My first priority was to make sure the food would be good, Vor—”
“And your second priority was to have something pretty to fuck while you waited on the lonesome, boring island, no? You simply do not want to share. You do not impress me, Solokov.”
Nick opted not to reply. There was nothing he could say.
“But after such a tasty meal, I can be reasonable,” Zhoglo went on. “If I am sufficiently entertained.”
Nick’s dread deepened, widened. “Entertained?”
Zhoglo’s eyes sparkled. “We have nothing to do this afternoon but stare at this oppressive greenery. So entertain me. With your little friend.” He jerked his chin at Becca. “I like spectator sports.”
Nick’s eyes flicked to Becca. She’d sensed the vibe, gone on alert. Her hands wound together, white-knuckled and pressed against her belly. Her mouth was tight, her eyes big. Silently beseeching him.
“Vor,” he said slowly. “This woman is not a professional prostitute. She is not prepared to perform in this way. She will not be able to function as your cook if I do as you propose.”
“No?” Zhoglo’s lips twisted into a sneer. “Then what good is she?”
“What’s on the menu for dinner, Becca?” Nick asked in English.
“An appetizer of spicy Calabrese sausage and an assortment of fine cheeses, to start. Vegetables, roasted and au gratin. Tuscan crostini, with paté, tapenade, roasted red peppers and porcini sott’olio,” she said, with reassuring promptness. “Pepper-rolled beef, accompanied by a Montepulciano red. Herbed baby red potatoes, glazed carrots. Fresh sliced exotic fruits with crème Chantilly, coffee, Grand Marnier Chocolate Torte, and an assortment of digestive liqueurs.”
Zhoglo blinked a few times. He let out a sigh, and gazed at his plump, steepled fingers. “Very well,” he said, sounding faintly petulant. “I will compromise, for the sake of a decent meal.”
Nick was about to sigh in relief, but the man kept talking.
“Take her to one of the bedrooms and fuck her there,” Zhoglo went on. “We will watch on the monitor in the security room. Will that sufficiently insulate our little dove’s delicate female sensibilities? She will still be functional afterwards, no?”
Zhoglo’s eyes shone into his, bright and blank and impenetrable. He jerked his chin, a what-the-fuck-are-you-waiting-for gesture.
“If you doubt your ability to perform, one of my men would be happy to screw her in your place,” he added softly. “They would be most enthusiastic at the prospect.” He paused. “All of them would be.”
“What’s up?” Becca asked. “Was something not right with the meal?”
“The meal was superb, my dear,” Zhoglo said in English. “I’m just waiting for the entertainment, that’s all.”
Becca looked from Nick to Zhoglo. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
Zhoglo snickered. “By all means, Solokov. Enlighten her.”
Nick seized her by the arm, and towed her out of the room.
Becca scurried to keep up with him. His grip hurt her arm. Something was up. Something bad. When Mr. Big bitched and grumbled, she could relax and breathe. But when every trace of emotion vanished from his face, and his eyes went dead and flat, her guts knotted up, her knees started to knock, and spots danced in front of her eyes.
Entertainment? She didn’t like the sound of that at all.
He dragged her up the stairs. She got even more nervous, although logically speaking, she should be happier the more distance she put between her and the scary, slobbering guys with guns.
She stumbled on the carpet runner, and he jerked her up to her feet, without even looking at her face.
He slapped the door open into a big, bright bedroom. A picture window looked out over a waving sea of endless evergreens and a heavy gray sky. The glass was beaded with raindrops.
He wrenched off his shirt. She stared at him, speechless. Terrified by the shuttered, implacable look on his face.
He pushed her up against the wall, his big hands stroking her shoulders as he leaned to whisper in her ear. “Showtime, babe. See the video camera mounted up in the corner?”
His meaning sank in. “No way,” she said. “You can’t be serious.”