Cold as Ice Read Online Free PDF Page A

an asset—it was up to the target to make what they wanted of him, and all Harry wanted was someone to see to his every comfort. He could provide for his own sexual needs.
    Which brought him around to Genevieve Spenser again. It would probably be better if she slept with Harry. If she were alone in the mate's cabin it would be harder to keep Renaud from cutting her throat. Though in the end they might have no choice—it would be very dangerous to let her go back to her pampered life in New York and have to answer questions about the disappearance of Harry Van Dorn and his yacht. A casualty of war, Thomason would have said. But Thomason was gone, and Peter had hoped that the ruthlessness that was part and parcel of the Committee could be tempered by restraint.
    But people who knew too much were always a problem. The drugs that had been developed were volatile; they could wipe out too much memory or too little. When the stakes were high enough one couldn't afford to take chances.
    But maybe it wouldn't come to that. Maybe he could get her off the boat after all—she certainly seemed desperate to go. It wouldn't take long—if Van Dorn's jet was out of commission she'd have to fly out on a commercial plane, and it would be easy enough to arrange a flight for the crack of dawn, necessitating that she spend the night on the island. She'd seen him, of course, but she wouldn't remember anything about him. It was one of his many dubious talents.
    He was making things needlessly complicated, all for the sake of a spoiled little rich girl. She was here, and she could stay here. He'd deal with the ramifications of that later. He'd keep her alive if he could. If not, he'd make certain it was swift and merciful. After all, being born into privilege was no great crime. Only a moral misdemeanor.
     
    The mate's cabin was an expansive suite that belonged more in a five-star hotel than on a boat. The king-size bed took up only a quarter of the room, and a picture window overlooked the gently rocking ocean. Genevieve pulled the curtains.
    She took a lengthy shower, simply for the novelty of it, pampering herself. She'd finally gotten used to those little elegances—a childhood of scrimping, of making sure appearances were kept up, had done a complete turnaround, to such a well-kept extreme that it sometimes amused her. Who would have thought the well-bred, desperately poor little Genny Spenser would end up so pampered? There'd been a certain cachet in being one of the
nouveau pauvre
. The money her robber baron ancestors had amassed was long gone, and all that was left was the expectation of privilege without the money to buy it. Not that her parents would admit to that. In public they were still the Spensers, socially above those who actually had to work for a living. Inside the house with the leaking roof, the closed-off wings, the weed-choked driveway and the empty rooms, they ate boxed macaroni and cheese resentfully prepared by her mother.
    They were lucky they had a roof over their heads. Her black-sheep father was the only Spenser left in their branch of the family, but upon his death the house was already in trust to the state of Rhode Island. So he'd simply sold anything he could—all the surrounding land, every piece of furniture worth something. The art had already been divested in a previous generation, and her grandmother had survived by selling off her jewelry. There was very little left to sell by the time Genevieve's parents moved in.
    No one was allowed to visit, of course, because then the secret would be out. They were always in the midst of massive renovations, her parents would say, and returned social commitments at a restaurant or club. And Genny and her sister would eat butter-and-potato-chip sandwiches for weeks to pay for it.
    Now she could buy anything, eat anything, wear anything she wanted. It was no wonder she had those wretched fifteen pounds—there were just too many lovely things to partake of. If her