Heart of Ice Read Online Free PDF

it.” She dished up the eggs. “I think I’d better put something on too.”
    “Don’t be long,” Ada cautioned. “The eggs will congeal.”
    “I’ll hurry.”
    She ran for her bedroom and closed the door just as Egan opened his. A minute’s grace! She got into her jeans, blue T-shirt and shoes, and barely stopped to run a brush through her hair. She hoped it would be a short week. She hadn’t expected Egan to have this kind of effect on her. In all the years she’d known him, he’d never even tried to make a pass at her. Now, in less than two days, he’d made more impact on her guarded emotions than any other man had in all her twenty-five years. She was going to have to get a hold on herself. She didn’t know what kind of game Egan had in mind, but she wasn’t playing.
    He was wearing a brown velour pullover when she came back, one that emphasized his darkhair and complexion and the hard muscles she’d already seen.
    “We left a little for you,” Egan commented as she sat down. He pushed aside his empty plate and poured himself another cup of coffee from the hotplate on the table.
    “How kind of you,” she said pleasantly. She held up her cup and Egan filled it, studying her far too closely.
    “What does your boyfriend do for a living?” he asked unexpectedly.
    “Jack isn’t my boyfriend,” she said. “He’s a man I date. And he’s a political reporter for the
New York Times
.”
    He leaned back in his chair while Ada bit her lower lip and looked apprehensive.
    “Is he really?” Egan asked. “He doesn’t look like he gets much exercise. A little overweight, wouldn’t you say?”
    She glared at him. “He works very hard.”
    He only laughed, and sipped his coffee. “If I took him home with me, I could break him in one day.”
    “You could break the devil in one day,” Kati said, exasperated. “What business is it of yours who I date?”
    “Now, that’s a good question,” he replied. His eyes narrowed, and there was a smile she didn’t understand on his chiseled lips. “Maybe I feel sorry for the poor man. He does know what you do for a living, doesn’the? Must be hell on him, having everything he does to you turn up in a book…”
    “Egan.” Ada groaned, hiding her face in her hands.
    “You overbearing, unspeakable, mean-tempered…” Kati began in a low tone. She threw her napkin down onto the table and stood up.
    “You sure got up on the wrong side of the bed,” Egan commented. “Here I am a guest in your apartment—”
    “I’d sooner invite a cobra to breakfast!” she burst out.
    “You should have,” he murmured, glancing at the plate he’d just emptied. “He might have enjoyed burned eggs and half-raw bacon.”
    She tried to speak, couldn’t, and just stormed out of the room.
    She left the apartment before Ada could get out of the kitchen, and wandered around the streets shivering in her thin jacket for an hour before she gave up and went back. It was too cold for pride, anyway. All she’d accomplished was to let Egan see how unreasonably she reacted to his prodding. She’d just have to grit her teeth, for Ada’s sake.
    Egan was nowhere in sight when she got back, and Ada looked apologetic and worn.
    “I don’t understand him, I just don’t,” Ada groaned. “Oh, Kati, I’m sorry. If I’d realized how bad things were between you, I’d never have invited him.”
    Kati was generous enough not to remind her friendthat she’d tried to warn her. She sat down on the sofa with a hard sigh.
    “I’ll manage. Where is he?” she added darkly.
    “Gone to spend the day with some girlfriend of his,” Ada said absently. “He said he might not be back until late.”
    Why that simple statement should make her feel murderous, Kati didn’t know. But something gnawed inside her at the thought of Egan with another woman.
    “I wonder how much he had to bribe her?” she asked nastily.
    “Shame on you,” Ada said.
    But Kati didn’t apologize. And she didn’t