Cold as Ice by Anne Stuart

minutes to put on her business persona once more; she'd become an expert at constructing Genevieve Spenser, Esquire, in record time, even without makeup and fresh underwear and shoes. Her reflection in the mirror wasn't reassuring. She didn't look as polished and inviolate as she usually did. It didn't matter. Her justifiable anger would make up for any lingering vulnerability.
    Except that the door was locked from the outside. At first she couldn't believe it—it must have been some kind of mistake. But no matter how hard she tugged and twisted the polished brass doorknob, the door wouldn't move.
    She lost it then. She began pounding on the door, kicking it, yelling at the top of her lungs. "Unlock this door, you son of a bitch, and let me out of here! How dare you do this—it's kidnapping, and just because my firm represents your goddamn foundation doesn't mean I won't sue the daylights out of you, you slimy weasel." She kept pounding, kicking, yelling, until a sudden slam against the locked door momentarily silenced her.
    "Be quiet!"
    It was a voice she hadn't heard before, someone with a heavy accent, possibly French.
    "Then unlock the goddamn door and let me out of here," she snapped.
    "You have a choice, lady. You can sit down and shut up and wait until we're ready to deal with you, or you can keep making noise and force me to come in and cut your throat. The boss said to leave you alone, but he's a practical man and knows when you have to cut your losses, whether he likes it or not. I promise you I would have no problem killing you."
    Genevieve froze. She wanted to laugh at the melodramatic absurdity of that disembodied voice, except that it wasn't absurd. She believed that flat, unemotional tone.
    "What's going on? Why are we in the middle of the ocean and why have you locked me in here?" she asked in a deceptively calm voice.
    "You'll find out when the boss says you need to. In the meantime be quiet and don't remind me that you're causing trouble. Not if you want to have any chance of making it back to your expensive lifestyle."
    She should have kept her mouth shut, but right now she was having a hard time being docile. "Who's the boss?"
    "No one you want to fuck with, lady."
    "Is it Harry?"
    The sound of retreating footsteps was her only answer. She was half tempted to call out after him, but wisdom kept her mouth shut. In her short foray into pro bono law she'd met enough sociopaths and career criminals to recognize the sound of one. The man who'd stood on the other side of the door would have no qualms about killing her. And he said his mysterious boss was even worse. Not Harry. Harry was just a harmless good ol' boy and the logical target of whatever was going on. It had to be someone else.
    She tossed her jacket on the bed and proceeded to prowl around the room. She'd managed to figure out how to work the power-operated curtains, and she could open the window itself a scant ten inches. She might be able to get through it sideways, except that there was nowhere to go. It looked straight over the water, with no railing or deck beneath it, and she didn't fancy dangling off the side of a fast-moving yacht while she tried to make her way to another level.
    What the hell was going on? The man had said his boss was ready to cut his losses, and it was clear she was one of those losses. The obvious center of whatever was going on had to be Harry Van Dorn and his billions of dollars. Was he being held hostage? If so, she'd be an obvious negotiator. Maybe that was why the unnamed boss had decided to keep her alive.
    And where was Jensen in all this? Probably already dead—he would have been expendable. Unless he was part of whatever was going on. Though someone less like a terrorist or extortionist she couldn't imagine.
    She had a Swiss Army knife in her makeup bag. No pockets in her silk suit, but she could tuck the weapon in her bra just in case. Most of all, she had to stay calm. She'd learned that, and a great many