Ice Storm by Anne Stuart

at least two weeks.”
She reached up and kissed the edge of Peter’s jaw. “That would be very nice. Once I’m, once things are a little more settled, I wouldn’t mind having him come out to stay for a bit. Just not right now.”
    “Not right now,” Peter agreed, some of his sunny mood vanishing. By a little more settled she meant once she was pregnant. And while he would kill for her, change the world for her, no matter what he did he couldn’t in fact guarantee she’d get pregnant. Though he certainly was putting a great amount of effort into the task. The international arrivals lounge was jammed, the flights from the
Far East
arriving in droves. Hiromasa was apparently tall, like Taka—that was one way to identify him. Taka had said they’d know him when they saw him, but Peter stared at all the various Asian men and drew a total blank.
    What’s he supposed to do, wear a rose in his teeth?” Genevieve whispered to him.
“I think I see him’ Peter replied, zeroing in on a tall, slender man in an immaculate dark suit, looking around as if expecting someone. Isobel would approve: members of the Committee tended to be extremely well dressed. They didn’t usually bother with the rank and file, but were more likely to interact with the movers and shakers of the dark world they lived in. The young man would fit in perfectly.
Peter headed for him, still holding Genny’s hand. “Hiromasa Shinoda?” he said.
The young man blinked. “Sorry, my name is Weng Shui Lan.”
    Peter felt Genevieve’s elbow in his ribs. “That’s not him.”
    “I beg your pardon,” he said politely, before turning to look at her. “I figured out that much, but why…“ His voice trailed off. Someone was standing directly behind Genevieve, taller than her impressive height, and Peter’s good mood vanished entirely.
    “Oh, shit,” he muttered. Hiromasa Shinoda smirked, tossing his long red hair back from his tattooed face. “I’m glad to see you, too.”
    “Reno.”
“In the flesh. That man wasn’t even Japanese, he was Chinese. Believe me, we don’t all look alike.”
    Peter ignored the jibe. “Taka sent you?”
    A faintly disgruntled expression crossed Reno’s face, and he dropped his sunglasses down onto his elegant nose, hiding the brilliant, fake green eyes and tattooed blood drops on his high cheekbones, “I was informed it would be a wise idea for me to leave Japan for a time, and Taka thought I should do some good for a change,” he glanced around him with casual disdain.
    “It would be a novelty,” Peter said.
    Genevieve smacked him in the arm. “Stop it, Peter, He helped save your life in
Japan
last year, and you know it. He just likes to pretend he’s scary.”
    Reno
growled, offended. “I am not interested in your idiot organization or your delusions of sainthood. I promised Taka I would come, and I will stay here and do what you want until it’s safe for me to go home.”
    “And how long will that be?”
    “It depends on how angry the police are, how unforgiving my grandfather is and how interested Taka is in letting me come home.”
    “What terrible thing did you do?” Genny asked, sounding fascinated.
    “None of your business.”
    “Watch it,” Peter warned him. “You don’t want to mess with Genevieve—she can turn you into hamburger if you annoy her.”
    She laughed. “Nobody can keep secrets from me,” she declared, and Peter remembered with depressing speed that his wife had always had a soft spot for Taka’s punk cousin. She’d even tried a little bit of matchmaking between
Reno
and Taka’s future seventeen-year-old sister-in-law, the Amazonian Jilly Lovitz, until Taka abruptly dragged him back to
Japan
.
    And now be was here again, and likely to stay for a while, and it was up to Peter to ride herd on him. First Thomason, and now
Reno
. If it weren’t for Genevieve he’d count the day a total disaster.
    “You’re coming home with us, aren’t you?” she continued, ignoring