Rae
When Rae and Wulf had left the Southwest desert ten hours before, the blistering summer sunset had scraped Rae’s arms through the tinted window of the SUV that had driven them to the airport.
Now, snow. Mountains blanketed with snow. Two feet of icy base and more powder last night, and the Argentinian morning sun shot beams off of it like stage lights. Crystalline snow stung Rae’s face like salt flying in the wind.
The temperature difference was nearly a hundred degrees Fahrenheit, and the cold air stuck pins through Rae’s new ski jacket during the quick trot from the SUVs to the ski chalet’s lobby. She had ordered the coat online in a hurry, as Wulf had made reservations here less than a week ago. The June blizzard had dropped snow early in the Southern Hemisphere’s winter. This chalet usually didn’t open until late June or early July.
Money and privilege changed everything, even the laws of time and space. If she wanted something impossible, like to go skiing in June, Wulf arranged for them to go skiing in June. Rae felt like a desert rat that had crawled into an exclusive ski chalet on the wrong half of the world.
Sunlight glared brilliant white off the snow drifts outside the huge two-story windows, outshining the roaring fire in the fireplace and throwing thick wedges of light over the rustic wood and plush conversation groupings. Tendrils of wood smoke hung in the air and clung to her clothes as she walked.
Rae squinted, trying to see through the snow-glaring radiance. The outline of the long front desk staffed with obscure shadows peeked out of the radiating beams, and Wulf’s security men, all wearing long black coats over their black suits, hustled them through the lobby to the elevators. The advance team had already secured their floor, the top one.
She turned to look up at Wulf, who strode beside her toward the elevators. The flat planes of light cast harsh shadows under his straight jaw and strong cheekbones. She was still squinting into the bright sun and almost asked him some inane question about tinted ski goggles, but his attention was focused across the lobby with the intensity of a missile locked on a target.
The sunlight behind him haloed his blond hair, and his dark blue eyes betrayed nothing. His practiced expression was as serene as deep water, as it always was when they were not alone.
Wulf didn’t notice Rae watching him as they hurried across the lobby, their security men’s shoes thundering on the wooden floor as they swarmed around Rae and Wulf like black hornets. She had learned to read the exceedingly subtle shifts in the tension in his jaw and around his eyes, and he was staring across that lobby with the same sword-sharp intensity as when he evaluated thousands of flickering numbers while managing his stock portfolios.
He was calculating something very complex.
Rae turned, and the burly back of one of the black-suited security guys blocked her line of sight across the wide room for a moment.
On the other side of the lobby, the glowing sun shining from behind Rae and the bonfire blazing in the enormous stone fireplace lit a woman. She wore one of those skin-tight ski outfits that clung like a wetsuit to her slim curves, and her blue second skin set off her pale features, flashing black eyes, and glossy black curls.
The woman smiled a slow, sultry smile above Rae’s head.
Right at Wulf, who hadn’t taken his eyes off her.
Recognition tickled the back of Rae’s mind, but she couldn’t place the woman.
Rae turned back to Wulf. “Do we know her?”
Wulf glanced down at her, his expression as unperturbed as the glistening fresh powder outside the windows. “I don’t know whom you’re talking about.”
“That woman.” Rae gestured by flicking her hand back at the lobby as the security guys crowded Rae and Wulf into the elevator.
Two of the guys got on the elevator with them. They turned their backs to Rae and Wulf and stared at the doors sliding closed, so Rae only saw broad shoulders in black wool coats.
Rae frowned. “I could swear that I know her from somewhere.”
Wulf shrugged one shoulder, and the smallest smile tilted the corner of his mouth. “I’m sure that I have no idea whom you mean.”
Rae stopped and swallowed hard, a sour tang in her mouth.
Wulf didn’t lie to her.
He omitted things, sure, but only when he thought he had an excellent reason, usually to protect her or so he wouldn’t scare her off.
She watched him, examining him for signs of what he was thinking.
He had been staring at that woman, staring hard. He knew exactly whom Rae meant.
An image rose up in Rae’s mind: that same woman, wearing a slim white dress and holding out her delicate hand to shake, and saying, “Marie-Therese Grimaldi, cousin to the groom.” Sweet incense smoke had floated in the air. A wooden door had loomed behind Marie-Therese’s black curls when she had introduced herself, the door to the room where Wulf’s sister Flicka had been sobbing on her wedding day in Paris because their father was trying to ruin her wedding with a temper tantrum. Wulf’s father had thought Pierre wasn’t an appropriate match for their family.
Marie-Therese had been one of Flicka’s bridesmaids.
Rae wove her fingers into Wulf’s, gloved hand. The sharp stones on her wedding rings rubbed her fingers, so she twisted the rings, straightening them.
Wulf couldn’t have forgotten Marie-Therese. He never forgot anything, ever. Rae wouldn’t have been able to stand having his memory where nothing ever faded, not even childhood horrors, and she had slowly, over the last few months, begun to discern his many skills for coping with it. Most of them involved adrenaline or testosterone. Anyone less controlled would have been driven mad.
She sort of wanted to write a psychology paper on him for her senior year next year, but he was far too private a person. It would have slashed him open, and she wouldn’t ever do that.
But she was unsettled.
It was odd that Marie-Therese Grimaldi was in Argentina at a ski resort at all, and it was downright baffling why Wulf wouldn’t admit to having seen her.