Death is Forever

for someone. Erin was about to leave her blind and introduce herself when a dazzling middle-aged woman in evening clothes threw herself into the young man’s arms. Erin saw little television in Alaska, but she immediately recognized the woman as the bitch star of an enormously popular weekly series. In person, she looked at least a decade older than her escort.
    The couple chatted for a moment, then walked arm in arm toward the lobby bar where a party was already under way. Erin thought the actress clung to the young man in a peculiarly possessive way, displaying him like a woman leading a small dog in a show. If the young man disliked it, he kept it under wraps.
    Lapdogs aren’t noted for their teeth.
    Erin’s wry thought didn’t show on her face. As the couple passed, she realized that the young man’s tan was salon perfect, not a squint line on his whole smooth face. The leather rucksack was also an affectation. No bulges or scuffs marred its expensive lines. He walked like a man used to getting in and out of taxis.
    As soon as the couple vanished, Erin’s eye was caught by a striking slash of darkness in the midst of all the glitter and gilt—a black-haired man in a black silk jacket and open-collared white shirt. His skin had been changed by sun and weather rather than by carefully applied artificial light. He walked with the unconscious grace of a healthy animal. A black leather case was handcuffed to his wrist.
    He was looking right at her.
    For an instant Erin’s pulse accelerated with a purely female response. Then her elemental awareness gave way to an irritation that was close to anger and even closer to fear. This easy-walking man with his knowing eyes and his powerful body was exactly the sort of man she’d learned at such cost not to trust. He was a predator. Like her father. Like her brother.
    Like Hans.
    Because she knew she was reacting irrationally, Erin fought to cover her response to the tall stranger. The man was nothing more to her than a business appointment, a courier, an errand boy.
    He walked to the place where she sat screened by foliage from the bustle of the lobby. Screened, but obviously not hidden. Not from Cole Blackburn.
    There was no hesitation in Cole’s stride when Erin came to her feet and stood waiting for him. He’d had no trouble picking her out of the crowd. Her natural auburn hair burned like a campfire amid the pale candles of the rinsed, bleached, and dyed jet-set women. She was dressed in a black cotton blouse and slacks that had the relaxed appearance of clothes just taken from a suitcase. The contrast of black cloth with red hair and pale, smooth skin was arresting, but Cole would have bet good money that the clothes had been chosen for their ability to travel rather than for how they looked.
    Erin nodded as though to confirm that she was his appointment. Then she walked toward him and Cole cursed silently, feeling like he’d just walked into an ambush.
    The still photo of Erin had told only a tiny portion of the truth. There was a quality to her movements that put Cole’s body on full sexual alert. He’d felt nothing like it since Chen Lai, with her black eyes and golden skin and hidden laughter. Chen Lai, the honeyed snare he’d barely escaped intact, because he’d given Lai more of himself than he should have, mistaking simple lust for the complex emotion of love. It was a mistake he would never make again.
    As they approached each other, Cole studied Erin, looking for some sign that she was conscious of the elemental sexuality in her movements. If she was, she didn’t show it. There were no sidelong looks to see how the men around her were reacting. There was no careful polish of the female surface—no artful makeup, no gleaming-red nails, no tousled hair or undone buttons.
    Lai’s sexuality had been calculated to the last fraction. Erin’s wasn’t, which only increased its allure. And her eyes were the same incredible green of the diamond that men had died for in the past and would doubtless die for in the future.
    The idea made Cole smile crookedly. He’d seen men die for much less tangible, much less beautiful things than a diamond that was the color of every summer God ever made. Ideology, theology, philosophy—none of them could be cut and polished and set to shimmering and dreaming in shades of green on a man’s palm.
    “Erin Windsor? I’m Cole Blackburn.”
    Her eyes widened as she realized how big he was, like an oak taking root in