Read Online The Siren's Sting by Miranda Darling - Free Book Online

was, she didn’t need the submarine to know she was headed for trouble. A call from David Rice had been enough.
    â€˜Her husband is a dangerous man, a very dangerous man. Proceed with absolute caution, do you understand?’ Rice’s voice had been low and in earnest, not a tone he often used. ‘No freelancing, no games, take absolutely no risks.’
    â€˜Sounds delightful,’ she said, then added, ‘The scarf arrived, by the way. Unnecessary, but very much appreciated.’
    There had been a pause on the other end, then, ‘Stevie, if I thought there was any chance of you getting into any sort of bother with Krok I would never send you. I’m only telling you this so that you see you don’t cross him. You have a penchant for doing things your way that won’t do in this case.’
    Rice was referring to her escapades in Russia and the warning hit home. It had been a winter of blood and fear and Stevie was still shaken to her core by the things she had seen.
    Rice continued, ‘You’ll be a guest of Krok’s wife—perfectly legitimate and perfectly safe. She’s a remarkable woman and I think you will get on.’
    The day after Stevie had arrived in Sardinia, a parcel was delivered to the house by courier—a rare and difficult feat to achieve on the island, where the regular mail service was patchy at best. Inside was a slim orange Hermès box and a note: Please forgive an old brute who values you more than you know . It had been signed D .
    Rice was obviously regretting his rather harsh words at the Caffè al Bicerin in Turin, and any hurt feelings Stevie might have been nursing evaporated. Beyond the gesture, the scarf itself was beautiful: the signs of the zodiac were placed on a white background and edged with brown and gold. It was the sort of gift one might receive from a lover, she thought—only Rice did not intend it that way. Unfortunately. However she did like the idea of being valued more than she knew; the happy possibilities seemed ill-defined and infinite, and if she didn’t examine David’s motives too closely they might even remain that way.
    Stevie stuck the note to the bathroom mirror with a tiny dab of toothpaste.
    The day after that he had called her. He needed a personal favour, a tiny job that only Stevie could do, and that had been the end of Stevie’s holiday.
    Clémence Krok was the third wife of Vaughan Krok, owner of STORM, the world’s largest private army. She had known Rice in his gayer days, he had explained, in London. Clémence had been a beauty; she, well . . . he had not needed to explain further. Stevie, irrational and inappropriate hackles of jealousy rising to prick the faint hairs on her neck, had understood perfectly.
    She had a distinct premonition of trouble ahead, in one form or another. But David Rice was the only man on earth she could not refuse. Although he had no idea of how she felt, he was the man she admired most in the world and the standard by which, if she were brutally honest, she judged every other man. His dismissal of her in the café had hurt her feelings, mostly because Stevie often wondered if Rice took her seriously. She was regularly attached to assignments that involved soothing the hysterical, reassuring the mad, and babysitting the famous. Her colleagues at Hazard assured her it was because no one else could do those jobs like she could: an ex-SAS captain would have a very different approach to client concerns. Stevie’s skills, matched with her unthreatening, unassuming appearance, were a golden combination. But the worm of doubt sometimes whispered in her ear: He doesn’t believe you can do it. He doesn’t think you can handle anything serious.
    The discussion in the Bicerin had reawakened the worm that had been sleeping since Russia. Stevie could not have said no, even if she had had a good excuse. One day, she would prove to Rice that she was a force to