“Morgan!” Trent exclaimed, and I spun to skate backward, giving him a cheeky bunny-eared kiss-kiss. His brow creased, so I started dancing to the music. Oh, God, it was “Magic Carpet Ride,” and the entire place was emptying onto the rink.

By the time I had done a circuit, Jon was with him and Trent was lacing up. He was going to come out here? Holy crap, he must be pissed. It wasn’t unusual for Trent to track me down when he wanted to wave money at me, but he usually had his act more together than this.

I made another circle, my mind going over our last meeting. I hadn’t done anything to tick him off too badly, had I? I mean, irritating him was fun, but the man could kill me if he really wanted. Of course, the nasty little secret of his illegal genetic labs would come out and his empire would come tumbling down, but hell, Trent might do it just to spite me.

My third circuit found Jon standing alone. I quickly scanned the rink, but it wasn’t until I looked behind me that I found Trent moving easily and comfortably. He can skate? I toyed with the idea of making a race out of this, but there were too many people out there in unsafe costumes, and besides, I’d probably already pushed him to the limit. The guy was a drug lord after all.

Curious, I checked to make sure my scarf was in place, then slowed to let the underweight Arnold pass me so Trent could catch up.

“Rachel,” he said as he settled in beside me, and I felt uneasy when he looked at my scarf as if he knew what lay under it. “You are unbelievable. You know I want to talk to you.”

“So here I am.” I smiled and tucked a curl out of the way. “Besides, I’ve always wanted to see a world power on skates. You skate really well—for a murderer.”

His green eyes squinted and his jaw tightened. I watched him force the tension out of himself. God, I enjoyed pushing his buttons. That he even cared what I thought said volumes.

“I need you to come with me,” he said as we took the turn, and I laughed, the sound lost in the boom of the speakers.

“On your suicide mission?” I said. “I’m glad you finally got smart and asked for help, but I’m not going into the ever-after for you. Forget it.”

He went to say something, his emotions showing more than usual, but it was cut short as the lights dimmed and the disco ball lit up.

“Couples’ skate,” Chad said over the loudspeaker in a bored tone. “If you don’t have a partner, get off the damned boards.”