Icebreaker (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour)

by Simone Sinna

  Icebreaker

  Sienna Martin has been training as a private investigator and needs a job, so when her friend Elle has a task in the snowfields, all expenses paid by DJ, the resort owner, what’s not to like? Checking out Steve Prescott and his new nightclub might even be fun. Trouble is, she has to pretend to be Elle, and when Connell Crane, the hot resort manager, thinks he knows things about the real Elle that she doesn’t, things rapidly start to go wrong.

  Steve and Connell seemed to be working together, or is Connell about to do a double-cross? Attracted to them both, Sienna is torn. A twenty-five-year-old mysterious death ties them and DJ together, but just how? And when a murder attempt brings the real Elle running, and Sienna gets herself tied up in Steve’s basement just about anything might happen…

  Genre: BDSM, Contemporary, Ménage a Trois/Quatre

  Length: 37,781 words

  ICEBREAKER

  Simone Sinna

  MENAGE AMOUR

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

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  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  IMPRINT: Ménage Amour

  ICEBREAKER

  Copyright © 2013 by Simone Sinna

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-62740-156-2

  First E-book Publication: July 2013

  Cover design by Harris Channing

  All cover art and logo copyright © 2013 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  Letter to Readers

  Dear Readers,

  If you have purchased this copy of Icebreaker by Simone Sinna from BookStrand.com or its official distributors, thank you. Also, thank you for not sharing your copy of this book.

  Regarding E-book Piracy

  This book is copyrighted intellectual property. No other individual or group has resale rights, auction rights, membership rights, sharing rights, or any kind of rights to sell or to give away a copy of this book.

  The author and the publisher work very hard to bring our paying readers high-quality reading entertainment.

  This is Simone Sinna’s livelihood. It’s fair and simple. Please respect Ms. Sinna’s right to earn a living from her work.

  Amanda Hilton, Publisher

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  www.BookStrand.com

  DEDICATION

  This one’s for my wonderful daughter Dominique. It takes a brave daughter to edit her mother’s writing—a braver one still to edit her mother’s erotic writing!

  ICEBREAKER

  SIMONE SINNA

  Copyright © 2013

  Chapter One

  “You have got to be joking.” Sienna looked at her friend Elle, aghast. Even for Elle this was outrageous.

  “It’ll be a breeze,” said Elle, her most charming smile in full force, the one she had used to get everything she had wanted since grade school. Sienna should have known that her friend “dropping in for coffee” would have strings attached. “You said you needed money and you’re bored. And you just completed that PI course and haven’t been able to get a job. This is perfect.”

  Elle had a way of saying “perfect” that didn’t allow a comeback. Sienna stared at her and didn’t know where to begin with all of the things that most certainly were a long way off perfect. It was easier to pour the coffee, even if she only had instant in her tiny apartment.

  Elle tried looking like she understood. But Sienna had been through this too many times before to be fooled. Sienna knew clearly that Elle needed her to do a “little job” for her, so she would be free to flit off to Queenstown in New Zealand and get her photo taken with important people. Okay, seemed like she had a serious modeling job there, too, but at five foot ten, size six, honey skin, dramatic, angularly cut short hair, and an angel face, of course she had a modeling job.

  Sienna at five four, brunette, and size ten didn’t resent her friend’s success, but Elle’s assumption that all else except what was foremost in her mind was unimportant could be grating. Her self-confidence was infectious, though, and Sienna felt she needed a dose of this after three job knockbacks. True, this did include the one where she had been offered the job, but the probable strings attached hadn’t been worth it. Despite warning bells ringing loudly about Elle’s job, Sienna felt herself softening to the idea.

  “So what exactly would I need to do?”

  Elle, much to Sienna’s consternation visibly relaxed. “Hon, this is private investigator lesson one.” She made “hon,” pronounced “hun,” sound so honey sweet it was hard not to believe her.

  Sienna frowned. Elle was an ex-cop. Well, almost. She hadn’t quite graduated, it was true. Something to do with dating a crime boss called George. But before she left to model, or maybe it was a travel agency job first (thanks to George), her take of PIs had been derisive to say the least. But with tendinitis from her admin job, the bad pay of waitressing, and no postgrad qualifications, Sienna’s choices had been limited. Elle had assured her the course would be easy, and in fact she had breezed through and quite enjoyed the lessons. She was still working on a firearms license, or more particularly, being able to fire one without her arm shaking—the tendinitis didn’t help, but the noise was a bigger negative—but she was increasingly of the opinion that she’d stick to non-dangerous jobs and wouldn’t need a gun. Elle’s “little job’” for a friend fitted this bill at least.

  “All you need to do,” Elle continued, “is check out how legit this Steve Prescott is. He owns a lot of property and wants to open a new club for the snow bunnies. There is some opposition.”

  “From?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” said Elle waving her hand, something she tended to do when she didn’t know the answer. “A lot of people. They think it might downgrade the feel of Hotham”

  How Elle ever managed to get anyone to pay her for real work—other than modeling—remained a mystery to Sienna. She didn’t seem to take anything seriously enough.

  “And who is actually paying?”

  “Just someone I know,” said Elle vaguely. “Ski Spectacular is the company. Heavily invested at Hotham.”

  Hoth
am was the biggest ski resort precinct in Victoria, about five hours’ drive north of Melbourne. Higher than Bulla, the opposition mountain, they got better snow and were trying to milk this before climate change created more havoc than it already had.

  “I would just have to check into this Steve guy’s background then?” asked Sienna. “I wouldn’t actually have to go to Hotham?”

  Elle looked alarmed. “Of course you’d have to go,” she said. “I, or rather, you as me, have to be seen there. I mean, you have to meet him on home ground. And meet the opposition. Get a feel for Prescott’s enterprise. Um, and you’d better have my phone. Just don’t answer it and only send text replies. No one will ever know it’s not me.”

  “I don’t have any ski gear.” This, Sienna privately acknowledged, wasn’t strictly true. She had bought a secondhand outfit that was yellow and bibbed and puffy, because it was all she could afford for that one disastrous trip to the snow when she’d spent most of the time face planting.

  Elle was never going to let a wardrobe malfunction get in the way. “You can have my outfit from last year. The New Zealand group is providing a complete new wardrobe for me.”

  Great. Sienna could hardly wait to see what she would look like in rolled-up trousers that couldn’t be buttoned up.

  “Don’t worry,” said Elle brightly. “The opening weekend usually doesn’t have any snow. It’ll just be one party after another.”

  * * * *

  Sienna took the bus because it was the cheapest option. Accommodation paid—“It’ll be a bit pedestrian, but you won’t mind will you, hon?”—and basic expenses, she had a week to get back and put her report in. On the trip up the highway and then winding through the Milawa vineyards to the mountain base, she reread the results of her searches. Steve Prescott was everywhere and nowhere, working hard on keeping below the radar except on the social pages. From Google searching, and through her networks, she knew he owned several Melbourne nightclubs, was single, thirty-four, and not gay, if the number of different women hanging off his arm was anything to go by. From the photos he was hot and seemed like he knew it. Olive skin, lean, longish dark hair that fell over his eyes, and a come-hither look. Sienna took an immediate dislike to him. One of those “I’m God’s gift to women” men that made her skin crawl.

  The last hour of the bus trip was slow and would have been excruciating had it not been for the buzz, a feeling of excitement from the others of the bus that escalated as each bend drew them closer to the destination. These were the true die-hard skiers who weren’t going to miss a second of the season, even if there wasn’t any snow. Sienna hadn’t bothered to look at the snow report, but the fact that there was a deluge of white descending on them as the bus wove up the switchback and then across the ridge was as much a surprise to the rest of the group as it was to her.

  “Oh my God, I’m in heaven,” said Amy, who was sitting next to her. Sienna had never met her before but over the drive had heard her whole life story. “They already thought that there would be enough snow for lifts so this will ensure there is! Almost never happens on opening weekend!” Amy was waitressing and had thought she wouldn’t get to ski for weeks.

  Sienna was looking at how close the bus got to the edge of the road and for the moment was more worried about the prospect of hell.

  “It’s gonna be a fucking pisser of a season,” yelled someone who had introduced himself as Troy from the front of the bus.

  Sienna silently groaned. Did Ski Spectacular’s owner seriously think that any club Prescott opened could make the ambiance any worse than this?

  * * * *

  Elle had told her that the apartment wouldn’t have windows, so Sienna was pleasantly surprised to discover otherwise. If it kept snowing, because the room—apartment was a definite exaggeration—was at basement level, she wouldn’t be able to see out, but there was a window and for the moment the view at least included light. Better still, the heating was working.

  After dumping her stuff, the first stop was for dinner, though it was also work. Her room was at the back of Snow City, owned by Ski Spectacular, managing director Draco Jackovitch, better known as DJ. He owned several shopping centers as well as half of Hotham and had “overseas investments” that looked to her like shelf companies. Actually, Sienna didn’t really know, but since the PI class on money laundering, she’d been itching to find something she could label “shelf company” and so she wrote it down in her notebook with a question mark.

  Snow City was located in the heart of the resort town. In the dusk light, from sheer size it looked like it was Hotham. Huge and imposing, it seemed to have everything, including a casino. Six floors cutting back deep into the mountainside, it looked even higher because of the ground falling away in front of it, the buildings next to it and opposite dwarfed in its shadow. It was covered in fairy lights, but if this was an attempt to soften the look it failed. Sienna flinched. She was less and less sure she was working for the good guys. Truth was, both sides were probably extorting the resort town as much as they could and just resented anyone else getting the money.

  From the back basement location of her room, Sienna had to make her way to the main entrance over the light snow cover, which was steadily increasing. She was grateful for Elle’s white fluffy snow boots even if they were two sizes too big. The outfit, also one of Elle’s, was a surprisingly good fit.

  “Stretch material, hon,” Elle had said. Frowning, she had made Sienna swirl around in it. “Actually, it does far more for you than me.”

  Sienna savored the compliment and rather thought her friend was right. Elle didn’t tend to mince her words. It was still plenty short enough—it would have left a lot of Elle’s legs on view—and hugged in all the right places, leaving enough cleavage on show to get second looks. The rich yellow tones made her look more vivacious, adding glow to her skin and light in her eyes, whereas it had left Elle looking washed out.

  Sienna headed for the main bar. The place was buzzing. Troy, from the bus trip, sadly was there already, half drunk. Sienna veered away from him after grabbing a vodka raspberry and found a seat in the corner.

  She wasn’t much of a club person. As the drink came to an end, and she’d told two men no thanks—the polite ones—and another to piss off—the drunk one—she wondered what ever had possessed her to agree to this. The PI course had been kind of interesting, given she was an avid reader of crime fiction, but the practicalities had been, to say the least, a little unlikely. The surveillance she might manage. The computer checks—easy. But she didn’t have any connections in the police department. Elle definitely didn’t count. If Sienna had mentioned her name she was likely to get put on a “suspicious persons register” or at best have the receiver slammed in her ear. Sienna blushed when she lied, and had been voted most honest person in her grade-six class. On the other hand, in her acting class she’d been voted girl most likely to succeed and had a scrap book full of great reviews. Nothing major, though she had had a non-speaking part in a play Cate Blanchett was the lead in. Trouble was she was inept at self-promotion and after reading Naomi Watts’s rise to stardom, through a lot of hard work, rejections, and hard sell, she’d packed the album away and decided to get real.

  Onto her second vodka raspberry, Sienna told herself to put an end to the self-pity. There were other facts she needed to remind herself of. She’d knocked out, cold, a guy when she was fifteen in her martial arts class. She topped her final school year in literature and that had to account for something didn’t it? And one guy had thought she was gorgeous and had wanted to marry her. Never mind that they had both decided it was a bad idea in the end. It had been romantic for a while and proved she wasn’t totally abhorrent to nice guys.

  So lost in thought, she didn’t notice that Troy and a contingent had left the bar and were passing by her, attempting to sweep her up off to the dance floor as they did.

  “No thanks, guys,” said Sienna, staying put.

  “Come on,” said Troy. “You’ll
look hot on the dance floor. It’s opening night. You have to dance.”

  “No thanks,” Sienna repeated firmly. Troy and a bunch of intoxicated twenty year olds grinding their hips into her would require a good deal more alcohol than she was prepared to consume.

  “Come on.” This time it was one of his mates, bigger and broader and all in all more intimidating, whether he meant to be or not.

  “I’m cool,” said Sienna hesitantly. As a PI, I should just knock him out. Memories of her one success of nearly half a lifetime ago urged her into action, but she resisted it. The guy she’d knocked the legs out from under then had been the same size as her. This one weighed maybe double.

  The thug looked like he was going to use the advantage until a cool voice interrupted.

  “Hassling my girl, are you?”

  Everyone turned around, no one with as much astonishment as Sienna. The Troy contingent melted away. Leaving him. Sienna had to stop herself gaping at the blond man. At around six foot two he was the lean skier type that juggled a martini in one hand and the ski tow in the other. She liked his strong jaw, and was sure his blue eyes saw more than they should and that, hell, he probably had an enormous cock. Shit where did that thought come from? Too long since that “romance that wasn’t” clearly.

  “Ah, I think you’ve got the wrong girl,” said Sienna.

  The blond hunk grinned. “No, just practicing,” he said. “By the end of the season, I’ll be using variations of that line ten times a night.”