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“How do you know what to do?”
“We had to take a first aid course when I was younger and getting into go-karts.”
“And they gave you a lesson on poison ivy?”
He grins, the worry smoothing from his face. “They did, actually. They’re very thorough in Germany.”
“Thank god for that.” I blow out a breath.
“Is that better?”
I ponder this for a second, then screw up my face. The pain is so intense that tears are streaming from my eyes. “No,” I wail. “It still feels like it’s burning my skin off.”
“Okay, that’s it, we’re going to the hospital.”
The next hour is both quick and excruciatingly slow. Max alerts the bodyguards and the driver, and they pull the SUV around to the front of the cabin. Then Max hoists me into his arms while I protest that he’s going to get poison on him.
“I don’t care,” he growls.
We end up in the backseat, and because we’re so secluded, we must drive for a solid thirty minutes to get to the hospital. Once there, a doctor recognizes Max and I’m whisked into a private room.
By this time, the back of one leg has formed multiple blisters. It’s so disgusting that I can’t even look at it. I’m unable to form words anyway, and communicate only in whimpers. Thank goodness Max is there to talk with the doctor.
Good lord. This is the second hospital I’ve been inside this month. What is my life?
I’m given an industrial-strength steroid, some antibiotics, and a painkiller. I feel almost instantly better, but a little inebriated. Maybe I’m drooling a little, but I don’t care. It’s better than feeling like my legs are on fire.
By the time that’s all happened, Max and the entire hospital staff are old friends, and I woozily invite the doctor to the race on Sunday.
“Oh god, the race,” I mumble, as Max pushes me out of the hospital in a wheelchair. “I need to call Papa. Or Jack. I’ll be okay to go to Montreal tomorrow.”
“We’ll see, babe. Let’s get you back to the cabin so you can sleep all this off.”
He pushes me outside, where the SUV is waiting. So are two photographers and what look to be three or four reporters. In my slightly altered state, I can’t really tell the media from the people gawking at us outside of the hospital. It’s not every day that a Formula World driver pushes a drooling woman in a wheelchair out of a medical facility.
This thought makes me giggle, then hiccup.
“Oh, shitballs, it’s the paparazzi,” I slur.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
MAX
If there’s a constant in life, it’s the media. They’re everywhere and unavoidable. Over my years in Formula World, I’ve learned to ignore them. Focused on blocking out their noise and static.
I’d learned by jumping immediately into the fire; my first couple of years in the sport were marred by scandal due to my former engineer and his shady method of getting information on other teams’ cars.
After dealing with that, I developed an iron-clad ability to ignore the press. But now that I’m pushing a wheelchair carrying an obviously drugged Lily in front of a rural Quebec hospital, I’m rethinking my apathy.
I push her toward the SUV while one of the bodyguards attempts to block a photographer from snapping photos at close range.
The other bodyguard dashes ahead to open the car door, and when we’re about a foot away, Lily stands and wobbles. The doctors gave her quite a heavy sedative.
“Watch your step, Ms. Onassis,” the bodyguard says, almost catching her as her knees wobble. He helps her into the car.
Meanwhile, the small cluster of reporters are shouting questions at me, things like, “What happened to Lily Onassis?” and “Did she overdose?”
That last question annoys the shit out of me, so once I see Lily is safely buckled into the backseat, I stand between the open door and the reporters.
