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“Is that anywhere near New York?”
“No.”
“Then you’ll have to figure out the rest of the way home. As long as you’re out of France you’ll be safe enough, but right now there are going to be any number of very talented people out to kill you.”
“I would think they’d want to kill you, not me.”
“Oh, they want to kill me, too. Most everyone who meets me eventually ends up wanting to kill me,” he said.
“I can understand why,” she said in a faint voice.
He didn’t bother arguing. “Are you going to take off those ruined clothes, or would you like my help?”
“I can manage,” she said stiffly. “Where’s the bedroom?”
He pointed to the double doors behind him. “In there. I’ll be in in a minute.”
“I’m not going to sleep with you again,” she said. He could see her vulnerability was lessening as her outrage grew. That would help her to survive as well.
“Again? I wasn’t aware that what we did before had anything to do with sleeping.”
She could blush. He watched with fascination as the color stained her face—he would have thought she’d be well past such an innocent reaction. He took pity on her. “Never mind, Chloe,” he said gently. “I won’t do anything but provide a little first aid. The rest of you can stay inviolate.”
He could tell his frank, matter-of-fact approach was only making it worse, but at that point it was the least of his problems. She needed to be patched up, fed, dressed and sent on her way, and he didn’t have any time to waste. He’d be insanely lucky if they didn’t find him by nightfall—his smartest plan was to keep moving. As soon as he was sure his unexpected companion was able to.
She was sitting on the bed, the sheet wrapped around her like she was at a gynecologist’s office, and she was still wearing her underwear. He sat beside her on the bed, and she tried to move away. “Don’t be childish, Chloe,” he said.
She was looking at the dark brown bottle he held in one hand, the cotton swabs he planned to use. “What is that?” she demanded. “You didn’t get that from any drugstore.”
“A good thing, too. This is very expensive, very high-tech, worth more than its weight in gold. It speeds up healing. In a couple days most of this should disappear. I doubt there will even be much scarring.”
“Where did it come from?”
“Trade secret,” he said, putting a generous amount of the thick, translucent green stuff on a swab. “There’s only one drawback.” He picked up her left arm, the one Hakim had concentrated on.
“What’s that?”
“It hurts like hell.” And he wiped the cream against the first cut.
She jerked, and he half expected her to scream. He’d chosen this hotel for a number of reasons, one of them being its exquisite soundproofing, and he had no fears that anyone would hear her cry out, but apart from a strangled little sound at the back of her throat she said nothing, holding herself rigid to fight the pain.
He knew from experience that this was probably going to hurt worse than Hakim’s ministrations. With Hakim she’d been partially numb from shock and fear, and the full effect of his handiwork wouldn’t take effect until later. If she lived that long.
She was biting her lips to keep from making any sound, and her mouth was bleeding again. He kept going, trying to ignore the vibrations in her body as she fought it.
“There are better ways to deal with pain,” he said calmly as he continued to paint the stripes on her arm. “The more you fight it, the more it fights back. If you let go, relax into it, you’ll find it becomes almost an altered state, as if someone else is hurting. It’s much better that way.”
“You have that much experience with pain?” She barely managed to spit out the words.
“Enough,” he said. “Breathe. You know, like they do in childbirth. Deep, regular breathing, and try to relax.”
“I can’t,” she said in a strangled voice. He could feel her heart racing against the pain.
“I could always distract you.”
That got her attention. “Don’t—”
“I know, don’t touch you.” He put one arm down and picked up the other. “Then talk to me. Tell me what you were doing at Hakim’s.”
