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“I don’t think so,” she said in a firm, pleasant voice.
“Stay, then.” Monique dropped down on the leather seat, pulling Bastien down between them. “I’ve never minded an audience.” And putting her hand behind Bastien’s head, she pulled his mouth down to hers.
He kissed her back. He put his arm around Monique’s slender waist and pulled her up against him, and gave her a lingering, lazy kiss. The kiss he’d refused Chloe just a short time ago.
It wasn’t just her imagination that the tension in the room ratcheted up several notches. Monique’s husband was watching with avid fascination and not the faintest amount of discomfort, and the others were witnessing their little soap opera with various degrees of interest. Except for Christos’s bodyguards, who’d managed to station themselves around the room instead of surrounding their employer. And why wasn’t Bastien paying attention to this alarming development, Chloe thought, instead of having his tongue halfway down that woman’s throat?
If she was supposed to sit there looking like a fool he’d miscalculated. He probably hoped she’d storm off in tears, and while she was tempted, Christos’s men were at every exit. Whether he liked it or not, she was trapped in there with them.
She put her hand on his shoulder and yanked him away from Monique. He looked down at her, his face icy. “Go away,” he said, loud and clear for the room to hear. “I’m tired of you.” And then he turned back to Monique.
The bitch was clearly enjoying herself tremendously, Chloe thought, taking a deep breath to steady herself. The expressionless men surrounding the room weren’t paying any attention to the groping session on the banquette—their attention was glued to the man who controlled them. Christos was watching with what almost might be called amusement, but he wasn’t going to be distracted for long, and when he gave the signal they would all be dead. Chloe knew it as well as she knew her own name.
As far as she knew Stockholm Syndrome might be a fatal disease. She turned, and Monique had one hand in Bastien’s long, silky hair, the other on his crotch.
That was the last straw. If she was going to die, she was going down in flames. She stood up, grabbed Monique’s skinny arm and hauled her away from Bastien before either of them realized what she was doing. “Get your goddamn hands off my boyfriend.”
It was the most ridiculous thing she could have said. The entire room was frozen in silence, watching them, and then Monique smiled. “I don’t mind a threesome, chérie, if you’re that jealous. You may not be enough for him but I imagine I can fill in the gaps.”
Chloe lunged at her, and Bastien caught her midair, hauling her against him. And then she went down, hard, on the floor, his body covering her, as all hell broke out.
She was crushed beneath him, unable to see, but the noise was hideous. The gunshots—some of them silenced, some of them deafening, the screams and curses and sounds of a panicked stampede.
And then the smell—cordite and the heavy, coppery scent of blood. He was holding her down, but he was alive, she could tell that much. He was breathing heavily, and she could feel his heart beating against her back. She didn’t move, didn’t want to move. Maybe they could just lie there forever, and no one would notice they weren’t dead.
And then he rolled off her, onto his side, taking her with him. The room was shrouded in darkness, only the spit of gunfire providing any illumination. Not that Chloe wanted to see the tangle of bodies, the writhing ones, the motionless ones, the blood everywhere.
He half-dragged, half-carried her behind the banquette, hauling her toward one of the curtained windows. He shoved her behind the fabric and slammed her up against the wall, one hand over her mouth so she couldn’t speak, couldn’t scream, couldn’t breathe. In his other hand he had a gun—she could feel it against her skin.
“Are you hurt?” he whispered.
She managed to shake her head, just barely, he was holding her so tightly.
The windows led out on a small, snow-covered balcony. She couldn’t see how many flights up they were, and she didn’t care. They were trapped in the tiny alcove, and there were only two ways out. Through the gunfire. Or out the window.
“Stay put,” he said, pulling away from her, turning to the enveloping curtain.
“No!” she cried out, clinging to him, but he simply knocked her away from him, so that she fell back against the wall. He opened the curtain, and she squeezed her eyes shut, put her hands over her ears to drown out the awful noise.
And then he was back. “Let’s get the hell out of here,” he said, his voice strained. “We might as well go.” He opened the floor-to-ceiling window, and the cold air whipped inside, making the enveloping curtains billow out. He cursed, shoving the gun into his belt, and she could see the stain of fake blood on his shirt. “Come on.”
She didn’t have time to ask where. He simply picked her up and tossed her over the side of the balcony, dropping down after her.
It was two flights up, and she landed hard, but the snow was deep enough to keep her from hurting herself. He must have hit harder, because he stumbled as he rose, grabbing her hand and pulling her into the shadows just as people appeared on the balcony overhead, a babble of languages she didn’t want to understand.
“My car’s over there,” he said, breathless, as he pushed her ahead of him. “I’m always prepared for contingencies. You can drive a stick, can’t you?”
“I don’t drive in Paris!” she said sharply.
“You do now.” He yanked open the driver’s side, grabbed her arm and shoved her in, and she had no choice. At least the traffic would be lighter at this hour.
He collapsed into the passenger seat beside her. “Drive,” he said. “Head north.”
She gave him one, assessing glance and then decided not to argue. The BMW started like a charm, when she half expected it to explode. She spun the tires backing out, slid as she started forward and stalled out.
Bastien was leaning back against the seat, his eyes closed. “If you don’t get moving we’re going to be dead,” he said, very calm.
“I’m doing the best I can.” She started the car again, shoved it into gear and headed into the street, just missing three cars and a motorcyclist. “Shit,” she said under her breath. “Shit, shit, shit.”
