Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
When Chloe awoke, she was alone. Of course she was—Bastien never stayed long in his present incarnation.
She stretched in the bed, her body a mass of confused responses.
She felt gloriously sated, erotic afterthoughts dancing through her brain.
And yet she felt like she’d been thoroughly thrashed.
If she won the fight, as Bastien had said she did, then Maddelena must be at death’s door.
She sat up, groaning. Her clothes lay neatly folded at the foot of the bed—she hadn’t even been aware of him leaving her, much less picking up after them.
She showered and dressed with deliberate care, wincing with pain as the water pounded down on her bruised body, and she paused to look down at the rumpled bed.
She wanted to drop down on it, roll in the loose covers, press her face against the sheets in erotic pleasure.
She was infatuated. With her own husband, but then, that was nothing particularly new.
She was filled with a hot, burning need for him, like nothing she’d felt since they first came together and they were running for their lives.
Their sex life had always been incendiary.
This was merely pushing it up another notch.
Reluctantly, she pulled the bed together, smoothing the covers.
If Bastien could clean up after them, so could she, and she stopped long enough to check herself in the mirror.
She had a black eye, all right, and after Bastien’s kisses, her mouth was even more swollen.
The long sleeves of her shirt covered most of the scratches and bite marks, though Maddelena had managed to rake her nails down her face at least once.
She’d scored her skin but not broken it, and in truth, Chloe looked bloody but unbowed.
Let Maddelena try to come for her again. She’d break her jaw.
At that bloody thought, she flexed her wrist, letting out a small cry of pain. She wouldn’t be hitting anyone in the near future, unless Bastien called her bébé again. For now, she was ready to join the others.
Bastien had left her door unlocked, and she opened it, preparing to head out, only to come face to face with the guard stationed outside her room. He blocked her passageway.
“It’s dinner time,” she said.
“You’re to eat in your room tonight,” he intoned with robotic stiffness.
“Why?” She was pushing things, and she was surprised when he actually answered her.
“Le Faucon has business to conduct. There’s no place for women at the table.”
Chloe suppressed her instinctive growl. She wanted to see Bastien again, to sit next to him in absolute silence and revel in his presence. Apparently, she was being punished for her part in the catfight.
“All right,” she said, heading back into the room. In fact, she’d just as soon avoid Le Faucon and Luc, and most particularly Maddelena, but she suspected Maddelena was banished as well. She only wanted Bastien, and he’d said he would come to her. She would have to count on that vague promise.
But he didn’t come. She stayed awake for him, lying in the vast bed with its rich colors, wearing absolutely nothing.
He liked undressing her, but she had nothing to wear but an old cotton dress that someone had dug up and Bastien’s oversized sweats, and she couldn’t imagine either outfit being part of a lengthy seduction.
He also liked her naked, and that would have to do. When this was all over…
Would it ever be all over? He was being sent to kill his best friend, possibly with his own children as witnesses, even collateral damage.
The horror of it was too appalling to consider.
When he came to her, he might talk about it—their relationship had changed since that night in the Como hotel.
She no longer felt like the hostage, he the captor. They were on more even footing.
But he didn’t come. She fell asleep, pouting, and woke up entwined in the blankets, alone. She would have to go in search of him.
She had forgotten the guard outside her door. This was a different one, but they all looked the same, and she started to think of them as Thing One and Thing Two. One look at his grim face and she knew she was going nowhere.
She was going to go mad, trapped in her rooms without even Maddelena’s raunchy romances to keep her busy. Where the hell was Bastien? She needed him.
The day stretched endlessly ahead of her. They brought her breakfast and lunch, but nothing else, and she had nothing to do but lie in the bed that she and Bastien had lain in and try to think about something else.
The bloody sweats were returned to her, free of stains, and she changed into those, just because she knew they were Bastien’s. They had to get out of there, both of them, and soon. Because sooner or later, Le Faucon would decide that she was an inconvenience, and he would do something about it.
He would probably wait until Bastien was gone. Le Faucon was no fool, and he knew that his precious Jean-Marc would balk at killing her. She suspected Luc had no such scruples.
She wasn’t going to let that happen. She was up against a force far bigger than she was, and she didn’t even know for sure that she could count on Bastien.
But she wasn’t about to go gentle into that dark night.
She had children she adored, a husband who was her life. She was not going to be a victim.
By the second day of her confinement, she began to worry. There’d been no sign of Bastien, probably due to her constant guard, but Bastien was inventive. He could have found a way to get word to her, at the very least.
It wasn’t until the third night that things changed. She was sitting on the bed, expecting her dinner, when she heard the lock on her door being opened, and Thing One appeared, this time without a dinner tray. He surveyed her with his expressionless face.
“Le Faucon requests the pleasure of your company for dinner,” he intoned, totally without irony.
She didn’t know if that was fear or hope stirring inside her. She rose from the bed. “In these?” she said, gesturing to her sweats.
“Do you have anything else?”
“No.”
“Then those will have to do. Come along—Le Faucon doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”
Her heart rose inside her. At least she’d be seeing Bastien again. But when the guard ushered her into the rustic dining room there was no sign of him. No sign of Maddelena either, which was a relief. Unless they were together.
Le Faucon already sat at the head of the table, looking magisterial. Only Luc was in the room, seated at his right side.
“Come and join us, my dear,” Le Faucon said in his plummy British voice, gesturing to the seat on his left. She moved forward slowly, reluctantly, sinking down into the chair.
“Where’s Ba…Jean Marc?” she said.
“He’s away for a few days.”
Panic swept through her. If Bastien had already gone after Peter then she’d be unable to stop them, and one of them might already be dead. Maybe both of them. Maybe their children.
“Did he go to kill that man you were talking about?” She had to ask the question.
“And how did you know about that?” Le Faucon’s voice was silky with menace.
“You told him about it when we were at dinner,” she said, determined not to stammer.
“And you were paying attention. How clever of you, my dear. But then, I’ve always known you were clever. Brains and beauty so seldom go together. Look at my daughter.”
“I’d rather not,” she said.
Luc laughed at that, and Le Faucon joined him.
“Such a clever girl,” he said fondly, and Chloe wasn’t sure if he meant her or his own daughter.
“As for your question, no, Jean-Marc has not yet gone to take care of my mission. He’s a very thorough man, is Jean-Marc, and he does complete reconnoitering before he does a job for me.
It took him weeks of preparation to take out LaDonna, and even then he failed. ”
“What do you mean, he failed? She’s dead. She was shot.”
“I’m afraid Luc had to fill in. Jean-Marc couldn’t be found. It turns out he was with you.”
“Yes,” she said. It would be a waste of time to deny it.
Which meant Luc was even more dangerous than she’d thought. She turned to look at him, and he met her gaze, totally without any emotion at all.
“I can always count on Luc,” Le Faucon continued. “Even in the most difficult of circumstances, he always sees things through. LaDonna was merely one example of his thoroughness.”
“Then why don’t you send him in the first place?” she asked.
“Oh, he isn’t quite as gifted as Jean-Marc. He’s more of a blunt force.”’
“I don’t know,” Chloe said. “I think he can be very devious.”
“Merci du compliment,” Luc murmured.
She gave him a toothy smile, rather like a jungle cat. “It would be a mistake to underestimate you,” she said sweetly.
“For most people,” he conceded. “You, however, can trust me. We’re pals, remember?”
Pals that locked the other up, she thought, keeping the insipid look on her face. “We are, indeed,” she said, and Luc looked satisfied.
The food arrived in front of her, and she looked down at it without any real interest. They wanted something from her; she was sure of it. She was just as determined not to give it.
“So, tell me about yourself, Chloe,” Le Faucon said genially. “Where do you live when you’re not shagging Jean-Marc. I hear you have a husband? I wouldn’t think he’d approve.”
So that was it. He wanted to question her, and she kept her expression stoic.
One thing was abundantly clear to her. Le Faucon must be to blame for Bastien’s amnesia, or brainwashing, or whatever it was.
They’d summoned him in the first place, months ago, with a call to their home in North Carolina.
Which meant they knew perfectly well where he lived and who he lived with.
They probably knew about the children as well.
“I don’t know where my husband is,” she said truthfully. “He left me, so I don’t really have to worry about his approval one way or another.”