Gedeon had a note of masculine amusement in his voice that made her want to hit him over the head with a flowerpot. Or the Ming vase that couldn’t possibly be authentic. He hadn’t moved. Not the leg or the arm, or even the fingers playing with her hair. She had spent an inordinate amount of time while on the plane researching him. The information she found about him was just a little bit terrifying. He was also a player. Big time. Way, way, way out of her league.
“Setting up care for you until you’re back on your feet. Arranging for meals to be brought in. Arranging for my disappearance so it won’t be easy for you to find me.”
“I doubt you’re going to suddenly change your mind and sell me out, so let’s take that off the table. We both know I’m not going to hunt you down and kill you. I do have an idea that might interest you. I’ve been thinking about it since you hacked my phone.”
“I didn’t hack your phone,” she corrected, suddenly afraid of what his proposition might be. She might collect favors, but she didn’t pay debts with her body. “I coaxed your password out of you when you had an extremely high fever.”
Gedeon tugged on her hair as he slid the gun under the pillow. He did it with such ease she wondered if his sight had returned. “I think you have a dirty mind, Lotus Blossom. I wasn’t going to proposition you in that way. I’m beginning to think you have a thing for my body.”
She heaved a sigh. “Spit it out, Leopard Boy, I intendto find a hot tub and spend the entire day soaking in it while people I find to wait on you hand and foot do so.”
“Leopard Boy?”
“Lotus Blossom?”
He burst out laughing. Meiling couldn’t help but like that she’d made him laugh. It was a real laugh too. She had the feeling that with Gedeon, laughter was a very rare thing.
“Fair enough. I want you to work for me.” When she frowned and didn’t answer, he hastily corrected himself. “Withme. Partners. I need a woman with me quite often. You’re intelligent, witty, you can charm the socks off a man. I can’t see you, but no doubt you dress up nice for a dinner party. You remember things.”
“Yes,” she admitted, her mind racing. All of that was true and he’d said it in a voice that didn’t lie. She heard lies.
“My line of work is dangerous. I need eyes and ears on every conversation. I can’t be everywhere at once. You got me out of Venezuela with few people seeing me. No one can identify me other than that doctor or the cameras at the airport when I flew in.”
“That was taken care of.” She pushed at his leg. “You’re heavy.”
“You won’t run away, and you’ll listen to me?”
She pretended to heave a sigh, but, really, she was very intrigued. “Go on.”
Gedeon shifted his leg off her thigh, and she rubbed at the spot where he’d lain the weight over her. He caught her wrist and felt down her hand to her thigh where he laid his palm. His hand felt very warm on her skin. Too intimate.
“Are you hurt? Tell me the truth. I won’t like it if you lie to me. You know I can hear lies.”
“Let’s finish this other conversation first. I promise we’ll go back to my health.”
He was silent a moment and she willed him to continue. The last thing she wanted to do was talk about herself.
“We are circling back to this, though.” He kept his hand on her thigh and it burned like a brand. “What do you mean, ‘it’s taken care of’?”
“The security cameras at the airport. Your flight tickets. All of it was wiped out. You never flew to Venezuela. You never got on that airplane. As for the doctor, I have no idea what happened to him, but he is well-known to Etienne. He agreed with me that it was best for us to leave immediately.”
“That must have been quite a favor your Etienne owed you to do all that.”
“Huge. And I used it on you. Be grateful and stop being so annoying.”
“You have to get used to my annoying personality because you’re going to work for me. Don’t pretend you don’t like danger, adventure and being with me.”
“I like danger and adventure. Being with you is a real problem. And I wouldn’t workforyou. With you maybe, but definitely not for you.”
He ignored the last just like she knew he would. “How many languages do you speak?”
“Five.”
“That’s good. I don’t want anyone to know what you can or can’t do up front. Or how smart you are. You need to be able to fade into the background and collect information for me. The more information we have, the more power we have. And that means...”
“We don’t get killed.”
“Exactly.”
