“Then lend me some money. I’ll pay you back, I swear.” She could hear the pathetic plea in her voice and hated herself for it. But what other choice did she have? He was right. She couldn’t survive with nothing. But why should everything she’d worked so hard to achieve in the last few months be ruined simply because she’d had the misfortune to get mugged?
“Admit it, you don’t want to babysit me anymore than I want to be babysat,” she continued. “If you could give me enough to sort myself out for a few days, I can contact Dario and explain everything. There’s no reason for you to even be involved.”
He didn’t say anything, his jaw still rigid. She thought she might have made progress. But, when he glanced her way, his gaze locked on her forehead and he swore.
She gripped the dash as the car swerved to the side of the road and stopped.
Her back thudded against the car door and she brushed the hair that had been lifted by the breeze back over her forehead. But when he took her elbow and tugged her toward him, she knew it was too late.
“Hold still,” he said. He brushed a fingertip over her forehead to lift her hair out the way, and studied the bruise for what felt like several hours.
Temper and something inscrutable swirled in the deep-blue depths before he held up three fingers. “How many?”
“Three.”
Folding two down, he tracked his index finger past her nose and back again. “Follow it.”
She did as she was told as her heart pummeled her ribs, and the stupid hum in the pit of her abdomen spiked. The intense look was one she remembered.
“Did you pass out when it happened?” he asked, his expression set in grim lines.
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m not an idiot,” she managed round the clump of cotton wool that seemed to be clogging her tonsils. “If I thought I had a concussion, I would have said something.”
One eyebrow cocked. “You should have said something, period. If you didn’t look so done in right now, I would be forced to revise my rule on spanking women.”
To her horror, even in the depths of her exhaustion a flare of heat crossed her buttocks. She stiffened and tugged her elbow out of his grasp.
What was wrong with her? How could she get some weird, prurient thrill out of being threatened with a spanking like an unruly kid?
“Then I guess I’d be forced to revise my rule on chopping off men’s arms,” she managed at last. But the comeback wasn’t one of her best, as hopelessness began to engulf her. Not only was she at Caine’s mercy, for tonight at least, she also appeared to be at the mercy of the wayward libido she thought she’d tamed five years ago.
She clasped her arms around her waist, rubbing the goose bumps which had risen on her flesh despite
the warm evening air.
He took a bottle of water out of the glove box and dampened a wad of tissues. Tucking a finger under her chin, he lifted her face to hold the cold compress to the bump on her forehead.
Grasping her wrist, he lifted her hand to replace his. “Keep it pressed to the wound,” he said. The shuttered look he sent her made the churning in her stomach worse. Being pitied was hardly an improvement on being patronized.
“My launch is docked at the Marina Grande,” he said, mentioning Sorrento’s main port. “I’ll call ahead and get a doctor to meet us there, so they can check out your head before we leave Sorrento.”
“That’s overkill. It’s only a graze.” And she hadn’t actually agreed to go to Capri with him. But the thought of having that argument again felt overwhelming—seeing as she could hardly string a coherent sentence together.
He sent her a quelling look and she knew she wasn’t going to win this argument either. “How did it happen?” he asked.
“The battle for my pack got a little out of hand.”
Temper flashed in his eyes, disconcerting her, because it didn’t appear to be aimed at her. For once. “How many of them were there?”
“Two, but they were just teenagers. I don’t think they meant to hurt me.”
“So what? They did,” he said. “I want a description. I’ll file a report with the local cops and brief my team on Capri. Those little bastards need to be caught and punished.”
There he went, assuming she was going to Capri with him again... But her objections remained locked in her throat, beaten into submission by the low fury in his tone and the news he was going to get his men to help find her muggers. The wobbly sensation it caused in her tummy had to be exhaustion.