Equal Parts (16 page)

I clapped a hand to his mouth. “No, no thinking allowed. No mentioning of that …
thing
, ever, ever again, understand? It didn’t happen. Nothing happened.”

Actual dimples appeared in the cracks of the face-paint – that’s how mischievous his smile was. “You know, I think I prefer you heavily sedated and drug-addled, Flick. Much more willing to accept certain undeniable facts like … I don’t know … the fingernail marks all over my shoulders, for instance.”

My face felt as though it had gone up in flames. “You’re … you’re…” I couldn’t think of a big enough insult. I was too busy fighting the pangs of both shame and some sick kind of lust at the reminder.

He just laughed, though, and the sound soothed my frazzled nerves. “I know, I’m such a charmer.” The pill bottle was waved under my nose once more. “Another deal – you take some of these and let me help you, and I’ll never mention last night again. I’ll even burn the sheets if I have to. Yeah?”

I studied him closely. It didn’t seem like he was lying, or trying to wheedle something out of me, aside from my compliance. But then again, I couldn’t see his eyes – for all I knew, he was looking at me as though I was his next meal.

“Why are you doing this? Why are you … helping me?” I asked, eyes narrowed.

He shrugged. “No matter what I tell you, you’re going to think it’s about getting to your power anyway, right?”

Well, he had me there. What other reason was there? Guilt? Sympathy? “Fine,” I muttered, and downed a few of the pills in one go.

“That’s my girl,” he said brightly, but his grin faltered when he realized what he’d said.

Opting to pretend I hadn’t heard the rather weird comment, I pulled myself to a standing position and held out my arm. “You can help me step into the shower. Then you have to leave.”

“Oh yeah, I’m sure that won’t end in your head splitting open when you slip and fall.” Now he
definitely
rolled his eyes. Before I had time to argue, he reached behind me and turned on the faucet to the bath, pouring a crapload of muscle relaxant into the running hot water.

“What are you doing?” I demanded, lunging for the bathplug. His hand grabbed mine in the blink of an eye. “I’m not taking a
bath
!”

He just looked at me, with what I had to assume was a deadpan expression. “Stop being such a prude. You honestly think I’m going to make a move when you’re injured and in the
bathtub
?”

“I am not a prude!” I said hotly. “And my biggest concern isn’t you being a total sleaze, FYI. I just…”

“Just what?”

“I don’t want you to see me like this,” I all but mumbled to the tiles beneath me.

“Half-naked, you mean? Because, darling, I have to tell you, I saw a lot more last night and after the crash –”

“No, I mean, I don’t want you to see me when I’m all cut-up and gross. It’s … weird.”

“
You’re
weird.” He tested the water, almost up to the bath’s edge by this point, and grabbed the hem of my nightgown. “And we’re doing this. Accept it and move on.”

“But I don’t think –”

“We’re doing it, Felicity.” Crap, he was giving me the cold and deadly voice he usually reserved for his men and Finn.

Something between a growl and a huff of exasperation escaped me.

“Did you just
growl
at me, darling?” He tutted and whipped the nightgown over my head without a hint of warning. Then, as I went to snatch the material back from him, he picked me up and all but dumped me into the bubble-filled water.

I cried out at the sudden heat on my raw wounds, digging my nails into his arm. “I hate you so much right now,” I hissed through the shock.

“You’ll thank me when you don’t lose your legs to gangrene, though,” he pointed out.

I just growled at him again, drawing a laugh from his lips.

But God, did the water feel good after about thirty seconds. The heat soaked right through to my bones. Suddenly I didn’t mind the idea of bathing so much, especially if it meant I could stay in here for a while.

“Better?”

I grumbled something of a ‘yes’.

“Think you could take off your underwear?”

I shot him a scathing look. “This is your idea of helping?” When he didn’t reply, I retreated further into the water. “I’m used to it by now. It’s fine.”

“Flick, are you telling me you always wear your underwear in the shower?”

“Well, no … just since I’ve been here.”

Oh jeez, he was suddenly livid. “Are you kidding me? Christ! You’re safe here – when will you get that? What will it take to make you trust me?” he demanded, getting to his feet.

“It isn’t
you
I’m worried about, you idiot!” I said hotly. I unhooked my bra, peeled it off whilst keeping my torso underwater and hidden by bubbles, and threw it at his head. “There! You can freaking frame it as a symbol of trust!”

To my dismay, he dodged the flying bra. “If you trust me, let me take care of you, goddammit!” It was perhaps the first time he’d raised his voice directly at me, but I didn’t back down at the volume. I was getting to him, just like he was getting to me.

“
Why
is this so important? You don’t have to be nice to me to get my power – I gave it to you last night of my own free will, if you remember,” I reminded him in a rather bitter tone. He didn’t so much as flinch. Hell, if anything, he looked angrier. “So why, Achilles? Why are you so bent on fixing me?”

“Because seeing you suffer makes me feel helpless!” he roared, slamming a fist into the cabinet by the sink. The wood splintered on impact. I must have looked more than a little terrified, because he lowered his voice, “And I
hate
feeling helpless.”

As though ominous lightning had struck outside the window, a very tense silence filled the room at that revelation.

I tried to think of some reason why he would feel
helpless
, of all things. Guilty, I could understand, I guess – it had been, after all, him who had put me in that van in the first place. Even if he’d admitted to feeling angry, or empathetic, it would have been vaguely appropriate.

But helpless? Not so much.

I had two choices, as far as I could see: tell him to get out and stop trying to mend me, or admit I needed help. The former would probably result in some much needed alone time, but in the long run I couldn’t see many positives from it – chances were, if I rejected his help now, he wouldn’t offer it again. Like, ever.

The latter, on the other hand, would cost me a chunk of my ego, but would mean I didn’t have to go this whole recovery alone. Plus, Achilles was pretty good company, I supposed.

With that in mind, I held out the shampoo bottle. “Could you please help me wash my hair?” The words hurt my throat a little – probably because I was swallowing my pride, and it didn’t taste so great – but they seemed to do the trick, because he returned to my side.

“Never thought pampering would be akin to pulling teeth,” he said, just loud enough for me to hear.

Smiling to myself, I let him do whatever it took to get his helplessness out of the way and end this awkward standoff. To Achilles’s credit, he was incredibly gentle. His fingers combed my hair in the water for so long, I couldn’t help but think he was just playing with it now.

“Do you have any friends?” I asked him, eyes still closed. I had so many questions, and I felt brave enough to ask them now I was sure he wasn’t going to kick me while I was down.

“If by ‘friends’ you mean ‘girls who hang around my apartment all day and seem to enjoy making my life difficult’, then I have at least one.” I didn’t need to see him to know he was smirking in a way that probably would have had my heart
ba-bump
ing in my chest. “But otherwise, no.”

I cracked open an eye to find him staring at the bathroom wall. His fingers hadn’t stilled in my hair, though. “Not even old friends? From high school?” I found it hard to believe that he had gone his entire life without a single friend. Sure, I’d fallen out of touch with most of my high school friends, but that didn’t mean we weren’t friends any more. Some bonds just didn’t break with time or distance.

“Darling, do I honestly strike you as the type of guy to have a lot of friends?” His gaze returned down to me.

I frowned. “I’m still trying to figure out what type of guy you are.”

“I’ll give you a clue.” He bent down until his lips were only inches from my own, until I could see every crack and crease in his paint. If he’d made me highly-strung by demanding I be naked before, I was positively quaking in my non-existent boots by now. He whispered, his breath a caress across my mouth, “I’m not the type of guy to do something halfway. If I want something, I do everything in my power to get it. And when I get it, I don’t give it up without a fight.”

Holy Hell. The water had to be boiling with how hot I was all of a sudden. My hands itched with the urge to grab him, pull him into the bathtub with me, and lick every inch of him, including the painted parts.

Oh my God, what the hell was this guy doing to my brain? It had to be the drugs. Yeah. Definitely the drugs.

“Why ‘Achilles’?” I asked, mostly to divert his attention away from me, naked in the bath before him.

It worked, thank God. He sat back, much to my disapp-- um, relief. 

A long pause, then, “If you typed my real name into any database, it would come up with absolutely nothing. You type ‘Achilles’ into one, you’re bound to get a few more results. And not just of the Ancient mythology variety.”

So, what? It was to cover his identity? Why did he care who knew his real name?

“And, um, what
real
name would that be?” I asked, oh-so-casually.

“Oh, it’s under last name ‘Try’, first name ‘Nice’,” he replied without missing a beat. I actually laughed, and his fingers tightened in my hair at the sound. “It’s just a name, Flick. It doesn’t mean anything to me, just the means to an end.”

Like me
. The thought hit me like a shot to the heart. And it wouldn’t go away.

After rinsing the conditioner out, he went out and collected fresh clothes from my bag, including new underwear (thank God), and held out a towel in front of him.

At that point, I was so damn relaxed, I couldn’t have cared less if he’d snuck a peek at my naked form over the towel. What did it matter, anyway?

As he finished wrapping me in the towel, a knock came at the door.

“If this is another ‘emergency’ concerning Rivett’s lactose intolerance, Hugo, I keep telling you, soy milk isn’t real milk –”

I giggled. He seemed surprised by the sound.

“Actually, boss, there’s … um, there’s a girl here. Um … what’s your name again, honey?” A muffled reply from outside, then, “Georgiana? Says you were supposed to go out with her tonight.”

And just like that, my stomach dropped to the bottom of my feet.

“Shit,” muttered Achilles. His eyes met mine for a fleeting instance, before I stepped back, out of reach.

“It’s okay,” I lied, hugging the towel closer to my chest. God, why did I suddenly feel as though every wound from the crash had been reopened? “You’ve done all the hard work – I’m sure I can manage from here.”

To be honest, all I really wanted to do was march out there, grab
Georgiana
by the hair and fling her out the window. But I couldn’t. She wasn’t my guest, this wasn’t my apartment, and I certainly didn’t have any claims on Achilles’s attentions. As much as it made my chest hurt to recognize, I wasn’t anyone’s Number One – not by a long shot.

“Boss?” called Hugo tentatively.

I could feel Achilles’s eyes burning into me, but I didn’t look up to meet his gaze. He’d see the twinge of pain, and I couldn’t afford to let him know I cared about his plans.

“If I stay, will you tell me why you don’t give out your power in large doses?” he asked quietly.

Urgh! It all came back to my power with him, didn’t it? I shivered, steeled myself against the hurt. “Just go. I’m not worth the effort.”

Crap. Self-deprecation was the one thing he seemed unable to stomach, if last night was anything to go by.

As if to prove the theory, he pinched my jaw none-too-gently, turning it towards the mirror. “Project for the night: stop insulting me by make assumptions about how I see you, and start seeing why you’re
worth the effort
. Until then, consider the female visitors a nightly routine. At least they know how to fight for what they want.”

Then, in a whirl of black and the slam of a door, he was gone.

I stared in the mirror for a good ten minutes before I decided on a plan of action. He wanted me to be assertive? Fine. I’d be the most assertive-aggressive girl this side of the whole damn country.

Then
, I thought, unzipping my make-up bag,
we’ll see who’s scared to fight for what they want
.

Oh, this was going to be fun.

By midnight, I was totally wired. I’d picked out the most confidence-boosting outfit at my disposal: an A-line, apple-green dress, sleek, black stockings, and ass-kicking platform heels. I felt kind of ridiculous – all dressed up and nowhere to go – but the attire, coupled with the smoky, cat-eyed make-up I’d applied, helped me feel a lot braver than if I’d worn pajamas and my glasses. Plus, the make-up helped cover the bruises and cuts across my face, which did wonders for my self-confidence.