Chapter 346: Pineapple Is a Love Language

In the rearview mirror, Damien’s eyes moved to Leo.

Aria kept hers on Leo’s face. The swollen eye, the split lip, the borrowed jacket bunched under his chin. Jade asleep against his shoulder.

"No," she said.

Leo breathed out. "Good."

"How did you know?"

"You keep touching your finger." He tipped his head toward her left hand, resting in Damien’s lap. "And she never gets anything that easy."

Aria’s thumb was on the pale band again. She moved it.

"Sister Aria." He kept his voice low, careful of Jade. "Don’t tell me where the real one is."

"I don’t know where it is."

"Then don’t tell me when you find out."

He closed his good eye and turned his face to the window.

Aria faced front. Up on the cliff ahead, the villa’s lights came into view.

***

Jade woke when the tires hit the villa’s gravel. She sat up fast and stared at Leo until she was sure of him. Then she got out and came around to his door before anyone else could.

The doctor was waiting in the front hall with a leather bag at her feet. She was small and grey-haired, still in her coat, and she took one look at Leo and pointed at the sofa.

She worked fast. She shone a penlight into his good eye, then eased the swollen lid up with her thumb while Leo gripped the sofa cushion and kept smiling. She pressed along his ribs, one at a time. On the fourth, he caught his breath.

She said something in French.

Leo answered her in French, quick and easy, and grinned at whatever she said back. Then he turned to Aria.

"Two ribs, cracked. Nothing worse. She says I’m lucky."

"Are you?"

"I’m on a sofa," Leo said. "So, yes."

Jade sat on the coffee table with her knees almost touching his. When the doctor asked her to move so she could get at his wrists, Jade moved six inches to the left and stayed there.

The ties had cut into him. The doctor cleaned the raw skin and wound white gauze around both wrists. She checked the eye again, said a few words to Damien, and snapped her bag shut.

"The eye will open in a few days," Damien said. "No fracture. Ice, sleep, and food."

"In that order?" Leo asked.

"Food first."

Two of Damien’s men came in from the road with a stack of pizza boxes as tall as Leo’s head. They set it on the dining table between the laptops, under Kai’s map still glowing on the television.

Aria opened the boxes. Margherita. Four cheese. Ham and mushroom. And at the bottom of the stack, one pineapple.

Jade stared at it. "Who ordered this?"

Leo grinned at Damien across the room. Damien was reading something on his phone.

Aria put a slice of the pineapple on a plate, carried it over, and sat on the arm of the sofa.

"Small bites," she said. "You’ve had bread once in three days. Your stomach’s forgotten what food is."

He ate slowly, with his eye closed. Halfway through, he set the plate on his knee.

"Okay?"

"Full," he said, surprised.

Jade took the plate and finished the half slice. She made a face.

"Still disgusting," she said, and went to get a margherita.

Aria checked her phone. 8:47 p.m. Nothing. She texted Elias: [Any news?]

Leo was watching her. "Waiting on someone?"

"My dad. He’s in surgery in California. Since three."

Leo’s smile went. "I didn’t know."

"You were a little busy."

"Who’s with him?"

"Elias. Damien’s friend. He’s watching the surgeon do it."

"Then the surgeon’s terrified," Leo said. "He’ll be perfect."

Across the room, Damien flexed his right hand and put it in his pocket.

***

She found him in the kitchen, running water over his knuckles at the sink.

"Let me see."

He turned off the tap. The skin across two knuckles was scraped raw, with grit still in it.

"The bollard," he said.

She found a first-aid kit under the sink and boosted herself onto the counter beside it. "Come here."

He came and stood between her knees. She took his hand into her lap and picked the grit out with tweezers, then dabbed antiseptic across the scrape. He kept his hand where she put it.

"You put it in your pocket," she said.

"Yes."

"So I wouldn’t see."

"You’ve had enough tonight."

She taped the gauze across his knuckles and smoothed the edges down. When she looked up, he was watching her mouth.

"There’s a man with two cracked ribs on that sofa," she said.

"Jade’s with him."

He set his hands on the counter on either side of her hips and kissed her. It was slow. His bandaged hand slid up into her hair, and he leaned in until the edge of the counter pressed the backs of her thighs and his body was warm against the inside of her knees. She hooked her ankles behind his legs and held him there.

Her phone buzzed beside her on the counter.

She broke away and grabbed it.

[Elias: Still in. On plan. I said I’d call.]

Aria read it twice. Then she put her forehead against Damien’s chest, and his arms closed around her.

He kissed the top of her head.

"Ice?"

Leo stood in the kitchen doorway with one arm around his ribs and Jade right behind him, holding the back of his borrowed jacket like a leash.

"The doctor said ice," he said. "I’m following instructions."

Damien let go of Aria, opened the freezer, and wrapped a tray of ice in a dish towel. He handed it over. Leo held it to his eye and sighed.

Aria’s phone buzzed again.

She turned it over in her hand.

The name on the screen was Leo’s.

Leo saw it too. He lowered the ice.

"She has my phone," he said quietly.

Aria opened the message.

[Leo: Bien joué, chérie.]

Damien read it beside her. "Well played."

The phone buzzed a third time, and a photograph came through. The worn red box lay open on a square of black velvet under a bright lamp. Beside the ruby lay a jeweler’s loupe.

Then one more message.

[Leo: Next time I take something you love.]