Fire and Ice - Anne Stuart [87]
The black suit he traveled in was unimpressive—one would have to look closely to see it was a thousand-dollar silk one. He headed into the bathroom of the suite, staring at his reflection for a long moment.
“Only for you, Ji-chan,” he muttered. Picking up the pair of scissors, he cut through the waist-length braid, dropping it onto the marble bathroom floor.
By the time he was ready to leave, Reno had disappeared. Hiromasa Shinoda was in his place, the ubiquitous dark glasses shielding the tattoos. He’d considered getting makeup to cover them, but at the last minute gave up. As long as he kept the shades in place no one would see them, and wearing sunglasses day and night wasn’t that odd for Southern California.
He tied what was left of his newly dyed black hair in a small tail at the back of his neck. She’d look at him and never recognize him, he thought grimly. He could find out what the fuck was going on and she’d never know.
He was just about to leave his suite when his cell phone vibrated, and he picked it up, staring at the screen. Then he began to swear.
20
Everything hurt. Jilly didn’t want to open her eyes—the light overhead was too bright and whatever she was lying on was too narrow. She knew where she was without looking—the sounds and smells of a hospital were unmistakable. She wondered idly if she was going to die. The thought wasn’t particularly distressing, as long as it didn’t hurt too much. She’d dodged a bullet, literally, so many times in the past month that maybe her time had run out. She ought to be able to summon up some kind of emotion, but right at that moment all she wanted to do was breathe. And not hurt.
“Oh, my sweet baby!”
Shit. Lianne was there. Jilly opened one eye, very carefully, to look at her mother.
Lianne was exquisite, of course, dressed in a designer evening gown and her diamonds. “Hi, Ma,” she said, her voice a croak. “You didn’t have to dress up just for me.”
Lianne did her version of bursting into tears. It never involved actual eye-leakage, which would smear her makeup, but Jilly could tell by her expression that she was relatively disturbed.
“I’m fine,” Jilly said, not quite convinced of it.
“You never call me ‘Ma’ anymore!” Lianne sobbed.
“Don’t worry about it. I think they’ve got me on drugs.”
“Of course they do. You were in a car accident!”
“I remember that much,” she said dryly. “Who hit me?”
“It was a hit-and-run. It was just lucky there were people around to call the police and the ambulance. Your car almost flipped over onto the freeway.”
Jilly tried to sit up, but her head started whirling, and she sank back again. “Hit-and-run?” she echoed. Not happy, definitely not happy. An accidental fall in front of oncoming traffic could be explained, a hit-and-run accident within a half an hour of the fall was just a little too coincidental.
Except who would want to hurt her in L.A.? All the bad people were dead, weren’t they?
“I want to go home,” she said after a moment.
“And I’ll take you home, sweetie. Tomorrow. They want to watch you overnight, make sure you’re all right. And I have a charity thing that I can’t miss, so it works out better this way anyway.”
Of course you do, Jilly thought, feeling put upon. “What exactly is wrong with me?”
But Lianne had already risen, ready to be off. “You’ll have to ask the doctor about that. Apart from a sprained ankle, I think you’re just badly shook up, but they want to be sure before discharging you.”
“Great,” she grumbled. “I survive a car crash and my injuries aren’t even interesting. Are you sure? I can’t even open one eye.”
“It will be fine once the swelling goes down. They’re going to move you to a private room in a little while. You just get a good night’s rest and I’ll have the chauffeur pick you up in the morning.”
Jilly closed her eyes again. Whatever they were giving her was knocking the hell out of her. She was just as happy to sleep. “Goodbye, Lianne,” she said, dismissing her.
Even with her