“Nothing to worry about,” he said, grinning rakishly.
How did a black eye make him more handsome? That shouldn’t be possible.
“Nothing to worry about?” I scoffed. “How’s that going to look to the Koboyashis?”
He frowned, clearly not thinking about that. “It’ll be gone by then.”
I scowled at the blossoming bruise, the burst blood vessels in his eye. That had definitely hurt. Wincing as if the pain was my own, I shook my head in exasperation. “Not in two days. Not unless we do something about it. Hurry and do your inspection; every minute counts.”
He seemed to find that funny, but it was true. We’d both been so busy, I didn’t see him at all yesterday. Before I could ask him when he’d taken the punch, he raised an eyebrow at me.
“Inspection?”
“Aren’t you here to check everything?”
He shook his head. “No, I trust you. I came to give you a ride back to the office. The room looks fine. Love the Taikan prints.”
That was high praise from the man who was never satisfied, and it momentarily made me forget the emergency of his eye.
“You don’t think that’s veering into sucking up territory?” I asked, looking at the beautifully framed pictures of misty mountain scenes, one of his thousand cousins had brought overfrom a high-end art gallery. “Nat thought they’d go well with the flowers I ordered, which will arrive on the morning of—”
His hand rested on my shoulder again, the heat of his fingers sinking through my blouse. “Clem, relax.”
“How can I when you’re out here getting into heavyweight fights two days before… Let’s get to the nearest pharmacy.”
He chuckled as he led me to his car, the Ferrari this time. He followed as I briskly set forth in the drug store, searching out my tried and true remedies. He finally admitted he’d ‘knocked his face into a door’ the night before last.
“And then you got revenge?” I asked, giving his knuckles a pointed look. He didn’t laugh, just slid his scraped hand into his jacket pocket and muttered something about his boxing workouts. Yeah, he did those regularly and never had cuts on his hands.
“Okay, Arnica gel, vitamin K cream, hot packs… let’s head over to the makeup aisle.”
He must have thought I was going to try new lipsticks, because he balked when I began holding up foundations to his face to try to match him.
“It’s just in case,” I said. “Happily married men don’t usually get into fights… with doors. There’s a lot at stake here. No one will know you’re wearing makeup.”
“Because I won’t be,” he said, but I added the foundation to the pile anyway. “How did you get to be such an expert at this?” he asked as he handed over his card.
I paused too long before answering. “First-aid class a long time ago,” I said, fidgeting with the ring.
He took my hand, squeezed once to stop me, and let it go. We returned to the office, where I insisted on showing him what to do to erase that nasty bruise fast.
“I’ve been using ice,” he said, sitting on the edge of his desk while I emptied the pharmacy bag.
“That’s fine for the first day or two, but now you need to use heat. That’ll help the blood flow. Take aspirin regularly, even if it doesn’t hurt, and alternate the Arnica and Vitamin K; don’t be stingy with them, either. Sleep with your head elevated if you can.”
He gave me a long look as I gently dabbed on the gel, and I found I was looking into his green eyes instead of concentrating only on the bruise. “Yes, Nurse,” he said, voice low, eyes intense.
I was back to feeling suddenly too warm, exactly as I had been when he slid the rings on my finger. We were all alone in the office, that late in the evening. Everything was so quiet I feared Rurik would hear the rapid thump of my heart.
My hand lingered at the side of his face, his stubble rough against my palm. “I forgot eye drops,” I said. The contrast of the broken blood vessels turned his already clear green eyes the color of fresh spring grass.
His lip quirked up. “I have some at home. Are you worried about me or the deal falling through?”
I swallowed hard. I hadn’t thought about the meeting since I walked into his office. I had been concentrating on not noticing how close together we were, or about the heat that radiated off of him, but now my brain kicked into overdrive. Only wanting one thing.
His hand rested at my waist, tugging me infinitesimally closer. Almost imperceptible, to give me the chance to back away, pretend it didn’t happen. His mesmerizing eyes dropped to my mouth, and as if in response to the heated glance, my tongue darted out.
This was not my imagination.