She took a very wise step back from the edge. Which she probably thought put her out of easy grabbing reach. Sometimes it was a real temptation to show her what he was made of, but he should resist the urge to toss her into the river herself to cool her off.
Really.
Resist.
Hard.
Although the expression on her face when she came up would be—
Resist!!
“Oh, we’re done.” Vi spun on her heel, striding away.
He leapt out of the water and caught up with her, also resisting the urge to grab all the phones he passed and throw them into the water. It would only escalate the situation. If he got in a fight with a mob of civilians at four p.m. in the middle of Paris, he was going to ruin his own career.
And he’d put far too much blood and sweat and effort into his own career to—
The thought faltered. He looked down at Violette’s head, his eyebrows drawing together. Remembering the burn scars he’d seen on her arms and hands, when they made love. The calluses from handling knives.
He’d joined the military when he was eighteen. She’d been doing this since she was fifteen. Fifteen. He was pretty sure his voice was still cracking on him at embarrassing moments when he was fifteen.
Within his team, reputation was everything. You were a badass, and you kept your shit wired tight, or you got forced onto another team, and your career was over.
Reputation.
He looked down at her proud face, the way she fought to keep from showing her pain.
“Hon—swee—Vi. I’m sorry.”
That long stride of hers faltered on a rough paving stone. She flicked a glance up at him.
“I would never,” he said quietly, “in a million years have caused you harm.” Except that I did. And it was at least half my choice. And even right now, I could lessen the harm if I broke security and told you the truth. But I won’t. Because it’s my job to save the world.
And you…you’re strong enough to handle this.
I bet you’re strong enough to handle anything.
It was an amazing thought. He’d never met a woman as strong as he was. Hard to wrap his mind around when she kept looking so much smaller.
“I didn’t know—” He stopped and pressed his lips tightly together and shook his head. He grabbed a deep breath, as if going underwater for another long dive. “Vi. Will you please let me look at your hand?”
She scowled and looked away from him, cradling her wrist.
Okay, now she was just being stubborn. But he knew all about stubborn. Stubborn wasn’t even an adequate word for the sheer bullheaded, don’t-yield-to-anything-ever determination of the men he worked with. It made it confusing to go out among ordinary people, actually. He kept expecting to run up against granite wills, and instead he just walked through everyone, their wills so flimsy they were almost immaterial. Most of the time, it took conscious effort to even notice that the average person actually did have a will of his own.
A wisp-of-fog will, easily ridden over or through by a man in a hurry.
And yet those same men who would ride over the wills of average people and never even notice would also throw themselves toward a suicide bomber for average people and put their own glorious wills entirely out, forever…and never think twice about that either.
He’d done so much damage to her. And yet it really had been for her own good. To save the world. Her.
“Please,” he said again. “Just to make me feel better.”
“I don’t want you to feel better,” Vi said. “You should feel like shit. I hope you feel like shit for the rest of your life.”
Well, all right then.
“Just to make you feel better then,” he said. “Damn it, Vi, I think it’s broken.” It was starting to swell alarmingly.
“If you try to lay one finger on me ever again, I will stab you,” she said.
Well, a guy knew where he stood with Vi, didn’t he? No game-playing. In fact, a man used to running right through everyone else like wisps of fog hit her like a brick wall.
He liked it—liked the nice, resounding smack of his will meeting hers. But it made getting a woman to do something just a little more complicated when she refused to let him take charge of her situation.
“Are you just going to ignore it?” he demanded, starting to get desperate. She was clearly in agony and too proud to show it.
“I’ll get it taken care of myself.” She strode on.
He sighed. “Fine. I’ll just walk along with you in case, at any point during the process, you need to hit me again. Don’t aim for the jaw next time, okay?”
***
Vi managed to get him kicked out of the hospital room, by the simple process of telling the staff that she didn’t want him in the room with her. So he had to sit in the waiting room, thumb-fighting himself, feeling big and stupid and useless, for what seemed like hours.