Relentless by Cherry Adair Page B

the cab, and not until he had some definitive answers. She nodded a silent agreement. Smart girl. A chill cooled the sweat on his skin.
    This hadn’t been a random group effort. He’d been followed from the airport. Followed from London? Boris Yermalof had friends in low places all over the world. Especially here in Cairo.
    Thorne knew going to London might reactivate Yermalof’s directive. Now he knew. Fucking hell.
    What the hell was he going to do with Isis?
    “We landed less than an hour before the accident. Since I’m not stupid enough to believe that everything we’ve just gone through could be random, who could possibly know we’re here?” Apparently she could only hold her silence for thirty seconds.
    He slid the glass partition shut between the driver and themselves and lowered his voice. “The van that hit us followed us from the airport. They knew we were coming in on the flight.” His tone was grim, and his eyes constantly flickered from the rearview mirror to the side mirror and back again.
    Something struck him as off. Yermalof was nothing if not chillingly efficient. Sending that many men to rough him up wasn’t the sort of message Thorne expected his archenemy to deliver. Good old Boris was a direct man and liked to inflict maximum pain. Personally. He’d waited eight months to come out of the shadows? He held one hell of a grudge, and the truth of the matter was, the Russian had won the last round.
    Those guys, while fairly adept, hadn’t been as skilled as Yermalof’s usual men. Thorne would either be dead or back in the Russian’s clutches if that were the case. The thought brought bile to his throat.
    “How long till we get to the hotel?” Isis demanded tightly, eyes glittering. She looked a little green and swallowed convulsively. The adrenaline was definitely wearing off.
    “Ten minutes. Are you going to puke?”
    “Probably,” she said in a small voice. “Don’t worry, I’ll try and wait until I get to my room.”
    She didn’t make it.
    WRAPPED IN A HOTEL robe, Isis opened the door on the second knock. “Sorry about that,” she said immediately on seeing Thorne standing there. He’d obviously showered, too, and he was wearing clean clothes. The black T-shirt stretched across his broad shoulders and skimmed his flat abs. Black jeans, and even new shoes.
    He’d been busy shopping while she’d huddled naked on the edge of the bathtub, fingers shaking so bad she couldn’t turn the faucet. Residual tremors still shook her frame. Nauseous and in shock, she’d forced herself to stand under the jets until her stomach settled and she could hold on to the soap.
    Clean, but naked beneath the robe, she eyed her ruined clothing heaped on the floor beside the bed, and her camera bag on top of the comforter. The only not-sucky thing to come from the evening was that her three-thousand-dollar camera had survived the running and mayhem unscathed. That she could not afford to replace. It was a miracle her camera made it through, which mattered more than a pair of jeans and a shirt. She pressed her hand to her belly.
    There was always a first time for her iron stomach to let her down. Violence and death apparently was her sticking point.
    Thorne filled the door frame, solid. She felt like a wetnoodle. “How are you feeling?” she asked, studying his stoic face for clues.
    “Fine.” He finger-combed his damp hair back off his forehead. Just another day in the life of Connor James Thorne.
    She tightened the belt around her waist, conscious of the rasp of the terry cloth against her naked breasts. “Nice clothes.”
    “I brought some for you.” He lifted the shopping bag at his side. Just when she thought he was an insensitive male, he redeemed himself and then some.
    “Thanks. I couldn’t put those on.” She indicated the general direction of the mound on the floor behind her and stood back, allowing him room to enter. Tempted to fall into his arms and borrow his strength, Isis curled