Page 19 of Prognosis Incompatible

Maybe if he cured it, her opinion of him and his job would improve? Maybe he would gain some ground? Why it was so important that he did he didn’t want to analyse at the moment — she got to him. And he didn’t like to see anyone suffer.

‘Have you taken something for it?’

Madeline’s eyes drifted open as his voice reached out and joined the hammering in her head. ‘Several Mersyndol.’

Marcus shook his head. No wonder she was so spaced out. What she needed was a massage. To relieve the stress and tension. And lavender. He needed some lavender and other essential oils to induce relaxation.

He’d better get going. He had a lot to prove today. ‘Maddy? I’m going to leave you now.’

‘Hallelujah!’ she muttered.

He laughed. ‘Sorry to disappoint but I’m coming back. I’m just going to get some stuff for your headache.’

‘Don’t bother, Marcus, I don’t own a cauldron.’

Marcus laughed again. Even bedridden by a blinding headache, she could be as sharp as a tack. Would she ever miss an opportunity for a dig? ‘No hocus-pocus, Maddy, I promise.’

Whatever, Madeline thought as she shut her eyes and drifted away on her Mersyndol cloud. The little white pills did lessen the severity quite a bit but she knew that they mainly worked by altering her perception of the pain, which wasn’t quite the same as curing it. But it would run its twenty-four-hour course and the pills would help make it more bearable.

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Forty-five minuteslater, he was back, as promised. ‘Maddy?’ he murmured.

She opened her eyes and squeezed them shut again as she felt the mattress sink under his weight. Maybe if she lay very still he’d go away?

‘Madeline,’ he repeated, switching on the bedside lamp.

If her head hadn’t felt like it was about to fall off her shoulders, she would have yelled at him to go. But she just wasn’t capable of anything that excessive. She opened an eye and looked at him disparagingly.

Even in the dim light Marcus once again noted how dull her eyes were. Gone was the brilliant green of a highly polished emerald. Now they reminded him of the dull raw stone just plucked from the earth. He held up a bottle of oil that had just the right blend to restore their usual brilliance. ‘I have the perfect thing for headaches.’

She eyed him dubiously. ‘If six Mersyndol haven’t helped, I doubt very much that what’s in that bottle can. I’ll pass.’

‘Oh, ye of little faith,’ he tutted.

‘What is it? Do I have to snort it, swallow it or inject it?’

He laughed. ‘None of the above. It’s massage oil. I apply it. Roll on your tummy,’ he ordered.

Even through her drug-induced, disorientated haze, Madeline had enough wits to know that she would be entering dangerous waters if she allowed him to do this. The strange pull she felt around him hadn’t been obliterated by the migraine, just buried a little.

And a massage in her bedroom, on her bed...

She stared at him and tried to fathom how he didn’t seem worried about the intimacy of the situation. Was she the only one that felt the weird energy between them? The...thing...that she’d felt from the moment she’d seen him on the skateboard?

‘I don’t think that’s a very good idea,’ she said huskily.

‘Come on, Maddy, I mixed a secret potion.’ He grinned. ‘I know you don’t believe in any of this but at least give it a go. It works. Really it does.’

So she was the only one that felt it?

He looked strictly professional. No indication that they were anything other than practitioner and client. Her head was too sore to try and figure it out. Thump, thump, thump. It pulsated with painful regularity. She doubted seriously whether a massage would help but...what if he was right?

‘OK,’ she agreed, desperate enough to try anything as she shifted gingerly onto her stomach.

‘I’ll look away while you take your shirt off,’ he said. ‘Use the sheet to cover up.’

Madeline raised herself on her elbows and looked back over her shoulder at him. ‘I don’t think so.’

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