"A boat ride?" she questioned.

"Neither one of us has had food all day. You have to be hungry by now."

She was intently trying to read the signs. "This is for a riverboat cruise of the Seine?"

"Yeah. One of the worst tourist traps in the whole city. But we were close." A complete lie-he'd driven forty minutes out of his way. But she didn't know that, and who cared, anyway? "It'll get your mind off the rest of the day. That was quite a scene at the your hotel."

The understatement of the year, he thought. When he realized her lodging was in the 20th arrondissement. he almost had a heart attack. Times three.

"Well. I thought I'd researched places to stay quite intensively on the Internet. This one looked clean in the pictures. And it was the cheapest I found, for sure. And when I looked up the area, it said the place was going through a major renewal, so I just didn't expect it would be quite so…"

"Rough." He put it in spades as he ushered her up the gangplank of the riverboat.

"It was okay. Mme. Rossarde seemed nice enough last night." Kelly lifted exhausted eyes. "Not like this afternoon."

"In French, we'd call her…un peau de vache."

She thought. "The side of a cow?"

He chuckled. "Well, literally, it means hide of a cow, I guess. Meaning…tough. Unyielding. A bitch," he clarified. The fiasco at her hotel kept replaying in his mind. He was still on a steam. The damn woman hadn't wanted to give Kelly her clothes or anything else unless Kelly came through with a week's worth of rent. This, after being told Kelly's passport and money had been stolen.

Will had intervened. Kelly had a major conniption about his paying all that rent for her, but she obviously had to have her stuff. And whether or not she realized how bad the neighborhood was, he did. The other boarders looked like they were fresh out of jail or rehab. By contrast, Kelly looked milk-and-honey fresh. Leaving her there would be like leaving a kitten in a jungle.