A/N: If you're handing out blonde of the weeks awards, send one my way please. Mediah pointed out in her review that the legal drinking age in the US is 21 and here's me having three underage people in a licensed premises! Where I'm from, the legal drinking age is actually 18 so that accounts for the stuff-up on my part. And if you're wondering how Rene, Leila and Sophie manage to get away with being in a licensed premises underage, let's just say that, for the purposes of this work of fiction, Sylvan Grenier is a very smooth talker ;-) .

René glanced at his watch and saw that it was already 5pm. My, how the day had flown!
He and Leila had spent the morning browsing the shops and the afternoon in a video parlour, playing several games of air hockey, which she won as well as having a few goes on several pinball machines. Leila kicked his butt there too. But what did René expect, when he spent most of his free time working out, not in video parlours!
Upon entering the lobby, where Sylvan and Sophie were waiting for them, Leila shivered suddenly.
"Are you cold?"
"It's not that. I'm being watched. I know I am. Not by you, Sylvan or my sister. And I don't like it. It makes me feel uncomfortable."
René briefly looked around the lobby and saw someone looking in their general direction who looked somewhat suspicious. Whoever he was, he was definitely eyeing up Leila, looking her up and down several times until he actually noticed that René was glaring at him.
She did appear to be cold, for the fingers on her left hand were white and her others red. Her left forearm was also orange with purple splotches - a result of bad circulation, something she had had from the time she was a baby.
"I think someone's been telling me porky pies," he remarked, indicating Leila's arm. She looked at it and shrugged. Her arm looking like that was nothing new to her.
"Leila, are you okay? You must've done a lot of walking today."
"Yes, I'm fine - well I think I'm fine - and we didn't do too much walking today. When you're in a video parlour for the afternoon, you do a lot of standing. Anyway, I kicked his arse in pinball and air hockey," she replied, gratefully sitting in the chair next to her sister. Rene sat in the chair next to her, still glancing at the suspicious looking bloke. He looked decidedly European.
"Besides, we should be asking you how you are. You got that make-up off, then?"
Sylvan's cocky smile found its way onto his face.
"With a little help from your sister. That was some potent stuff you had there. Anyway, the others had a good laugh, looking at those photos you three took. I won't be living that down for a while yet."
"Leila took most of them," René corrected, earning a swipe from Leila. "And now you know not to fall asleep in a club."
"Now I know not to get involved in drinking games with two young French girls who can obviously drink way more than me."
Sylvan was pretending to be annoyed with Leila and Sophie but the fact that he was trying not to laugh gave it away to Leila and René.
"I'm going to have a swim," Leila announced, getting up from her chair.
"In that?" Sylvan asked, pointing at her cast.
"I'll have it covered, you idiot. Just because I have a broken ankle doesn't mean I can't have a swim!"
"See, Sylvan?" Rene smirked, almost giving into his impulse to give Sylvan a 'Stone Cold' salute to his tag team partner. Sylvan smirked back and merely told René to keep an eye on Leila and that he and Sophie would join them later on.
"He always seems to take her acceptance for granted."
"Probably because she's not like me - she's too chicken to say no to someone like Sylvan."
"Really?"
Leila nodded.
"Unlike me. Sort of."
She smiled sheepishly at René and didn't speak again until they had gotten out of the lift and made their way to her hotel room.
"I won't be long. Just have to get changed and bring a change of clothes with me."
"In that case, I'll get changed myself."
He squeezed her hand before taking his leave of her and she smiled before going into her room. She was still finding it hard to believe just how easy René was to get along with and how nice he was, under his French "I hate America and everything about her" persona. Of course, some people would have trouble believing that. Not Leila Marconnet.
The mystery man had taken all of this in, noting what room Leila was in and the room that René was occupying. He also noted the ease with which Leila got along with René and that annoyed him a lot. She was being ultra nice to him yet she had never treated him like that. Leila was nothing more than a two-faced bitch.
Her broken ankle would be a hindrance to her but a major help for him - she wouldn't be able to put her karate training to work on him.
"Leila, are you ready?"
She picked up her towel and wrapped it around her waist before grabbing her bag which contained her spare clothes and heading to the door.
"Ready as I'll ever be," she responded, closing the door behind her and walking to the lift, with René close behind her.
"You sounded like you were going to your execution."
"You think? That's just my usual response to that kind of question."
"Then, I still have a lot to learn about you."
"Indeed."
When they got to the pool, Leila dumped her bag, pulled a plastic bag on over ankle to protect her cast and secured it with a spare hair band and jumped into the pool. René quickly followed suit.
Nearly three quarters of an hour later, they were joined by Sylvan and Sophie. René noticed the mystery man wasn't far behind them and he, too, was dressed for a dip in the pool. Now that he had noticed Leila was in a bikini, he was openly staring at her, not caring that both Rene and Sylvan were glaring at him in disgust. If Leila was aware that this creep was looking at her, she could win an Oscar going by her acting.
"I don't like the look of that guy. He's been openly staring at Leila from the time we were in the hotel lobby. He couldn't know her, could he?"
"I don't know, René. I honestly don't know. What makes you think that anyway?"
"I wish I knew, Sylvan. I wish I knew but it's a strange feeling I have. Like he's the bastard that … you know."
Sylvan nodded in understanding. Now that René had pointed this creep out, he did looked decidedly shifty, with the way his eyes never left Leila and caressed her.
Meanwhile, Leila had gotten out of the pool and had walked over to her bag, which was close to the mystery man. She removed her shirt from the bag and shook it out, unaware that he was right behind her until she straightened.
Thinking it was René, she turned around and looked at him. She went from happy-go-lucky to shocked, confused and horrified in less than a second, a hand covering her mouth and her face going whiter than white.
She slapped the mystery man and hurriedly grabbed her things, fleeing as fast as she could with her broken ankle. Sophie had the same shocked, confused and horrified look on her face as Leila but hers wasn't as bad. She stared at the man, instinctively moving closer to Sylvan in the pocess.
"Sophie? Does Leila know him?"
Sophie nodded. It had been three years since she had seen Marc in the flesh and she could still remember the look on his face shortly before Thomas had proceeded to beat the crap out of him.
"That's Marc. The bastard who raped her."
That was enough for René. He nodded at Sylvan and hastily grabbed his things before following Leila. She had to be in a mess right now, what with seeing Marc again.
She needed support and that was one thing he was more than happy to provide for her.