‘No! You have to go tonight, or it might be too late!’
‘I will discuss the matter with my senior staff. You need to leave now so we can be organised.’
‘You’ll try to get there tonight?’ I beseeched him one last time.
‘We will try,’ he said with a bland smile.
‘And Adelita?’
‘I will think about it.’
He showed us out to the main foyer, and we had no choice but to leave. My agitation only increased as we made our way back to the hotel. There was still no guarantee that any help was coming for Ford, or that they’d make any attempt to question Adelita.
‘We did all we could,’ Nick said as we walked. ‘You heard him, they’ll check it out. He just didn’t want to admit that we could be right.’
‘Who knows what they’ll do now we know where they are.’ I twisted the bottom of my T-shirt in my hands. ‘Ford could already be dead. Why didn’t he believe us?’
‘You’ve gotta admit, it sounds like a pretty unbelievable story.’
‘We’ve got to go back and find the dictaphone,’ I said. ‘If they hear the evidence, they’ll have to act on it.’
‘We’re not going back, Burrowes!’ Nick said. ‘There’s nothing else we can do now. We told him everything we know. The police are the most qualified people to deal with this. I don’t care if you think I’m being a chauvinist, I’m not letting you go back there.’
‘We shouldn’t have gone in the first place,’ I said bitterly. ‘If they’ve killed Ford it’ll be my fault.’
Nick stopped and turned to face me. ‘It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have known what they were planning.’
I was close to tears. ‘You don’t understand. When I brought him back to the hotel in Paris, I thought I saw that blond guy watching us from across the street as we walked in. But I didn’t say anything! I was so desperate to get the story and I didn’t want to scare him off.’
‘Christ, Burrowes, it’s not your fault!’ Nick said again. ‘It was his choice to pretend to get involved in the business. He put himself in danger. All you’ve done is try to help him.’
I looked at my feet. ‘That’s not entirely true.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I convinced him to get involved so we could set up a way to get the evidence. So that’s my fault. Yeah, I got the evidence, which would’ve redeemed me and got him off, but then I dropped it. My fault too. And now Grady has probably found said evidence and destroyed it. It’s all my fault.’
Nick was silent for a moment. He reached out and put his hand on the back of my neck. ‘You can’t blame yourself for everything, beauty girl.’ His fingers caressed the nape of my neck. ‘You’ve done more than any other journo would’ve done in your situation.’
‘Then why do I feel like I’ve signed his death warrant?’ My voice shook as I said the words.
He squeezed my neck and guided me up the footpath towards the hotel. I knew he was right, but I couldn’t quell my anxiety. How was I going to get through the night without knowing what was happening?
We reached the hotel and walked into the lobby without speaking. I fidgeted in the lift all the way up to our floor. I could feel Nick’s eyes on me. The lift stopped. We reached my room first, and without a word he followed me in. I turned to look at him.
‘What are we going to do—’ I began, but then he stepped forward, clasped my face between his hands and kissed me on the mouth. He pulled away and I stared up at him, eyes wide. ‘We should probably—’ I tried again, but he smothered my words with another kiss. The sensible comment I’d been about to make flew from my mind as shivers of desire spiralled from my head to my feet. Then he pulled away again, pushed the door closed and came back to me. His hands moved under my T-shirt and up my back. Every part of me he touched tingled with anticipation. I drew in a ragged breath. ‘Are we really going to do this?’
Nick looked down at me with that crooked smile that always managed to set my heart racing. ‘Shut up, Burrowes.’
I grabbed the back of his neck and pulled his mouth down onto mine again, and he drew my body hard against his. Our kissing was deep, urgent, I needed to be closer to him. I grasped the bottom of his T-shirt and pulled it up over his head. He followed suit, unhooking my bra, and the heat of our upper bodies pressed together as we kissed again.
We quickly shed the rest of our clothes and my body hummed with anticipation as I kicked away my underwear and pulled him back to me. He kissed my neck, his teeth grazing my skin. I couldn’t keep my hands off him, his arms, his shoulders, his back, my fingers skimming down his stomach.
He groaned in my ear and grasped my hips. I wrapped my legs around his waist as he lifted me off the ground and pinned me hard against the wall. I gasped as he entered me. Heat flooded my body. The wall was cold on my back, but his body was hot. He drew back and hovered just outside me, teasing, and then drove into me again, once, twice, three times, until I was dizzy with desire.
He carried me over to the bed, lay me down, then began to explore the length of my body with his hands, lips and tongue. His touch lit a trail of flames across my skin until my entire body was on fire.
I pleaded with him to hurry and he looked up at me with that half-smile. ‘Oh, I’m not letting you off that easily.’
With maddening slowness, his tongue traced the contours of my body, over one hip,
