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CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

H e almost felt like Arthur with Excalibur extracting his hand from under Nina’s. After their last bout of lovemaking – a thoroughly incredible bout – Nina had curled up against him and drifted off.

Something had changed between them since yesterday. For all her talk about keeping their emotions out of it, Robert suspected they’d both hurtled over the edge into love. And there had been nothing either of them could do to stop it.

Robert pushed up on his elbows, letting the duvet fall off his shoulders. The chill immediately summoned the goosebumps, but the discomfort didn’t assuage his member, surging once again towards Nina.

Fuck, he was worse than his teenage self!

Robert leaned down, craning his neck, and pecked Nina on the cheeks. Aye, he’d definitely gone over the threshold into heart-eyes territory.

After sliding out of bed, Robert hunted his clothes in the dark, hoping he didn’t bang into something and wake Nina up. Where the hell were they?

The shower! Fuck, he’d discarded his things on the bathroom floor. And then pushed Nina under the cold shower.

That woman brought out a part of him he’d never known existed.

He found his things dry but wrinkled. As he shoved his legs into his trousers, Robert spotted the sodden heap that were Nina’s things.

Once he was dressed, he collected her stuff and shoved it into the washing machine. He wouldn’t start it now, lest she woke up. Same with the kettle. It could wait.

He… Why had he got up? The clock read 3 a.m. And the day he left a bed containing a beautiful woman who was as hungry for him as he was for her, he’d be dead. Still, despite the incredible sex, sleep hadn’t pulled him under. No, the moment Nina had dropped off, despite her words, her actions and the fact she was cuddled into his arms, his thoughts had begun to wander.

He no longer believed she’d committed or had any part in the murders, not even her camera guy’s. She might appear savvy and sharp, but in her heart, Nina held a certain fragility. If she didn’t care, would she be so determined to find the truth?

Robert’s legs carried him to the living room and the mess on the coffee table – all the data Nina had gathered for her article. He sat down on the sofa, staring at the mount of papers.

She had clearly gathered a lot of information, enough to run an exposé on the entire operation. Something that would definitely upset people and ruin their businesses.

Perhaps if he read through her notes, he would see something she had missed. Robert knew, given how sharp Nina was, it was unlikely he’d have an eureka moment instead of her. Still, if his restless brain had pulled him from the arms of a beautiful woman, he wouldn’t let his sacrifice go to waste.

He picked up the first sheet of paper, wishing he could brew a strong cup of coffee to read it with. And he’d need something strong; human trafficking was no laughing matter.

An hour and a half later, Robert read the last line of the last sheet of paper from the pile. Jeez. Reading Nina’s notes had been an education. With each page he’d read, his heart had broken for the people who found themselves in this system with no white knight to save them.

Potentially, Nina’s article would have. And he’d been planning to throw her in prison for being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

He sat back on the sofa and scrolled through the notes he had taken on his phone while reading Nina’s notes. His hope for a breakthrough had long since abandoned him; he’d found nothing new. Those notes encompassed everything, and Nina had thumbed through them often enough that she probably had them memorised.

Robert arranged the papers in a neat pile and set them on the table. He placed his phone on top, staring at the darkening screen. Why the hell had he woken up then? What kept nagging at his brain?

A groan slipped through his lips. Dropping his head into his hands, he sat there, defeated. What had?—?

He’d been lying in bed, unable to sleep, staring at Nina. Her tantalising body curved against his, her soft breathing tickling the hair on his chest. He’d been watching the contours of her face, relaxed in sleep. Is that how she looked when her whole world wasn’t crashing around her?

He'd reached out to her and halted. Why? ‘Ah!’ Robert’s head jerked up, the sudden movement sending a trickle of pain down the side of his shoulder.

He winced, but he didn’t care, not with his elation. Hell?—

Beside the table, Robert spotted Nina’s backpack. He dragged the thing to rest between his legs and opened the rucksack. He pulled out the travel packs of underwear, clothes and make-up, then the camera bag.

Once he unzipped it, the metallic rim of the camera’s lens glinted at him. He didn’t know what he’d been expecting, but this camera, with its black exterior and purse-sized shape hadn’t been it. Didn’t professional photographs lug a huge device around?

Shaking his head, Robert assessed the gadget. If he started the thing up, the police would once again track it – this time straight to him. But that wasn’t what?—

‘What’re you doing?’ a female voice said from behind him. ‘Fuck! I’m so stupid! You’re Dickheadson’s Trojan Horse, aren’t you?’

Robert startled, almost dropping the camera to the floor. He grasped it at the last moment, then set it down on the coffee table.

Nina rounded the sofa, a sleep mark on her forehead, and the cutest tinge of red on her cheeks.

His body stirred, his inner Neanderthal encouraging him to devour her, right there on the floor. Stop it! The last thing you need is her kicking you in the nuts .

Nina’s eyes tracked the neat stack of papers, then his phone on top of it, and lastly the camera. ‘I can’t believe I could be so gullible! I?—’

‘Nina, please, let me explain.’

She rolled her eyes, picking up the travel packs he’d removed from her rucksack. She dumped them back in, finally reaching for the camera.

Damned if she ran away from him now!

Robert leaped up and grabbed her shoulders. ‘Darling, please look at me.’

‘Fuck you!’

‘Nina…’ He cupped her face. ‘I remembered something. That’s why I couldn’t sleep.’

He pointed to her notes. ‘I thought I’d find that something in there. But you’ve done a brilliant job with those notes. Then I remembered…’

He led her to the sofa and sat down with her on his lap. She made a grunt of protest, but didn’t push away. ‘Earlier, when you saved us from that biker... I noticed something. But then we… er, we kissed and…’

Nina raised an eyebrow as if to say, ‘get to the point.’

Robert cleared his throat. ‘Food delivery guys always have those cube-shaped backpacks, you know, to store the food in. Typically, they’re bright green or orange.’

‘I have ordered food online before, Robert.’

‘Our biker wasn’t wearing one.’ He sputtered. ‘I saw him zip downhill, riding the bike, wearing all black, without an insulation bag on his back.’

Nina’s eyes lit up the moment she realised what Robert was trying to say. ‘He wasn’t a delivery driver.’

Fuck, he couldn’t believe he hadn’t remembered that very important fact. He didn’t know how other countries or cities did things, but in Glasgow it was odd to see someone on an electrical bike without the basket.

Whoever had been on that bike had intended to plough them down. That hadn’t been a mistake.

A frown furrowed Nina’s eyebrows. ‘But how did they know we’d be there?’

‘The SUV. They were staking that place out, which could also mean they know about the locker. And maybe they were the ones who broke into it.’ Robert pulled Nina into his chest. ‘And if we stick to our original theory of Anne being your lead, whatever data she had on them, she’d stored in those lockers.’

Nina bobbed her head. ‘And they stole it.’

At that understanding, Nina pivoted, so she straddled him. Her gaze roamed over his face, studying his lips, then his eyes.

Robert set his hands on her waist. ‘Are we okay?’

Perhaps for him their love-making last night had been a step forward when for her it had been nothing but a simple way to relieve stress. He wouldn’t blame her if she never trusted him again.

Nina leaned in and whispered. ‘That’s still up for debate. You could start winning me back by taking me out to dinner.’