‘Don’t touch her!’ Theo’s voice roared at them. ‘Don’t youdaretouch her!’
CHAPTER 30
NICK
There was no mistaking the voice. Or the effect it had on Alex.
Between the notebook and the dahlias from her stalkers, she was already wound up tighter than a spring.
And then Theo screamed at them both out of a piece of technology which could not have recorded him at all, let alone saying the words he said.
Don’t touch her!
It was like a slap to the face. The anger that surged up in Nick’s chest startled him. How dare he?Him, of all people…
Alex staggered back, white-faced, and her legs simply went out from underneath her. She was still clutching the notebook so she dropped like a stone.
Nick moved on instinct alone, catching her before she hit the ground, turning to shield her from the bed and whatever was rising there.
But nothing happened. There was no attack, no force battering into him. Nothing flew across the room under its own steam. No wind, no wall of icy cold, nothing. He was holding her. No, cradling her. And she felt so right in his arms. Like she belonged there.
She looked up into his face, blinking, eyes wide. Her mouth parted and the need to not just touch her, but draw her to him, kiss her, possess her was almost overwhelming.
A loud pop fractured the silence, and a hiss, followed by a sharp acidic smell, and then smoke. And…
‘Oh shit!’ Alex exclaimed, twisting out of his grip, as the recorder in the middle of the bed belched out foul-smelling black smoke, the plastic of its cover bubbling and melting onto the bedclothes. ‘No! Shit!’
Nick grabbed the topmost blanket and pulled it off the bed, taking the recorder with it. He threw it over the smoking equipment and brought his foot down on it hard, two, three times to put out any flames. Then he picked up the whole thing, and heading for the ensuite, threw it into the shower and turned on the water at full blast, immersing the remains of the lithium-ion battery before it could fully ignite.
It was deathly quiet in the room behind him. He looked around at Alex, who was staring up at him, speechless.
Slowly, Nick looked back at the mess in the shower. Her recorder. One of the ones that had been express shipped here by her team, probably at great expense. Brand new equipment which must have cost a fortune.
Shit.
It had probably been destroyed from the moment it started to smoke anyway. And a fire could have taken the whole room with it, maybe the whole Hall. It was always a risk in a building like this. A constant danger.
But still. He’d stamped it to death, smothered it and drowned it, in seconds. Acting on instinct alone.
‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered.
Alex shook her head, swallowed hard and then an expression of resignation took the place of her fear. ‘Better that than the whole place going up in flames.’ She drew in a breath and slowlylet it out again, closing her eyes. Her lips moved as if she was praying, or counting. Begging for serenity and patience perhaps.
He’d just destroyed her equipment. And her evidence as well. He simply couldn’t do anything right around this woman. Not from the first moment he had met her.
Sasquatch, her friends had called him. And he felt like it, stumbling around, in her way, breaking things.
‘You heard him, didn’t you?’ she asked in a very small voice.
Theo, warning Nick off her. Oh yes, he’d heard that all right.
Nick couldn’t dredge up an answer. He just nodded instead.
She held out her hand. ‘I think we should go downstairs. Give it a rest for the night. Maybe have a drink. I don’t think either of us should be in here. Or alone. Not now.’
‘Are you sure? You heard him.’
He waited, expecting him to tell him no, or to go to hell. Her brother certainly didn’t want him anywhere near her, did he? And Theo had always said that the two of them eventhoughtthe same way.
