Bedroom Diplomacy(44)

She knew she was being ridiculous. It didn’t matter what Cara thought, because she hadn’t met Colin. Maybe he wasn’t the settling-down type, but that didn’t make him a bad person. He was a soldier, a war hero. But given Rowena’s track record with men, could she blame Cara for worrying? Why would she have faith in anything Rowena said?

Or maybe it had nothing to do with Cara. Maybe the real problem was that Rowena had no faith in herself. But she was definitely working on that.

*

The meeting with Senator Tate was just what Colin had expected: a formality. And frankly, an enormous waste of time. He’d been subjected to a thorough grilling from the senator and his colleagues, including a top adviser to the president. But most of the questions he had no answers for, which he supposed only solidified the need for an investigation into ANS and the accusations of hacking. He was told they would discuss it further and have a decision soon. Which he knew in Washington, with all the red tape, could be months. He was disappointed, but not surprised.

As he was leaving, the senator gave him a list of nearly one hundred possible suspects he intended to investigate—just in case. In the cab on the way back to the hotel, Colin went over the list, surprised to find that it included everyone from aides to ANS employees to celebrities. Paranoid much? This reeked of the McCarthy hearings in the 1950s, when everyone was guilty until proven innocent, and suddenly Colin began to wonder what he’d gotten himself into. Because unlike McCarthy, Tate had years of experience and influence to legitimize his suspicions. Colin would have to tread lightly—the last thing he wanted was to become involved in was a witch hunt.

Colin was so preoccupied with his thoughts as he walked into the hotel room that he almost stepped on the thick manila envelope lying on the carpet just inside the door. He stopped and picked it up. It was sealed, and there was no writing on either side.

Could it be something Rowena had dropped?

He closed the door and shrugged out of his coat, draping it across the arm of the sofa. “Rowena, are you here?”

She stepped out of the bedroom a second later, wrapped in a towel, her skin rosy, her hair damp and a little messy.

“Hey, you’re back,” she said, her eager smile warming him from the inside out, and as it did, the stress of his morning, the feelings of frustration and uselessness, began to leak away.

The envelope forgotten, he crossed the room and tugged her close, circling her in his arms. Her skin was warm and soft and a little damp. She let out a soft moan of pleasure as his lips covered hers. She looped her arms around his neck and a feral-sounding grumble erupted from his throat. Every time she touched him and he put his hands on her, he wanted her even more than the last time.

“You know we have a flight to catch,” she said between kisses.

“I know.” He sighed and pressed his forehead to hers. If they didn’t he would already have her out of that towel, himself out of his clothes and both of them back in bed.

“How was your lunch?”

“Fun. How was your meeting?”

“Not fun. More like a big, fat waste of time. They want to drag me into this congressional investigation. All I’m here for is the treaty.”

“But he won’t back the treaty without the investigation.”

“Exactly.”

“What the senator wants, the senator gets.”

That was becoming infinitely more clear.

He held up the envelope. “Is this yours?”

She shook her head.

“It was on the floor by the door. I thought perhaps you had dropped it.”

“Nope, not mine.”

“It wasn’t there when you came in?”

“Not that I noticed.”

“Could someone have knocked, and maybe you didn’t hear them, so they slipped it under the door?”

“It’s possible, I guess. Maybe while I was in the shower.”

So who did he know who would be sliding things under his hotel room door? There weren’t that many people who even knew he was in town.

“Could be anthrax,” she said thoughtfully, and he shot her a look. “Letter bomb?”

“Funny.” He shook the envelope and something slid around inside. He felt the outline of the object and recognized the shape. “It feels like a disc. A CD or DVD.”

“Why don’t you open it?”

He opened the envelope and pulled out a single, unmarked CD. Puzzled, he said, “I wonder what it could be.”

“Is there a note?”

He checked the envelope again and shook his head. “Nothing. Perhaps it was slid under our door in error and it belongs to someone else.”

“Or it’s something someone wanted you to find.”