Blown Away by G.M. Ford

Author:G.M. Ford [Ford, G.M.]
Format: epub
Published: 2009-09-14T17:00:00+00:00

23

C orso dropped his room key onto the nightstand and picked up the remote. He stretched out on the bed, snapped on the TV and checked the bedside clock: 6:05 P.M. Pacific Standard Time. World News. Earthquake in Pakistan. Thousands dead. He turned off the sound, closed his eyes and drifted into dreamless sleep.

Seemed like seconds later, a loud rapping brought him to his feet. It was 7:16 P.M. He walked to the door, started to jerk it open, then thought better of it and peeked out through the peephole. Nobody in the hall. Then the rapping started again. This time long enough for him to realize it was coming from the adjoining door to the room next door.

He ran a hand over his face, crossed to the side of the room, pulled back the dead bolt and opened the door. Chris Andriatta stood in the doorway wearing one of the hotel bathrobes, white terry cloth, Beverly Wilshire embroidered on the right breast.

“You eat yet?” she wanted to know.

Corso shook his head and motioned her into the room. “You certainly got lost in a hurry,” he said.

“I told you. I don’t like having my picture taken.” She settled a towel across her shoulders and shook her wet hair. “Besides, I needed to do a little laundry. I feel like I’ve been wearing the same clothes for a week.”

Corso nodded his understanding. “You should have called the valet,” Corso said. “They’d have had the stuff back to you in an hour or so.”

She made a face. “You’ll have to excuse me if hotel valets are usually out of my price range.”

Corso held up a hand. “Sorry,” he said. “There I go throwing money at it again.”

“What about dinner? I’m famished.”

“You want to walk over to Westwood Village?”

She pulled at the sleeve of the bathrobe. “Can I wear this?” she asked. “’Cause everything else I own is drying in the bathroom.”

“You could,” he offered. “I, for one, think you look great in it, but my guess would be that it might be a bit, how shall we say, libertine…even for L.A.”

“Room service then?”

“If you were hungry, you should have ordered something.”

“I tried. They wouldn’t let me use my own money. Everything had to be charged to the room.”

“So?”

“So?…So I don’t know you well enough to be spending your money.”

“Neither do I, but I never let it stop me.”

She laughed. “It’s bad enough I’m standing around in your hotel room in a bathrobe.”

“What’s bad about that?”

“You know what I mean.”

“You look fine. You smell great. What could be bad?”

She wagged a finger at Corso on her way across the room. “Don’t start. Just because you’re filthy rich and impossibly handsome doesn’t cut any slack with me.”

“Me neither,” he assured her.

“The part of the world I just came from, I’d be stoned to death for being here with you”—she picked at the robe again—“like this.”

Corso reached down and pulled at the hem of the robe. A crude tattoo adorned her right ankle. At first

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