Chapter 16

Sinead blew out a breath and considered bailing again. The Victor Berisha angle wasn’t her only lead, but it was the one with the best chance of succeeding. It wasn’t the risk that made her hesitate though, it was that feeling she’d had in her gut since she’d asked Marc for help.

She pushed it down and got out of her car, fetching her bags from the back seat before heading into the building. Marc had been vague when she’d asked why she needed to be at his place this early if they were going to dinner at 7 PM, so she assumed that they were going to do ... things. After that, she would need to get ready to go out and blend in at the fancy restaurant.

With her dress and knapsack of shoes and things over her shoulder, she took the elevator up to his loft and walked down the corridor, hearing every step of her boots along the way. Her nerves were spiking like she couldn’t believe, and her thumb was digging a nail into her finger, but she also had this sensation that she’d been thinking about more and more as the week went on. Of a hard-yet-soft, smooth and warm, pulsing cock between her lips. She could almost taste him already and it made her so fucking mad.

She was acting like a fucking whore. This wasn’t her.

At the door, she hesitated before knocking, but not because of her thoughts. She frowned as she heard the dull sound of voices from inside. She waited, closing her eyes to listen closely, but she couldn’t tell what was being said.

Sinead swallowed nervously. He wasn’t planning on ... she wasn’t even sure what. He didn’t seem like the kind of man to organize a gangbang and force her to do that, but ... an orgy? He was French, and that was a very European thing, right? Could she do that? Be in an orgy?

Swallowing again, she steeled herself to be ready to say no to anything too wild. And definitely not anything she’d never done before. She wasn’t trying things for the first time in an orgy, or with Marc in general. Sinead knocked.

The door opened quickly, and he was there with that fucking smile.

“Detective,” he said warmly, holding out a hand to offer to take her bags. “It’s lovely to see you.”

“Mr Fornier,” she said cautiously, lowering her bags from her shoulder but not handing them to him.

“Please, come in,” Marc invited her, opening the door fully and turning his spurned offer into a gesture through the hallway. The voices beyond in the kitchen area hadn’t stopped talking, but it wasn’t so many that she was worried it was a crowd.

Sinead entered the apartment and kicked off her boots, regretting the loss of the two inches they gave her as it just made Marc seem that much bigger than her. She followed him down the hallway and found three people waiting around the kitchen island, along with a bunch of travel cases.

“Sinead,” Marc said, turning with that goddamn smile still as he introduced the others. “This fine young man here is Lorenzo. He’ll be your stylist for this afternoon, c’est un magicien, tu verras. This is his lovely assistant Porcia, and this is my good friend Tina and she’ll be giving you your mani-pedi.”