Loverboy (The Company #2) - Sarina Bowen Page 0,111

over me affect me as much as I did. “Fuck it. I’m asking Max for a permanent transfer to Manhattan. Effective immediately.”

Posy lets out a squeak of surprise just as I capture her pretty face between my fingertips and kiss her. Right on the mouth.

35

Posy

Seven Months Later

I’m late, damn it. So when I see the elevators at the SoHo Luxe starting to close, I put on a burst of speed. “Hold the elevator,” I gasp, skating on my dressy shoes toward the closing gap.

A hand shoots out to stop the progression of the doors.

“Thank you,” I gasp as I step over the threshold.

“What floor, miss?” asks the woman. She’s wearing a maid’s pinafore and carrying a stack of towels.

I’m instantly suspicious. She may be an operative in disguise. I know things.

“Um, rooftop. Thank you,” I say, and she presses the button.

We ride up two floors before the doors part and she gets out.

I can’t help myself. I press the door open button, then stick my head out and watch her walk down the hallway.

She joins two other women in maid’s uniforms, hands one of them the towels, and then grabs a vacuum cleaner and heads into an open room.

Okay. She’s probably part of the hotel’s cleaning staff. But ever since I met Gunnar, I look at life just a little differently. You never know when a guy who looks to be sleeping behind the wheel of his car is really on a stakeout. Or if the elevator’s light fixture is secretly reading the texts on your phone.

I don’t really know why Gunnar wanted to have dinner here tonight. He only said that it was perfectly safe because Xian Smith hasn’t been seen in New York for months, not since the Canadian authorities let him go after only a ten minute detention. “Max was beside himself. He wanted to nail that guy. But we don’t have to worry about bumping into him at the SoHo Luxe.”

So here I am, stepping out of the elevator at five minutes past seven o’clock on the Friday night before Memorial Day. And the first thing I see is the deepening sky over Manhattan, with a million twinkling lights set against it.

“Wow,” I gasp. “Nice view.” It’s been years since I was up here. Late in my marriage, my life had become a grind. I hadn’t even realized it.

But not any longer. With a quick scan of the elegant dining tables, I zero in on the hot guy who’s waiting for me in the corner. And then I hustle over there.

Gunnar catches sight of me and rises from his chair.

He’s still rehabbing the injured leg. He walks with a limp, and running doesn’t work so well just yet. But he works out with a physical therapist twice a week and does upper body work in the gym with his pals at Company headquarters.

But he’s shockingly healthy, and awfully upbeat for a man who had two more surgeries after his incident. “You’re late, baby,” he says. “I thought maybe you were going to stand me up.”

“Never,” I say, although I know he’s just teasing. “The puppet show ran longer than I expected.” It was my afternoon to hang out with Aaron because Ginny had an art class. I’ve scaled back my hours in the pie shop. Originally, my goal was to be there for Gunnar as he healed. I moved into his apartment so he wasn’t reliant on a visiting nurse.

It’s just that I never left. We’re having too much fun together. And I only work at the pie shop five days a week these days, and reasonable hours. The rest of the time I spend with my family or with Gunnar. And sometimes both at once.

“How was your day?” I sit down and drape the napkin over my lap. “Nice table, by the way. You must have given the hostess your best loverboy smile.”

“Isn’t it though?” He gives me one, too. “My day was just fine. I’m working on a camera that reads sound waves off distant light fixtures.”

“Dare I ask why?” Some of the things Gunnar is working on for Max right now are so intricate that I get lost as soon as he tries to explain.

“When you talk, the sound waves you’re making wiggle everything around you, even if you can’t see it with the naked eye. But we’re building a super sensitive video relay that measures these vibrations off a lightbulb—because those are easy to see at a distance. And Max’s nerds will