Loverboy (The Company #2) - Sarina Bowen Page 0,61
all over him,” I clarify.
“Hot damn!” Duff says. “Can you spill some on me, too? I mean—I’ve tried chocolate sauce in bed. But variety is awful nice.”
“But we weren’t …” I realize that my questions still have not been answered, and I try once again to get this conversation back on track. “What is the key?”
“A logo,” Duff supplies. “Every company needs a logo. It’s extra helpful for us, because we don’t tell anyone the company name. Most of us have that tattoo. All the guys I know who work for The Company.”
“But Gunnar works for me,” I argue. And then I immediately realize that I’ve missed something big. Maybe Gunnar isn’t there for fifteen bucks an hour plus tips. It always seemed weird to me that he turned up in my shop looking for work.
The barista with a single reference who doesn’t drink coffee. Who volunteered to work six days a week.
“Gunnar,” I say slowly. “Tell me again how you came to be a barista in my shop?”
“It’s complicated,” he says.
“I HAVE TIME!”
“First stop, Spring Street,” Duff says, slowing the van to a crawl. “No tail, but watch yourselves.”
“Thanks Duff. Before we go, is everything quiet at the pie shop?” Gunnar asks, removing his seatbelt. Then he reaches over and removes mine, too. “You’re getting out here with me.”
“SAYS WHO?” I’m prepared to keep howling until I get some answers.
But Max stuns me into silence by pressing a single button on his high-tech console, changing all the images on the monitors behind him. And what I see on those screens makes my eyes widen.
Every camera view is inside my pie shop. There’s my counter in the nighttime shadows, the lemon meringue standing tall. And there’s a shot of table four, and another of eleven. There’s also a view of my front door, and a view of the back.
“What the hell?” I whisper. “Where did those cameras come from?”
“Gunnar will explain,” Max says.
“Come on,” Gunnar says, putting a hand on my lower back. “Still clear, Duff?”
“Clear.”
Gunnar opens the back door and tugs on my hand. “Quickly now.”
Numb, but still needing answers, I follow him, hopping down to the pavement.
He puts a firm hand on my back, looks up and down the sidewalk, then pulls me toward his front door.
Sidestepping him, I disengage his hand from my body, even though I like the feel of it. “I’m not going upstairs with you,” I say, sounding just like a petulant child.
“I need you to,” he says simply. “You’re easier to protect up there.”
“Protect from what?”
“I’ll tell you all about it upstairs,” he growls, unlocking the front door and holding it open for me.
And I step through. But only out of pure curiosity. “I’m still mad,” I say, just for clarification. “I don’t like you anymore.”
Just keep telling yourself that, my hormones chuckle.
“You shut up,” I whisper.
“Sorry?” Gunnar asks, closing the door behind us.
“Not you,” I grumble. “I need some more explaining from you.”
He sighs. “Yeah, I know. Come on.”
Gunnar lives in a small but chic little building—the kind where the elevator opens right into his third-floor apartment. When the doors part, we step into a soaring, open-plan space with a huge living area, white plastered walls, a stone fireplace, a killer kitchen, and double doors opening to a big bedroom in back.
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” I breathe. “You could never live here on barista money.”
“You’re right.” He takes the tuxedo jacket off and tosses it over the arm of a giant L-shaped couch. It's just like mine, except larger, newer and about ten times more beautiful. The leather looks like butter.
And I feel like the world’s biggest idiot. “You lied to me.”
“I did,” he says, teasing his bowtie apart.
“You really work for Max.”
“Exactly.” He threads the bow tie through his collar and tosses it onto his jacket. Then he unbuttons the tux shirt collar.
“The barista job. It was all just a ruse. You’re spying on me!”
“Not on you,” he says calmly.
“Is it … are you with the police?” I squeak.
He shakes his head. “No. Max’s company does high-end private security, and some industrial cybertech work. There’s a criminal who’s been using your pie shop WiFi to brag about a series of murders. You might have seen them in the newspaper. The killer poisoned …”
“I read about those!” I snap. “Those were scary and disgusting. I don’t want anything to do with that.”
“I know you don’t,” he says calmly.
“Why do you keep agreeing WITH EVERYTHING I SAY?” I shout. “It’s so fucking irritating!”