Loverboy (The Company #2) - Sarina Bowen Page 0,69
pick something easy.”
“Can you peel apples?” I unlock the metal grate and push the button to raise it up.
“I can try.”
“Good enough. I’ll take the free labor. Fire up Lola, will you?”
“Yes, boss.” He gives me another cheesy wink.
“Hey, Gunnar?” I close the door behind us and check that it’s still locked.
“Yeah?” He’s already behind the counter, turning on the espresso machine.
“Today you should make another sign for my window—Barista Wanted. You’re going to catch this guy, right? And then disappear?”
“That’s the plan,” he says, checking the beans in the grinder.
“Then I need to hire somebody. Stat. Why’d you throw away my sign if you knew I’d still need it?”
He leans his forearms onto the bar and takes me in. “That was just a bit of swagger. I’m sorry. I’ll fix it.”
“Thank you,” I say. And then I hurry into the kitchen so he can’t read on my face how conflicted I am about all of this.
He follows me a few minutes later. “Okay. Where do you keep the apple peeler?”
“It’s on that shelf.” I point. “That thing with the handle.”
“Wait, really?” He reaches for my grandmother’s antique apple peeler. “This looks like some kind of torture device.”
“If you’re an apple, I guess it is. Clamp it to the counter. Let’s go, Gunn. I have apple turnovers to bake. Apples are in the fridge.”
Since Gunnar is good with his hands—a fact I know all too well now—he figures out the peeler right away. It only takes him ten minutes to peel and core all the apples I’ll need today.
“This thing is amazing. I didn’t know you could make an apple into a Slinky! Do you have any more? Would it work on a pear? How about a potato?”
“Nope. You’re done. Step away from the produce.”
“But—”
“Gunnar,” I chide. “Clean up all those peels. Now I have a question.”
“Hmm?”
“What’s the company called? You never say the name.”
“Ah. It’s a secret. Only the principals know. The employees who own shares.”
“But why? Who’d work for a company if they don’t even know the name?”
“About two hundred people.” Gunnar chuckles.
The more I hear about this place, the more insane it gets. “Tell me the name. I won’t spill it.”
“Sorry, sweetheart. I can’t do that.”
Of course he can’t. I shouldn’t care. He has his life, and I have mine. We’re not a couple. There’s nothing between us except for a WiFi signal and a night of explosive, toe-curling sex. “Fine. Don’t tell me. But I’d still like you to make me a latte.”
“Yes, boss. Whatever you say, boss. See how good I am at saying that? It hardly makes me want to vomit at all.” He flashes me that wonderful, evil smile. The one that makes women’s panties fall right off.
And then he goes to make my coffee.
22
Gunnar
When I return to the pie shop many hours later, Teagan is working behind the counter. “Hey, Gunn,” she says, looking up from her phone. “Isn’t it your day off?”
“Just couldn’t stay away,” I insist, heading over to where Scout is seated at a corner table, posing as a customer.
“Working hard?” I ask, taking the chair opposite her.
“It’s a tough assignment,” she says from behind the computer monitor. “I mean, sex is nice. But the raspberry vinegar tart I just ate was on a whole other level.”
“Raspberry vinegar, huh? I haven’t tried that one.”
“More for me.” She closes the laptop and stows it. “I can go, right?”
“Yeah. As soon as you tell me what you saw here today.”
“Not a thing.” She crosses her arms, impatient. “This is boring as fuck, Gunnar.”
“But that’s a good thing,” I remind her.
“So you say. But it’s also why I’m never asked to sit still.”
She’s right—Max employs her strictly as an investigator. He doesn’t ever ask her to be anybody’s security detail. I wonder why she’s here today, but I can’t ask that question now.
“Any news?” she asks me. “I’m dying to know what was on that thing.” She’s referring, of course, to the camera she recovered from Smith’s room last night.
“There was some chatter.” I pull out my phone, which is a secure device. And I open an app we often use to communicate privately. Using the pad of my finger, I slowly draw a series of letters. Each one disappears a moment after I draw it, but not before Scout can see that I’ve written R-U-S-S-I-A-N and then T-U-R-K-I-S-H.
Her eyes widen at that last one. “Really? How many languages can one guy know?”
I shrug. But the news is troubling, because it makes