“Got it, Boss.” Joe took a phone out of his pocket. “Are you coming back here after you take Ms. Bell to her apartment?”
“No,” Gabriel said. “I’ll be staying with her tonight. Think you can find her apartment again?”
“Yep. Memorized the route.”
“Good. Be there at five tomorrow morning. Use my vehicle. We’ll swap cars. You can pick up the limo and take it back to the garage. Ms. Bell and I will head to the job site.”
“Right.” Joe turned away to talk to whoever was on the other end of his phone call.
Joe appeared to take the rapid-fire string of orders in stride, but Lucy’s head was spinning. She was starting to feel as if she were on a roller coaster. It had been one twist after another today. She tried to focus on what mattered most at that moment.
“What did you mean when you said you were going to spend the rest of the night with me?” she said.
“There are too many questions here. I’m not letting you out of my sight until we know what’s going on,” Gabriel said.
She searched for a logical reason to refuse. “I don’t have an extra bedroom.”
No need to mention that she happened to have a sofa equipped with a pull-out bed.
“I’ll take the couch or the floor. I’m assuming you’ve got one or the other?”
She narrowed her eyes. “Both.”
“Always nice to have a choice.” Gabriel turned back to Joe. “I’ve got a go-bag in the back of the limo, but I’d appreciate it if you’d stop by my apartment tomorrow morning and grab some clothes. I’d just as soon not go into the Underworld wearing a tux. Not a good look for a Guild boss.”
CHAPTER NINE
“This is awkward,” Lucy said. She twitched the curtain aside and looked at the long black limo parked on the street in front of her apartment building. “Do you have any idea what Mrs. Briggs and my neighbors are going to think when they see that huge car sitting there all night long?”
Otis vaulted up onto the windowsill to see what had attracted her attention. When he didn’t notice anything that was of interest to a dust bunny, he chortled and bounced down to the floor again.
Gabriel glanced out the window and shrugged. “They’ll assume you have a friend visiting.”
“I don’t have any friends who drive around in limousines, especially not in limousines with Guild license plates. Everyone will know the new boss of the local Guild is spending the night.”
“Is that going to be a problem?”
She let the curtain fall back into place and turned to glare at him. It struck her that he looked incredibly sexy standing there in her small living room dressed in a tux. The memory of how he had kissed her, scooped her up with easy strength, and carried her out of the Dead City whispered through her.
Focus, woman.
“My professional reputation went down the dust bunny hole after you brought me out of the tunnels,” she said coldly. “But there was another issue, as well.”
Gabriel raised his brows. “What other issue?”
“Never mind,” she muttered. “It was just a three-day tabloid story that faded quickly.”
“What kind of tabloid story?”
She waved her hands. “The Curtain and some of the other gossipy papers implied that I had disappeared for three days into the tunnels because I was having a wild fling with the Guild agent who rescued me. It was the photo of you carrying me out of the Dead City. They ran with it for a while.”
“I see.” Gabriel contemplated that for a beat. “I didn’t realize—”
“I know. You were busy.”
“I had a job to do.”
“Right. My point is that two months ago people figured it was just a one-or possibly three-night stand with a Guild agent. It happens. My friends and neighbors forgot about it within a week. Tomorrow morning, however, the rumors are going to fire up again. And this time it will be different, because you’re not just a ghost hunter who stopped off in Illusion Town long enough to have some fun. You’re the director of the local Guild. You’re one of the power brokers here. And you’re spending the night at my place. So much for trying to convince everyone that you’re just another client.”
“I apologize, but security has to be our first priority. Can we agree on that?”
She groaned. “Yes. Damn it.”
“Good. That’s settled, then.”
She lifted her chin, determined to be mature. “Yep. Settled. Got a job to do first thing in the morning.”