I reach for his tie and tug him closer. "You look too good to leave this bed."
"And you look too good in my sheets for me to think straight." He kisses me again, slower this time, his mouth warm against mine. "Rest."
“You know I can’t stay in your tower of glass forever.”
He doesn't answer, and the way he keeps checking his watch tells me we don't have time to argue.
His thumb traces my cheekbone. "I'll have Savine and Callan outside. Anything you need, they handle it."
"I know the drill."
He straightens, grabs his phone and keys from the nightstand, and pauses at the bedroom door. He looks back at me tangled in his dark sheets and something crosses his face that I can't quite read. Tenderness, maybe. Or worry.
"I’m only a few floors down. Come find me at any time."
"I will."
He steps out and I hear the elevator doors close. The penthouse goes quiet. I lie in his sheets for another ten minutes, breathing in cologne and clean cotton, before my phone buzzes.
I pick it up to see a notification from Bree pop on the screen.
Crap. I bounce up and flick my phone on to read the full message. The wholesale order I placed two weeks ago is due today and I forgot all about it. I can't afford to miss it. Sixty vintage reproduction dresses in four colors, the biggest order Midnight Boutique has ever received, and if they sit on the loading dock in this rain the fabric will absorb moisture and the colors will bleed before I can get them inside.
Forty-five minutes later, I'm dressed and standing in the penthouse kitchen arguing with two men in dark suits. They are paid to keep me alive and are currently failing to understand that keeping me alive includes keeping my business alive.
"The order arrives this morning. If I'm not there to receive it, sixty dresses sit in the rain and I lose twelve thousand dollars in inventory." I pour coffee into a travel mug and cap it, the steam escaping around the lid carrying the dark, bitter scent of Massimo's imported beans that cost more per bag than my monthly coffee budget. "You're ordered to keep me safe wherever I am, right? Then keep me safe at my boutique."
The taller guard, a man named Savine who has the build of a linebacker and the communication skills of a parking meter, exchanges a look with his partner.
"Ms. Whitmore, Mr. Santoro's instructions were?—"
"To protect me. Not to lock me in this tower. That can be someone else's story, not mine." I take a sip of the coffee I just brewed. It's annoyingly good, smooth and rich with a caramel finish that makes my usual grocery store brand taste like dirt water by comparison. "Massimo is busy and that order won't wait. You can follow me, stand outside, check the perimeter, do whatever your training tells you to do. But I'm going to my shop." I’ve stayed closed too long as it is. I can’t leave my life on hold forever. Lorenzo wouldn’t dare do a thing to me there. Not when my clients would turn into witnesses.
Savine pulls his phone and texts someone. I assume Massimo. He reads the response, pockets the phone, and nods once.
"Fine. But you don't leave our sight. If you break a nail we get caps in our knees."
My brows pinch together. “Did Massimo say that?”
Callan answers. “You don’t wanna know what happens if you get a simple papercut. Mind being careful?”
Oh. Wow. I make a mental note to talk to Massimo. I don't want these men afraid of their own boss because of me. But I also can’t lose this order. "Deal. Let me grab my bag."
The SUV cuts through morning traffic, the wipers sweeping rain from the windshield in steady arcs. I sit in the back seat with my travel mug and watch the city slide past through tinted glass, the storefronts of Wicker Park still dark, the sidewalksglistening wet, a few early joggers hunched against the drizzle. Savine drives with both hands on the wheel and his eyes moving between the mirrors in a pattern I've started recognizing as trained surveillance. His partner rides shotgun with his window cracked an inch despite the rain, listening to the street I guess. Or he likes water in his face.
Who knows.
They drop me at the front of Midnight Boutique at nine fifteen. But not before Callan takes my keys, sweeps the area and then ushers me inside like I am legit royalty.
“Savine is parking the car. I’ll be at the front door and he will cover the back. You do not leave the inside of this shop. Period. Clear?”
“Don’t scare away my customers. Clear?”
He ignores me and turns, disappearing to…well, I have no idea. All I know is I don’t see him so neither will any clients who come in.
The brass bell chimes when I push through the door and the familiar sound settles into my bones, a bright, clean ring that makes me feel like me. The shop smells like lavender sachets and clean cotton and the faint mustiness of vintage fabric that has become the scent of home to me, warm and safe and entirely mine.
Five minutes later my shipment arrives and Savine does his job rather well. He checks everything. The driver, the boxes, the little handheld I sign before the shipment is officially mine.