I texted Sebastian that the target had left the shop, and he wasted no time calling me. “Yes, sir?”
“I could get used to that. Can you come back to the hotel now? I’ve been doing my part, and I have some interesting data for you. I’d like to hear your observations.”
“Of course, sir.” I closed my laptop, stuffed it into the elegant leather bag Sebastian insisted was appropriate for a secretary of my level, and gathered the rest of my things while staying on the phone. “I’m headed back to the hotel now.”
“Good. Stay on the phone, because I don’t trust that asshole as far as I can throw him.”
I bit my lip so I wouldn’t inform Sebastian he could probably toss Loureni fairly far. “Sir.”
“We are so going to have an evening where you seriously play my secretary, because that’s some serious flirtation, Wells.”
I rolled my eyes. “Sir.”
“You’re using your customer service voice on me, and this is definitely attractive. Consider me seduced.”
I left the shop, spotting Loureni talking with someone in the lobby of the building. He stared at me when I left the shop, and he frowned when he spotted me on the phone. “Are there any other meetings you will need to have rescheduled, sir? I am on my way to the hotel, and I will handle the required rescheduling when there so you can give your opinions on the alternatives.”
“He’s watching you, isn’t he?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’m headed for the lobby of the hotel, and I’ll keep an eye out for you.”
Arguing with the lion wouldn’t do any good, so I headed for the hotel down the street, moving with a purpose but being careful not to check over my shoulder. I went to the nearest crosswalk, pressed the button to cross the street, and checked all ways, spotting Loureni observing me from the steps of his office building. “He is definitely checking me out. I’m crossing the street, but he came out of the building to see where I’m going from the looks of it.”
“Exactly what we want. Good. That matches what we know of him so far. What was his behavior like in the coffee shop?”
“He was definitely making sure everybody there liked him. He’s charismatic. He’s almost as handsome as you are, too. There is zero reason for him to have trouble meeting women.”
That earned me a growl. “Wells.”
“Sir,” I purred at him.
“You’re an evil lynx, and I’m going to love rewarding you for that later.”
I would have an epic tombstone, as I’d goad the lion into killing me through his private displays of affection. The light changed, and I crossed the street, using a shield of Chicagoans to make sure I didn’t end up smacked by a vehicle. Once on the safety of the street, I adopted a brisk stride, a match for the locals who had somewhere to be in a hurry. In some ways, it reminded me of the one time I’d gone to New York City.
Everybody had somewhere to be, and they took shit from nobody.
So far, I liked Chicago, although it amazed me anybody survived its traffic and maze of underground streets.
Several more street crossings, and I reached the hotel, striding inside and hanging up on Sebastian when I caught sight of him. “I demand a purification ritual,” I announced.
“Our first spa treatment is in two hours, and I may have called in room service for us before leaving to meet you here.”
“You are a most useful lion. I ate cookies, muffins, and coffee all day today.”
“You might wilt away on me if I don’t properly feed you.”
I grinned at that. “What do you have for me?”
“Additional suspects, which means trouble in some ways.” Sebastian linked his arm with mine and dragged me towards the elevator. “He didn’t follow you?”
“No, and nobody who was with him in the lobby followed me. I would have warned you if someone had. I did use some Chicagoans as body shields crossing the street, though. People are crazy here. This is almost as bad as New York. Almost. Maybe worse? They don’t have underground roads in New York.”
“Chicago is a strange and mysterious place, defying the natural course of the seasons. It doesn’t have seasons. It has winter, and every other season is dedicated to the rearranging of the city and its streets in new, creative, and unusual ways.”
“I see you have been to Chicago before.”
“I used to live here. I moved after discovering winter is like the rest of the year but there is snow getting in the way of the construction. I was going to go insane. I went to Minnesota for a while after that, and from Minnesota, I tried Florida. Sunning myself on the beach was nice, but the weather was less than ideal, and the insurance is lethal when you actually expect them to fix your house once it gets assaulted by a hurricane. I lasted two hurricane seasons before I decided yearly rebuilds weren’t for me.”
“You had a beach house, didn’t you?”
“Guilty as charged.”
“At least tell me you evacuated.”
“Why would I evacuate?” He smirked at my glare. “I evacuated slightly inland. I’m a lion. I live for the thrill of the chase. My first hurricane, I rode it out as close to the water as I dared and enjoyed the show. I got a couple of scratches, but I emerged just fine. The second one, I went further inland, but it was a doozy, and I had to do a lot of rebuilding work on the house. The third one wiped the house right out, but I rebuilt it to be a lot tougher, so it survived the rest of the storms. I built it so well I made a hefty profit on the property when I got tired of fighting the weather and left.”
“You are a wealthy lion, apparently. I hadn’t known I was going gold digging when I went lion hunting. I’m a very naughty lynx. Who knew?”
“You, me, and anyone who knows you?”
I purred. “Except my family. They’re determined to believe I’m a pure innocent.”
“Judging from the hopelessness on your father’s face when he tried to explain to me how to secure grandkittens for himself, yes. I’m not sure he even believed, despite the tell-tale scents, you’re no longer a virgin. The way he was talking, he believes you’re still a virgin.”
“I love my daddy, but he’s an idiot. But that makes me really happy we didn’t indulge in his truck now. If we had, I might not have a daddy anymore, and that would make me so terribly sad.” Worse, it hadn’t occurred to me my family believed me to be that hopeless.
“Even if we had, I think your daddy thinks you are so pure, reclusive, and shy he would believe he’d imagined such a smell in his truck. I almost laughed in his face. It took everything in me not to laugh in his face while I got lectured over the delicate, fragile state of his daughter. He apologized to me. Repeatedly. Over your fragile and delicate state.”
I bit my lip, as I didn’t want to laugh at my father—or at Sebastian for having to put up with my father at his worst. “He couldn’t have possibly been talking about me.” When we got into the elevator, Sebastian pressed the button for the top floor. “How did we even get such a great room, anyway?”
“The CDC has on-going bookings in most cities for emergencies and work like this. They moved the folks in our room to an equally swanky place elsewhere in the city. In exchange for always leaving this room available for the CDC’s use, the hotel gets some significant reductions on their taxes and some favoritism with the government. And since it’s their room and we’re doing their dirty work, we aren’t being charged anything other than room service and the spa fees. Honestly, the only reason we’re paying for those is because I insisted, as I wanted to be the one gifting you with the luxuries. And after I got off the phone with them a little earlier today, I expect we won’t be paying anything, even though I protested and wanted to treat you to a good time.”