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It took everything I had to keep my expression placid and bored as she finally lifted her face and stared stonily.
Whatever she said, I knew I wasn’t going to like it. I never did. But today, it could be any number of disastrous topics.
“This girl you brought into my home Saturday night,” she finally said.
I blinked, not expecting that subject. Sitting up straighter, warning alarms clanging through my system, I said, “What about her?”
Lana smiled knowingly, like a snake about to strike. She knew she’d just prodded a vulnerable spot.
Folding her hands together, she placed them meaningfully on top of her desk and answered, “I think I’d like to get to know your Gabriella a little better.”
Gabriella?
Gabriella!
She’d learned Gabby’s name. How the hell had she learned Gabby’s name? This was not good.
“She seems like an interesting young woman,” Lana went on, her smile anything but kind.
What the hell? Sweat dribbled nervously down the center of my spine. Why would Lana care anything about Gabby? This couldn’t be because she thought I was serious about Gabby, could it?
This must mean—hell, I had no idea what it meant. There was nothing logical about it. Which meant it couldn’t be good.
Pretending to keep my cool, I merely nodded. “She is an interesting woman.”
“Oh, I’m sure.” Seemingly amused by my lackluster answer, she added, “Which is exactly why I’m inviting the two of you for dinner this evening.”
What?
Over my dead body.
My mouth formed a smile as I laughed out my fake delight and then shook my head. “Well, thank you for the offer, but I regret to inform you we’ll have to decline.”
Lana narrowed her eyes. “Let me rephrase.” Sitting forward, she reached out slowly and placed something deliberately on the center of her desk.
I lowered my gaze and cringed when I saw a tattered cheaply-laminated name tag for a place called Trudy’s Café with the word Gabriella printed on it.
Goddammit, Gabby, I wanted to howl. You just let the snake right into your home. Lana not only knew her first name now but where she worked. From there, she could learn everything.
As I closed my eyes in doom, Lana growled, “You two are having supper with me tonight or I’ll be having a talk with Trudy and getting your darling friend fired. Is that understood?”
Opening my lashes, I glanced across the desk and smiled tightly. “Six o’clock sound good?”
Lana sniffed, tipping up her nose. “Lord, no. Who could eat at such a ghastly hour? You’ll arrive at eight sharp. And make sure your little maid is appropriately dressed this time.”
Chapter 12
Gabby
He was back. One day after I called the idiot out for being a liar and a thief, then demanded he leave me alone for the rest of eternity with every ounce of energy I had in me, and here Diego was again, back at Trudy’s.
This was becoming creepier by the minute, especially when he appeared at the opening of the alley when I stepped out the back door of Trudy’s and into the alley with a bag full of garbage, almost as if he’d been watching and waiting for a moment to corner me somewhere alone.
He didn’t have a bouquet of bloodred roses this time, however, just a dinky, half-wilted weed infested mess of daffodils that he appeared to have pulled from someone’s flower bed on the way here.
I wasn’t sure if the daffodils were because of my visit to Rosewood the day before, where they must’ve refused to sell him anymore bouquets, or because he knew he no longer had to pretend to be rich for me. In either case, I wasn’t amused.
Tossing the trash into the dumpster, I let the heavy, metal lid slam closed with a resounding clang as Diego started toward me, his smile wide and wolfish.
