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“Sure.” He smiled. She was a little … flummoxed. A good word. One he clearly remembered learning at twelve, asking his abuela what it meant when he read it in a book. His abuela was better than a dictionary. Her English and her Spanish were impeccable.Desconcertado, she’d answered. Out of balance, and that was what Emma was looking, as if she didn’t quite know what to make of him.
She’d find out, and soon, what to make of him.
“But …” She was frowning and she looked absolutely adorable with a frown. Like something you’d want to eat up with a spoon. Luscious cream with strawberry on top. “Weren’t you supposed to … ahem?”
“Yes?”
“Do a –” Her hand swept the air, indicating her apartment. “A what do you call it? A security audit?”
Again, Raul’s smile disappeared. Serious business again. She needed to know he’d been thorough. “I have.”
Those blue-blue eyes widened. “You have? When?”
“Coming up. I spoke with the porter who is also a security guard.”
“Mike? You spoke with Mike?”
“Well, he wouldn’t talk at all at first. Quite right, too. When I started asking questions about your building’s security system, he clammed up tighter than –” He cleared his throat. “He was very unforthcoming. And hostile. He wasn’t giving anything up, gotta admire that.”
“So how did you get him to talk?”
“Step by painful step. I told him I was a security advisor acting on your behalf and gave him my card. My company, ASI, is well known. He looked at it and handed it back and said FedEx would print any card anyone asked.”
“Well, that wasn’t helpful of him.” She looked indignant on his behalf.
“He was absolutely right.” Raul smiled. “I wouldn’t have given the time of day to me, let alone open up a building I was protecting to possible intruders looking for intel. So, I pulled out a secret weapon.”
She smiled back. “You have a secret weapon? That’s nice to know.”
More than one, honey, he thought, then disciplined himself. Sexy banter was one thing. Making sure she was safe in her own home was another.
“Yeah. I saw that the building is protected by Black Home Security Systems, which is an offshoot of Black, Inc, a company my company often works with. In his presence, I called Black Inc’s headquarters, asked for the name of the head of BHSS and asked to be put through to him. It turned out that Mike’s immediate boss is an old buddy of mine. We’ve been shot at and been drunk together.”
She shook her head, still smiling. “Two very soldierly bonding activities. We in the IT business usually bond over Doom.”
“Yeah, guns and alcohol are the military equivalent.”
“With some similarities. I mean you use guns and we wield a mouse but they are both point and click weapons.”
That startled a laugh out of him. He never laughed when discussing security but here he was, a snort rising up from his belly. He had to actually cover his mouth to stifle it.
Her turquoise eyes glowed, as if there were some kind of power source behind them. There was. That amazing brain.
All of her was amazing.
“That’s true.” He smiled at her. “So, I got my old buddy on the line on video, Mike verified it was his boss, and his boss verified that I was one of the good guys and he told Mike to cooperate and he did. He also asked if he was in trouble with BHSS.”
“I hope you reassured him he wasn’t,” Emma exclaimed, alarmed. “He’s an excellent doorman! And always so polite. The other one, too, Charles. He’s usually on night duty. They both make me feel safe here. The city’s having problems and it would be easy to spill over here.”
She was just so delectable when she was alarmed. Of course, she was also insanely attractive when she was serious. And happy. And sad. Raul was really looking forward to watching her express all her emotions.
“Yeah. No problem. As a matter of fact, I told him that I would recommend him to his boss for a raise. He went over your security system with me and it’s good and tight. Not what our security is, but we have real enemies. I should imagine this building is full of lawyers and accountants and bankers.”
She smiled. “A couple of dentists, plastic surgeons and app developers, too, but yeah. No major danger.”
“Well,youmight be in danger,” he said, his voice tight. “So, I checked everything carefully. The security cameras completely cover the common areas and all the access points and exits. There is a rudimentary facial recognition program in your computer set up with all the owners’ and tenants’ faces registered so there is a discreet flag that goes up when outsiders enter. By the way, that was written in as policy and everyone who moved here signed up for that. You signed.”
“Yes, I did. I thought it was a reasonable trade off in privacy vs. security. These days …”
