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I approached the dining room, and heard Angela’s rant through the open door. I waited outside, noticing that Kat had dropped her big purse, the one she’d had with her at the office where I met her, on one of the tables outside.
“…perfectly comfortable here, with every possible luxury and entertainment! And it’s not forever! It is just until the danger passes! It’s insane to go back now!”
“Thank you, Angela, for caring so much, and for sharing your opinion,” Kat said evenly. “You make me feel so well taken care of. I don’t have a lot of that in my life, so I appreciate the hell out of it when I get it. You’re very kind.”
“Oh, stop it,” Angela snapped. “I dislike being managed. I get enough of that from Ethan and Freya. Holly too, for that matter. Bunch of smooth manipulators, the whole pack of you.”
“I’m not managing you,” Kat said gently. “It’s the literal truth.”
But that just wound Angela up even more. “Well, I think you’re being stubborn and self-destructive! Any woman with an ounce of sense would reorder her priorities!”
I tucked the phone into an inside pocket of her purse. Maybe it was sneaky and inappropriate, but it’s not as if she didn’t know that about me already. I’d tell her about it later, after she’d recovered from Angela’s drubbing.
“Kat?” I poked my head in. “We should really get going. See you later, Angela.”
Kat shot me an eloquent glance. “Goodbye, Angela. Thanks again.”
“Be careful!” Angela’s stern words sounded like a mandate from on high.
“Of course!” Kat fled the room, and hurried along beside me down the breezeway. “You really threw me to the wolves, back there,” she grumbled.
“The wolves weren’t telling you anything that wasn’t true,” I observed.
Kat harrumphed sharply, but didn’t say another word until we got to the garage. I opened the passenger door of my black Jag, and Kat gave the car an approving look as she slid inside. “Sweet ride,” she said. “Just us?”
“Trey and Shelby will be driving down on their own.”
“Trey and Shelby? Why?”
“They’re your guard detail,” I informed her. “Whenever I’m not with you. You’ll have a rotating two-man team, every hour of every day until this is all settled.”
“You’re joking,” Kat said blankly.
“I’m not in a joking sort of mood these days. If you insist on leaving the safety of the Mountain House, you’ll have bodyguards. That’s not negotiable. Don’t even try.”
“So, the lord-and-master routine continues,” she said. “No matter what I do.”
“It does,” I said, in steely tones.
A very silent drive to the city followed. I didn’t try to start up a conversation. I sensed she felt vulnerable and shy, having revealed so much to me last night, but she was not defaulting to automatic hostility, so I decided to consider it progress.
We got to her house without incident. I parked on the street in front of the cracked sidewalk and the chain-link fence that bounded a patch of dirt which had probably never been a lawn. My Jag looked strange in that setting, but any one of my cars would have looked equally out of place.
Shelby and Trey parked behind me. I got out, strode back, and instructed Shelby to keep watch outside. I sent Trey straight out to shop for some high-quality security equipment. New door locks, window locks, alarm system.
Kat got out of the car, and I followed her into her house. She closed the door after me, looking uncomfortable. “So, you’ve already been through my place yesterday, so I don’t have to give you the tour,” she said. “I know it’s a dump.”
“Hell, no,” I retorted. “This is anything but a dump.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Oh, yeah, rich boy? How do you figure?”
“I wasn’t always a rich boy. I was the head of a family when I was sixteen, and I was scrambling to feed them. I know how much energy it takes to keep things clean, and this place is immaculate. Not a speck of dust. No mold growing in the bathroom, and this is an old building in a city that’s as damp as a sponge. You have ten different kinds of solvents and sprays and cleaning products under your sink. Everything’s organized, nothing’s out of place. It smells good. It’s recently painted. I bet you did it yourself.”
“Yes,” she admitted.
“And you did it like a pro, with drop cloths, masking tape,” he said. “There’s not a drop of paint on the baseboards or the floor. The doors don’t squeak, because the hinges are oiled. The sink doesn’t drip.”
Her eyebrow tilted up. “I hope you know how creepy it is that you noticed all these incredibly specific details,” she said. “Most people notice clutter, but not the lack of it, because what’s to notice? But not Ethan Masters. He’s special that way.”
