Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

T he triplets had gone to fetch lunch—Tex-Mex from a food truck in Market Square Evan had been raving about—so Annabelle told Noah she wanted to check out her apartment. He said he’d go with her, telling her that the builders had gone, but there were some changes he needed to explain. And that, as her main bodyguard, he had no intention of leaving her side.

Honestly, that was okay with her. Noah was like a rock: steady and unmovable. He reminded her of the Thing from Marvel’s Fantastic Four, ready to stand between his friends and their enemies as a wall of protection. As they climbed the stairs to her loft, he wondered what character he could embody in her graphic novels, her fingers itching to get to her drawing board.

“You look nervous,” Noah said as they reached the door to her apartment.

“I don’t have any clear memories of the place being destroyed, and I’m worried it won’t look like home now.”

“We kept it just the way you intended it to be… mostly.” He smiled and pushed the door open.

Her stomach clenched tight, Annabelle entered her home—and took a deep breath. “It’s okay,” she said, relieved.

“Told you.” Noah bumped against her.

“They’re ugly, though.” She pointed to one-way mirrored shutters on her windows. “Not that I don’t appreciate them.”

“It’s cool, I understand. Just remember, they’re only temporary. Once this situation’s over, you can have them taken down.”

“I am glad you came up with a way for me to see outside. Thanks for that.”

“Team effort,” he mumbled as he gestured to her work area. “Your phone was smashed, and your computers didn’t survive their gunshot wounds. Although we managed to save the hard drive from one of them. I’m afraid there was nothing we could salvage from the rest of it.”

Annabelle tried not to get emotional about the loss. They were machines and could be replaced. Still… her tech was her connection to the outside world, and now it was gone. “I back up everything to the cloud,” she said, reaching desperately for that silver lining.

“Thought you might,” Noah said. “You’ll need to talk to your insurance company about replacing everything, but I don’t see why you couldn’t order new stuff in the meantime.”

“Does insurance cover damage caused by a gun-toting gang?”

He shrugged. “Seeing as this is Texas, I’m gonna guess yes.”

“I suppose I’ll find out soon enough.” She wandered further into the loft.

“Some of your drawings got trampled in the attack,” Noah said. “But we didn’t throw any away. We just piled them up on your desk.”

Annabelle’s heart ached as she ran her fingers over the comic book panel she’d been working on before her life went to hell. It was torn, crumpled, and dirty. Her artwork was her baby, and it hurt to see it damaged.

She became aware that Noah was watching her intently and cleared her throat. “This whole situation seems so surreal. I remember the attack only in weird flashes, like a movie trying to depict a drug high or something. There are random bits and pieces, but mostly it’s distorted and out of focus and like it happened to someone else.” She paused, her hand resting on the ruined drawing. “Now I’m here, seeing the aftermath of the assault, and I feel…”

“Vulnerable? Victimized? Unsafe?” Noah offered.

“Not unsafe, not with you and your team here. But definitely the other two.” She gestured around the room. “This is meant to be my safe space, but it doesn’t feel like that anymore.”

“It will again,” he said solemnly. “I promise you.”

Annabelle nodded, although she wasn’t sure she shared his confidence. How safe would she feel once the Benson Security team was gone and she was all alone in the building? She shuddered to think.

Noah touched her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

It was on the tip of her tongue to say yes because that’s what you do when people ask, right? Instead, she gazed into his dark eyes and said, “I could really use a hug.”

Noah smiled. “We’re a full-service security agency. Hugs are included in the package,” he said, and she stepped straight into his arms.

Annabelle was sure she should have felt ashamed for asking him to hold her, but she couldn’t muster the energy. She needed comfort, and she wanted it from the man who’d protected her when she was completely incapable of doing it herself. He’d been injured because of her. And even though she knew she was suffering from a touch of hero worship, she didn’t care. Noah was a real-life hero, and she was grateful.

His arms felt good around her—firm and solid and real. She pressed her cheek to his chest and breathed deeply, letting his warmth seep into her. She could have stayed there forever.

“You know, if this is included in the service, and I’m paying your bill…” She grinned up at him. “Does that make you a gigolo?”

Noah’s laughter vibrated throughout her body before he gave her one last squeeze and stepped away. “Come on,” he said. “I need to explain where you’re sleeping.”

“In my bed, I hope.”

“Sorry, your bed’s gone. It was bullet-ridden. And a few of your plants didn’t make it either. Everything in the panic room was shredded and had to be replaced. We fortified the walls and door while we fixed it up. Now that it’s steel reinforced, it’s much less likely to let bullets through than plasterboard,” he said with disgust.

“You really weren’t impressed with my panic room, were you?”

“Considering I nearly died in it, no.”

“Fair point.”

Annabelle tried not to let the damage to her apartment get to her. The security team, along with the builders they’d vetted before hiring, had done a good job of cleaning up the place and getting it ready for her. The broken and missing items were, at the end of the day, only things. Most of them could be replaced or repaired. However, she wasn’t sure it would be possible to fix the tear in her sense of security.

“Did my camera survive?” There was no sign of it.

“No, unfortunately. Some of your mementos, pictures, and books were damaged too.” He pointed to the living area. “The TV’s fine, though.”

“As long as I can still watch Marvel movies, we’re good.” Annabelle tried to smile bravely but suspected she didn’t quite pull it off.

She stepped around the glass brick wall into her empty sleeping area. “I’m going to need a bed. It was time to buy a new mattress anyway. So that’s convenient.” Putting a positive spin on the situation was proving harder than expected. “Where will I sleep until my new bed arrives?”

“Actually.” Noah strode toward the panel entrance to the panic room. The mirror that’d once hung in front of it was gone, but the new door blended seamlessly into the wall. “I want you to sleep in here until this is over. It’s the safest room in the building—now we’ve upgraded it. Your usual bedroom’s a bit too exposed for my liking.”

Curious, Annabelle followed him into the small room. It had been transformed since the last time she’d been in it. The larger space to her left now held a large bright yellow sofa bed made up with new navy blue bedding. To her right, where her desk used to stand, was a small kitchen area and a large built-in cabinet in the corner where they’d hidden from the bullets.

Noah pointed to the narrow space beside the sofa. “Folding stool and table for you to work at if needed.” He gestured to the wall next to the door. “TV and security monitors.” Lastly, he indicated to the large closet. “Toilet.”

“Really?” Annabelle opened the closet door to find a compact bathroom, the kind you’d find in a motorhome. There was a tiny sink, and a showerhead on the wall above the toilet turned the whole cubicle into a shower if needed. “Why are tiny things so fascinating?” she asked. “I love this.”

He gestured to a button on the wall facing the open door. There was a small display panel above it, with a miniature keypad. “Press the button,” he said.

She did so, and another sliding door silently opened into one of the guest bedrooms behind her loft area.

Noah came to stand beside her. “Imagine my surprise when we discovered two bedrooms and a bathroom behind the end wall of your loft. If I’d known we could have escaped that way and snuck down the fire escape stairs, things would have gone a little differently. I thought the doors beside your bed led to a bathroom and a closet, but nope—one led to a walk-through closet and bathroom, the other to the rest of your apartment.”

“It is a big building.” Annabelle stepped into the bedroom in the corner facing the street, with windows in two of its walls.

Noah indicated another small panel, identical to the one inside the panic room, on the wall of the guestroom. “That’s the lockdown panel. You can use it inside the room to lock it tight. You can also lock it from the outside, if needed.”

“In case you want to imprison me?” She cocked an eyebrow at him.

“In case you’re incapacitated, and we need to secure you inside while we deal with a situation. We’ll put an app on your new phone, when it arrives, that will let you override any locks in the building. You won’t ever feel trapped.”

She grinned at him. “You mean, more than I usually do?”

He had the grace to smile sheepishly.

Annabelle took pity on him and gestured around the guestroom. “This was my aunt’s room.” She pointed through the open door to a small hallway beyond. “My room faced this one, and I had full use of the bathroom between us.” She gestured to the wall that backed onto the bathroom and closet accessed from the loft. “This used to be a door to her ensuite. When I renovated the living space and added a bedroom area to the loft, I moved the entrance to suit my new bedroom.”

“I think I’d prefer to sleep in here rather than in the loft,” Noah said. “I like walls in my bedroom—especially with two young boys in the house.”

“Privacy isn’t an issue when there’s only you in the apartment.” She cringed. That made her sound like Suzy No Friends. “When my friends stay over, they sleep in these guest rooms, and I have all the privacy I need out in the loft.”

“What if they get up in the middle of the night to get a drink or a snack?”

“Usually, they’re very respectful and quiet. Plus, it’s not like I sleep naked or anything.”

His smile was teasing. “Now that would definitely make for an interesting guest experience.”

Annabelle’s cheeks heated as she changed the subject. “Aunt Rose had a thing for pink chintz. This room looked like a Barbie bordello when she was alive.”

Noah barked out a laugh. “Well, I’m glad the pink’s gone now because this is where I’ll be sleeping for the duration.”

“Here?” The word came out as a squeak. “I mean, don’t you have to go home to your sons at night?”

“Not right now. They’re on an extended visit with their grandparents. And I need to stick close to you at all times. Which means I’ll sleep in here, and we’ll keep the panic room door open between us, just in case.”

Annabelle glanced back at the panic room. You could clearly see the sofa bed through the open door. If lying in it, she’d be able to see Noah in the guest room bed, and that felt a little too intimate. “I’m not sure I can sleep with someone staring at me.”

“That’s fine then because I’ll be asleep too. No staring involved. Promise.”

“Then why do you need the door open?”

“Because if anything happens, I need to get to your side as quickly as possible.”

“It takes barely seconds to open the door,” she pointed out.

“Yes, but if the door’s closed, I can’t tell if someone’s in the panic room with you. We added soundproofing after that debacle with the gang attack. They could hear every sound coming from inside the room.”

“Okay, I get that you hated my panic room, but why on earth would anybody be in there with me now?” Her eyebrows shot up. “Are you worried I plan to jump one of your teammates?”

Noah seemed stunned, but she carried on regardless.

“I know everybody thinks that because I’ve not left this warehouse for years, I don’t see anyone. But I do. I socialize. My friends visit, and I’ve had relationships. I’m not desperate. I wouldn’t seduce one of your team members just because they were convenient. Proximity isn’t one of the qualities I’m looking for in a life partner.”

His smile was sensually wicked as his eyes twinkled with amusement. “I was talking about making sure the Demon Brothers don’t sneak in to finish the job rather than any seduction you might have planned.”

“Oh.” Her whole face was on fire now. “Well, that’s mortifying.”

“Good to know you aren’t lacking for company, though,” he teased.

Great. Now it sounded like there was a revolving door on her bedroom. “I don’t just call up a date for the night, if that’s what you mean. I’m picky. Not that I haven’t been dating. I date. I date all the time.”

“Understood.” He nodded solemnly. “You’re just used to sleeping alone.”

“Yes. No! I’ve had sleepovers. With men.” She waved a hand, trying to look casual and worldly and knowing she’d failed miserably. “Not a lot of men. Enough. Not enough as in I’ve had my fill. Just a normal amount of men.” She paused. This wasn’t going well. “Okay, the number is two… plus one in college. So three in total. But two men have come to my loft and spent the night.” Argh, that made it sound like she hired male escorts. “I mean, while I was in a relationship with them. Each of them separately and consecutively. Not together. It wasn’t a threesome or anything like that. And it wasn’t every night.”

It was as though he’d handed her a shovel and told her to dig a hole under herself. The words kept coming, and the hole just grew bigger. Annabelle glanced longingly at the door to the panic room, the urge to lock herself inside and never come out again was strong.

“Why are we talking about this?” she asked with a touch of desperation.

To his credit, Noah was clearly fighting the urge to laugh. “I think you’re trying to tell me that you don’t want to sleep with the panic room door open.”

“Yes! I like privacy when I sleep.” Why hadn’t she just said that right at the start?

“You’ve slept in the same room as me for the past few nights. It didn’t seem to bother you.”

“I was unconscious!”

“More like sound asleep,” he said, ignoring her protest. “And happy to have me nearby. You kept waking up, smiling at me, and saying ‘my bulldog’ before falling back to sleep. Definitely no sign of a problem sleeping around me.”

My bulldog??????

Annabelle’s mouth opened and closed a few times, although nothing came out. Mainly because she had no idea what to say other than kill me now . She was tempted to call the Demon gang and ask them to come back and finish the job. It would be a whole lot better than dying a slow death from humiliation.

“Don’t worry,” Noah said as he strode past her, through the panic room, and into the loft. “ Your bulldog has your back.”

Fortunately, a man she hadn’t met strode into the room, saving her from saying anything else she’d instantly regret.

“Lunch is ready,” he announced in a crisp English accent.

Annabelle wasn’t sure if it was the suit or the way he moved, but the man reminded her of James Bond.

“Annabelle,” Noah said. “Meet the final member of our team, Abasi Otieno.”

“Pleasure.” Abasi nodded.

They headed downstairs to the office area, where the triplets were dividing food onto paper plates. As Annabelle watched Abasi join his team, an old Sesame Street song entered her head: One of these things is not like the others…

“Predator,” she whispered, used to talking to herself.

Only this time, there was somebody else to listen and reply. “Everyone in this room can be deadly when necessary,” Noah said.

Annabelle believed him, but she suspected Abasi was the only one without the “when necessary” modifier. The man was just plain deadly. She shivered as she accepted a plate of food from Harris.

As she ate, she observed how Abasi fit in with the rest of the team. Rochelle seemed tense, her gaze returning to him frequently, making it clear she was keeping an eye on him. Violet didn’t pay any attention to him at all, while Rodrigo looked both relaxed and amused by his presence. The triplets appeared torn between being awestruck and intimidated. And as soon as Abasi entered the room, Katrina got up to refill her coffee, but instead of returning to her seat, she moved to the opposite side of the room from him without once glancing his way.

Interesting…

It was like watching the Nature Channel in real life. And Annabelle had never been more fascinated.