Lib Novel Page 181
“Yeah, I saw it. I want to check the rest. We want to be sure, but I think it’s over for tonight.” He took her hand again. “Okay?”
She went with him, room by room.
“I’m texting Cleo to let them know we’re nearly done. You must’ve noticed Owen didn’t go home after all, and came out of Cleo’s bedroom.”
“I was a little distracted at the time, but it was hard to miss.”
“Thoughts?”
“I’ll go with Joe Pesci and ‘There’s a fucking surprise.’”
After an hour of stress, she laughed. And with considerable relief as they started back down, she leaned her head toward his shoulder. “You’re okay with it?”
“Why wouldn’t I be? They’re both all grown up. You?”
“Cleo’s my person, Owen’s my favorite cousin, so I’m absolutely fine with it. And I’ll ditto yourMy Cousin Vinnyquote.”
They reached the bedroom level as Cleo, Owen, Jones, and the cat came out of the servants’ passage.
“All clear,” Owen said.
“Same. A lot of noise and disruption, which was her point. She left the Gold Room,” Trey added. “Wandered around some.”
Sonya suppressed a shudder. “We saw her go back in. That’s when the noise stopped.”
“She did what she set out to,” Cleo pointed out. “Got us all up and searching the house like the Scooby Gang.”
“I’d say she’s not happy you and I came back from Boston, Cleo.”
“Oh, there’s that,” Cleo agreed as they started down the hall as a group. “And I think she got bitchy because there were four people sleeping in the house.”
“That’s happened plenty before.”
“It has.” She smiled at Owen. “But this time four people were sleeping after, let’s say, they’d enjoyed the pleasures of the flesh.”
“Jesus.” As Sonya snickered, Owen scrubbed his hands over his face. “That’s a way to put it.”
“She’s not flesh, and she can’t enjoy its pleasures.” Cleo shot a look at the ceiling. “I’m saying the old witch is jealous. I’m going back to bed.”
Cleo turned to her room, gave Owen a look over her shoulder. “Well?”
“Well. Yeah.” He glanced at Trey. “It’s been a night,” he said, then followed Cleo.
Chapter Twenty-four
In the morning, with the men gone and Cleo sleeping, Sonya settled in to work.
She expected her first order of non-business business would come in a conversation with Cleo about the change in sleeping arrangements.
The idea made her smile.
Since she’d already dealt with her emails and texts, she opened her first file.
Dobbs might have disrupted her night, but she damn well wouldn’t screw with her workday.
And a bunch of pissy noises wouldn’t drive her out of her own home.
Banging on the wrong door, she thought, and started another test of the Gigi’s job.