Rocked by Love (Gargoyles, #4)(35)
In the end he stayed outside until she gave up and dragged her ass upstairs to bed way earlier than usual. Apparently finding a dead body, being attacked by a minor demon, kissing a gargoyle, and then doing hours and hours of esoteric research could really take a lot out of a girl.
The next morning set a new pattern for the week. After informing her stiffly that he had indeed decided to summon Knox and Wynn to join them in Boston, Dag had spent the rest of that day and every following one performing a disappearing act that would have made David Copperfield proud. He never went far, but he always seemed to find something to do outside, in another room, or as far removed from her presence as possible. Kylie started to wonder if someone had tampered with her shower gel and slipped some eau de skunk in there while she wasn’t looking.
The few times he did deign to speak with her, it always revolved around his “security” concerns. The first words out of his mouth every time he so much as glanced at her were to inquire whether she’d called the alarm company yet, until she did just to get him off her back. The man could teach her bubbeh about nagging.
It wasn’t as if Kylie hadn’t always intended to have a security system installed, she just resented being ordered to do it. In this day and age, property crime was a concern not to be taken lightly, and her lawyers kept telling her that a woman with her money needed to be even more conscious of personal security than the average person. Kylie tended not to think like that, because to her, the money wasn’t a big deal.
Okay, so she was worth more at twenty-three (about to turn twenty-four) than most people were after a lifetime of work and savings, but to her the money that resulted from her work was a total afterthought. It was the work itself she cared about.
When she’d written the app that eventually earned her millions, she had just wanted to see if she could fix a tech problem that bugged her. She hadn’t intended at that point to drop out of college, let alone to be bought out and eventually hired by the very company whose product she had improved upon; that had just happened. And for her, the money was convenient. It meant she could buy a house in a neighborhood she liked, that she could decide what to work on based on what interested her, rather than any other criteria, and it meant she could buy herself a few cool toys when she felt like it.
Really, though, Kylie was a woman of simple needs. She didn’t care about clothes or cars or keeping up with the Kardashians. She had the taste and appetite of a thirteen-year-old (her mother disdainfully amended that to a thirteen-year-old hoodlum, meaning anyone without a trust fund), didn’t travel much because she always had something fascinating to work on at home, and the only person she had to support was herself.
Still, every time she talked to her accountant or her lawyers, they felt the need to harp about the fact that her story of being not just a successful woman, but a wildly successful very young woman in a male-dominated field had earned her enough publicity that she needed to be cautious. If only they knew what she’d gotten into now.
So, installing a security system wasn’t a big deal, and the long-term accumulated nagging meant she had already done all the necessary research and selected both the provider company and the system she wanted long before an actual threat had come on the scene. Her address and the cost of her purchase even assured that the company got her an installation appointment that very week, the day before Wynn and Knox were scheduled to arrive. Kylie just hoped she could learn to use the thing in time to let them in the house without sirens waking the neighbors.
The alarm company crew of four men arrived early on Thursday morning. Well, early for Kylie anyway, who still operated on hacker time. Having to drag her tokhes out of bed and be presentable for company by ten did not make her a happy camper. Nor did the way Dag appeared the moment the men arrived and proceeded to hover over her like a badly trained guard dog while the crew went about their work.
“Will you please lighten up?” she demanded as she leaned against the kitchen counter and sipped her soda. At that moment, two of the techs were working in her office, wiring the window alarm and laying the groundwork that would allow her computer system to sync with and control the security as a central hub. They had strict instructions to get everything ready, but not to touch her computers or other electronic equipment until she was present and could set up the interface herself. No one touched Kylie’s babies but Kylie.
“No,” Dag growled. “I will not relax until this work is complete and these humans have been escorted off these premises. I am uncomfortable with so many strangers in the house.”
Kylie rolled her eyes. “You realize this was all your idea, right?”
“That makes no difference in my reaction to four strange humans wandering about this space unsecured.”
“Well, admitting you’re irrational is the first step, I hear.”
The low rumble of his growl vibrated through the marble behind her. Kylie ignored it. Frankly, the last five minutes had encompassed more communication than he’d managed with her over the last five days combined. She might just as well have dragged his sorry-assed statue form into the house with her for all the company he’d provided. King David had offered her a better conversational partner.
Kylie looked over when one of the workers peered in from the door to the hall. “Excuse me, ma’am? I need your approval before I drill to install the front door control panel.”
“Right.” Kylie set her soda bottle on the counter behind her and rubbed her condensation-covered hands against her jeans. “Coming.”