Summer Attractions (16 page)

He’d not meant to tell her that he’d considered their dinner tonight a date—he hadn’t even realized it himself until the words had just fallen out of his mouth. The pleased look on her face told him that this wasn’t something she exactly minded, either.

When they got back to real life and LA, they were going to have to figure out how this thing between them was going to work, but that was then, and this was now, and he was going to enjoy the stress-free, fun ending of their trip.

When he let himself back into Jemma’s room, she was still glaring at him. She had donned the clothes he’d brought, but unfortunately she’d decided to punish him by zipping up the jacket as far it would go, and instead of exposing more of her glorious fair skin, she’d covered it all up.

“You changed!” she exclaimed, smacking him on the arm. “I thought you said you weren’t going to wear a costume.”

He shot her an impatient look. “This isn’t a costume; this is clothes. What security wears, Jemma.”

“I don’t believe you,” she said.

Like usual, he was torn between laughing at her because she was funny and cute, and pushing her up against the desk and kissing her until they forgot all about this mad plan to sneak into the Olympic Village.

“Fine. When we’re back in LA,” Gabe said, “and I do a security gig at the Staples Center, I’ll bring you along.”

“Would that be a date too?” she asked slyly, and he wavered again between the laughter and the kissing. It was a tough call, but remembering Kimber’s text brought him back to reality. A woman was potentially in danger, and it went against even more instincts to ignore that.

He laughed. “Sure,” he admitted easily and they shared a conspiratorial smile that nearly got him off-track
again
. God, he liked her so much; the amount scared him a little.

“You ready to go?” he asked, because he could see that soft look in her eyes and that soft look only led to moving five steps back and falling into bed. And they couldn’t afford the extra time to do that.

She’d pulled her dark wavy hair up in a high ponytail and washed her makeup off. He gave her a quick once-over, not as a man, but as a cop. “Will I do?” she asked.

“You’ll do. We’ll go over the details in the car.”

“The car?” Jemma asked as they exited the room, headed toward the elevators.

“Unfortunately, we’re going to have to brave the traffic. An athlete wouldn’t take the tram or public transportation.”

They’d only taken the car a handful of times, before finally just dealing with the transit system because it had reserved lanes, while the rest of Rio struggled with the additional congestion.

The elevator opened to the garage level of the hotel and they moved toward the car. “No, the back,” Gabe said, as Jemma went to sit in the front. “You’re the client, you sit in the back.”

She didn’t protest but rolled her eyes.

He’d cleared leaving whenever he wanted with a quick conversation with the valet attendants and a handful of
reals
stuffed into their pockets.

As they drove up out of the garage, Gabe outlined their plan.

“When we get up to the security checkpoint, I don’t want you to say a single word, okay?” he said, hoping he was being clear enough. “You . . . don’t speak English, or Portuguese,” he improvised, “and I’m also your translator.”

Gabe could feel the heat of the glare from the backseat. “I don’t like being useless,” Jemma retorted in clipped tones.

“Trust me, you’re important,” Gabe said, though he didn’t say
how
important because he didn’t want to scare her. They didn’t have a security pass, and he wasn’t wearing the proper uniform. Their chances of getting in were entirely dependent on how lenient the security staff was being and how much official authority he could convey in the handful of sentences that he would get to convince anyone he was legit.

But most importantly, he was hoping that security would take one look at the athlete in the back of the car and wave him through.

As they drove closer to the Village, Gabe started to sweat a little. This wasn’t by any means the most stressful operation he’d ever been part of in his career, but he’d also never put anyone he cared about right in into the thick of it with him before. Having Jemma in the backseat, even just as a character to lend authenticity, made his blood pressure rise.

There was a long line of cars waiting to be processed through the security checkpoint, so Gabe and Jemma had to wait, slowly inching their way up to the front of the line.

Gabe observed the pattern set by the security officers. Luckily—unluckily, actually—they gave each car passing through only a perfunctory glance before waving them through, checking only that they had the appropriate pass hanging from their rearview mirror.

And that was the unlucky part. Since they were absolutely not licensed to access the Olympic Village, they didn’t have a pass.

That might have defeated someone else, but Gabe had a few tricks up his sleeve, though he did wonder when Jemma might notice that they were lacking an important piece of documentation.

Her quiet exclamation came when they were one car back. “Oh
shit
,” she hissed, “they’re looking at the passes!”

He nodded. He’d lowered the window when they were already a few cars back, to give the impression that he was open and ready to talk and wasn’t hiding anything. But then he also couldn’t explain to Jemma, so all he could do was single hard shake of his head, and then he was pulling up to the security checkpoint.

The security officer leaned over, glanced into the car for the pass, his eyes sliding lazily over the dashboard and then to the empty spot under the rearview mirror. He straightened and then Gabe saw him look over all the possible locations again.

“Sir, you have no pass,” he said in Portuguese. Gabe, who’d been holding his breath, hoping that they wouldn’t get a hard ass, let it out. This particular officer was more concerned about moving things along and keeping all the important guests happy and unbothered than he was actual security.

A true issue for the organizers of the Games, but one that Gabe was going to happily exploit.

“Ah, they forgot to give it to me,” Gabe replied back in flawless Portuguese. He gave an expressive shrug and he and the officer exchanged a commiserating look. “You know how it is. Pick up her, drop him off, run these people across town in the next five minutes.”

Gabe saw the moment the officer hesitated, and he was almost sure he was going to wave them through, but then he straightened again. His face closed off, as if he’d just, unfortunately for them, remembered his training.

“Sir,” he said, just as politely and deferentially, which Gabe counted as good sign. He hadn’t kicked them out or called for an actual cop to arrest them, either. There was still wiggle room and Gabe was really good at wiggling.

“Excuse me,” Jemma spoke up then, more imperiously than he’d ever heard her before. Her tone was rather like some of the pop divas he ended up protecting when they came through the Staples Center, and he wondered how she’d managed to copy it, because it was flawless and it caught the officer’s attention instantly.

“Excuse me,” she repeated, lowering her window. The officer forgot about Gabe and took in the uniform that he’d borrowed and the haughty lines of her face, and while Gabe was still mentally searching through methods to get them waved through, the officer
waved them through.

Gabe couldn’t believe it—his air of authority and certainty and all his excuses hadn’t been enough, but one look at Jemma pretending to be a beach volleyball player in a stolen tracksuit and that was all it took. Gabe would’ve been annoyed but he was having too much fun, finally letting his laugh loose as they drove around toward the central parking garage.

“How did you learn that?” he asked when he was finally able to get himself under control. Jemma too was helplessly giggling in the backseat, clearly a side effect of the adrenaline.

“Some of Colin’s friends. One of the wide receivers in particular. He was such a diva,” Jemma said, though from her fond voice, she’d clearly liked him.

Gabe was even more amused. He’d
assumed a pop star, and yet she’d been impersonating a football player.

They parked and Gabe observed the niceties, opening her door and politely escorting her from a respectful distance toward the main Village commons.

He’d reminded Jemma that once they made it through the initial checkpoint, they still weren’t safe. They could still be thrown out at any point if someone took a good look at them and realized they didn’t belong.

With that warning in mind, he was pleased to see her slip the bitchy expression back on as they walked through the courtyards in between the main residential dormitories.

Thankfully, during the morning they spent together Kimber had mentioned being able to overlook a certain area of the Village, which had narrowed the particular building she was housed in from eighteen to one. Now they just had to find the room and the floor.

Gabe expected that he would have to remind Jemma at least once that he was doing all the talking, but considering how well the security checkpoint had gone, he kept quiet. She was smart and had a level head on her shoulders. If she deemed it necessary to speak up, he was going to assume it was worthwhile.

When they walked through the sliding glass entryway into the dormitory that Kimber had mentioned, Jemma felt her heartbeat start to pick up again.

Sneaking into the Olympic Village as brazenly as they had would never have occurred to her, so she was really glad Gabe was there to make things happen that she’d never have dared attempt.

The ingenuity he’d displayed earlier had her formulating a quick, dirty plan in her head as they approached the lady manning the reception desk.

“Hello, how can I help you?” she asked in perfect English.

Jemma spoke up before Gabe had a chance to. “I think I’m having a problem in my room,” Jemma said haughtily. “There’s
bugs
.”

The receptionist lifted one curved eyebrow. “Bugs? I can put in a maintenance request, if you like.”

“
No
,” Jemma insisted forcefully, “I want it addressed
now
.” She could feel Gabe practically vibrating with tension behind her, as he waited to see if their one shot to look behind the desk and hopefully find a list of room assignments would pan out.

“I can go find a maintenance supervisor,” the lady volunteered. “What’s your room number?”

At this, Jemma turned to Gabe, a questioning look on her face. “What’s my room number?” she asked. “I can’t ever remember what it is.”

He feigned complete disinterest. “This is the first time I’ve ever traveled with you, ma’am.”

Jemma turned back to the woman, who was waiting expectantly on their answer. “I’ll just phone you when we get upstairs,” she said. “And you can send them right up.”

“I’ll need to go track them down first,” she explained hastily. “It won’t be immediately.”

Jemma shot her a fake disgruntled look. This, despite all potential for disaster, was turning out flawlessly. “Fine,” she shot back.

“You could even leave the room number on the voicemail,” she explained, standing up and smoothing down her pencil skirt. “The maintenance crew has been dealing with a few . . .
issues
in the basement recently.”

And with that, she was gone, leaving the desk completely unmanned.

Jemma shot Gabe a triumphant look and as soon as the receptionist was completely out of sight, she ducked behind the desk and started rifling through the papers lying there.

“How did you know she’d have to go track down the maintenance staff?” Gabe hissed as Jemma moved lightning quick to the computer, finding the document she was looking for almost immediately. It was saved on the desktop and it was helpfully titled, “Room Assignments.”

“Amateurs,” Jemma hissed under her breath as she quickly scanned for Kimber’s name. Hastily she scrawled down floor and room number on a sticky note, and shoved it in the pocket of the jacket she wore. “Kimber told me they’d been having issues with the heating and cooling system. I hoped it was still happening.”

Gabe shot her an appraising and impressed look. “I think if the writing doesn’t pan out,” he said, “you might have a career opportunity as a con artist.”

Jemma smirked as they made double time to the elevator bay. “Want to track me down someday?”

Gabe laughed. “Sounds like fun.”

A short elevator ride and a heart-stopping walk down a narrow corridor later, Jemma and Gabe stopped in front of a closed door. Jemma dug into her pocket and compared the number next to the door with the number she’d written down. It was the same. She took a deep breath.

“I hate to say this,” Gabe leaned in, talking quietly, “but we probably don’t have an unlimited amount of time here.”

“Right,” Jemma acknowledged, eyeing the door with trepidation. What if Kimber was really fine? What if that text had just been a random wrong number? What if she looked like a total psycho by sneaking into the Olympic Village and finding out Kimber’s room number?

Jemma was saved a thousand similar questions when Gabe took the decision right out of her hands and knocked on the door briskly.