Despite the sheer WTF-ness of that statement, Emma couldn’t help but snort. “Oh Jesus. Stella…”
“I know!” the girl blurted out. “I shouldn’t have done it. I’m so terrified it will cause a bad reaction combined with the alcohol, but I didn’t know what else to do. He kept pawing at me and trying to get me to join the party. He called me a party pooper! And then something in Italian that did not sound nice!”
“Oh, sweetie.”
“So I pretended to cave and then I knocked him the eff out and ordered everyone to leave.”
“Okay.” Emma let out a slow breath, then ran a hand through her hair. God, this was the last thing she wanted to deal with this evening. “Chances are he’s out for the night. And I wouldn’t worry about the drug having any kind of reaction. I’ve seen that idiot pop painkillers and sleeping pills with alcohol before and he’s always survived…”
Unfortunately, she almost added. Because at the moment? Lorenzo dying didn’t sound so bad, and she hated the thought the instant it entered her mind.
Pushing away the glorious images of a world without Enzo, she forced herself to focus on damage control.
“…but I think you should stay at his place tonight,” she finished. “Be there just in case.”
“I was already planning on it.”
“And tomorrow morning, I’m going to arrange for someone else to play babysitter,” Emma said firmly.
“I’m so sorry—”
“Not because you can’t handle it,” she assured Stella. “But because you shouldn’t have to. Besides, I need you here, okay?” That was a lie, since she didn’t have much need for her assistant during the creative process, but she refused to saddle Stella with Lorenzo any longer. “I want you to get Enzo to call me the second he wakes up tomorrow. I don’t care if it’s four in the morning my time. Make sure he calls, all right?”
“I will,” Stella promised. There was a soft sniffle. “Thanks for not being mad, Em. He’s…impossible.”
Yep, that was definitely the word for it.
Emma hung up and set the phone on the coffee table, then inhaled another calming breath. Okay. There wasn’t much she could do from all the way on the other side of the country, especially when Enzo was currently in a Stella-induced slumber. Tomorrow she would phone the Vogue editor and apologize for Enzo’s unprofessional behavior. Maybe blame it on a miscommunication? No, that sounded equally unprofessional. Better to simply apologize and hope they accepted it.
And once she got off the phone with Vogue, she’d get a reputable temp service on the line and try to find an assistant-slash-handler who was tough enough to deal with a loose cannon like Lorenzo. Maybe the CIA was contracting out people?
Or the Central Park Zoo monkey handlers.
Emma sank onto the sofa and began to do the breathing exercises her therapist in Manhattan had taught her.
Slow, even breaths. Count them out. Clear your mind.
Several minutes later, she was feeling centered again, but the sense of serenity didn’t last long. Emma was mid-inhale when a knock sounded on the door. Her meager allotment of calm vanished. She wasn’t expecting company, she hadn’t ordered room service, and she didn’t want any visitors.
The phone she’d abandoned on the table lay silent. No messages from the front security desk, and since no one could reach this level of the hotel without clearance, at least whoever it was wouldn’t be here to chop her into pieces and hide the evidence.
Emma grimaced at her oversized yoga shirt before deciding it was as decent as any dress. She headed toward the door, already planning to deal with this interruption and then call it a day. A fresh start—that’s what she needed. A brand-new day with no drama and no stress.
She could really go for no stress right about now.
Dean had stared at the carved wood of the suite door for five frickin’ minutes before tapping his knuckles against it.
He’d faced down death dozens of times. Hell, he’d walked into an ambush once, found a gun pointed at his chest and laughed before getting his ass out of the impossible situation with no more serious repercussions than a great drinking story.
And yet as he waited for the door to open he had an entire battalion of winged creatures working maneuvers in his gut. Damn Suz and her need for dramatics. This wasn’t how he operated. He didn’t go into situations without information. He didn’t trust blindly and then simply go for it. Yet here he stood, outside his mystery woman’s door, still without her name because Suz had refused to spill the beans.
Fuck, he even had flowers in his hand.
Damn Suz to hell. He was going to demand she do something terrible to make up for the—
A loud rumble rang overhead, and he pivoted on the spot, checking the wall and ceiling. A moment later the noise repeated itself, and he caught just the briefest note of laughter and voices. The penthouse suite. Someone arriving, or more than one as the elevator moved again. A party?