Dean stopped midsentence, the declaration of love lodging in his throat as Emma glanced at the purse in her lap.
He found himself holding his breath. Somehow trying to put the thought into her mind to ignore the call. They were so close to having a truly meaningful discussion, and he was tired of interruptions. Ex-one-night stands confronting him outside hotels. Audacious caterers kissing him without his consent. Emma’s phone constantly ringing with East Coast emergencies.
He’d wanted tonight to be about the two of them, but apparently the world had other ideas.
He fought his unhappiness as Emma reluctantly got to her feet, slinging her purse over her shoulder.
“I’m so sorry, but I have to take this.”
Dean stood briefly, feeling uneasy.
Seeing her walk away felt like another disaster in the making, and he hardened his resolve. He refused to let anything horrid happen. Screw hesitating, and screw being scared. He wasn’t going to let anything ruin their future.
Emma crossed the main room toward the hostess station as she answered the call. The momentary glimpse of her face before she turned her back was enough to let Dean know something had gone terribly wrong.
He reached for his wallet and tossed a few bills on the table, even though they hadn’t even gotten to the ordering-their-food part of the date. When he glanced back at the hostess station, Emma was gone.
The only place she could’ve gone was through the front door. He hurried out, glancing up and down the street, but it was no use. She seemed to have vanished like a snowman in the midst of a heat wave.
That wasn’t good enough. They weren’t finished tonight. He shoved his wallet back into his pocket and determinedly set out down the sidewalk.
One way or another he was going to get to the bottom of this, and he was going to have his say. They needed to move forward, and everything told him that now was the time.
Emma stood behind the Chinese screen of the restaurant she’d ducked into, not so much to avoid Dean but so she could have a place to speak her mind without anyone noticing her. And the restaurant around her was filled with families all enjoying their dinners at high volume. Children and grandparents gathered around, people smiling at each other.
She was about to deal with someone who was the furthest thing from family. Someone who kept proving by his every action he cared for nothing and no one but himself.
She put through the return call, stabbing the buttons as hard as she could.
Thankfully he had the decency to answer, although Enzo made a rude noise as soon as he’d finished saying hello. “Why did you call me from such a noisy place? You need to go somewhere quiet so you can talk sensibly.”
“Is it possible to talk sensibly with you?” Emma demanded. “What have you done now? Stella is freaking out.”
Lorenzo’s Italian accent grew thicker, and he spoke more rapidly. “Ah, the little girl has been telling tales. She should mind her own business, as should you. What I’m doing is preparing the world for our next set of creations.”
“What you did was alienate three of our largest suppliers in the New York marketplace,” Emma yelled, glancing into the restaurant for a reaction.
No one looked twice in her direction.
“Yes, you might think that,” Enzo said cockily, “Because you’re not as bold as I am. You have no idea how to entice publicity and make the crowds hunger for my designs.”
“My designs,” Emma roared. “And we can’t sell any of them if the boutiques don’t put in orders. If we’re blacklisted—”
He cut her off with a stream of Italian curses. “This? This is why we languish. This is why we are bottom feeders and scum after reaching so close to the pinnacle. You’re too afraid! You have no idea what kind of displays of passion to present to the buyers.” She swore he was pounding his chest in the background like some primal gorilla. “I am the passion. I am the fire. You are the ice-cold princess, and without me you are nothing.”
Emma nearly swallowed her tongue, struggling to say something appropriate. It wouldn’t be very good for her to scream fuck you into her phone and hang up on him.
He had the gall to continue, taunting her with what had happened all those years ago. She set her teeth and listened for two more minutes before deliberately hanging up and putting her phone away.
She made her way to the front door, pausing to drop a twenty in the tip jar, rubbing her hand over the belly of the waving cat. Good luck? Right now she needed every bit of it she could get.
When she walked out the door, strong hands caught her, stopping her from tumbling to the street.
She lifted her gaze to fall into Dean’s dark gray eyes, and his expression stole her breath. His face wasn’t lined with confusion or anger, but deep, deep concern. He looked her over carefully, as if checking to see if she were injured. “I spotted you inside, but I didn’t want to interrupt. Are you okay?”