“I wouldn’t call it work.” Paul did not sound particularly troubled by the fact that there was six feet or so of fuming former ghost looming over him. “Not when you’ve made it so easy by failing to properly tend to her needs.”
Fortunately the sommelier hurried over at that exact moment, and he and I both managed to pry Jesse away from Paul in time to keep him from physically assaulting him . . . but not in time to keep every head in the restaurant from swiveling toward us.
I felt all of Jesse’s muscles tense beneath my fingers. He was itching to heave a punch in Paul’s face, and truthfully, Paul deserved one.
But neither the sommelier nor I wanted a scene in Mariner’s, especially at the Window Table. With our combined weight and a combination of pushing and pulling, we managed to get Jesse back into his seat before he did any damage.
“Jesse, please,” I begged him as the sommelier fussed over him like a mother hen, folding his napkin back over his lap, since it had fallen to the floor, and brushing off his suit. “Paul’s drunk. And, even if he completely messed it up, he did do you a favor tonight. You know you can’t afford to be anywhere near people like Delgado.”
Jesse turned his glare on me. I felt like one of the tiny cakes inside my stepnieces’ vintage Easy-Bake Oven, burning under the bright white lightbulb.
“Did me a favor?” He looked incredulous. “Susannah, I don’t need those kind of favors, from him or anyone, especially when they involve you. And,” he added with a dark glance in Paul’s direction, “he’s a little too drunk, don’t you think?”
“What? No.” I hurried back to my own seat just as the second course, a gold-rimmed plate of Monterey Bay wild salmon with Meyer lemon, was being laid there by a team of servers so professional they gave the appearance of not having noticed there’d been a near knockout in their restaurant. “He seems fine to me. Wait, what are you—”
I broke off as Jesse reached down beneath my chair.
“Really, please, carry on, you two,” Paul slurred drunkenly from the chair he’d sunk back into. To my amazement, he still hadn’t left the restaurant. “Pretend like I’m not even here. I’m used to it.”
Jesse pulled my bag from beneath the table and began to rifle through it. Suddenly I knew exactly what he was doing . . . and what he was looking for. My heart flew into my throat.
“Jesse, no,” I cried, reaching for the leather straps to snatch the bag away. “I—”
But I heard the distinctive rattle, and knew his fingers had closed over the prescription pill bottle before I could stop him. He pulled it from the depths of the bag and squinted at the label in the dim candlelight on the restaurant table.
“What are those?” Paul asked interestedly. “Suze, did you bring party favors? My kind of girl.”
“They’re not the kind you’d like, Slater,” Jesse said, quickly opening the bottle and dumping the contents into his hand. Counting swiftly, he asked, “How many have you given him?”
“Just a few. I put them in the whiskey bottle when he wasn’t looking. I didn’t want him to taste them.”
Jesse swore. “You gave him sleeping pills in alcohol?”
At Jesse’s appalled expression, I shrugged. “It is a big bottle. He’ll be fine, just a little out of it for a while.”
“Thank you for your medical diagnosis, Dr. Simon.” Jesse had already pulled out his cell phone, ready to dial 911. “Why would you do such a thing?”
I bit my lip. I was going to have to tell him eventually. Look at everything that had happened because I hadn’t told—because Becca hadn’t told. Oh, wait. We were talking about me now.
But in the end, Paul was the one who spilled the beans.
“Sleeping pills? That’s a new low, even for you, Simon.” He reached into his jacket pocket for his own cell phone. “I should have known you never had any intention of holding up your end of the bargain. I’m texting Blumenthal to go ahead with the demo on Monday.”
This caused Jesse to pause while making his call. “There that word is again. Bargain. What bargain?”
“Um,” I said, my panic rising to new heights. “Nothing. Just—”
“Oh, ho.” Paul grinned as he continued to tap into his phone. “Awkward. Sorry, Simon. But a deal is a deal. And by attempting to drug me into a stupor, you just voided ours.”
Jesse’s dark gaze burned into me. “Susannah. What is he talking about?”
Before I could say a word, Paul went on, “Oh, don’t be too hard on her, de Silva. You should be impressed, as a matter of fact. It’s hard to find women as loyal as this one these days—at least ones who aren’t interested only in your money, which wouldn’t be a problem for you, I know, but for me, I—”
“Okay, that is enough.”
I stood up, throwing my balled up napkin to the side of my newly delivered bowl of black truffle risotto with Parmigiano-Reggiano, which at this point I had no interest even in trying.
“Come on, Jesse,” I said. “We don’t have to sit here and listen to this. Let’s go.”
But Jesse stayed where he was.