She put her hand over his. “It was Murray who knew what I was driving. He’s been apprehended,” she said soothingly. “It was only Murray who knew where I lived.”
“We’ve been over this. Do you believe in unicorns too? You filled out a form, they all know where you live. Just stay away from your apartment, and get Toni to drive you into work.”
“Come on. According to Toni, Phil has gone back to his house.”
“Yeah, well, Phil wasn’t the one who broke up the game, put that underground casino out of business, and has someone who is probably mob-affiliated on the run. That was you. You stand out.”
Sam squirmed in her seat.
“What?” he asked.
“I guess I’m not used to people being mad at me. I’ve got to toughen up.”
He picked up her hand and brought it to his lips. “There is not one thing about you that I’d change, you do not have to toughen up. You’re perfect.”
She could drown in his green eyes. Then she giggled. “You sure as heck weren’t saying that the night of the poker game,” she teased.
“Really? You’re going to bring that up now when I have you on a pedestal?”
“That’s the perfect time.” She stood up and whisked the plates off the table and took them to the sink. She looked over her shoulder at Ezio standing there in his camo pants and black T-shirt. Her heart did a little flip. She wanted to keep him.
Whoa there. It’s too soon.
No, it’s not!
He picked his gear up from in front of the door and hoisted it up on his shoulder. “So remember, no driving your car. No going to the apartment. Are we clear?”
“We’re clear.”
“Ah, hell.”
Yes, I need to really swear.
Toni was on a job-site in Chesapeake, Eden was in D.C. for the day, and the Uber she ordered hadn’t arrived.
“What do you mean you have no record of my call?” Samantha demanded. She’d tried to use the app, but it hadn’t worked, so she’d been forced to call, that sure hadn’t worked, now she was desperate. They had a client meeting in less than two hours. She still had to get things prepped at the office and the stained-glass piece samples that she needed were sitting on her apartment doorstep.
“How soon can you get a driver here?”
She listened to the promise of twenty minutes and knew that could be ten to thirty minutes. She was well and truly screwed.
She bit her lip and then realized she’d screwed up her lipstick. This was the final presentation of the designs to the Billingham hotels. Everything needed to be perfect, and that meant she needed to be on-time with the samples.
She grabbed her laptop bag and her portfolio, then rushed through the kitchen and opened the door to the garage. She slammed the button to open the garage door, and there sat her little red compact. Except for the color, it was practically invisible. She threw her stuff in the passenger seat and started it up, and was soon on the highway to her apartment. It was seven-thirty in the morning, three weeks after the poker fiasco. Ezio and the others were blowing this out of proportion. But just in case they weren’t, she drove around to the back of the complex and went through the walkway through the middle of the buildings until she hit her apartment. There was no way they would have someone actually watching out for her, but if Ezio ever found out about this, at least she could tell him she’d been safe.
There was the package, behind her dead potted plant.
“Oh, for God’s sake.” The corner was dented in, right over one of the ‘Fragile’ stickers. Please say the glass hadn’t broken.
“Stop it, Brooks, it’ll be okay. Concentrate on getting to the meeting.”
She called Fabiola from her cell phone on the way from her apartment. God bless the woman, she already had the copies of the presentations ready for everybody, as well as the IT equipment set-up for the video presentation. When she talked to Kyle, all the refreshments were available. He’d gone to three different bakeries until he’d found the lemon donuts that Mr. Billingham liked. Kyle scored brownie points for that one.
Pam had all but the stained-glass samples available for everyone. “We’re just missing a tall blonde woman to pull it all together.”
At that point Samantha had finally been able to laugh. Yep, her team had gelled together nicely.
Finally, she got to the skyrise that housed her design firm. She drove into the underground garage and ended up on the lowest level since she was so late. She parked her car, grabbed her stuff, then hiked over to the elevators that would whisk her to her design firm. She checked her phone—fifteen minutes to spare.
Double dang.
When she got to reception, she said hello to Zsa Zsa.
“Wait!”
“What?”
“You have lipstick on your teeth.”
Zsa Zsa pulled out a compact and showed Samantha and she wiped it off with a tissue. Zsa Zsa then proceeded to straighten out her suit for her and align her triple strand of faux pearls for Sam.
“There you go, now you’re presentable.”
God love the nineteen-year-old fashionista. “Thanks, Zsa.”
“Knock ‘em dead.”
Sam made it to the conference room seven minutes early and handed the stained-glass sample package to Pam, who tore it open and gave her a thumbs up. Okay, that was good. The door opened and the design firm principals and the clients were ushered in. Kyle made sure to slip the lemon donut in front of Mr. Billingham, who grinned at Samantha. “Love your attention to detail, Kiddo.”
After the normal fifteen minutes of small talk and glad
