CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
It was a good thing that there was so much to do—it made it so that I couldn’t spend my entire evening thinking about what Max had said.
What did he want to talk to me about?
For all I knew he might have wanted me to dog-sit Basta or something. I decided I probably shouldn’t read too much into it.
I kept an eye on Max as I took care of the rest of my responsibilities. I had ordered a backdrop specifically designed for photos and social media videos that had a beautiful scenic shot of the Monterran royal family’s palace. Max seemed to be spending most of his time there, and it didn’t surprise me in the least that Hyacinth’s friends wanted to take photo after photo with him.
When dinner was served, I went into the kitchen. Hillary was handling things expertly, but I was desperately hungry and wanted to grab a plate of something before I waded back out into the fray.
I had just served myself a plate when I felt a hand sliding along my back. My entire body tingled in response, knowing it was Max.
“Are you hungry?” I asked.
“Very,” he said in a low, growly voice that was doing funny things to the backs of my knees.
“Have a bite of the steak,” I told him. “It’s delicious.” Without thinking, I cut him off a piece and held it out to him. He leaned forward to take the bite, his lips wrapping around the fork, slowly pulling the steak into his mouth, and although I knew he hadn’t meant for it to be sexy, it was.
“It is delicious,” he agreed. He was so close to me that I could have kissed him if I’d been braver.
“My favorite couple!” a loud voice boomed, and I turned to see Bartolomeo. “How are you this beautiful evening?”
“Wonderful. And the food is divine,” I told him.
“This is why you are my favorite customer,” he said with a wink.
“I bet you say that to all the girls.”
“I do!” He laughed and Max and I laughed with him. “But in your case, it is true. Please excuse me, I have to oversee the next course.”
Bartolomeo was an incorrigible flirt. Maybe it was just how men were from that part of the world.
Meaning everything Max said and did were empty gestures.
That thought made me sad.
And he didn’t help things when he said, “I get where Bartolomeo is coming from. You’re my favorite, too.”
My heart seized in my chest, unable to beat. His favorite? Favorite what?
Friend?
Event planner?
Royal-family fangirl?
“People love you,” he said. “And I—”
Every cell in my body screamed with anticipation. I told my hormones to calm down. He was not going to say that he loved me. That was ridiculous and I was a complete fool for even thinking it, let alone sort of hoping. “You what?”
“I love that about you. That you light up every room you walk into.”
I said, “I do?”
“You do. I’ve been watching you tonight.” He took my fork from me and placed it on the counter.
My appetite was suddenly gone due to the alarm I was feeling. Max had been watching me? Had he seen me watching him ? Was he going to call me out for being a total stalker?
He took my hands in his, and this time I managed just a shiver instead of full-body trembling. “I’ve seen how everyone responds to you. You make people happy. You make me happy. And I—”
“Everly?” Hillary was standing on her tiptoes to see me over the crowd in the kitchen. “I have a question.”
The only thing I wanted was to hear how Max was going to finish that sentence.
But I had a job to do. “I’ll be back,” I told him regretfully.
He squeezed my hands and released me. I walked over to Hillary, who wanted to know whether Hyacinth had any allergies. She didn’t, and that was information I’d already shared with Bartolomeo. I irrationally wondered why Hillary hadn’t just asked him instead of interrupting what felt like a very significant moment between Max and me.
I went back over to where I’d been eating, but he wasn’t there.
You’re not at this party for a boy, I had to tell myself. You’re here to do a job and get a promotion.
But it was so hard to not get distracted when Max was nearby.
So after I wolfed down the rest of my food, I made sure to keep my distance from him.
Physical distance, because there was no way I could keep my mental and emotional distance from him. I thought about him constantly, and even though he’d told me he’d been watching me, I still found myself searching him out and watching him.
It was like a sickness.
After dinner the baker brought out the absolutely enormous birthday cake for Hyacinth. I was pleased to see that she was off her phone and enjoying the singing, along with the four-tiered cake decorated with wintry snowflakes and a tiny sugar palace. She managed to blow out all of her candles to the delight of her guests and there were waiters ready to cut up and serve the cake. After ensuring that it was passed out to all the guests who wanted a piece, I waited for about ten more minutes to give everyone a chance to eat. Then I went up to the stage to introduce Silver Cup. The band started their set by playing a cover of “Bizarre Love Triangle.” It was a perfect song for both the adults and teens and it got a bunch of people out on the floor dancing.
It was all going so spectacularly well that I was worried. I had the feeling that it was all too good to be true.
Which was a feeling I was all too accustomed to lately, given that I had it every time I spoke to or hung out with Max.
I took a very large slice of cake and went into the kitchen to eat it. This particular baker had a gift for making cakes that were both beautiful and incredible tasting. Again, I was pleased with myself and what I’d accomplished.
Max came into the kitchen, as if he’d been following me. His face lit up when he saw me, and his handsomeness again overwhelmed me. Was I ever going to get used to it?
“What are you up to?” he asked.
“I’m eating an irresponsible amount of birthday cake.”
“I can see that,” he said.
“I’m feeling very guilty about it at the moment. It is probably forty times the recommended daily allowance of sugar.”
He shook his head. “You shouldn’t feel bad about eating cake. You can just use the science of relativity. Cake is healthier for you than heroin, right?”
Max might have had a point. As I was considering that, he said, “You have frosting right there.”
“Where?” I asked, reaching up to feel around for it, growing more concerned with each passing second that I looked ridiculous.
“Here. May I?” he asked, and I nodded.
I held my breath, bracing for impact. He reached up with his thumb and gently rubbed the icing off of my upper lip. His thumb was warm and firm and my lip tingled in response to his touch, my blood heating in my veins.
Then my stomach flipped completely over when he lifted his thumb up to his own mouth and licked off the frosting. Even though he wasn’t touching me, it felt like he was. I leaned back against the counter as I didn’t know if I was still capable of supporting my own body weight.
The kitchen door opened. My eyes flickered briefly in that direction and I saw Claudia.
I straightened up. I’d had no idea she was coming here tonight. She noticed me and came over, smiling.
“Everly! Tonight has been magnificent. You have done a truly incredible job. I hope you are proud of yourself!”
“Thank you so much,” I said, feeling breathless, both from her compliment and from what Max had just innocently done.
“I’m going to personally oversee the cleanup and takedown tonight,” she said, and it surprised me. That was the entire point of being senior staff—getting to delegate things like this to the underlings.
I hoped she didn’t think I wanted to leave. “I’m happy to stay.”
“Oh, this isn’t a comment on your performance. I know you would be the last person here if I needed you to be. You did a fantastic job, and I want to end the evening with a senior member of our team as the point of contact. We are trying to win over the Albrechts and their friends, and I think it would be better if I was the one they interact with when tonight ends.”
That made sense. It was unusual, but so was this event. We were trying to establish a foothold in this space, so I understood why Claudia, who had a lot more experience with clients, wanted to be the person seeing them off.
“Sure thing,” I said, and handed her my clipboard. There wasn’t much left to check off.
“You should go and have fun. Celebrate.” She shot a meaningful look at Max and I worried that I might have appeared unprofessional. But she smiled, as if enjoying some private joke, and left with the clipboard.
“So you’re free?” he asked.
“It would appear so.”
“Do you want to go get a drink?”
“I really do.” It was exactly what I needed. This had been a long, strange, stressful evening and the idea of unwinding and relaxing sounded perfect.
“I know a wine bar not too far from here.”
“Yes to all of it,” I said. He came with me while I grabbed my bag and coat, and we left. The night was perfect—cold but clear. Max took my hand and it made things even better. My skin was still flushed with excitement and the chill felt good against it.
“She was right,” he said. “You did a great job with the party.”
“Thank you.” Strangely enough, his praise meant more to me than Claudia’s.
“Are you worried that your boss is sticking around to take the credit?”
“Claudia is not my boss and she’s not like that. This is a chance for her to network with the other potential clients at the party and schmooze the Albrechts. They will feel special that someone so high up is personally overseeing everything.”
“Was tonight a nice change? From what you usually do?”
I let out a little laugh. “Leaps and bounds better. I can freely admit that corporate events are usually total snoozefests.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing. I would pay to attend a snoozefest.”
I laughed harder this time. “In my experience, snoozefests are not nice, peaceful events. They are stressful. The event I had a couple of days ago was free, no tickets required, and no security. A man showed up and locked himself in the main bathroom. I had to get the manager to help me direct attendees to a bathroom on the second level. I finally managed to coax the man out and he was escorted from the hotel.”
“That sounds like the opposite of a snoozefest.”
“Definitely much more exciting than anyone had anticipated. I’d told the client that we needed security and tickets, but they didn’t want the expense, so they didn’t listen to me. It’s annoying when you can see so clearly that something’s going to go spectacularly bad and nobody believes you. Like I’m Cassandra.”
“From Greek mythology?” he asked.
“Yes!” I said, pleased he got my reference. “I used to really love Greek mythology. I even participated in my school’s Language Arts Day team and it was my specialty.”
“I briefly considered majoring in classical antiquity in college.”
“You’re lying.”
He grinned. “I’m not. I have the textbooks at home to prove it.”
I realized that I didn’t know where he lived. That seemed like something friends should know about each other. “Where are you staying?”
“We’re here,” he said, opening the door for me to go into the bar. It was an elegant place and was surprisingly quiet, given how many people were seated. We went over to two empty chairs at the bar and were immediately greeted by a bartender. Max ordered a cabernet sauvignon and I asked for a glass of chardonnay, since it was the drink that Max assumed I would order the first night we met and it seemed fitting to have it now.
Max turned to face me. Our knees were brushing against each other and the contact sent pulses of warmth through me.
“Did you enjoy your evening of being objectified as a glorified photo prop?” I asked him.
“It was strange.”
“Definitely weird, but the client liked it. And it’s not even the weirdest thing I’ve done to make a client happy. I once had to drive a live turkey from Connecticut into the city because someone wanted to pardon a turkey at their Thanksgiving event. He rode in the passenger seat. And I didn’t have a valid license or car insurance.”
“How do you drive without a license or car insurance?”
“Very slowly,” I said, and he laughed.
The bartender brought over our wine. We thanked him and I took a sip. Okay, a large gulp. The effect was immediate and I could feel myself relaxing.
“This hits the spot. And just so you know, this is probably wasted on me. Wine is wine to me.”
“You mean you can’t pick out the region and year the grapes were harvested?” he teased in mock horror.
“No,” I said, swirling it around in my glass. “All I’m picking up are subtle notes of ‘not from Walmart.’”
He laughed and rested his free hand on the back of my chair.
“So if I wanted to say I loved the wine in Italian, how would I say it?” I asked.
“Italian is not like English. If you say you love pizza and you love your mom, even though those two feelings are different, you use the same word. In Italian we use ‘ti voglio bene’ when you’re talking about tender affection you have for family or friends. You’d use ‘ti amo’ for someone you’re really in love with. Same thing in Spanish with ‘te quiero’ and ‘te amo.’”
“Then I ti amo this wine,” I said. I was also probably ti amo–ing him a little bit as well.
He grinned. “I’m really glad I got to see you tonight.”
“Why is that?” I asked.
“I enjoyed seeing you in your element. You were born to do this. You told me once that you didn’t have a superpower, but you’re wrong. This is it. Your ability to lead, to calm other people down, to create beauty from nothing, to make everything work seamlessly. You’re incredible.”
“Thank you,” I breathed. I didn’t know what else to say. I gripped the bar to keep myself from reaching for him.
“I’m also glad that I got to see you because I have to leave in the morning.”
That was like a bucket of ice being poured over my head. “Where are you going?”
“There’s a potential donor who might make a sizable donation, but he’s out in Los Angeles and has to be wooed.”
There was no one on the planet better equipped to woo than Max Colby. “How long will you be gone?”
“For a few days. I’ll be back in time for Sunny’s baby shower.” He seemed to be studying my face, as if he were searching for something.
“I still can’t believe you got her mother-in-law to invite men to the shower.”
“She was easy enough to convince.”
I believed that he’d had zero issues on that front. I was surprised she hadn’t signed over the deed to that palatial apartment of hers to him, too.
He was going to be gone for only a few days, but I hated the thought that he wouldn’t be around. I still had an actual mountain of work to do, but I liked knowing that if I wanted to see him, I could.
I realized that I was going to miss him. “You’re not going to find another tour guide out there, are you?”
He moved closer to me. “There’s only one tour guide for me.”
That made my heart feel sparkly and light and I didn’t care if I was reading into it. If he flirted with every woman with a pulse. All I cared about was being with him.
“Then let me show you something.”