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“Cara,” he said softly, “you must forgive me for a little while. I must deal with business.”
Emily assured him that she understood.
Moments later, he was deep in calls on his satellite phone. When he reached for a stack of sticky notes and a pencil, she got to them first.
“Speakerphone,” she mouthed.
He hit the switch. The man on the phone was still talking. Emily listened carefully and took notes. Marco covered the phone.
“You don’t have to do this,” he said quietly. “We’re not at the office.”
Her eyebrows rose. She grabbed a fresh sticky note and printed something on it. Then, with great drama, she slapped it on her silk jacket, jabbed her index finger at him, her thumb at herself.
Marco read the hand-printed sign and snorted with laughter.
You employer, it said. Me employee.
“Something the matter?” the guy on the other end of the phone asked.
Marco leaned over, took Emily’s lips in a long kiss.
“Not a thing,” he said, when he lifted his head. “Just my assistant reminding me that she’s here to serve.”
Emily stuck out her tongue. Marco winked, and then they settled into their roles.
That was the way it went each day at the office. Marco was the boss. Emily was his PA His AA. She was, he said, the best thing that had happened to MS Enterprises in years.
She was also the best thing that had happened to its CEO.
They were inseparable.
They worked together during the day, attended business functions together in the evenings when they had to though the best evenings were the ones they spent alone, perhaps having dinner either at little West Village restaurants or at the elegant ones where only a man like Marco Santini could stroll in and get a table.
More and more, they ate in.
Steaks broiled in one of the fieldstone fireplaces. Chicken done on the terrace grill, which was finally getting a workout. Pasta from an Italian takeout on Lexington Avenue. Chinese from a wonderful hole-in-the-wall mom-and-pop all the way downtown near Mott Street. And, to his surprise and delight, Emily liked to cook. It turned out he did, too, under her laughing supervision.
On the weekends, they went down to the Union Square Greenmarket, bought bunches of this and bags of that. Then they went home and made dinner together.
He loved the weekends.
The weeknights? Not so much.
Sunday through Thursday, Emily insisted on going home at night, even if it was late.
“I can take a taxi,” she’d say.
Marco wouldn’t let her. He wouldn’t wake Charles, either. Instead, he’d rise from their warm bed, pull on jeans and a shirt, grumble as he got the Ferrari from the new garage, grumble as he drove them to the East Village, grumble about the street, the building, her apartment and, especially, her bed.
It was too narrow, too short, too lumpy.
But he wouldn’t leave her and even though she kept telling him that was silly, she was glad he stayed because falling asleep without his arms around her was becoming impossible.
He said solving impossible problems was his field of expertise. They could solve this one if she moved in.
Her heart said, “do it.”
Her head said “not yet.”
