Page 42 of Blood Stone

Garrett arranged for Patrick to safely leave the hotel and the guards he’d hired managed to sneak him out without inciting a mob. With Patrick’s departure, that meant the need for hired heavies was lifted, too, and the slight pressure he’d been feeling since stepping into the bar of being surrounded and hemmed in lifted. Calm returned.

He pulled out his phone and thumbed through the menus quickly.

“The limousine is waiting,” Winter pointed out, her tone remote and ethereal, as she collected the paperwork and her tablet.

Garrett glanced at her. “It can wait. I need a few minutes. You go ahead with MacDonald. I’ll join you when I’m done.”

“Is there anything I can do for you?” she asked, and there was a note to her question that implied she wasn’t being merely polite.

Garrett reminded himself that Winter was privy to more than just his human life. So far, she had proved to be a surprisingly effective executive assistant, even though she had been foisted on him over his loud objections.

He glanced around for eavesdroppers. “I need to speak to Roman,” he murmured. “I think he picked up far more about that deal than was spoken, or than Kate was aware of. I want to know how much of a hindrance he’s going to be.”

“He and Kate have already left.” She shifted the pile from her right hip to her left. “You’ll have to catch up another time.”

Annoyance touched him, until he realized that she wasn’t telling him what to do. She was simply pointing out facts in a remote, disinterested voice. He frowned. “Is something wrong?”

She gave him a brief smile. “Nothing. Why?” Her eyes, disguised behind the dark contacts, met his without wavering. “Roman’s cooperation or lack of it isn’t the issue today,” she added. “We can deal with him later if we need to.”

Garrett tucked his phone away again. “If I didn’t know Nial better I would say that has an ominous overtone to it.”

She glanced up at the big screens behind him, then gave him another smile. This one seemed brittle.

“You’re right,” he finished. “We need to let them think through what has happened, and allow it to settle.” He headed for the door and she fell into step beside him. “Am I dropping you at your hotel?”

“Are you done with business for the day?” she asked.

“Today, yes. Why?”

“Then the hotel is fine. But after we’ve dropped you off.”

He cocked his head to look at her, puzzled.

She gave a small smile. “You’ve never used an executive assistant before, have you?”

Garrett pushed open the door for her and felt the heat of the mid-afternoon drop over him like a warm blanket as they stepped outside. Winter caught her breath.

“There’s been plenty of talk about my control issues,” Garrett told her. “But a really good executive assistant, one that really makes a difference, needs to knoweverythingabout your life. And with my life — my lifestyle and well, being what I am...I knew I was never going to let someone I hired that far inside my shields.”

“If Nial gets his way, if vampires are revealed and accepted by humans, that won’t be an issue for you any longer, will it?” Winter pointed out, as they descended the concrete stairs down into the basement car park.

Garrett considered this new aspect of coming out. He hadn’t applied it to doing business in quite this way, before. There were a lot of aspects to how he moved through his day that he could change. No more pretending he had to halt after eight or ten hours because he needed to rest or eat. If he wanted to work through the night, he could...and on into the next day.

And when he needed to feed, he could disappear for the hours necessary to feed and recover without inventing excuses.

“There will be advantages, certainly. But it won’t be easy, the first few weeks and months we tell the world,” he warned her. “The misunderstanding and misinformation will be overwhelming.”

“That’s why Nial wanted you working with him,” Winter replied serenely. “You’ve had experience dealing with massive projects like this.”

The driver already had the car door open for them and the engine running. Winter stood back and indicated Garrett should get in first, and he overrode his instincts, and slid onto the seat. She settled beside him. MacDonald was already seated on the bench behind the driver, his gaze on the screen of his massive silver laptop, his fingers rattling across the keys.

Winter glanced at MacDonald, then at Garrett. She pulled out her computer tablet and turned it on. “Your calendar tomorrow morning is light,” she told Garrett. “But we should use that time to lay out what needs to be dealt with before we head out on location. That will be a long list, I presume.” She slid her finger down the screen. “With this meeting today, all your commitments in Los Angeles have been completed, so there is nothing preventing you from returning to Boston tomorrow on the noon flight. Do you want to make that flight? I can set up the tickets tonight.” She looked at him expectantly.

Garrett sat back, letting himself relax. “Why not?” he replied.

“You’ll need to be at LAX by ten to make check-in and security clearance in time, so we should meet around seven-thirty to discuss the film shoot. I’ll order breakfast for your suite and make it a breakfast meeting. Does that suit you?”

He nodded, aware that MacDonald would be listening to all of this. She was making it sound like he, Garrett, was human and a food eater. That he was perfectly normal. Well, she would have had a lot of practice doing that with her two husbands, although Sebastiandideat food, even though he was wasn’t really human.