Page 30 of Along Came Amor
Roman glanced up. A conference room full of people gazed at him expectantly, like...
Fuck. Like he was theirboss.
And as their boss, he wassupposedto have been paying attention. Not responding to booty calls.
Roman bit back a frustrated sigh. He should’ve invested in cloning technology back when he was in his twenties instead of a gamified language learning site. Between the hotels, the distillery, and now the book, he was drowning in work.
If he had clones, one could handle the Dulce expansion into Asia, another could take meetings about Casa Donato’s distribution channels, and he could lock another one in a room and not let it out until it had a finished manuscript.
And one could be here arguing about the latest DEI statement.
“Publish it as is.” Roman got to his feet before the PR manager could argue. “Sorry to cut the meeting short, but an emergency has come up. I’m sure no one’s sad about ending a little early on a Friday afternoon.”
There was light laughter as everyone started to pack up. To Roman’s right, his assistant, Camille Price, collected her things without a word. Roman took his tablet and left the conference room with Camille at his side.
She was a tall Black woman with shoulder-length locs and luminous umber skin. In their many years of working together, Camille had revealed a penchant for pairing brightly colored pantsuits with sensible shoes, and an uncanny knack for sussing out bullshit.
That last trait was about to bite Roman on the ass.
“An emergency?” Camille spoke in a hushed tone as they hurried down the hallway. “Is everyone okay?”
Camille scheduled every second of every day of Roman’s life. She knew that any emergency likely involved his mother or sister.
It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her the truth so she wouldn’t worry, but he found he didn’t want to tell Camille about Ava. Maybe it was because dropping everything to meet with a woman wasnota normal thing for him. In fact, claiming an assignation counted as an “emergency” was so out of the norm, Camille would probably insist on making an appointment with his doctor.
“Everyone’s fine,” he assured her. “There’s just something I have to do.”
Camille raised her eyebrows at his vague excuse. Her expression said,I’m going to let this drop... for now. She just pulled up his calendar on her phone as they walked. “I assume you’ve already seen what you have on tap for the rest of the day. Do you want me to cancel or reschedule?”
“Cancel the marketing meeting, reschedule everything else.”
“Should I mark anything down in your calendar for tonight?” Her tone was cagey, digging for information.
He could say he was having dinner with a friend, but Camille scheduled those too, so it would be weird if he refused to tell her the supposed friend’s name. And if he said he was going on a date, he’d never hear the end of it. “No. Thank you.”
“Where are you headed now?” When he eyed her, she sent him a perfectly innocent smile. “So I know where to have the car take you.”
“Home,” he said. He wouldn’t be staying there, but it didn’t matter. Camille could trace his phone, and she always knew where he was. When she looked—and he was sure she would—she’d see that he was at one of his hotels overnight, and she’d probably guess what was going on.
They’d cross that bridge when they came to it.
Camille gave him a long look but didn’t ask any more questions. She tapped away at her phone, starting the process of rearranging Roman’s commitments.
All so he could see Ava.
At the elevators, Roman paused Camille before she could make a call.
“After this, take the rest of the night off,” he told her. “Completely. No calls, no texts, no emails. Do something nice with your family and charge it.”
Her eyebrows rose. Now she definitely knew he was up to something, but she wasn’t going to ask. Not now, anyway. She’d enjoy the time off and drag it out of him later.
Ava had texted him for a reason. And he wanted to know why.
More than that, he wanted to see her again. Immediately.
A black SUV was waiting at the curb when he and Camille got downstairs. Once they climbed inside, Roman texted Ava back.
Roman:Meet me at the Dulce Flor in Times Square tonight.
