Black Diaries

46. Fun with the Tools

"You're the perfect man."

He chuckled. "Let's wait and see if you still think that when you've known me a while longer, all right?"

"Mmm..."

"Cassidy?"

"Yes?"

"I... I hate to ask this, but—"

His voice broke off. Looking up, I saw that there was color in his cheeks—actually red, like an embarrassed schoolboy, not the CEO of a Fortune 500 company who drove luxury limousines and could quote Byron from memory.

I couldn't hold back a grin. "Spit it out."

"Well... I've got one of my guy days coming up. It's been planned for ages. Zack has got his hands on an original Grave Digger Truck he wants to tune, and—"

I held up my hands, laughing. "You lost me at the word 'tune'! Spare me the technical terms, please. Go and play with your little friend."

"If you're sure you don't mind..."

"Of course I don't mind." Standing up on my tiptoes, I placed a seductively light kiss at the corner of his mouth. "Just as long as you're back tonight. I've got plans."

Under my lips, I felt the corner of his mouth turn up. "So have I."

"Then get going! The sooner you'll be gone, the sooner you'll be back with me!"

"Impeccable logic. See you." He slid out of my arms, and in a second was at the glass doors that led out onto the roof. Behind him, I saw something that hadn't been there before: a gleaming black helicopter.

"How did that get there?" I demanded.

"The pilot flew it here during the night."

"How come I didn't hear it land?"

"Oh, I don't know..." His eyes twinkled devilishly. "Maybe you were to, ehem, busy to notice."

I picked up a sofa cushion and hurled it at him. But before it could hit its mark, he had ducked out of the door and closed it behind himself. The cushion slammed against the glass and slid down to the floor. Elliot shrugged, grinning, as if to say 'Bad luck. Maybe you'll get me next time.'—then he turned and strode towards the waiting helicopter. The door opened, and he jumped inside, turning his head one last time to look at me. For one brief moment I thought I saw guilt and pain in his eyes.

It touched me at my core. Even when he was going to spend time with his best friend, he was still thinking of me, still wishing he could be with me. If that wasn't true love, what was?

That's a philosophical problem for another day, Cassy, I told myself. Get back to your breakfast, and then get your lazy but moving! You have a lot of work to catch up on.

It was very true. Having a gorgeous billionaire with midnight-blue eyes for a boyfriend, a billionaire who had a tendency to whisk you away on dates beyond the wildest dream of any girl, tends to have a serious impact on your work ethic. A really, really bad impact. So paperwork from Darren's Dog Hutch had accumulated over the entire week, and no matter how agonizing a day apart from Elliot would be, it would be immensely helpful in my keeping my job.

There was no help for it. I made myself a cup of coffee, opened a bag of gummy bears and sat myself down to work through a week's worth of boring bits of paper. An hour later, I was still at it. It was really impressive how much paperwork a baboon's digestive problems could produce. I was just about to restock on gummy bears, when the telephone rang.

Curious, I went over to the phone. Who would be calling this early in the morning? And why on the landline? Everyone who ever called Elliot called him on his cellphone. Picking up the receiver, I raised it to my ear.