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jacket folded neatly
across it. The sound was coming from it. Already tipsy as hell I tottered
across the living room and spent precious seconds hunting through Malcolm's pockets
before I located his phone just as the person on the other end of the line hung
up.
    Damn , I thought. But then the phone lit up again almost
immediately, the ringtone loud in the quiet of the penthouse. In bold letters
on the screen, the name Don Cardall shone out. It meant nothing to me.
    I wavered and after a few rings the call went to voicemail. I
had no problem with that, as I wasn't ever a fan of people answering my own
phone--safely tucked away in my purse at the base of the tower of luggage, thank
god--but when the home screen popped up I saw that Malcolm had seventy-eight
missed calls.
    Seventy. Eight.
    Holy shit, I thought. This might be kind of important.
    For a second I stood in the living room, trying to decide what
to do. On the one hand, I wasn't Malcolm's personal secretary or anything like
that, and we'd only known each other for a few days. I should, technically, go
wake him up so he could field whatever emergency had popped up back home. On
the other hand, I really wanted to stay here and just fuck the next few days
away. Maybe drink some good liquor, eat some good food. Bone some more.
Especially on that terrace... Perhaps I should just answer and see who was
calling and what sort of fire Malcolm had to put out before bothering him. He
looked exhausted. I didn't really want to disturb the first good sleep I was
betting he'd had since we met. I didn't think he'd slept on the plane, and
since he'd been forgetting to eat I didn't exactly trust him to take care of
himself in my absence. I took another gulp of wine and pondered, and then the
decision was made for me when the phone lit up again. Don Cardall once more. He
was very persistent. I was willing to bet he was at least half of those missed
calls.
    Oh, I thought, very well. I hit answer.
    "Malcolm Ward's phone," I said, very cool and
sophisticated. "May I ask who's calling?"
    "Fuck you, this is a fucking emergency!" Don Cardall
spat at the other end of the line. "Where the fuck is Mr.
Ward?"
     
     

 
    Chapter Nine
     
    One and a half glasses of wine on a very empty stomach did not
make me the most delicate of people. "He's in a sex coma," I snapped,
all my good sex vibes falling away and my typical crankiness reasserting
itself. "Who is this?"
    "No, you tell me who the hell you are and you put
Mr. Ward on the phone right goddamn now."
    Damn, this dude was rude to someone he'd never met. “I'm Sadie
MacElroy,” I said. Then, because I thought I could perhaps parlay it into some
sort of social currency: “Mrs. Anton Waters' personal assistant."
    At the other end of the line, Don was quiet for a moment,
clearly reassessing the situation. Yes! I thought. Finally that stupid
job came in handy for something other than boring shit like keeping food on the
table and a roof over my head.
    "I apologize, Miss MacElroy," Don finally said, his
voice now stiff and formal, "but I am Mr. Ward's secretary. I hope you
will understand that this is an emergency and put Mr. Ward on the line."
    Ah. The secretary to whom Malcolm had given over the reins of
the company. I could sympathize. I really could. It was always a frantic day
when something big had gone down and you couldn't contact your boss. I know
this because it happened frequently when Felicia and Anton decided to go on a
sex retreat, although now that I came to think of it I was obviously not any
better, seeing as how I had skipped work--and town--to screw some virtual
stranger's brains out. And I didn't even have the excuse of being in a
relationship with him.
    Still. I didn't really want to wake Malcolm up. It was probably
midnight in New York now. I'd been missing from my job for a whole day at this
point. I probably had a million messages, too. Ugh.
    I wavered for another moment, then gave in. "All right,
just a second," I said.