Damsel Under Stress (Enchanted, Inc. 3)

By the end of the day, Owen looked as tired as I felt. “Are you up for dinner?” he asked, coming around the side of the whiteboard that constituted my office wall. “Since our lunch yesterday got interrupted, I thought we could go out tonight.”

“I know I’m not up to foraging for my own meal. Someone to bring it to me would be nice.”

“Then do you want to go home, change clothes, and let me pick you up for a proper date, or do you just want to stop somewhere on the way home?”

“I couldn’t begin to pick out an outfit. Let’s just stop somewhere.”

“Good, I’d hoped you’d say that,” he replied with the first genuine smile I’d seen on his face all day. “There’s a great Italian place near my house. I can call before we leave and make a reservation.”

“That sounds ideal.” While he moved all the sensitive material into his more secure office, I hurried down the hall to the bathroom to at least attempt to touch up my makeup and put on some lipstick. I might not have been dressing up, but that didn’t mean I didn’t want to inject a little glamour into the evening. Before I left the bathroom, I undid one more button on my blouse, taking the outfit from work-appropriate to just the least bit sexy. Well, as sexy as one of my work outfits ever could be.

When I got back to the lab, I saw that I wasn’t the only one who’d loosened up for the evening. Owen was in the process of taking off his tie and stuffing it in his jacket pocket. “Ready to go?”

“Let me get my coat.”

As we walked from the Union Square station up to the restaurant, he took my hand, which was a shock in and of itself. It was the kind of gesture I often hoped for from him but that he never seemed to think of. “Tonight, let’s forget about work, okay?” he said. “I know it’s hard for us to get away from, but let’s try it for once.”

“That’s fine with me,” I said, even as I wasn’t sure we could pull it off. What were the odds that we could manage a few hours without something weird and work-related happening?

The restaurant was small and narrow, with crisp white tablecloths, frescoed walls, and heavenly scents coming from the kitchen. As soon as we stepped through the door, my mouth started watering. The host approached us and Owen said, “We have a reservation. The name’s Palmer.”

The host checked his reservation book, then frowned and said in heavily accented English, “My apologies, signore, but there has been a mistake. We should not have given you a reservation when you called.”

“But there’s a table open, right there. And my name is in your book.” He pointed to the entry that very clearly showed a table for two reserved for Palmer at six.

“Ah, but that is because we moved your reservation to another restaurant to accommodate you.”

Owen turned to me and gave me a confused look. I responded with a shrug, and Owen returned his attention to the host. “I don’t understand. I made a reservation for two not too long ago. I spoke to you, if I’m not mistaken. And now you’re telling me you moved my reservation to another restaurant—and that it’s somehow to accommodate me?” His voice remained calm and even, so you would have had to know Owen to realize exactly how angry he was. The fact that he turned white instead of red was the only visible sign.

I put a hand on his arm. “It’s okay. Maybe they can give us something to go and we can eat at home,” I said. “That might be even better.”

The host shook his head. “No, no, you do not understand. The new reservation, it is for a better restaurant. We will even arrange for a car to take you there. Make it a nicer evening, no?”

Owen again looked to me. “What the heck,” I said with a shrug. “Just as long as the car isn’t being driven by the same drivers we had the last time.”

We went outside to wait for the car. “I don’t get it,” Owen said, still stewing. “I eat there regularly, but not to the point they’d go out of their way like this for me, and I’ve never heard of a restaurant sending business to another place. I know that me having a real date is a special occasion, but I didn’t think they’d go nuts just because I made a reservation for two.” After a moment of silence, he laughed. “Wait a second, I know what’s going on. I bet Rod did it. I told him what I had in mind earlier in the day, and player that he is, he probably didn’t think it was good enough. And maybe I do need dating lessons from the master.”

“Just as long as you don’t take too many lessons from him. You don’t have a second date with someone else lined up for later this evening, do you?”

“One person at a time is all I can handle,” he said as a white limousine pulled around the corner and stopped for us.

A uniformed chauffeur—who was fully human and not at all goofy-looking, thank goodness—got out of the car and came around to open the passenger door for us. “Mr. Palmer?” he said.

“Um, yeah. This is for us?”

“Yes, it is. Now, miss?” He held a hand out to me to help me into the limo. With a glance and shrug toward Owen, I stepped in and settled onto a plush leather seat. Owen then joined me. “Please enjoy the champagne during your ride,” the driver said before closing the door.

“Yeah, this is definitely Rod,” Owen said, eyeing the champagne in the ice bucket and the red rose lying on the seat between us. “It’s very much his style. Shall we?” he asked, indicating the champagne.

“Sure, why not? We might as well enjoy this.”

He popped the cork, then poured two glasses and handed me one. “Cheers,” he said, clinking his glass against mine.

“To a work-free, stress-free evening,” I said.

“Oh, I’ll definitely drink to that.”

As I leaned back in the seat and stretched my legs, I said, “This is the life.” Never mind that in the rush-hour traffic, walking or the subway would have been much faster. Traffic jams weren’t so bad when you weren’t driving and when you had champagne.