The man hurried over. Tall. Italian. And concerned.
We had discovered Max on a last-minute trip to Rome. Nick had promised some barista he’d met online that he would pick her up at the end of her shift (at the time, he may have also been pretending to be Italian). At any rate, it was a good thing we were in Germany at the time, because against all the odds, we actually made it to the café where she worked just as it reached closing. Unfortunately, we had not counted on the presence of her body-building Italian husband. The woman had left out the fact that she was married.
Max had swooped in to save the day. He’d been sitting outside, drinking with friends, and had taken pity on Nick’s half-hearted attempts to explain himself in broken Italian. Educated in the States, Max understood his English perfectly—whereas the husband did not—and stepped in just in time to stop him from getting his ass kicked by a band of Italian thugs.
He’d been an indispensable member of our team ever since. Ironically, his daily tasks hadn’t varied much from that first day.
“I thought you were supposed to be on your big date tonight,” he ventured, as he opened the door and helped me lift Nick out of the car.
The guy was class act—didn’t look once at my increasingly revealing ensemble. Didn’t even mention the fact that we were both soaking wet.
“Yeah,” I gritted my teeth as we stumbled towards the revolving door, “so did I.”
Together, we managed to get Nick to the penthouse elevator and lower him down to the floor. Insisting on a private elevator for Nick’s exclusive use, was one of the first changes I made when appointed head of his PR team. There were simply too many wild variables in his life to risk mixing him with the rest of the population.
The doors dinged open on the top floor, and Max offered me a sympathetic smile.
“You want me to carry him the rest of the way in?”
Nick snored obliviously on the ground beneath us—his face pressed up against a piece of Ethiopian marble that cost more than my whole apartment.
I nudged him tentatively with my shoe and shook my head.
“Naw—we’ll manage. Thanks, Max.”
With the practiced skill of someone who had done it far too many times, I draped Nick’s arm once more over my shoulder and half-carried him into the foyer. As the door dinged shut behind us, Max bid me a typical goodnight.
“Sorry about your date.”
I waved over my head with a quiet sigh.
“Me too.”
The door closed, and the two of us limped across the tile towards the bedroom.
Nick was in that hazy drunken state between consciousness and sleep, and although he tried his best to help me, it was an arduous journey at best. When we finally made it inside, he made a bee-line for the bed—only to get stopped by me.
“Not so fast.”
He stood there obediently as I took off first his suit jacket, then the white collared shirt just below. Both of them peeled off his skin, before landing in a wet pile on the floor.
“Louise will kill me if you ruin another pair of sheets,” I murmured, working as quickly as I could. Louise, the Bavarian housekeeper, had proven even more terrifying than myself.
Nick said not a word as I worked. Lifting his arms when indicated, and stepping meekly out of his soaking pants.
They were strange—these behind-the-scenes kind of moments.
As the person whose job it was to create the narrative spin, there were times I almost believed it myself. Times when I forgot that my clients were people, just like the rest of us.
But as globally publicized as Nicholas Hunter was, no one ever saw this side of him.
Vulnerable. Quiet. Almost childlike. Wet hair still dripping down the sides of his neck.
When he started shivering, I hurried to the bathroom and returned with a towel, sponging up his curls before pointing him in the direction of the bed.
“Don’t fall asleep yet,” I instructed as I returned to the bathroom once more, “you need to drink some water first. You’ll be starting a foundation for scallops in the morning...”
“Scallops?” he repeated in confusion. “Will I?”