“What does she want now?” Vincent was leaning against the wall with his hands tucked into his pockets, one eyebrow raised in question.
“To know the precise moment you step foot in the building. Should I call her?” Lexi mentally slapped herself. “I’m sorry, that was out of line. I mean, she wanted to know when you were coming back from your meeting.”
Vincent mumbled something that sounded like “great” as he walked past her desk. Before he went in his office, he looked back at Lexi. “So, how long to I have?”
Lexi’s face broke out into a wide grin. “I told her one-thirty, which means she’ll be here at one. Want me to go get you a burger for lunch early so you have time to hide the evidence?”
He winked at Lexi, making her heart race and a delicious warmth spread throughout her body. “Can you add a chocolate milkshake to that order? i had a long morning.”
Lexi stood up and grabbed her purse. “Consider it done.” She ran down the street to Frank’s and got him the usual, plus a milkshake. When she returned to the office, she walked in on a very heated conversation between Sean and Vincent. Sean was frantic, waving his hands wildly in front of Vincent’s very pissed off face.
“I swear to God, Sean, I’m going to kill you if you blow this for us.” Vincent shook his head from side to side.
“They said I could take it for a spin. I was just—”
“You were just driving a high-performance automobile that you had no business sneezing on, let alone doing a hundred miles per hour in—while talking on your cell phone!”
“But—”
“No buts, Sean. What are we supposed to do? The shoot is in three hours, and the star of that shoot is currently sitting on the curb with a giant dent in the fender.” Vincent began pacing back and forth as Lexi silently slipped behind her desk and pretended to be working.
“I wouldn’t say giant. I hit a card table, not a stone wall.” Sean flopped into one of the chairs at Lexi’s desk. “Hey, Lexi.”
“You hit a card table?” Lexi asked, completely confused about how he might have managed that one.
“Go ahead, tell her what an idiot you are while I try and figure out how to fix this,” Vincent snarled.
“We’re using one of the cars from Max in the photo shoot. As a thank you for all that we’ve done for them,” Sean shot Vincent a dirty look, “they said I could go pick it up and drive it over here, and then take it to the shoot. So, I showed up and they handed me the keys to an extremely hot Ferrari Scuderia Spider, a yellow one. It’s amazing, Lexi. The purr of the engine as I went down the highway was … orgasmic.”
Lexi cocked her eyebrow at Vincent while Sean closed his eyes, grinning while he described the car in great detail, down to the yellow stitching on the black leather seats.
“When I got off the highway, where I might have been exceeding the posted speed limit for a very short period of time, I turned onto Ninth. The gas pedal is very sensitive, and I might have given it a bit too much gas as I dialed my cell phone, and I might have clipped a street vendor.”
“You hit someone?” Lexi’s hand flew to her mouth in horror.
“No, the guy’s fine. He dove behind a newsstand. But the fake Prada bags and sunglasses went flying when I took out the table. Why couldn’t I have hit the guy selling silk scarves?”
“How badly is the car damaged?” Lexi cringed.
“It’s got a dent about the size of a softball in it.”
“Oh,” Lexi said, “that’s not too bad.”
“Not too bad? It’s a Ferrari worth more that Sean’s life.” Vincent rubbed his hands up and down his face.
“Did you find someone who could fix it?” Lexi looked over at Sean, who shook his head.
“I’ve called everyone I know. No one’s willing to touch a car like this on short notice. What the hell are we going to do?”
“We? We aren’t going to do anything, Sean. You are the one up Shit Creek. I’m simply standing on the shore watching your corpse float past.”
“I might be able to help you,” Lexi said. The two men continued arguing, and as their voices grew louder, so did Lexi’s. “I said I might be able to help you!”
“How?” Vincent asked suspiciously. “Happen to have another Ferrari in your purse?”
Lexi shot him a dirty look as she picked up the phone and called the one person she knew who might be able to pull this off.
“Hey, it’s me. I need a favor—a huge favor. I have a Ferrari Scuderia with a card table-induced dent that I need fixed. No … yeah … I have no idea.
Someone I work with did it. I assure you it was an accident. No, he isn’t. Listen, if I bring it by, can you fix it? We have a photo shoot in three hours.”
Sean leaned over Lexi’s desk, holding his breath as he waited for the answer. When Lexi flashed him a thumbs up, he began dancing around the room. “Fantastic. We’ll be right there.”
Sean scooped Lexi into his arms and swung her around the room. “Vincent doesn’t deserve someone as awesome as you. Run away with me and be my assistant, please?”
“Put me down. We have to get that car to the garage now or we’re screwed. And make sure you bring your checkbook. This one’s gonna cost you.”
Lexi whacked Sean on the chest, and he gently placed her on the floor.
“Let’s get out of here. Where are you and I speeding off to?”
“Oh no you don’t.” Vincent grabbed Sean’s keys from his hand and waited for Lexi to get her purse before the three of them headed for the elevator.
“Don’t tell him anything,” he said to Lexi. Then he turned to Sean. “She’s coming with me, and you can follow us. I don’t need you doing a hundredand-
twenty-five miles an hour to get there faster and hitting something else.”
“Come on, man,” Sean whined, but Vincent just gave him a droll stare as he leaned against the wall of the elevator. “Fine,” Sean pouted. “Take my truck. It’s just up the street from the Ferrari, around the west entrance.”
When they made it downstairs, Lexi’s mouth fell open at the sight of the gorgeous car parked in front of the building. The yellow paint glistened in the sunlight. A crowd of people had gathered around and were taking pictures of each other beside the vehicle.
“Move it, people. Everyone step away from the car.” Sean pushed his way through the crowd to the driver’s side door.