down the marble hallway in front of her—which no doubt led to the supremely classy yet neutral color-schemed heaven on the top floor—there was no room to doubt how bad an idea it was for him to be on the carpet tonight.
His three assistants bustled along with him, informing him how they’d set up the interviews. More walking, him making rounds to meet with reporters in different areas of the suite...
“That’s not going to work,” Grace cut in, and three sets of eyes turned to her. Liam’s didn’t, but his people had no idea she’d been complaining about him walking on it for at least ninety-seven percent of the time since she’d seen him. Mostly because it was a bad idea, and partly because she couldn’t complain about what she really wanted to complain about...
“What would you like us to do?” Liam asked, stopping at a nondescript elevator and pressing the call button. Maybe he came this way all the time?
“One, you need to be off your feet as much as possible if you’re going to have any hope of getting through the red carpet tonight. Two, you said you don’t want this advertised. Which? You’re limping like you’ve just suffered a back-alley amputation and are walking on a bloody stump.”
He smiled at her description and then nodded to his people. “She’s right. I don’t want to walk any more than I absolutely have to.”
Despite the smile he’d put on, there was a white ring around his mouth and his forehead glistened, though it was far from hot outside. Concealed pain. Ridiculous that he was so driven to conceal it.
But at least he wasn’t arguing.
Their elevator stopped again at the very top of the hotel. “A suite, I’m guessing?”
“The whole floor.” Liam nodded.
Naturally.
“Okay.” The door opened to a tiny room with an ornate fancy door. One of the assistants handled the lock.
“Here.” She thrust the rather large bag of medical supplies to the closest assistant, a pretty, petite thing who made Grace feel the antithesis of her name, and didn’t pause to see if she could bear the weight.
“I’m helping you, Liam,” Grace said, in what she hoped was a tone that brooked no argument. Even if she had to come back for the bag, she wouldn’t have the thing smacking into him and upsetting his already precarious balance. A second later and she had his arm over her shoulders and her own around his waist, “If you have the whole floor, no one is going to see me helping.”
A nod and he leaned, letting her take some of his weight, confirming how much his leg was hurting. As they made it into the suite, she began issuing instructions.
“We’re going to need crushed ice, and find one of the rooms to set up and have the press people come here instead. We need a table, a chair, long tablecloth...and a footstool that can be hidden behind the fabric.”
“Two chairs,” the man at her left said, probably taking notes the way he rattled off her requests.
She turned Liam toward the closest comfortable-looking chair and kept arguing. “One chair. The reporter is going to stand. Or sit across the room. Or away from the table. Or levitate. I don’t care. If they’re at the table, they might bump his ankle or crash their feet into the stool. We don’t want them getting curious for any reason and looking, right?”
“Right,” Liam confirmed, nodding to a different chair to indicate his seat of choice.
A moment later, she had freed herself from the heat and natural cologne of his body to deposit him in the chair, his foot propped up on a table with a cushion padding the heel. “This will have to do until we get the other set up.”
“Grace?”
She stopped and turned to look at him.
“Thank you. I suddenly feel like my brain isn’t functioning at full power.”
“When did you last take medication for pain?”
“I took something this morning.”
“Any reason you can’t take anti-inflammatories? Any kidney problems?”
He shook his head.
“Good. They’ll help more, reduce swelling. I am also going to...” She paused and directed her attention back to the one remaining assistant. “Get some food up here. Also, the room you set up in should be close to a bathroom.”
“Why?” Liam’s question came from behind her.
“Because you’re going to take a diuretic, remember?”
“Oh, right.”
“And you don’t want to have to walk a bunch to get to and from it.” Having tasks to occupy herself with helped. Top of the list now: water. She detoured to the bar and came back with a fresh, cool bottle of water and, after she’d rifled through the work bag the woman had lugged in, fished out a few blister packs with the medicine Dr. Rothsberg had agreed to. “Take this. And this.”
“What’s that?”
“Potassium. If you take this diuretic, it will flush the potassium from your body. So you take it with potassium.” At least he was still with it enough to ask the right questions and not just blindly take any medicine handed to him.
“The other? The pain medicine, it’s not narcotic, right? Not the anti-inflammatory mixed with something you get with a prescription?”
There was a sound in his voice that made her stop and look at him, like a pinch or something else causing pain. It took her a second before she worked out why. His parents. How could she have forgotten about their addiction?
“No narcotic in it,” she said softly. “It’s a prescription-sized dose of ibuprofen, but we’re faking it by taking extra over-the-counter versions of the same drug. Nothing addictive...” She regretted the word before it had even fully passed her lips. Some words had a chameleonlike ability to become hurtful depending on who heard them. With his history, and his recent addict ex-girlfriend... If she was going to be working with him, she’d have to be more mindful.
Before the statement could settle, or turn the room acid, she changed to what they needed to do. Work could always save them. “How long do we have to get you settled before the interviews have to start? And what time do you have to get ready for the premiere?”
One of the assistants, Tall, Blond, and Slight—or Miles, as the others called him—answered, “As soon as possible on the interviews. Most of the reporters are here already, and from there about four hours before he has to get dressed.”
She stood a little straighter, knowing that her words were going to irritate them. “Okay, then make sure it’s no more than two hours for the reporters. He needs a couple hours with his leg up higher than his head, and iced.”
“Liam?” Miles looked around her to their boss.
“She’s in charge this afternoon,” Liam said, all but pulling the words from her mind. “And if we have to sacrifice a few angry reporters in order to put in a satisfying show on the carpet, then that’s what we have to do. If you’re
