A moment later, he heard the pop of the trunk release, and Griffin opened it, looking inside. Maylee's fascinator was there, and the sight made his heart stop in his chest out of fear. What on earth was wrong? What made her cry and take off her hat and abandon him today? She was his assistant, damn it.
He picked her hat up, as well as a newspaper. Underneath the newspaper, there was a box of condoms. He picked it up as well, mystified and frustrated. She'd gone through with her flirty words and picked up the condoms. What had changed?
The driver came around to the back and gave Griffin a curious look, holding out his bag with the containers of chicken noodle soup. He must have seemed strange, clutching a woman's feathery hat, a newspaper, and a box of condoms, but he took the soup from the man and paused. "Why did she want to go to the airport?"
"She didn't say, my lord." This time, there was a hint of reproach in the man's face, as if it were Griffin's fault.
And that irritated him. "Thank you," Griffin said abruptly. He turned and stalked into the hotel.
When he passed the security guard posted at the elevator to his floor, he asked the man, "Did my assistant come back here earlier today?"
"No, my lord. Shall I ring the front desk-"
"No." He tried to raise a hand to stop the man, but he was still clutching the box of condoms. Hell, he probably looked like an idiot. "Thank you."
Griffin tossed his assorted parcels when he got back to his room and immediately headed for their adjoining door. Maylee's room was just as she'd left it, her suitcase and clothing still in place, bags of souvenirs at the bottom of her closet. He picked up her suitcase and opened it. It was empty of everything except a small bag filled with hotel soaps and shampoos.
She'd left all her things behind. He didn't understand. She'd left him without a word-abandoning her job-and she'd been crying.
Had a family member died? Was that why she'd been in such a hurry? Concern for her shook through him, and he thought of his soft, sweet Maylee devastated at the death of her mother or one of her grandparents. She had such a good, kind heart. It would crush her.
He immediately checked his phone to see if there were messages. Nothing. Perhaps she'd been too upset to leave one. Griffin pulled out his cellphone and checked it twice, then tried leaving himself a message to make sure it wasn't malfunctioning.
Then, he dialed the front desk. "I want a driver here in the morning-a new driver," he amended, thinking of the reproachful look the chauffeur had given him. "And I need someone to come up and pack my bags in the morning. And I need my plane chartered for a flight out in the morning. Did you get all that?"
"I'm sorry, my lord, did you say you need your bags packed-"
"Just do it," he snapped, and hung up. Great, now he was feeling more helpless than usual. He'd f**king pack the things himself. Grabbing a suitcase, he flung it on the bed and began to shove clothes into it. He stopped when he'd only made it through his jackets and there was no more room in his suitcase. He only had two more and over half of his closet to go. How the devil had Kip managed to squeeze all of his clothing into these things?
Frustrated, he sat down on the edge of the bed and raked a hand through his hair. It was slicked down with gel as his usual style-Maylee had protested it this morning but he'd insisted, since he didn't want to draw attention to himself-and his fingers caught in it. Damn it, he didn't even like his own hair anymore. He needed Maylee to show him how to fix it again so he didn't look like an idiot.
As he stared ahead, combing his fingers through his hair, his gaze fell on the newspaper. He'd picked it up without giving it a second thought since Maylee had left it in the car, and he'd just now noticed that the pages seemed to be curled and left open at a particular spot.
Griffin picked up the newspaper and flipped pages. It fell open to the middle, where someone had clearly been reading.
The two-page splash was full of pictures of him. Him with Maylee, him with that blasted Saxe-Gallia princess.
Lord Verdi sows some wild oats with one of his American mistresses.
Dried tear-stains rumpled the paper, and Griffin suddenly knew why his assistant had abandoned him.
Chapter Twelve
The flight back to New York was interminably long. Griffin spent most of it on phone calls. First were the cancellations of the rest of his Bellissime appointments. He was scheduled to stay in the country for at least another week, and had to make his excuses to everyone, most of all his mother. Then there were calls to Kip to arrange his travel home, a car to pick him up, and a million other things that seemed to pile up everywhere he turned.
How had Maylee managed to keep it all straight? He found her Post-it notes stuck to his laptop, and grew frustrated all over again.