The Billionaire Bargain #3(12)
I rolled my eyes and then ducked behind a dumpster as Portia yet again whirled to survey the area around her. Yeah, not shady at all, Portia. Why don’t you just rent a giant billboard saying ‘I AM TOTALLY UP TO SOMETHING RIGHT NOW.’ You could add on blinking neon lights and it’d still be more subtle than the act she was putting on.
“What, reference too dated?” Kate asked from behind me. “Fine, I’ll be Watson and you’ll be Holmes. Just don’t go getting addicted to cocaine; I think any more excitement in my life and I’ll need to become a nun and enter a life of silent contemplation. Also, there is a banana peel in my hair right now and it is totally your fault.”
“Banana peels are in this season,” I said absentmindedly, watching Portia glance up and down the street. “Also, you do know that Sherlock Holmes is older than Cagney and Lacey, right? He is, like, literally the oldest imaginary detective.”
“Girl, Sherlock Holmes was a cheap ripoff of Edgar Allan Poe’s Auguste Dupin,” Kate said. “Just because you have this new ‘trailing suspects’ hobby that you did not tell me about, do not even try to outmatch me in the fictional detective department. Think of it as a professional courtesy, like how I don’t try to argue with you that James Bond is better than John Steed.”
“That’s not even debatable,” I said, turning around for just a second to argue this incredibly important point. “Can Bond pull off a bowler? No? End of discussion.”
“Yeah, but Bond had all the gadgets,” Kate said. “Like, he totally would have had a sweet invisible car we could have tailed Portia in, or cameras in our hairclips so we could still have this discussion and you wouldn’t miss Portia going into Rama like she is just now.”
“Wait, what?” I whirled back around. Shit, she was right.
I caught just a glimpse of the hem of Portia’s dress as she swept inside the restaurant on the arm of some older Wall-Street-looking guy. He was followed by a whole wolf pack of Wall-Street-looking guys, you know the kind I mean, well-made suits in classic cuts and conservative blacks, greys, and navy blues, like the slightest unorthodox angle or splash of bright pink might bring the Conformity Police down on them with batons and tear gas.
“Okay, yeah, the fishiness index just went off the charts. I’m going in.”
I rose, and Kate rose with me.
“Kate, no. You don’t need to come in with me and risk your job any further.”
“So you dragged me out to, what, watch the building to make sure it doesn’t walk away?” Kate said with a raised eyebrow. She made her eyes large and pleading. “Come on, you can’t just ditch me now after giving me all that lead-up!”
“Well, first of all, I’m not even sure I can get in without Grant here,” I said, tapping my foot and darting nervous looks at the front door of Rama. The longer I stayed out here, the more likely the employees would notice me lurking behind a dumpster, and that was definitely not conducive to the image of a well-off young lady who could pay for an upscale Thai dinner. Also, what if this was a feint, and Portia was sneaking out the back this very minute? “Second of all, the more of us there are, the more likely she’ll see us the second we walk through that door.”
“Didn’t you tell me last time that everybody was watching the front door?” Kate pointed out. “Places like this, they treat people-watching like a competitive sport. And if you’re right about Portia and she’s on edge, she’s definitely going to see you even if you go alone.”
I gritted my teeth, and then sighed. “You have a point.”
“I always have a point,” Kate said. “That’s why you keep me around, despite my devastatingly distracting beauty. So what do we do now, Miss Marple?”
“Miss Marple didn’t trail people, Kate, she just sat still and gossiped and knit and listened to what people said and drew conclusions from her rich knowledge of the human psyche,” I said, unable to let this pass from a proclaimed expert on fictional detectives, despite the current high stakes in our real life detecting. “God, it’s like we never had seventeen sleepovers where I introduced you to the staples of classic British television.”
“Don’t remind me; I talked in a British accent for six weeks. My parents were thinking about having me committed. So, Insert-Lady-Detective-And-Or-Spy-Name-of-Choice here—”
“Peggy Carter.”
“So, Peggy Carter, what’s our next step?”
I thought for a second, and then I felt a wicked grin bloom on my face as I came across the perfect idea.
“We get sneaky.”
I fished my cell phone out of my purse and searched for the restaurant number. Grant had gone ahead and put it in after a few days into us living together, “so you aren’t perpetually asking me what it is when you get your inevitable cravings for mango sorbet.” I stifled the bittersweet pang that rose in my heart when I remembered that moment, remembered the softness in his eyes undercutting the dryness of his words.
“Rama front desk, how may I help you?” The brisk business-like voice of the receptionist called me back to reality.
I shot a grin at Kate and, twirling a lock of hair around my finger, put on my very best Valley Girl voice. “Um, hi, this is Kimberly? I’m the assistant to, like, Portia Smith? And oh my God this is totally random but she really really wanted to know when her South African diamond shipment came in here at the office? And I’m totally supposed to deliver the shipping manifest to your restaurant and she’ll totally kill me if I don’t get it there on time?”