Page 39 of My Charming Rival (Stars In Their Eyes 1)
“Seems J.P. keeps sending us on the same stakeouts. Riley, this time.”
I narrowed my eyes and shook my head. “Wrong answer,” I hissed.
His eyes widened, and he gulped. “What do you mean?”
“I wasn’t actually here on a Riley stakeout. I was here for another reason. J.P. didn’t send me on this assignment. I sent myself, based on a tip I got myself. Ergo, you weren’t sent here by J.P. Ergo, you’re following me.”
“Or I’m working for another agency now?” he offered up meekly.
I shook my head. “What’s your story? What’s your real story? Because you’re not really a paparazzo.”
17
William
I could have spun a new lie. I could have concocted some sort of fable, pretended I didn’t see her, or stalked off to my bike.
But she’d busted me, and it was time to man up.
Her arms were crossed and I swore I could see smoke pouring forth from her nostrils. She was going to walk away when she heard. But she deserved the truth. She didn’t deserve, though, to have everyone nearby witness our conversation. A throng of onlookers across the street watched Jess. Some even had their cell phones poised, ready to capture her.
“Can we go somewhere and talk?” I said quietly.
She looked around, glancing up and down the sidewalk. “The street is fine with me.”
“Right, and me, too. But you still have crowds of people checking you out.” I pointed to the other side of the street as surreptitiously as I could. She stole a look. “You’re the girl who saved the star’s dog.”
She huffed, grabbed me by the camera strap, and dragged me around the corner to a quieter block, then pulled me into a long entryway that led into a store selling polka-dotted dresses for toddlers that would become stained with organic ketchup or fair-trade-harvested chocolate syrup the first day they were worn.
“You’re not a paparazzo,” she repeated. “You didn’t recognize Lolanna, you didn’t go for the shot of the LGO ladies at the salon, you barely even tried to get Riley and Miles’s picture at Venice Beach, and on top of that, I know J.P. didn’t send you here because J.P. didn’t send me here. Who are you?”
I swallowed, then took a deep breath. I didn’t try to curl up my lips or sling a zingy comeback. Instead, I answered her without sarcasm or a smirk. “You’re right. I’m not here on assignment. J.P. told me earlier today he won’t have any more work for me because I only got one shot—Monica. I don’t recognize celebrities, Jess,” I said, and it felt like a confessional, and I was glad I no longer had to lie about my terrible inability to spot famous faces. Telling her I’d lied wasn’t going to win her over, but I still had to come clean. “I’ve been moonlighting for a private detective agency in the hopes of finding a permanent job so I can stay in the States after I graduate.”
Her jaw dropped. “You’re a private detective?”
I shifted my hand back and forth as a seesaw. “Sort of.”
“Sort of? What the hell?”
“I’m doing some work for one. Well, a security firm.”
“And that work involved following me? Me?” She tapped her chest, as if she could make it extra clear precisely who I was hunting.
“I’m not following you, per se.”
“Me per se? What the hell is me per se?”
I scrubbed a hand across my chin, wishing this didn’t sound so clandestine. But there was no true way to finesse saying I was following you but I really dig you too, so can we still go out?
“My Uncle James runs a security firm. He has a private investigation division. I have to go back to England in two months when my student visa expires, unless I can score a job with a company here willing to sponsor me for a work visa, so I’ve been doing everything I can to find work because I’m dying to stay. I’d done a little bit of work here and there for a private investigator in London my first two years at university. I took photos of cheating wives, cheating husbands, suspicious business partners, that sort of thing people hire private detectives for.”
“Hate to break it to you, but I’m not married, not cheating, not in business with anyone, and not doing a single fucking thing wrong,” she said and emphasized her indignance by poking me hard in the sternum.
“Ouch,” I said because it actually hurt.
“Oh, I’m so sorry. Are you wounded?”
“I’ll manage,” I muttered, thinking asking her to be my date this weekend might not pan out. Call me crazy, but I had a wild hunch Jess wasn’t so fond of me right now.
“Who are you working for? Who is your uncle’s client?”
“I can’t tell you everything.”
She raised her hands, giving me a clear brush-off. “Whatever. I’m done. See you later. I have work to do.”
