Page 44 of My Charming Rival (Stars In Their Eyes 1)
“They’re renting a tent.”
“Smart plan.”
“And James also has a helicopter for security in the sky. To watch over and make sure everything is safe. So even though you’re going to be on the guest list and James told me to bring a date, we have to be incredibly careful to keep you under the radar. I don’t want you to get caught, and I don’t want to screw over James, either. My thinking is we need a fake name for you and a fake ID. We don’t want anything traced back to you or me or him when the pictures leak out. Enough people know you’re a shooter. This way, neither James nor the wedding planners would be able to put two and two together that the shots came from you.”
Her eyes met mine. For one of the first times, she seemed nervous, worried even. “You’re not going to get in trouble for this, are you? I don’t want your uncle to get hurt, either.”
Her concern was sweet, and worked its way around my heart. “Don’t worry. You’re good at your job. I’ve been watching you,” I said with a wink, and she rolled her eyes.
“Seriously, though?”
“I’m serious. Look, you know how this goes. We can do everything we can to keep the wedding private, but someone is going to get a shot somehow. I know I’m taking a risk, but I’d just as soon it be you who gets the inevitable shot, so let’s make sure of that.”
“You’re risking a lot to get me in there,” she said softly.
I didn’t say anything at first. Just kept my eyes on her. “I know.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“Hey, as long as you are as sneaky as I know you can be, the picture won’t be traced to you or James or me. It will just seem like it came from some random guest. Hence why we need to make sure there is no Jess Leighton at the wedding.”
She swiped her hand through the air as if she were wiping away her identity. “Jess Leighton won’t exist on Saturday.”
“You can get a fake ID, then?” I asked, and I liked that Jess and I were a team now. We both needed each other. We’d come to a truce, and we each could help the other.
“I can get a fake ID, but my fake name is Fred. Is that going to be a problem?” she asked in mock seriousness.
“Maybe a little. Any chance you could be a Fredericka?” I suggested.
“I can totally pass for a Fredericka,” she said in some sort of random indistinct accent.
I laughed. “What the hell kind of attempt at an accent was that?”
She shrugged sheepishly. “Italian?”
I placed a hand on her shoulder, gripping her lightly and shaking my head. “No, that was not an Italian accent whatsoever,” I said to her in Italian, and she furrowed her brow. “But you are so fucking hot even when you try to put on a ridiculous accent that I still want to fuck you. Especially since you look even sexier with that red wig on.”
She tilted her head curiously, her fake hair moving perfectly in sync with her face. “You speak Italian, too?”
I nodded. “I do.”
“What did you just say?”
“That I’m glad you’re not mad at me anymore.”
“Who said I’m not mad at you?” she asked, shooting me a narrow stare.
“You’re here with me and we’re plotting to rappel Espionage Style into a wedding this weekend,” I said, naming the famous spy movie franchise. “I’m giving you something you need and you’re giving me something I need.”
She sliced a hand through the air. “And that’s all.”
I grabbed her hand, and kissed her palm. Cheesy, I know. I wasn’t above a cheesy move. “I’m sorry,” I said, again in Italian.
“How do you know so many languages?”
“My parents know Spanish. They both studied it in school. They spoke it at home so we could know another language early on. I was good at it. Picked it up quickly. Matthew knows it, too, so we all talked to each other in Spanish. When I was in secondary school, I spent a summer in Italy and learned Italian.”
“You picked it up in one summer?”
I nodded, proud of my accomplishments in this area. “You know how some people are crazy good at math? They just know how to do complex math from an early age or play piano really well from when they were younger?”
“Yes.”
“I’m like that with languages. Maybe it makes me a freak. But it’s just something I can do. I started teaching myself Asian languages when I was a teenager and I refined that here in college.”
“That’s amazing,” she said, shaking her head. “I guess you’re more than just the Hot British Guy.”
I stroked my chin. “Tell me more about this Hot British Guy.”
She reached into her back pocket for her cell phone, swiped her thumb across the screen, and showed me a text message from me. Labeled HBG.
