Filed to story: Watch Out, I’m The Lady Boss (Eleanor & Sebastian) Book PDF Free
On the day of departure, I was supposed to meet Yvaine at nine.
I showed up half an hour late, walking like my joints had been replaced with chewed gum.
It took five hours to get to Elmridge.
We were using Yvaine’s car and agreed to split the drive.
She volunteered to take the first half, but not until she’d finished laughing at my… what she called my “post -coital face,”
I didn’t even know that was a thing.
“Sure it is,” she said.
“Droopy eyelids, swollen lips, legs like baby Bambi’s, and that weird, blissed-out smile,”
“I’m just excited about the trip,” I said.
“Sure you are.”
Her good mood lasted until we reached The PanContinental.
A porter was waiting at the front door, but so was Cassian Langford.
“You told him?” Yvaine turned towards me, suspicious.
“No.” But I told Sebastian about the trip, and he might have blabbed to Cassian because, for reasons I couldn’t understand, he still considered the man a friend.
To make up for my indiscretion, I volunteered to get rid of Cassian for her.
Yvaine shook her head.
“Never mind. Just ignore him.”
And she did.
Cassian didn’t get within six feet of Yvaine, who was flanked by a porter on one side and me on the other.
The porter was stocky, and I knew how to box.
***
Yvaine knocked before my alarm even buzzed.
She’d already pulled her hair into a ponytail and had a map open on her phone.
“We’ve got to head out early if we want clean shots and no Cassian,” she said, shoving the screen in front of.me.
It showed the trailhead for Skyveil and a long line of starred pins.
“We stop here for photos,” she said, tapping the first pin.
“Then here for the view. By noon we hit the summit.”
“Copy that.”
We hit the hotel buffet before eight.
I’d just refilled my plate when I heard the screech of a chair behind me.
Yvaine jerked forward, her stomach thudding into the table’s edge.
I turned around.
Some grubby little brat had shoulder-checked Yvaine from behind.
He was five or six, maybe, probably hopped up on syrup.
Two adults who might be his parents sat one table over.
Neither looked up nor appeared to care.
The kid kicked Yvaine’s chair, laughed, then reached for her bag on the seat beside her.
I circled around, stepped up to the adults” table.
“Mind watching your kid?”
The woman glanced up.
“Yeah, sure.”
Then she went right back to her plate.
The kicking didn’t stop.
I raised my voice.
“Your son’s been booting my friend’s chair for five minutes and just tried to tear her bag apart. You’re really not going to say anything?”
Yvaine yanked her bag off the chair, held up the flap.
The clasp was hanging loose.
She scowled.
“This was custom. He nearly snapped it in half.”
The man gave the bag a single, bored glance.
“It’s just a bag. You want us to pay for that?”
Yvaine snorted.
“That’s not the point. Maybe teach him to keep his hands off other people’s things. And an apology wouldn’t kill you.”
“1
“He’s just a kid. Why are you going after a kid? I’m a VIP here. You’d think my son has the right to sit in a restaurant. If you don’t like it, go sit somewhere else.”
I frowned.
Where was the logic in that?
Because he was a VIP, his kid could get away with anything?
“He’s a kid. Fine. But you’re not. Apologize,” I said.
“And your kid disrupted our table, not the other way around. Why should we move?”
The guy’s voice shot up.
“You’re disrupting my meal now! Raising your voice and bothering everyone-“
I glanced around.
The restaurant was almost empty.
His wife piped up.
“You’re seriously picking on a five-year-old? Pathetic.”
The kid stuck his tongue out at us.
Yvaine reached into her bag and froze.
“Where the hell is it? I swear I packed it.”
“What’s missing?” I asked.
“My headphones. The limited-edition Finnish pair Emmett got me. I babied those. I packed them this morning myself.”
“You’re sure they were in there?”
“One hundred percent.”
I stared at the bag, then at the kid.
We both turned to the parents.
Yvaine spoke first.
“We’re looking for a pair of headphones. Just checking if your son might have taken them by accident.”
The mother scoffed.
“Earphones? What are they worth, ive dollars? You that desperate?”
Yvaine’s voice went cold.
“They’re a discontinued Finnish designer release. Twelve grand retail. Twenty now, if you can find one.”
The couple looked at each other, then burst out laughing The man swept his eyes over our trainers, Yvaine’s oversized hoodie, my hiking gear.
“You two probably saved all year for this buffet lunch,” he said, sneering.
“Now you’re trying to pull some scam over a fake designer headset? Real classy.”
The manager finally wandered over, face stiff.
His name tag said Bruce Zed.
I faced him.
“My friend’s property is missing. We want to check the CCTV.”