Page 6 of The Billionaire's Bad News Baby

CHAPTER 3

KAYLA

“Tony, Anthony, this is ridiculous. Why are you just telling me this now?”

Kayla was pacing up and down the uneven cobbles of some random Italian side street, jet-lagged, hot and overwhelmed. She had rushed onto a plane, only to be grounded for three hours while some sort of safety check took place on the runway, then traveled in the air for over nine hours, before landing and having to find a taxi that was willing to drive her another three hours to the coastline from the airport. Suffice it to say, she was not in the mood to find out how complicated delivering these papers was going to be when she’d barely made it here with her sanity in check.

“I was… misinformed,” Tony said through the other end of the line, sounding sleep-deprived since it was still the middle of the night in New York. Kayla really didn’t care. In fact, he deserved a week of sleepless nights for the absolute mess he’d thrown her into.

“Your client sounds like an idiot,” she said, by this point in her career able to read between the lines of lawyer-speak very well indeed.

“I won’t comment either way.”

Kayla snorted. “The guy chokes on an olive, wants to sue someone over it, and fails to mention that the defendant doesn’t live in the town he specified but lives on his own secluded private island? Tony, come on, I thought you liked me.”

Tony, still sleepy but unable to resist, let out a small chuckle, and Kayla felt herself grinning along despite herself. It was one of the only other redeeming qualities of this job; meeting with all these uptight, grandiose lawyers and pushing their buttons, leaving them bewildered. Tony was one of the few over the years who’d actually had a sense of humor and played along with her nonsense. Which was great and all, but now having to pivot and change plans so drastically was another reminder of why she wanted to get out of this whole career path.

“I’m sorry,” Tony said, sounding as genuine as he ever did. “But you’re the best at getting slippery defendants to take their papers. That’s why I always turn to you. You’ve got this.”

“Yeah, well, flattery’s great, thanks, but I’m racking my brain about how I’m supposed to get onto a private island when every boat around here is booked out because it’s last minute during the tourist season, Tony.”

“You never learned how to swim?”

“You want these papers getting wet? I’ll swim the distance, don’t worry, I was on the swim team, but this guy will be getting handed a fistful of paper pulp at the end of it.”

“Good point.” Tony sighed as if he’d been serious about swimming the several miles across to the island in the distance. Which maybe he was. Hanging around obscenely rich people all the time meant that he wasn’t always in touch with reality. Which was fair because if someone offered her the right amount of money, Kayla wouldn’t hesitate to start breast-stroking her way to the island. At this point, it might be her best option.

“Just do your best,” Tony said. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out. And if not, then there’s no shame in admitting defeat.”

Kayla sighed through her nose. “I know what you’re doing,” she said tartly.

“What?”

“You know I don’t like bailing on a challenge.”

“Who? You? I’d never noticed.”

“Go back to sleep,” Kayla said, hanging up and making her way out of the side street and back down to the docks for the third time that morning.

She hadn’t been able to enjoy much of Italy since she’d landed. The law firm had paid for her accommodation, some tiny little hotel along the coast in the town where the defendant was supposed to be hiding out. It was a miracle that they’d even found her a room, considering how packed the area was with vacationers and tourists. She’d figured great, go find him, serve him his papers, then she could enjoy the rest of her very brief amount of time here exploring and trying to soak it all in. Then the client had emailed extra information to Tony, saying that the defendant wasn’t just rich, he was filthy rich, and he’d be hiding out on his private island that could only be accessed via boat or helicopter. Neither of which Kayla had access to because, and wasn’t this just her luck, it was some sort of tourist destination here most of the year, and right now, there was a festival or something going on. Everything was booked out in advance and when she’d tried calling any of the boating companies in her broken Italian most of them had laughed at her and the others had hung up.

A plan, that was all she needed. Once she had a plan, following it through would be the easy part. As much as Kayla hated to admit it, Tony knew exactly how to push her buttons so that she’d get a job done. She loathed losing on any sort of challenge.

This part of the coastline didn’t have much of a beach; it was a stone boulevard packed with market stalls and tourists, both domestic and international, with piers, jetties and anchored boats crammed into every available space of water. She’d asked the water taxis and charter companies to take her out to the island and they’d all refused, but she hadn’t asked any of the fishermen hanging around here. That was definitely an option. But first…

She stopped at a little market stall selling fruit, manned by a small boy who looked up from his games console at Kayla with thinly veiled disinterest as she approached with a friendly smile.

“Could I have that cardboard box?” she asked, stringing her Italian together as best as she could and pointing to what was clearly the garbage pile. The boy looked over his shoulder, then back at her, confused by the weird American woman asking for the trash.

“The box? Please?” she asked again and offered him a five-euro note for good measure. At that he shrugged, took the note and handed her the box. After further negotiation and another five euros, Kayla was able to hide the legal papers in the too-large box and tape it shut using the masking tape she’d spotted behind the kid as well.

Okay, so she could pass as needing to deliver something to the island, something urgent, something in a large cardboard box that definitely wasn’t legal papers. If she threw on her ditzy, damsel persona, that would probably do the trick. The defendant, Elio was his name, would take the box to get rid of her and her job would be done. Then she could enjoy the rest of the evening, wandering around and eating her weight in pasta and gelato.

Kayla scanned the boats, looking for the least threatening fisherman who wasn’t actively busy with something. There was one guy, loading nets on and off his boat with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth and still somehow whistling a tune at the same time.

That negotiation took a lot more than just five euros to secure. Some random woman who was so painfully, obviously a tourist wanting a ride out to some private island to deliver an unmarked box hadn’t seemed to bother him, but he kept pointing to dark clouds on the horizon, cursing the wind rolling in and demanding a bigger bribe if he was going to take her out with that to worry about.

Eventually, they came to an agreement, with Kayla assuring the man she would be in and out in no time, and her wallet was significantly lighter for it. Tony would wire her more money via the law firm. He could write off a boat ride off the coast of Italy as some weird tax expense, she was sure. But still. Feeling swindled but with no other options, Kayla boarded the vessel and held on tight. Thank God she didn’t get seasick because this guy seemed to want to get out to the island in record time. That was fine by her.

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