Page 20 of Bringing Chelsea Home

Elaine’s eyes widened as she came to lay her mask and foil on a chair. “Wow,” she said. “I’d forgotten that Thanksgiving is next weekend.”

“And so it is,” Patrick agreed, pouring coffee into an oversized mug stamped with a large P. “I’m off to the shower.”

He loped away and Griff cocked his head. “This is one for the books,” he said. “No one will ever believe Patrick Danton spoke to anyone, much less worked out without his first cup of morning coffee.”

She grinned, and Griff’s heart did a series of handsprings. Damn. He really did feel like a teenager. This was not good. Not good at all.

“Actually, he made a small cup from that one-cup machine in the gym,” she explained, coming forward to pour her own cup. “Saying having none would put him off this game.” Her eye-pleasing walk was smooth and graceful, and Griff wondered why she wasn’t married.

“Did he?” he managed to ask casually.

“Yeah,” she said. “We did a zoom session with my fencing coach, and he really put us through our paces. Does Patrick always drink coffee in the shower?”

“I have no idea,” Griff admitted. “Let’s go to the office. I need to show you the website I sent to Silas Clark, the manager atSapphire’sso when we go there later today, he’ll have had time to check us out.”

In the office, they put their phones on the desk and sat side by side and Griff fired up the computer. The bright-red intertwined letters A and E filled the screen and beneath ran the caption,Abernathy Enterprises-For All Your Adult Entertainment Needs.The next screen held photos of Griff and three older men, all looking amazingly like Griff.

“Who are those guys?” she asked. “Are they your family?”

“It’s me,” Griff told her. “Those are computer generated images of what I’d look like if I were twenty or so years older, but they’re supposed to be my father and uncles. I’ve created a company history for that family that Clark won’t be able to disprove. Anyone of the links he goes to will verify Abernathy Enterprises authenticity.”

“It reminds me of that movie,The Sting,”Elaine suggested. “Everyone pretending to be someone else to catch Robert Shaw.”

“I love a woman who knows her movies,” Griff praised.

His phone buzzed and Griff looked at the screen. “It’s a BP member downstairs with our stuff. You stay here while I go get it.”

She propped her elbow on the desk and put her chin in her hand to regard him. “Stuff?” she repeated.

“Oh, yeah, Ms. Prescott. Really, really, nice stuff. We need to convince the bad guys we are who we say we are. But you’ll need to shower before you try on ‘the stuff’”.

Curiosity glittered in her eyes. “I was going to shower anyway, but what on earth have you done?”

Grateful her question gave him an excuse to touch her, Griff stood and pulled her to her feet. “Prepare to be amazed, Ms. Prescott. Prepare to be amazed.”

A short timelater

“Do we look like couple of people who’d hire underage hookers and strippers?” Elaine stared at their reflections in the oversize cheval mirror in one of the empty bedrooms. “Shouldn’t we look more flamboyant?”

“We want the owners ofSapphire’sto take us seriously,” Griff said, stroking his extremely believable fake moustache. “The adult entertainment industry-especially Abernathy Enterprises as its history at the website will verify–is a billion–dollar business, so we want to look like very wealthy professional and not like sleazebags.”

“But aren’t people who like that kind of thing sleazebags?” Elaine asked, adjusting her black wig. Between it and the sparkly dress she wore, she looked a bit like Marisa Tomei from the courtroom scene inMy Cousin Vinny,except the dress hit the knee. Griff had also supplied a black silky tunic. Her stiletto heels finished the look. And like her, Griff hid his hair under a short, black wig.

“High-paying sleazebags,” Griff replied. “In these threads, they’re going to know we have the money to get anything we want.”

Elaine eyed his black three-piece-Armani? Gucci? Tom Ford? suit and back at her own dress. “Where did you get all this

‘stuff’?”

“The suit is mine, but I have contacts all over the city,” he told her. “I thought the dress would suit you. Having one sister who designs for a major fashion house and another who does the same for a couple of movie studios comes in handy when it comes to picking out women’s clothing. And with your hair, you need a wig. Yours would make you too memorable.”

“I don’t think I’ve thanked you.” The words spilled out before Elaine could stop them.

He turned so that they were facing each other, his gaze questioning. “For what?”

“For helping me,” she said simply. “And for saving my life yesterday.”

“Hey, that’s why I’m here.” He flashed a cocky smile. “You hired me, remember?”

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