Prosecco & Paparazzi (The Passport Series Book 1) (2 page)

Through misdirection, exaggeration, and name-dropping, I somehow managed to bungle my way into obtaining the phone number for Des Bannerman’s personal assistant. Feeling very excited, I could see the finish line when my call was put through to her.

Taylor, who had been pacing the carpet while I bluffed my way through the maze, motioned for me to hang up. I turned my back on her so that her panic wouldn’t escalate the fear I already felt. Just as I was about to give up, a very squeaky, high-pitched voice answered the telephone. “Ms. Smith answering for Mr. Bannerman.”

My thoughts scattered, and the clarity I’d had earlier evaporated. As I felt all the things I wanted to say to him bubble up inside me, I panicked. “Ms. Taylor Clarkson on the line, one minute please.”

I thrust the phone at Taylor and hoped with all my heart that she would take mercy on me. “What do you want me to say?” she hissed, her hand covering the phone.

My brain whirred, wondering what the best option might be. “Mention the party tonight. Let her know there’s a private showing of
The Block
by Romare Bearden at the Met beforehand. Faith Clarkson will send a car. Go!”

Speaking quickly into the phone, Taylor calmly stated, “This is Taylor Clarkson of Faith Clarkson International speaking…”

When I first met Taylor, I couldn’t imagine that we’d have anything in common. First of all, she came from a very wealthy family, each generation having added to the coffers already overflowing with gold. Really successful people—you know the sort, the kind that “summer in the Hamptons.” She always wore designer clothes and had the latest trendy accessories mixed in with family heirlooms. Second, and most importantly, she was the daughter of the owner of the PR company that I worked for, Faith Clarkson International.

We became roommates out of necessity. We met my first day on the job. She was just ahead of me in line, waiting to order a bagel and Diet Coke from a street vendor. She told me that, after grad school, she had been determined to stand on her own two feet and not use the family name as a stepping-stone. She took my ribbing over her taking a job at the family’s business in stride. “Well, I’m not stupid,” she’d said with a smile.

She’d found a great apartment but couldn’t afford it on her salary. I’d immediately asked what the rent was and, later that day, gave her my half of the deposit. That was five years ago. We were still roommates but more due to friendship than finances…

“…Fabulous! We’ll send a car to drive Mr. Bannerman to the private showing at the Metropolitan and then escort him to the London NYC opening we’re hosting for Gordon Ramsey.” There was a brief pause where she nodded her head. In her sycophant professional voice, she ended the conversation, “I’ll send an email with the details. Thank you so much!”

While she dazzled Ms. Smith with the details, all I could think was,
Taylor was brilliant! Better than brilliant
. She’d changed the situation from one where I’d possibly be arrested and lose my job into a coup for the company, instead. I doubted that even Carl Lewis was that fast on his feet.

Before my eyes, the cordless phone landed in its cradle, and Taylor collapsed on a straight-back chair in a gooey heap. Taking advantage of her vulnerable state, I begged for the details. “What did Ms. Smith say? Is he going to be there?”

“Charlotte, do you have any idea what just happened? I just lied to Des Bannerman’s secretary so that
you
can meet him in front of some obscure painting that no one has ever heard of! My mother is going to fire you and disown me. And may I ask how exactly we’re going to set up a private viewing for later today without her finding out?”

I changed tactics quickly. “First of all, you were fabulous! Don’t worry about the rest, I’ll handle it. What I need to know is, is he going to meet me at the Met or not?”

“I’m emailing her the specifics. She said that she’d ask him once he’s available. She’ll call me this afternoon at some point. You’re just going to have to wait. I really can’t believe what I just did.” Taylor’s voice cycled through a wide range of emotions, while her French-tipped fingers twiddled with her Christian Louboutin ankle strap.

Taking me by the hand, she dragged me to the sofa. “Look, Charlotte, this could either be the best thing for both of us or the worst. You cannot mess this up! If we do this right, you just might not go to prison, and I might be able to find a way to convince my mother that I’m more than her daughter.”

I barely listened to her. My real focus was on the relatively immediate possibility that I might move out from under the cloud I’d been living under since I’d met Des Bannerman last winter.

Taylor must have seen my eyes glaze over, because, the next thing I knew, she demanded, “Have you heard a word I’ve said?”

“Sort of.”

“Okay, it’s 9:30. We have to figure out what you’re going to say and what you’re
not
going to say,” she said anxiously. The crease between her eyebrows marred her otherwise flawless skin.

“Yes, but who’s going to help you?”

Craziness, or the perception of it, feels contagious. A person innocently gets in a pickle and then, forever after, when something odd happens, people get a look in their eyes that tells you they’re wondering
Is there any truth to that rumor?

Unfortunately for me, photos and misunderstood quotes were what had given me trouble.

***

Finally making it to work, I found myself sitting in my office, trying to look busy, which I was, if you considered reading
Page Six
articles about Des Bannerman to be a professional task.

There were some photos of him at various New York City events. The camera loved his blue-eyes, dimpled chin, and thick brown hair. I stared at his pictures, trying to find flaws. To my regret, there weren’t any faults to be found, from his square jaw to his sculpted body. One didn’t have to look hard to see the muscle beneath his form-fitting garments. Fortunately, the women in the photos whom he towered over didn’t resemble his ex-girlfriend, Brynn Roberts, which left me hopeful. While I couldn’t say that it was her who had convinced Des to enlist the help of his lawyers, I was completely convinced that she hadn’t taken a liking to me.

My office door whipped open, and Taylor rushed in. I’d never seen her look so stressed, so I powered down my computer screen. If she saw what I’d been reading, she’d have gone ballistic.

“Have you been writing down what you’re going to say to him? Did you include all the things we talked about earlier?” she asked at the same time as I asked, “Has Ms. Smith called?”

“No,” we answered simultaneously. We both sighed.

On our way to work, Taylor had given me a list of topics that she wanted me to discuss with Des, primarily the many services Faith Clarkson International could provide. I led her to believe that I was more than willing to give the business pitch. However, what Taylor had yet to fully understand was that Des and I were way past idle conversations about a business relationship. We had a personal relationship of sorts, and he’d be even more confused if I tried to pull off some sort of pitch.

Initially, she’d wanted to meet with him; I was to casually join them later. Eventually, I’d managed to convince her that I should meet with Des on my own. All it took was mentioning that she could be charged for assisting me in violating the restraining order. After all, the phone call did come from our apartment, and if it came down to it, she could always claim innocence. She’d come to the conclusion that it would be best for me to meet him alone.

“Taylor, have faith. I know that it’s best to be as professional as possible,” I said, my voice ringing with optimism.

Taylor looked anxious. “I know. I’m just worried.”

While scrounging through my desk drawer for a much-needed breath mint, I avoided lying. “I know things look bad. It will all work out. Gemma promised.”

Taylor pulled my office door open and said, as she left, “For all our sakes, I hope so.”

The afternoon drifted by slowly. Between reviewing the latest financials for the company and the lack of a return call from Ms. Smith, my stomach churned.

Just as I was becoming disgusted with myself, my telephone rang. As I quickly snatched up the phone before my assistant could answer, I managed to chip a nail. “Damn! Hello?”

Taylor, with a voice full of trepidation, told me that our plan was a go. I would meet Des Bannerman in front of the painting
The Block
just as the museum closed.

It was 4:45. I quickly checked the website and found out that the Metropolitan Museum of Fine Art closed at 9:00 on Fridays. I had four hours.

With a plan of action in place, I managed to settle down and focus on the work. After everything Taylor had done for me today, I didn’t want to let her down. The easiest way to thank her was to make us both look good and not give Faith Clarkson ammunition. It was as I climbed into the back of the black town car, hired by Faith Clarkson International to take me to the museum, that I thought,
How did it come to this?

SITTING IN BLEATING TRAFFIC
, I stared out the window and thought about my current situation. Starting at the very beginning. All the way back to when I met the group of women who now hovered at my epicenter and who were knee-deep in my dilemma…

***

Marian, Hillary, Kathleen, Tiziana and I had met at Oxford. We were all at varying points on the same path, graduate students at the Said Business School.

I met Kathleen first. Her blonde hair glistened in the late summer sun as she taped posters on a lamppost for a pub crawl for American students studying abroad. It wasn’t her I noticed so much as all the guys ogling her wiggling backside as she smoothed down the tape. I pushed through the crowd of surging testosterone and introduced myself. Excited to meet a fellow American, I invited her to go out for a drink at the nearest pub. With perhaps a few too many beers in us, we found ourselves standing in the restroom. While repairing our makeup in front of the mirror, I noticed that we were polar opposites. She was tall, lithe, and blonde, while I was (quite) short, curvy, and dark—my mother’s Mediterranean ancestors mingled throughout my features, while Kathleen looked like a Viking. Our only common feature, besides being female, was that we both had ridiculously long hair.

Three days later, at the pub The Bear, we met Marian. She was there spying on a groom at the behest of her good friend, the bride. Her job: to make sure he didn’t get out of line.

We were young, easily influenced, and really drunk. We had been in and out of four pubs in about two hours. While ordering a round of drinks, we heard chanting, “Stripper! Stripper!” The next thing I knew, Kathleen’s elbow collided with my kidney as she pointed at Tiziana.

Tiziana! Every woman’s nemesis. Think of Sophia Loren wearing a man’s white dress shirt with a long string of pearls and a pair of flashy stilettos. To be fair, Tiziana appeared shocked when she realized the stripper comments were directed at her. You’d think a girl who oozed that much sexuality and dressed that skimpily would get used to being the object of every male’s fantasies. She looked more than a little nervous when a couple of guys drinking with the groom became a little too friendly and suggested Tiziana show the soon-to-be-married man a little mercy.

Marian reminded me of a bull when she was angry: snorting nose, steam out of the ears, crazy eyes. A smart person would back away, slowly. So, when Marian dragged Tiziana outside before anything could happen, we were worried for Tiziana. None of us knew her, but still, I didn’t think she’d done anything worthy of dismemberment. When Kathleen and I followed them out to where they stood on the narrow sidewalk, Marian was swearing away at Tiziana, and Tiziana was shouting back in Italian.

Just when things had calmed down a bit, a very regal-looking woman opened the pub door and took in the situation. “Oh! What luck. I found your… purse?” She handed Tiziana a bedazzled black clutch.

Why we all burst into laughter, I wasn’t quite sure. I didn’t even know if we were laughing together or at one another. After we controlled our laughing, Hillary, the regal one who had smirked a bit, invited us to go back in for a glass of wine.

Hillary couldn’t apologize fast enough. “The groom’s my brother! I’m here to make sure he doesn’t overdo it. Sorry his friends are such cretins…”

***

We’d been close friends ever since.

Looking out the car window, I saw that we’d made very little progress. Glancing at my watch, I saw that there was plenty of time, Taylor having insisted that I leave an hour ahead of time. There were still forty-five minutes until I was set to meet with Des Bannerman.

My thoughts drifted back to a little less than a year ago…

***

Over the winter holidays, we met up to do a little skiing in Chamonix, France, which is a cluster of villages in the French Alps that caters to the famous and very wealthy. Rumors and sightings of famous people floated through the village night and day.

Kathleen, who was living in France, was infatuated with all things royal. For her, the entire vacation was deemed “perfect, simply perfect” when we saw the entourage of Monaco. She hadn’t admitted it, but I think she spent many a pleasurable moment dreaming of princes, white horses, and what Grace Kelly’s jewelry collection might be like.

We even saw the back of Heidi Klum’s head and a few other celebs whose identities were less than certain—one doesn’t want to claim to have seen Justin Timberlake if it was really the bartender at the local discotheque.

Living in New York City and working for a PR firm had jaded me as regards celebrity. Our firm managed the publicity for many accomplished public figures.

However, my jaw hit the glacier when we heard Des Bannerman was in town. When that news reached our group’s ears, all heads swiveled in my direction. I felt my knees go weak and my heart race. I had openly adored and gushed about Des Bannerman for years. Juvenile, for sure. But still, I had fantasized about being the object of his desire since I first laid eyes on him. We had both attended an event at Oxford, where he had initially gone to school before finding great fame in romantic comedies. But, as did all famous people (I assumed), he vaguely made eye contact with me, smiled, and then moved on.