Mr. Accidental Rival_Jet City Matchmaker Series_Cam

by Gina Robinson

  I took his arm. “Oh, I am. Bring it on.”

  “Good. Watch this.” He picked up the red phone and said something completely banal to someone presumably inside. It must have been in code. Suddenly the booth turned into an elevator. It jolted and plunged below the surface of the street.

  I gasped and grabbed Cam’s arm.

  He pulled me tight and laughed. “It never gets old.”

  “You’ve done this before?”

  He nodded. “The perks of being Lazer’s friend. This is just the beginning.”

  The elevator came to a halt and opened into a polished underground corridor.

  “This is the best part.” He pointed to a series of steel doors. “That way. You need instructions and the code to open them.” He pulled a keycard from his pocket, took my hand, and whispered, “Follow my lead. Let’s go.” He took my hand and took off at a run, pulling me along.

  I was glad he’d warned me to wear tennis shoes.

  I’d imagined many things. I’d been mentally picturing this date all week. I had daydreamed about it on my flight to Portland. In my hotel room. Last night at home. But for all that, even with the hint of adventure thrown in, I had never imagined running hand in hand with Cam as a version of James Bond through a high-tech, gleaming underground corridor. This part of the spy school adventure wasn’t on their website.

  I managed to speak through my laughter and the exertion. “Why are we running?”

  “For the thrill.” Cam stopped abruptly at the door, squeezed my hand, inserted the keycard, and typed a code in. The door swung open. He extended his arm. “Ladies first.”

  “You’re so unfailingly polite, letting me walk into danger first,” I teased.

  He laughed and peeked dramatically around the door.

  “Expecting an enemy spy?” I raised an eyebrow.

  “Hoping for one.”

  I laughed. I was enjoying myself already, and the date had barely begun.

  He scanned the hallway. “All clear.” He sounded and looked adorably disappointed. “Unfortunately, I didn’t ask for one. With Milia, you get what you ask for. Next time.”

  I marveled at the mirrorlike stainless steel walls surrounding us, and the theatrical nature of the tunnel. “I dare any theme park to rival this.”

  “Yeah.” Cam nodded and led me to a second door where we repeated the process. And then a third.

  We finally arrived at the entrance to an ordinary-looking elevator. The doors opened. We stepped in. Cam pushed a button for the lobby. The arrow on the elevator only pointed up.

  The elevator doors opened again at the lobby. Inside, the spy school was lightly perfumed with something musky and sensual. The floors were shiny black tile, accented with the occasional red accent tile. Vases of red flowers of different varieties sat on the reception desk with its gorgeous black and white granite countertop. Oversize planters filled with trees and shrubs carved into intricate and whimsical shapes, such as lipstick cases, stood near the front desk and the groupings of seating and the front door. The ambience was pure fantasy.

  A striking woman in a tight, low-cut red dress, a different woman than last time, greeted us. “Welcome to Lipstick, Mr. Johnson! Miss Williams. I’m Weston. The spymaster is expecting you. This way, please.” She led us through the lobby to a private conference room. “Your agents have arrived.”

  A beautiful woman sat behind a desk. Her face lit up. “Cam! How nice of you to come see me instead of Stryker for once.” She rose to greet us, her eyes twinkling. She hugged Cam.

  “Toria, this is Milia,” Cam said. “She’s the brains behind this operation and the brilliant woman at least partially responsible for my transformation.”

  Milia shook my hand and shook her head at Cam. “He exaggerates.”

  She was, at least, superficially modest. She was a local celebrity of sorts, so of course I knew something about her. The woman was reportedly a business genius. And gorgeous, too. She wore the signature red dress of the spy school. Low-cut and tight. She was model thin. Dark, straight hair in a chignon. High cheekbones. Dark eyes. Pale skin. She looked classically French, but rumor had it that was just an illusion, a disguise that changed with the seasons or at her whim.

  “You’re a lucky woman,” she said. “Cam is one of my favorite men.”

  He grinned, and I got the tiniest bit jealous. I had the feeling Milia made that impression on many women.

  She reached into her desk drawer, pulled out a sealed envelope, and held it out to us. “Your mission, should you choose to accept it—fall in love. Or fall out of love. Make a decision. Make a commitment. Love’s a game, but is it worth playing? Worth dying for?”

  My breath caught. I turned my gaze on Cam. He stuck his hands in his pockets, trying to look casual. If this was a declaration of his love, it was an unusual one, but thrilling. I was already falling headlong in love with him. This did nothing to deter my heart from its course.

  My hand shook as I took the envelope from her. “That’s some mission.”

  “Isn’t it, though? One of my most dangerous yet. In my experience, the heart is easily fooled and susceptible to charm and deception.” Milia smiled. “I like a woman who knows her mind. You’ll make a good secret agent. But be careful, my dear. People aren’t always who they seem. Skepticism is a spy’s greatest asset.”

  “Hey!” Cam laughed. “I thought you were on my side?”

  “Never assume, my lovely darling. Assumptions can kill you, or your blossoming love, all too easily.” She pulled a lipstick box from her desk and handed it past Cam to me. “You’ll need this. From my high-tech gadget department. Every spy needs a secret weapon.”

  I opened the box cautiously. Out slid an ordinary, but obviously expensive, silver lipstick tube. It was surprisingly heavy. I stared at it, momentarily confused as I read the name of the shade and compared the red color dot on the bottom of the tube to my skin tone. “Kiss of Death? Red? Red isn’t a good color on me.”

  Her eyes danced. “Red looks good on everyone. You just have to know how to choose the right shade and wear it with confidence.”

  Curious, I started to pull the lid off the tube.

  “Careful,” she said. “There’s a surprise inside.”

  I gave her a questioning look.

  “It’s also a gun,” she said matter-of-factly. “An exact replica of a 1965 KGB weapon. It only fires a single 4.5mm shot. Use your shot wisely.”

  I almost dropped it.

  She laughed. “It’s not loaded.” She picked a small box of ammo off her desk and handed it to Cam. “I assume you know how to load a gun?”

  “I’ve never loaded a lipstick case before.”

  “You’ll get the hang of it quickly,” she said.

  He took the gun from me and put the ammo in his pocket. “Fortunately, I have a concealed carry permit.”

  “And I have a customer reward card at Sephora,” I whispered to him. “So we’re good.”

  His answering grin melted my heart and curled my toes.

  Milia shook her head. “Aren’t you two adorable?” She smiled. “Off with you now, or you’ll be late for your adventure. You have a full day ahead of you.” Milia hugged Cam, shook my hand warmly, and ushered us out.

  “My car’s outside.” Cam took my hand and led the way.

  “Aren’t we going to read our mission?” I waved it in front of him.

  “That’s mostly a prop. I know what it says.” He opened the car door for me. “You can read it in the car. Our first stop is breakfast at one of my favorite places in the south end.”

  By south end, he meant Enumclaw, which was a little over an hour away from downtown and off the beaten path. We got in the car and headed south out of the city.

  I still had the envelope with our mission in my hand. I waved it in front of him. “Are we really on a mission to fall in love? Should I open this? It may be a prop, but I’m dying of curiosity.”

  “I don’t want you dead right out of the gate,” h
e said. “You tell me. Do you think you we can fall in love with each other?”

  My heart pounded. “Let’s put it this way—I don’t think it’s mission impossible. “

  “Good,” he said. “The mission is still on. Open the envelope.”

  I ripped it open and read it aloud. “‘Food, fast cars—’” I looked at him. “It doesn’t say fast women.”

  He grinned. “You’ll qualify soon enough.”

  “Oh, really?” I laughed and kept reading. “‘Smoking guns, narrow escapes, and candlelight. If you choose to accept this mission, proceed to breakfast.’” I glanced at him. “There are directions. But you said you know where you’re going.”

  “I do. I chose this place with you and your appetite in mind.”

  “I hope they have bacon,” I said. “And plenty of it. I like my meat.”

  Almost exactly an hour later, Cam pulled up in front of a flat-roofed, ordinary, brightly painted box of a building on the edge of town. It stood by itself in a parking lot in the industrial part of town, if you could call it that.

  “Really trying to impress me, I see,” I said as I stepped out of the car.

  “Don’t let the appearance of this place throw you off. The breakfasts are delicious. And huge. I mean gargantuan.

  “Before we go in, we’d better decide whether or not we’re sharing. Whenever there’s a woman as part of the party, they make that assumption for you. If we’re going to break with the norm, we have to get that out of the way and make it clear upfront. What do you say, bruiser? Can you out-eat the men? They feed some pretty big truckers and farmers here.”

  I crossed my arms. “You’ve seen me eat. You really think we need to share? They can out-feed the Brazilian steakhouse?”

  He rubbed his chin. “Hmmm. After serious contemplation—I do.”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  He didn’t flinch. He just kept smiling.

  I sighed. “All right. I have no choice but to trust you. We share and share alike. And if I go home hungry—”

  “Don’t worry about that. I’ll make sure you’re satisfied.” He got a delightfully devilish look on his face, took my hand, and led me inside.

  As in any popular place, there was a line. Which wasn’t surprising, given how full the parking lot was. Naturally, they didn’t take reservations. Not even Cam’s money talked.

  “Don’t worry. They’re exceptionally efficient, in an almost ‘here’s your hat, what’s your hurry’ way. No lingering. No dawdling. Chow down. Move out. We’ll be in and out and on our way soon enough. We have plenty of time.”

  My eyebrow was going to become permanently hitched with skepticism if this continued.

  Cam laughed and slid his arm around me, pulling me close.

  The line stretched along an inner corridor between the outside door and an inner door into the actual café. After the sleekness of the spy school, the décor was something of a shock. Old, cheap, kitschy items lined the walls and sat on rickety display stands. It was charming in its way, like some grandmother’s house, a grandma who was hanging on to the style of her youth in the 1940s, maybe. But Cam was proven right—the line moved quickly. As we got closer to the front, the delicious smells of breakfast wafted out—bacon, sausage, eggs, and warm maple syrup.

  The moment we stepped into the first-in-line position, a thin, wrinkled waitress with her gray hair in a ponytail escorted us to a beat-up aluminum table. It had a linoleum top that had seen better days in the 1950s, but it was immaculately clean. In a restaurant, I’d take clean over atmosphere any day. Outside, the town had a beautiful view of Mt. Rainier. Inside, even seated by the window, we had a view of the busy parking lot and the building across the highway into town.

  As Cam held out my chair for me, I whispered to him, “I get it. This all goes with the spy theme. You’re trying to time-travel us back to when Ian Fleming was originally publishing James Bond.”

  He laughed. “I’m not that interested in the spy theme. That’s gingerbread. I’m more interested in accomplishing the mission statement. Since I’ve heard the way to the heart is through the stomach, which certainly seems true in your case, and I don’t cook all that well, this is the best I can do.”

  I loved him. I did. His sense of humor exactly matched mine. And he was so sweet and totally adorable in the hottest way possible.

  The waitress barely waited for our butts to hit our chair before shoving menus at us and getting out her order pad. “Can I get you started with something to drink?”

  “Coffee for me.” I was taking a chance that it was drinkable. The aroma wafting around the café smelled pretty good. This didn’t appear to be the kind of place for coffee connoisseurs, but I could hope for decent and middle of the road.

  “Make it two,” Cam said.

  “I’ll be right back.” For as old as she was, our waitress was pretty quick on her feet. She expertly maneuvered past an incoming crowd to the coffee station.

  “What’s good here?” I asked Cam, as he was apparently an expert.

  “The scrambles.”

  I read the menu. “Which one?”

  “Any of them.”

  “All right,” I said. “I leave the choice up to you. Only one restriction—no mushrooms.”

  Our waitress returned, set a coffee cup before each of us, and filled them. “What kind of muffin do you want? They come with the meal.”

  “Cinnamon crunch for me,” Cam said without hesitating.

  “Make it two.” If he was that confident, I’d trust his palate.

  “Two cinnamon crunch.” The waitress disappeared. She returned at practically the speed of light with two gigantic muffins, plates, and sets of utensils, and placed them in front of us with experienced proficiency.

  She licked the end of her pencil. “Ready to order?” It was more of a command than a question. We’d already gotten as much of her time as we were allotted, apparently. Cam’s description was proving startlingly accurate.

  Cam picked a scramble. “And yes, we’ll have cheese. And a big side of bacon.”

  “You got it.” She took off.

  “Wow,” I said in low voice to Cam. “Is she real? Or do you think she’s a robot? She’s certainly quick on her feet.”

  “She’s worked here forever,” he said. “At least as long as I’ve been coming here since I was a little guy. Twenty plus years, at least.”

  “Oh?” I was touched. “This is a comfort place from your childhood?”

  “Almost like bringing you home to family. I don’t take just anyone here.”

  “I’m honored.” I blinked back a tiny tear of joy.

  As I looked around at the size of the meals being delivered to tables around us, his phone rang.

  He glanced at it. His posture stiffened. He was anxious about something. “Excuse me. Sorry. I gotta take this. I’ve been waiting for it. It’s important. Business.”

  “By all means.”

  He pushed his chair back. “I’ll take it outside and be right back.”

  “You better,” I said. “Or you’ll miss breakfast. Linger too long and I’ll have to bring your portion out to you in a doggy bag.”

  “Exactly right. You have this place’s number.” He picked up the call as he turned and walked away. “Dave.”

  I watched him walk away, admiring the set of his broad shoulders and his confident gait. He walked like a military man—tall and erect. There was something inherently hot about a confident stride and a man with military bearing.

  Mission to fall in love. My heart was still trilling over that. He’d chosen the mission. He was determined to fulfill it. It was the most romantic thing any guy had ever done for me.

  I hated to tell him, but we didn’t need a mission of the heart. It was all coming so completely naturally to us that it had to be right. But I was awfully glad we had one all the same.

  13

  Cam

  I stepped outside into the bracing air, wearing a grin that was two sizes larger than no
rmal. “Dave. What’s up? I hope you have good news for me?” Damn, I didn’t want this day ruined or marred in any way.

  “We got the space. It’s yours.” Dave wasn’t typically the excitable type. But his voice shook with enthusiasm and the high of winning.

  Nothing beat that feeling. Except falling in love. I was high on both. If I ever came down from this, it was going to be a hell of a low.

  “You were brilliant,” Dave said. “Damned brilliant. That swing did the trick. The property manager couldn’t ignore a blatant safety violation and risk OSHA’s wrath. The tenant’s lawyer fired back, trying to negotiate and explain on her behalf. But we have them over a barrel. Legally, there’s nothing they can do. Their lease runs out at the end of the month. You can move in on the first. Everything’s in order.”

  I didn’t think it was possible, but my grin grew even larger. “Fantastic. Just freaking fantastic. My kids are going to be ecstatic. They can’t wait.”

  Their smiling faces ran through my mind. Miles in particular. I had a soft spot for him—what his older brother had gone through; what his family had sacrificed. He deserved a break. The whole family did. He was the most eager of the bunch. Having a project he was excited about had brought him back to life. Moving forward with it was going to be invigorating and life-changing for him. I was going to find him a world-class mentor and internship. His project would help and impress the hell out of whoever was lucky enough to get him.

  I was damned pleased with myself for pulling this off. I deserved the mental pat on the back I was giving myself.

  “Nothing left to do but call the moving company,” Dave said in an ebullient tone. “My job is done.”

  “Again, fantastic.” I glanced through the windows at Toria, grinning like the idiot in love I was. Everything was working out perfectly. This had to be right. I’d never had a relationship flow so smoothly. It was as if we’d known each other forever and were each other’s best friend already.

  She gave me a finger wave just as our food arrived at the table.

  “Hey, I have to run,” I said to Dave. The food here waited for no man. “I’m on a date. You just made my day, man. This is epic news.” I had the feeling, though, that Toria was going to make my day again later, in an even more spectacular, toe-curling way.