What the critics are saying about
Gemma Halliday's books:
"A saucy combination of romance and suspense that is simply irresistible."
- Chicago Tribune
"Stylish . . . nonstop action . . . guaranteed to keep chick lit and mystery fans happy!"
- Publishers' Weekly, starred review
"Like the west coast version of Janet Evanovich's Stephanie plum - only more stylish!"
- LG Book Club
What the readers are saying about
Gemma Halliday's books:
"Do you like Janet Evanovich, James Patterson, Sue Grafton, J.D. Robb, or Stephanie Bond? Then you'll LOVE Gemma Halliday!"
- Nikki
"(Gemma's books) are one part Fashion Police's Joan Rivers, one part Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum, and one part Agatha Christie cozy - which all add up to pure fun."
- Jessica
"It's like Charlaine Harris but switch out the vampires for James Bond style intrigue!"
- Daniela
* * * * *
BOND BOMBSHELL
by
GEMMA HALLIDAY
* * * * *
ebook Edition
Copyright © 2013 by Gemma Halliday
http://www.gemmahalliday.com
http://www.facebook.com/gemmahallidayauthor
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to your online retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.
* * * * *
BOND BOMBSHELL
* * * * *
I arranged the stack of little pink messages slips in a neat row, one cascading over the other so that just the name and subject of the caller appeared. I removed the plastic stopper from the Starbucks cup, letting just the right amount of air vent from the Grande Caramel Macchiato to cool it to the perfect drinking temperature. And I pulled up the boss's schedule on my tablet, flipping to the overview page and memorizing the pronunciation of each client's name.
Some people might call this OCD behavior, but I called it efficient. Luckily my boss valued efficient.
"Maya!" Nine-thirty on the dot, Jamie Bond walked through the frosted glass doors of the Bond Agency, her heels padding pleasantly along the carpeted floor.
"Good morning, boss," I said, falling into step with her—coffee, tablet, and messages in hand.
I started with the messages.
"Three calls this morning. The Martins' lawyer wanting to follow up on our surveillance…"
"Tell him we'll email the files over," she interjected, pushing through conference room doors.
"Done. The second is Bridget Turner. Sam's been tailing her husband, who she believes is messing around with the nanny. She wants a status update."
"And the last one?" she asked, setting her briefcase on the long, mahogany table.
"New client. Widow in her sixties wants us to check out the younger man she's been dating. Her family thinks he's a gold digger, and she wants to be sure they're wrong."
The boss raised one of her perfectly arched eyebrows at me. "What do you think the chances are that they're wrong?"
I shrugged. "From the sound of it, 50/50."
She grinned at me. "You're an eternal optimist, Maya."
"I try." I handed her the coffee.
"You are also a lifesaver," she said, sipping gingerly at the warm liquid, then making a little moaning sound. "Mm, perfect. Okay, what's our schedule like today?" she asked, sinking into one of the leather chairs.
I did the same, glancing at the tablet as two other women, a leggy brunette and a blonde in a pink shift dress, walked into the room and joined us. They took seats on the opposite side of the table, both holding matching paper coffee cups.
"You have an appointment with Mrs. Walker at two, surveillance on Mr. Walker at four, and Mr. Seville this evening."
Jamie's eyebrows drew together. "Seville? Is that the one who likes the strip clubs?"
I nodded. "That's what his wife thinks."
"Fab." She sipped again. "Just where I want to spend my Wednesday evening."
"Caleigh," I said, gesturing to the blonde in pink as I went on, "is playing decoy with Mr. Fetzera."
"Oh, he's a fun one!" Caleigh interjected. "Did I tell you he promised to take me to Cancun last week?"
Jamie paused, mid-sip. "Did we get that audio recorded?"
Caleigh nodded. "Only it turns out he promised three other people the same thing—two of them men. He's kinda loose with his promises."
"Well, let's just hope he's loose with his marital vows, too."
Caleigh nodded. "Don't worry. I'm sure I can get him propositioning me soon."
I cleared my throat, continuing with the schedule. "And Sam has Turner this morning."
"Right," Jamie said nodding. Then she turned to Sam. "The wife is asking for a status report?"
"I'll type something up this afternoon. Right after Johnston," Sam told her.
Jamie frowned. "Johnston."
"Uh, that would be Wilfred Johnston," I jumped in, consulting the tablet. "Wife noticed he's going through his Viagra prescription twice as fast as normal and thinks he's using it elsewhere. Sam's scheduled to tail him this afternoon to his weekly canasta game."
Jamie frowned, her eyes flicking to my screen. "Wait, are you sure that's today?"
I blinked at her, trying not to be insulted. "Of course." Truth was, I was always sure. Organization was kinda my thing.
"Damn." She sat back in her chair, chewing the inside of her cheek.
"Why?" I asked, a bubble of apprehension in my stomach.
"Well, I got a call on my private number last night. A new client. She wants us to decoy the husband today. Says he has a thing for brunettes." She glanced across the table at Sam again.
Sam shrugged. "I guess I could do both?"
But the boss shook her head. "No, not if you're going to do the Turner thing, too." She chewed the inside of her cheek some more, tapping her manicured fingernails on the side of her Starbucks cup. "I'll just call and tell our new client that we need to bump her back a bit."
Then she paused, her eyes roving the conference table until they fell on me.
"Unless…"
There was that flutter of apprehension again. "Unless?" I asked.
"Unless you want to take a shot at him?"
I froze, feeling myself rapidly blinking again in surprise. "Are… are you serious?"
Jamie shrugged. "Why not?"
Why not was that I was the office manager. I sent the invoices, took the phone calls, and scheduled the surveillance on marks. I was excellent at remembering names, tidying inboxes, and delivering the perfect cup of coffee. Not that I was selling myself
short, but I knew where my skills lay. And that was in the office, running the business like a Swiss clock, not in the field trying to seduce a husband with a shaky grasp of fidelity.
"Because…because…" I sputtered. "I wouldn't even know where to start."
"Come on, it's not that hard," Caleigh tried to reassure me. "You've watched us do it tons."
"Sure, but watching and doing are two totally different things."
"Not that different," Jamie said, shaking her head. "And I know you can do this. You can do anything you put your mind to."
I bit my lower lip. While the after-school-special line might have sounded cheesy coming from anyone else, coming from the boss it struck a chord. Jamie had first approached me just over two years ago. She was newly at the helm of the agency and in desperate need of office staff. I'd been a lingerie model in desperate need of a career change…one that involved a lot more clothes and a lot less ogling from men twice my age. Maybe it was because she was a former model herself, but Jamie had seen something in me then, and, despite my fear that I wouldn't know the first thing about running a PI's office, hired me on the spot.
I'm proud to say, I'd risen to the occasion and had yet to let her down.
I really didn't want this to be the first time.
"I…I don't know," I hedged, suddenly feeling like a deer in the headlights, all eyes in the room on me. "I mean…what would I have to do?"
"Totally easy," Jamie promised. "The wife says he goes to the same place for coffee and the paper every afternoon. Just flirt a little, get him to ask you out, maybe drop a suggestive hand on your thigh…and bingo. That's all we need. I'll even send Danny with you to run the camera work."
I looked from Caleigh to Sam and back to Jamie's eyes, silently urging me to step outside of my comfort zone.
"Okay, I guess I can give it a try…" I trailed off.
"Great!" The boss's face broke into a huge grin. "I have total faith in you, Maya."
Well, at least that made one of us.
* * *
"Stop fidgeting. You look nervous," Danny's voice piped up in my ear.
"That's because I am nervous," I whispered. But I clasped my hands together, shoving them into my lap anyway, as I pursed my lips together tightly.
"God, now you look constipated."
I rolled my eyes. "Hey, how about you come play bait, and I'll wait in the van and make snide remarks, huh?"
I heard Danny chuckle in my ear. "Trust me, you're more this guy's type."
"Let's hope," I mumbled, sipping on my latte.
I jiggled my thigh up and down, watching the line of people waiting on their drinks shrink. I'd been here for over an hour. According to this guy's wife, he could be in anytime between noon and five. I'd already gone through two lattes, and I could only imagine how fidgety I'd get if I had to wait here another three hours.
Luckily, it turned out I didn't have to.
"Look alive, Maya. Your mark's at twelve o'clock."
I swiveled in my chair, watching the glass doors swing open and a tall, lean man in a button-down shirt walk in.
I froze, feeling my chest contract as my eyes settled on his face. I was completely paralyzed in my wooden chair as I followed his progress across the crowded room toward a barista with a nose piercing and bright red pigtails.
"Oh, no." I gulped down the shock that had settled in my throat at the sight of him. "Danny, please tell me you don't mean the guy who just walked in. Tell me that's not my mark?"
"Do you have a visual?" my earpiece buzzed. But I scarcely heard it, my entire being focused on him. Those angular features, that dark hair, those unnaturally blue eyes crinkling at the corners as he exchanged banalities with the barista.
No way could it be him.
"Maya? Talk to me, girl. Dark hair, blue jeans, white button down. Tell me you have a visual?"
The sound of panic creeping into Danny's voice in my ear snapped me back to reality. I spun around in my chair, turning my back to the mark, letting my dark hair fall across my face in a lame attempt at staving off recognition.
"Danny I cannot do this," I whispered into the mic'd ruby broach pinned to the lapels of my low-cut blazer. The wife had told Jamie that our mark was partial to corporate types. I'd done my best to dress the part—tailored skirt, slit up the thigh high enough to show off my dedication to the gym, white blouse unbuttoned dangerously low, three inch stilettos strapped over freshly manicured toes. I was "corporate piece of ass" to a tee.
Only now I realized I could have shown up in a grubby T-shirt, and it wouldn't have made a lick of difference. Why, oh why did it have to be him?
"Sure you can, kid," Danny's voice reassured me. "Just breathe. Stick to the script, and you'll do fine."
"No, you don't understand. I can't do this with him. He's…" I trailed off, struggling for the words to explain just who he was. I snuck a glance at him through my curtain of hair. He was taking his coffee to a table near the back. A triple shot soy latte. Not that his paper cup looked any different from all the others in the place, but I knew that was his usual order. Or at least, it had been.
He sat down and unfolded a newspaper to the sports section. He crossed one leg casually over the other, leaning back in his chair. Dark stubble dusted his jaw, giving him a rugged look despite the expensive fit of his dress shirt across his wide shoulders. He sipped his coffee, his eyes intent on last night's baseball scores, seemingly oblivious to the fact he was being watched.
For now.
"Not him," I whispered urgently into my lapels. "Danny, this is a mistake. I cannot do this. We'll have to get Sam to do it tomorrow. Or the next day. Or something."
"You know the boss doesn't want to wait on this one. The wife paid cash. Up front."
"I cannot do this, Danny. Not with this guy."
"You can do this, Maya. This is it. You're it. Work your magic, girl."
"No, Danny, I—"
But the telltale static click told me he'd already disconnected.
Actually, I'd been lucky he'd stayed on this long. As soon as a mark appeared, you cut off communication with surveillance. The boss's rule. A woman sitting in the corner talking to herself wasn't exactly inconspicuous.
I took a deep breath. Then snuck another look at the guy in the corner. He'd moved on to the business section. Not surprising, considering he was one of L.A.'s top financial consultants.
At least he had been.
I took another deep breath.
Okay, so obviously the play had changed. Obviously I couldn't go with the beautiful stranger who just happened upon him at the coffee shop. Strangers we were not. In fact we'd been about as far from that as possible at one point. We'd almost been…
I gave myself a mental shake. That didn't matter now. What mattered was that Jamie thought I could do this job, she trusted me with this job, and there was no way I was letting her down.
I took a sip from the tepid coffee in front of me and gathered my courage. He was a mark, nothing more.
One more big breath.
My earpiece crackled to life. "Quit it, you're going to hyperventilate."
I resisted the urge to give the camera in my broach the finger.
I got up, grabbing my cold latte, and crossed the room. Slowly, even though it killed me. Even though all I wanted to do was get this over with and get out as quickly as possible.
The room moved past me in a blur, my stomach knotting, churning over itself, until I was there, standing in front of his table.
"Brandon?"
He glanced up from his paper, and I nearly fell over from the force of those blue eyes on me. They'd always had that effect, so piercing, so oddly pale in contrast to his dark tan, dark hair. Dark aura. It worked to his advantage in his business life, and it was just as unnerving here. I fought back emotion, ignoring the knot traveling from my stomach into a tight ball in my chest. Especially when his deep, mellow voice said my name.
"Maya?"
Get a grip, girl. You've g
ot a job to do.
I flipped my hair over one shoulder—I knew he loved it when I did that—and slapped a big, flirty smile on my face.
"Brandon, my goodness, what a surprise. I haven't seen you in ages. What has it been? Two years?"
"Three," he responded flatly. He glanced behind me almost as if wondering where I'd come from. Where the hell I'd been for the last three years.
"May I?" I asked, indicating the empty chair across from him.
His eyes still held that unspoken question, though he nodded and folded his paper, setting it aside.
"Business good?" I asked, gesturing to the Times.
He nodded again. "Very." His eyes gave me a slow assessment. "And you? How have you been?"
I told myself he didn't care. He was just being polite. His concern for my well being had ended the day I'd…it had ended a long time ago. He was being polite. Nothing more.
Even if his eyes did rest on my lips just a little too long.
"Fine," I lied.
"Good. I'm glad to hear it. You deserve to be…fine."
I felt my smile falter just a moment, but quickly recovered. "And you?" I asked. "How have you been?" I looked down at his left hand where a shiny, gold wedding band graced his fourth finger. "Married life treating you well?" I was proud to say that my voice didn't waiver the slightest as I choked the words out.
He looked down at his hand as if he'd somehow forgotten the band there. He quickly pulled it back into his lap, covering the telltale ring from sight. "It's fine."
Great. I was fine. He was fine. We were both fine. Now what? I bit my lip, trying to think what to say next.
A half smile tugged at the corner of Brandon's mouth as he watched me. "You still do that?"
"What?"
"Bite your lip. I swear you used to eat a tube of lipstick a day."
Bond Bombshell Page 1
