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“You treated everybody to lunch,” Ted explained. “And we all appreciate it. Joe’s got your credit card.”
Kenny shrugged, slid into the booth next to her, and reached for her purse. She tried to hold on to it, but he took it away. “I swear you get stranger by the day,” he growled.
As Ted watched with interest, Kenny pulled out the salt and pepper shakers and set them back on the table. “Let me guess. You decided to put on another show for the duke.”
“His investigator’s here again.” She jerked her head toward the burly man. “I had to do something.”
He stared in the direction she’d indicated. One eyebrow shot up. Then he shook his head and handed the purse back to her. “I’ve never known a woman who could embarrass herself as much as you.”
She couldn’t tolerate his condescension after last night. “Let me out!”
“No.”
“I was going to give them back!” She caught herself. “What am I doing? Why am I explaining? I don’t have to tell you anything after what you’ve done today.”
“I sure didn’t lift any salt shakers.”
Ted leaned back, enjoying their argument.
“That man told Beddington all I bought at the drugstore was a tabloid!”
“Nasty stuff. Full of lies. Do you know they printed a story about me once? How I was supposed to be having this big love affair with my former junior high teacher.”
“That was actually true,” Ted pointed out.
Kenny ignored him. “I can’t imagine why you’d want to read one of those things.”
“That’s not the point!” she exclaimed. “But of course you know that. You think it’s clever to act as if you’re an idiot.”
“So you decided to give him something else not to report?”
She wanted to scratch the smugness right off his face! How long was she going to let other people dictate the course of her life? Beddington? Kenny? That incompetent fool standing by the bar? It was long past time she took control of her own destiny.
“Let me out! I mean it, Kenny. I’m going to settle this with him for once and for all.”
“I don’t advise it.”
“Either let me out or I’m going to crawl under the table.”
“A perfect example of why you people lost this country in the first place.”
“Are you moving?”
“Damn right I am!” He vaulted to his feet.
Several of the other onlookers poked each other. Kenny was going to give them something new to talk about.
She shot past him and headed straight toward the burly man. “I need to speak with you.”
He blinked. “All right.”
“In the first place, you were hired to do a job. But you haven’t done it very well, now, have you?”
He looked embarrassed, but Emma couldn’t afford to weaken. “For one thing, you haven’t been giving Beddington complete information. And isn’t that why he pays you? For example, you didn’t bother to tell him everything I bought at the drugstore two nights ago, did you?”
He turned red from his neck all the way to his thinning, straw-colored hair.
She crossed her arms. “And please tell me why not.”
