Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
The next morning, Riley met Briggs for breakfast before he went to work on Auntie Athena’s.
Sitting at a table in a charming little café on Beachwood and Westshire, she cut into her veggie omelet and said, “Today is going to be a lot of fun.”
“What’s on the agenda?” Daddy asked after taking a bite of his blueberry pancakes.
“Being a brat,” she replied.
Wiping a dab of maple syrup from the corner of his mouth, Briggs said, “You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you?”
Riley’s face lit up. “I am. And I’ll have even more fun when I’m out from under Rita.”
“Just don’t think you can keep up these naughty ways once this is all over,” he told her.
“Yes, Sir,” she said before giving him a mock salute.
Briggs laughed, but she could tell he was worried about something.
“All jokes aside, I won’t continue my bratty ways,” she reassured him.
“Thank you. But it’s not that, honey. Littles are supposed to get into a bit of trouble. Just nothing extreme.”
“Then what’s on your mind?”
She waited for the answer while Briggs finished the bite of pancakes he’d popped in his mouth. In the meantime, she ate some of her omelet.
“That private detective guy. He told us he wasn’t working alone. Do you think they’d do anything to hurt you? At Rita’s behest?”
Riley took a moment to think it over. “I’ve never thought about that. But surely not. I mean, Rita is shrewd, but I don’t think she’d resort to violence.”
Daddy leveled a pointed stare across the table. “Not even if you drive her to the brink of madness with your brattiness and she’s worried she’s losing her grip on you?”
“Hmm.” That’s all Riley could say. While it had never crossed her mind, it didn’t seem farfetched now that Briggs was posing the idea.
“Tell you what,” Briggs said. “I’m not too worried today. But this big event tomorrow—the one you mentioned that she emailed the details about—I want to go as your date.”
Riley sank a little lower in her chair. “Are you sure? I don’t know for sure—all she told me is it’s a benefit she’s holding at her giant estate—but I’m pretty sure she’s going to want me to attend with Rowan Keene.
In fact, that’s what I think she’s going to talk to me about when I go over there later this morning. ”
Briggs nodded. “I’m sure. Look, I trust you with Rowan. It’s not about that. But that Will Keaton guy gives me a bad vibe. He’s gotta be slimy. Who else would hide in someone’s backyard and spy on them?”
There was no denying that point, Riley thought. Plus, Briggs was always welcome no matter where she went. She never wanted him to think that she was trying to keep him separate from the Hollywood events and functions because he wasn’t part of the industry.
“Daddy, I always want you with me.”
He looked happy to hear that. “And I always want to be with you. Then it’s settled. Tomorrow, I’ll be your date.”
Sadistic glee filled Riley’s eyes. “Rita will hate that!”
Picking up her orange juice, she raised it to the middle of the table for a toast.
He clinked his iced tea against it and they drank.
The angrier Rita got, the better.