‘Get on the dog to yer trouble. She’ll sort ya right out!’
‘Yer bees are safe with me!’
Olivia’s head whirled. She whispered to Jackson: ‘Do people in London actually own so many bees that they have to worry about people stealing them? And, do they actually have bees on them – like, in their coat pockets, or something? Won’t they get stung?’
Jackson grinned underneath the shade of his baseball cap. ‘Think about it. “Bees and honey” . . . rhymes with . . .?’
‘Money!’ Olivia gasped. ‘That makes so much more sense.’
‘Yup. Just like dog means phone,’ Jackson explained. ‘Because “phone” rhymes with “dog and bone”. It’s called Cockney rhyming slang.’
Olivia looked around the market with fresh eyes. ‘I don’t know how anyone can have a normal conversation in this city!’
‘Now you know why I’ve been having trouble.’ Jackson smiled. ‘I was hoping to learn an accent, not a whole second language!’
Olivia couldn’t help but laugh – until she felt his hand take hers. For a moment she stopped breathing, even as her fingers instinctively returned the pressure that came from his. The feeling of their hands together was so familiar and right, it was almost painful.
It doesn’t mean anything, she told herself. He’s just trying to make it easier to guide me through this crowd. With so many people shoving for position, holding hands was the only way Jackson could make sure they didn’t lose each other in the crush.
It still feels romantic, though, she admitted to herself.
‘Oh no,’ Jackson groaned. ‘They’re here!’
Olivia looked around, but she didn’t recognise anyone in the sea of faces. ‘Who? Where?’
‘Hurry!’ Jackson pulled her with him through the crowd and down a narrow side street.
As the sounds of the noisy market receded, Olivia heard a dull, two-tone alarm sound going off nearby. Without stopping, Jackson dug his phone out of his pocket. It was flashing red.
‘We’ve been spotted,’ Jackson said. His face was grim. ‘It’s one of those JacksonWatch websites.’
‘Oh no.’ Olivia grimaced. Those sites weren’t just innocent fanpages – they tracked Jackson’s every move. ‘I thought you had Amy feeding them false information,’ she said.
Jackson’s manager, Amy Teller, was fiercely protective of her client, and usually ran interference so that he was only looking over his shoulder twenty-two hours a day.
‘Sometimes, they still get it right.’ Jackson shrugged. ‘Amy had my phone company hook up my cell, though, so I get alerted any time one of the sites has good info. I guess today they do.’
Instinctively, Olivia tightened her grip on his hand. ‘What now? Should we turn back and try to disappear into the crowd at the market?’
Jackson looked back and sighed. ‘Too late.’
When Olivia followed his gaze, she saw a cluster of teenage girls gathered at the top of the side street. All of them had their smartphones out, and they were whispering to each other as they looked around with narrow-eyed, predatory gazes.
They’re like vultures, Olivia thought, hunting for fresh meat! She knew that she should have been feeling tension and dread, but she wasn’t. She had to bite back a nervous giggle when she realised – here she was, in a romantic foreign city, in her very own caper. It was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to her . . .
. . . And considering that my family is vampire royalty, she thought, that is saying something!
One of the girls let out a yelp as a tanned man wearing sunglasses walked past them. ‘Isn’t that the singer who’s going out with that soap star?’
Jackson squeezed Olivia’s hand. When she looked at him, she could see a rueful smile on his face – it may have been a weird, scary situation, but he looked like he was seeing the funny side. ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘while they’re distracted.’
Olivia ran with him down the side street, struggling to keep up. He pulled her around a corner . . . and then stopped dead.
They’d come to an embankment overlooking the Thames. The river stretched before them, the sun was setting over London, and it would have looked dreamily romantic . . . if only it hadn’t been for the swell of a scream rising behind them.
They’d been spotted.
Olivia glanced back and echoed Jackson’s groan. A new group of teenage girls was thundering towards them.