Page 28 of How to Blow It with a Billionaire

“I shouldn’t know that, right?”

Unasked for Queue Lady gave a little hop. “You’re in for such a treat, love.”

Ellery just put her sunglasses back on, her lips curving into an unreadable smile.

Chapter 8

What had started out as the worst queuing experience of my life gradually became one of the best. Not that, in all honesty, there was that much competition. The evening got a flood of last-minute warmth, like a guilty start from the sun just as it was slipping away. I lay with my head on Ellery’s lap and she fed me the rest of the strawberries—at least the ones she could wrest from Unasked for Queue Lady.

I couldn’t help but notice that lots of other people were drinking wine but Ellery had gone all ascetic on me and only brought water. Probably it was the right call—I wasn’t sure whether my capacity to appreciate classical music would be improved or diminished if I was wankered. And, besides, I was slightly floaty anyway—on the balmy evening air and the brush of heat across my skin and the strange liberation of having nothing to do but wait.

We were briefly interrupted by the click-whir-flash of a camera. And I startled out of a not-quite-daydream to find a…well, there was no nice way to say it, a twitchy, rat-like man in a leather jacket taking photos of us from the other side of the street.

“New boyfriend, Ellie?” he called out.

“A friend,” she threw back. “Now fuck off.”

“Aren’t you going to introduce me?”

“Oh suuure. This is Billy Boyle, an independent photojournalist. And this”—she flapped a laconic hand in my direction—“is none of your fucking business.”

“You know I’ll find out anyway.”

“And you know I’ll set your car on fire.”

“I love it when you get feisty.” He gave a frankly creepy shiver.

“Okay. Fine. How about you fuck off now and I’ll be at Tansy Stourburton’s twenty-first on Friday.”

“You’ll make it worth my while.”

“I’m hurt.” Ellery gave a magnificent yawn. “It’s like you don’t know me at all.”

Boyle grinned with sharp teeth. “I’ll be watching.”

“Yeah, yeah. Try not to get cancer.”

Unasked for Queue Lady had listened to the exchange with unabashed curiosity. As soon as Boyle had oozed away, she turned to Ellery and asked excitedly, “Are you famous?”

“Nope.” Ellery settled her sunglasses more firmly on her nose. “I’m notorious.”

A couple of fairly relaxed hours later, there was a judder down the line of people, which was snaking so far beyond us I couldn’t see the end anymore, and we were moving. Funneled, with surprising efficiency, through door 10, and into the Royal Albert Hall. Ellery, who had a crumpled tenner and two pound coins already in hand, paid for me.

Then there were stairs.

A lot of stairs.

No, really, so many stairs.

We finally emerged, me wheezing and Ellery barely winded, onto the gallery. It was kind of otherworldly: a corridor of gleaming stone that curled gently around the entire hall. Ellery dragged me into a space between two decorative pillars and…Oh God, we were high, the tiers of seats sloping away from us so sharply it made me feel like I was about to topple over. Even though what I was actually doing was clinging to the rail as if I was on a roller coaster.

Down in the…was it still a mosh pit if you were in a concert hall? Anyway, the people jiggling about down there were pinheads. And the orchestra might as well have been a flea circus. Other prommers were filtering in behind us and around us, and there was a bit of jostling for the best spaces, but it didn’t feel crowded at all—especially in comparison to the audience below, who looked like hundreds and thousands tossed too liberally over an ice cream sundae.

Ellery was stretched out on a travel rug, her backpack tucked under her head. “You sitting down?”

“But I won’t be able to see.”

“It’s music. You listen.”

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