Masquerade Read Online Free Page B

wasn’t your turn to play yet.”
    Clarissa motioned to her daughter. “Come here, Elaina.”
    Elaina crawled from underneath the table with a frown. “I just started playing.”
    “You have to ask me before you play. You know that. I was worried when I couldn’t find you.”
    Elaina sighed dramatically and, with her ponytails bobbing, stomped over to her mother. “But that girl said I’s ‘posed to go with her.”
    Slade cocked his head and gave Bella another stern look. “Isabel, did you go get Elaina and tell her to come with you?”
    Bella nodded and her curls bounced around her shoulders.
    “Why didn’t you ask her mother if she could play?”
    “Because we’re playing spy and so it’s a secret. That’s why we’re in our secret hideout.”
    Slade nodded. His voice had a crispness to it when he spoke. “We will talk about your career as a spy later. Right now I want you to go back into the playroom so I can talk to Elaina’s mother.”
    “You still want to interview me?” Clarissa asked.
    “Do you still want the position . . .” he glanced at the table, “even now that you know my daughter is an underworld spy who lures unsuspecting bystanders underneath the dining room table?”
    “T hat depends,” Clarissa said. “Does the dog come along as part of the job description?”
    Slade smiled a broad, even smile, the same one she’d seen plastered on the cover of TV Guide not long ago. “I’ll talk to Bella about hiding.”
    Without a trace of emotion Meredith said, “And perhaps you could put a bell around her neck.”
    Slade shot Meredith a look, but when he turned back to Clarissa, he seemed to be the person she’d first seen in the waiting room—professional and impatient. “Well, let’s get on with the interview. Where did I leave my notebook?”
    He looked toward the door. Before he could move in that direction, Meredith spoke up, “I’ll get it for you.” She smiled coolly, turned, and her heels clicked sharply across the floor as she left.
    Slade turned to Bella. “Why don’t you and Elaina make a secret hideout in the playroom now?”
    “The table is the best hideout.” Bella’s pout came back. “Pleeeease.”
    Slade shook his head, and Clarissa could see the answer forming on his lips. Th en just as quickly, he stopped and half smiled. “I suppose we can do the interview in here.” He glanced over at Clarissa. “If you don’t mind.”
    Clarissa shrugged and let go of Elaina’s hand. Her daughter happily skipped over to the table and disappeared back underneath.
    Slade walked to the table and pulled two chairs a little way from it. He motioned for Clarissa to sit down on one of them. As she did, he scrutinized her carefully.
    “I read the résumé the agency sent, and it seems fine. Tell me one thing, though. Do you have an acting background?”
    Clarissa shifted in her chair uneasily. “I played Liesl in my high school’s production of The Sound of Music.”
    “Anything more recent?”
    Not unless one considered pretending to be married, acting. “No,” she said.
    “Good. The last nanny I hired cared more about my agent than my daughter.”
    “Oh. Well, you don’t have to worry about that in my case.”
    He leaned back in his chair. “Now then, on to your references.”
    She nodded, glad she had called the friends she’d written down for references and instructed them what to say.
    “Your references spoke well of you,” Slade said, “but I have yet to speak to your most important one, Elaina.”
    “Elaina?”
    “She’s had the most on-the-job experience with you. And besides,” he smiled at her mischievously, “kids tell the unvarnished truth.”
    Yes, exactly, which was why Clarissa suddenly felt like her heart would knock through her chest.
    Without waiting for her to formulate a decent protest, Slade left his chair and sat down on the floor by the table. Flipping up the tablecloth, he looked under the table at the girls. They lay sprawled out on