She bent in half with laughter. And when she finally looked up, her eyes were full of happy tears.
“I love you so much, Wren, for so many reasons. So please.” Elias reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out the ring he asked Ben to design and create, and held it up. “Please say you’ll marry me.”
Wren wiped her eyes. “I knew you were the one the minute you made me forget that I’d just escaped from a burning building. The entire world disappeared except for you. So, my answer’s the same, my Lion. Yes, I will happily marry you.”
He slipped the ring onto her finger. A perfect fit.
Wren wiped away another tear. “But right now, I have to tellyousomething very important.”
Elias’ heart hitched. “What is it, baby?”
“We’re…” She sniffled. “We’re…tied on the laugh points right now because I lost track, and I am not giving up that rule.”
Elias laughed as he swept her up off her feet. He laughed as he spun around with her. And he laughed all the way across the yard as he carried Wren to the safehouse.
TWENTY
“My God. I can’t tell the difference between the two of you.” Wren looked back and forth between Barbie and Gina.
“So long as I'm wearing colored contacts and these tinted glasses,” Gina said. “The eyes are always the hardest thing to fake, so we do our best to camouflage them as much as possible.”
Barbie had come to Denver from Aspen three days before. She came quietly and incognito after posting on her social media that she was going to make a big announcement in a few days, but that for now, she was kicking back in her California home.
Gina had contacted someone she called ‘one of my friends from my old life’ and asked her to come to Watchdog. Gina had referred to her old friend as a makeup artist. But looking between the two of them now, Wren realized Nettie was so much more.
The first thing Nettie had done was make a couple slip casts of Barbie's face, which she used to create latex prosthetics. Then she applied them to Gina’s face. Besides the eyes, the biggest difference between Barbie and Gina was the heavy makeup Nettie applied to help further hide the prosthetics. The real Barbie kept her face makeup-free when she wasn’t in public, like now. The only time she went without makeup in public was if shewanted to run out and grab a meal with a friend without getting recognized and mobbed.
While Nettie made the prosthetics, Gina practiced moving and walking like Barbie. Barbie was a smidge taller than Gina, but she fixed that by concealing lifts in her shoes. She even borrowed one of Barbie's outfits that she’d worn on her social media a couple weeks previously.
Now with the shoes, the clothes, the glasses, and the prosthetics in place, Gina stood beside Barbie in the safehouse’s living room and Wren was amazed. So were Elias, Shane, and Charlie as they looked back and forth between the two women.
“You did an incredible job,” Elias told Nettie as she fiddled just a little more with Gina’s wig.
“She always does,” Gina added.
“Thank you. I do love my job. There.” Satisfied, she stepped back and looked them over. “I think we’ve got it.”
“Perfect.” Gina picked up Barbie's trademark Birkin bag off the couch and slung it over her shoulder.
“Okay, I’m off to the airport. I’ll take some selfies and post them on your social, Barbie. Weisser’s subscribed to all your sites. What he’ll see is a woman he thinks is you coming into Denver to make her big announcement about the hospital donation. I’ll have the glasses on, and the photos will be from just enough of a distance that we can obscure my eyes a bit. Seeing photos of me in your most recent posts will help sell the deception once he sees me up close. Celebrities always look a little different in person, and he’s never met you before, so he doesn’t have a comparison.”
“Can’t you just stay here and drop in a fake background?” Barbie asked. “What if someone stops you thinking it’s me and asks for an autograph?”
Gina grinned, which looked so weird to Wren. She’d even learned to smile like Barbie.
“That’s actually what I’m hoping for. If there are videos of ‘you’ walking through the airport on other people’s pages, it lends that much more credibility. And, if I pass as you up close,” she patted her fake cheekbones, “it’ll confirm that this face works.”
“What if you don’t pass?”
“Don’t worry. I have a long track record of passing for other people.” Gina looked at Charlie who stood beside the front door, looking every inch like a total badass. “And that’s where Charlie comes in as my bodyguard. She’ll make sure nobody lingers too long and that we move through the airport at a good clip straight to the waiting SUV.”
“Driven by me,” Shane said, grinning. “Your courteous and professional local Watchdog bodyguard.”
Charlie cleared her throat as her eyebrows rose. “Ah-hem.”
“Sorry. I meant yourothercourteous and professional local Watchdog bodyguard.”
Charlie smiled. “That’s better.”
