Taryn Leigh Taylor brings The Business of Pleasure series to a steamy conclusion in this scandalous tale of old flames reunited. She can’t resist him...but can he forgive her painful betrayal?
After Wes Brennan is arrested for a crime he didn’t commit, he’s rescued by hotshot lawyer Vivienne Grant: the woman whose heart he broke years ago. His bail conditions dictate he stays with his gorgeous ex while she proves his innocence. In close proximity for hours on end, the pair soon forgive old betrayals—and reawaken old desires.
Though he’s hurt to discover Vivienne’s illicit involvement in a spyware scheme led to his arrest, Wes is determined to give their relationship another go. But suddenly, the charges against him are mysteriously dropped and the prosecution announces a new prime suspect: Vivienne.
Wes knows Vivienne’s confession to him could land her behind bars...unless he can’t testify, that is. He proposes a convenient marriage to save her career and buy them time to investigate—the racy honeymoon getaway is a thrilling bonus. But the past is still clouded with secrets and Wes knows Vivienne’s holding back something huge. When the truth is revealed, will their reignited passion finally burn out?
Harlequin DARE publishes sexy romances featuring powerful alpha males and bold, fearless heroines exploring their deepest fantasies.
Taryn Leigh Taylor likes dinosaurs, bridges and space, both personal and of the final-frontier variety. She shamelessly indulges in clichés, most notably her Starbucks addiction (grande six-pump whole-milk no-water chai-tea latte, aka: the usual), her shoe hoard (I can stop anytime I... Ooh! These are pretty!) and her penchant for falling in lust with fictional men with great abs. She also really loves books, which was what sent her down the wild path of writing one in the first place.
Want to be virtual friends? Check out tarynleightaylor.com, Facebook.com/tarynltaylor1 and Twitter, @tarynltaylor.
If you liked Guilty Pleasure, why not try
Hot Boss by Anne Marsh
At Your Service by A.C. Arthur
Wild Wedding Hookup by Jamie K. Schmidt
Discover more at Harlequin.com
GUILTY PLEASURE
TARYN LEIGH TAYLOR
Thanks for helping me with my homework, Crystal.
And for Jo. We made it. Thank you for everything.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Epilogue
Excerpt from Hot Boss by Anne Marsh
CHAPTER ONE
SOMEONE WAS GOING to pay.
Wes Brennan just had to figure out who.
Accepting the lumpy manila envelope the guard slid under the Plexiglas barrier, Wes ripped into it and dumped the contents on the stainless steel counter.
He grabbed his watch first, fastening the platinum band around his left wrist. His blue silk Brioni tie was unceremoniously shoved into his pants pocket, along with his keys. After a quick inspection of his billfold—one hundred dollars and all his plastic—it, too, was tucked away, this time in the breast pocket of his suit jacket. If he’d known he was going to end up in jail, he would have stopped at an ATM first. A hundred bucks probably wouldn’t even cover his cab ride home if traffic was bad, and in LA, traffic was always bad.
Wes picked up the last item on the counter. He barely recognized his bearded reflection in the black screen of his phone. Well, what was left of his phone, anyway. He’d watched an FBI agent strip it of its SIM card, which was still evidence in his active and ongoing case, the day they’d put him in cuffs. He pressed the power button a few times, but to no avail. Clearly no one had thought to turn his phone off after whatever the hell they’d seen fit to do to it during his incarceration. With a sigh, he slid it into the same pocket as his wallet.
The mandated hiatus from the digital world was probably for the best, he decided. Cybersecurity expert rips off his clients. Yeah, he could see the press getting some mileage out of that. He’d take the reprieve while he could get it.
Then he tossed the empty envelope in the designated bin and walked out of prison.
Ten days he’d been held like a mongrel at the pound, focused on this moment—liberation—but when he stepped beyond the squeaky metal door and back into the world, what he felt was not so much relief as wariness. A haunting certainty that the dog catcher loomed around the next corner, or the one after that. He wasn’t out of this nightmare yet. Not by a long shot.
It didn’t help that California’s famous sunshine was nowhere to be seen, swallowed by dank, gray clouds that reflected his mood. The air was foul with smog. Wes took a deep breath anyway, inhaling the tainted scent of freedom.
He wanted to incinerate the suit he’d been arrested in with a blowtorch.
He wanted to scald any remnants of the experience from his skin with a blistering shower.
But most of all, he wanted vengeance. With every cell of his being.
Odd, then, that he was so easily and thoroughly distracted when he caught sight of the woman who was waiting for him at the end of the sidewalk.
She’d been wearing a red dress the first time he’d seen her, at an overstuffed party, in a frat house that reeked of booze and pot and hormones. Her dress now was the same color, but streamlined and structured, tailored to perfection to skim the long, sleek lines of her body. Back then it had been short and flowy, fluttering around her thighs in a way that made his fingers ache to inch it higher.
Gone, too, were the wild brown curls of her youth, replaced by an angled bob that showed off sharp cheekbones and made the generous curve of her mouth look even softer and more inviting in contrast. Her lips were painted the same red as her dress.
Vivienne Grant.
The last person he wanted to witness his personal and professional nadir, and yet, an oddly fitting choice.
After all, what was hell without your very own devil incarnate?
“Hello, lover.”
Her voice still grabbed him by the balls. Throaty. Sexy. Poisonous.
Wes’s chuckle held no mirth as he stopped in front of her. “And to think I thought things couldn’t get worse.”
The slow curve of her mouth was mesmerizing.
“I knew you’d be surprised.” Vivienne’s eyes glittered, hard and sharp.
Beautiful. She’d always been so fucking beautiful.
“Did Whitfield send you?” Just saying his former client’s name made anger surge in Wes’s veins, and he had to actively relax his fists. For the last two months, he’d poured all of Soteria Security’s time and resources into figuring out how someone had bested their top-of-the-line security system and hacked Max Whitfield’s tech empire. As thanks, Max and his business nemesis, Cybercore CEO Liam Kearney, had joined their considerable forces and accused Wes of the crime before siccing the FBI on him. Not that he and Whitfield had ever had the fuzziest feelings for one another, but he’d deluded himself into believing there was respect there.
Now, all bets were off.
“Hardly. He’s still
very upset with you.”
Wes hiked his pant leg high enough to reveal his state-of-the-art, tamper-proof ankle monitor. “You can tell him the feeling’s mutual.”
“I can’t actually. I quit last week. Max is no longer my concern.”
The announcement surprised him, though he masked it. Lead counsel at Whitfield Industries was the sort of power gig Wes had assumed would need to be pried out of her cold, dead, lawyerly hands. Vivienne’s career had always been priority number one. Six years ago, he’d been stupid enough to test that theory, and his hubris had resulted in an incisive verbal flaying, a glorious breakup fuck and her walking right out of their place and onto a plane bound for Yale.
The resulting years of radio silence had come to a crashing halt a year ago, when she’d returned to LA to accept a position as Max Whitfield’s legal consigliere.
The current state of their relationship consisted of little more than the coldest of professional acknowledgments and an undercurrent of venom whenever they sporadically ended up in the same meeting.
Of course, now that neither of them worked for Whitfield in any capacity, the thin layer of civility that had coated their professional interactions for the last twelve months was no longer required.
“Then to what do I owe the distinct lack of pleasure?”
Icy amusement arched Vivienne’s brow. “I was in the neighborhood.”
Dread settled cold and flat in his gut at her ill-timed appearance in his world, but he kept his expression bland. “Terminal Island seems a little outside your usual radius. Are you in the market for clients? Or dates?”
There was no reason it should bother him that her laugh sounded rusty.
“Invectives, Wesley? And to think I was expecting a thank-you for using my kick-ass lawyer skills to get you out on bail.”
Not good. Not fucking good at all. “You’re not my lawyer.”
She wasn’t his anything. Not anymore.
“Well, I believe you were made aware that Denisof Price Goldberg is no longer interested in representing you going forward.”
Ha. The bastards couldn’t disassociate fast enough. DPG had dumped his ass almost the moment he’d been arrested, citing conflict of interest with their ongoing role as counsel to Soteria Security.
Proof that his company, the one he’d built with brains and sweat and sacrifice, was disassociating. It was what he and his partner, Jesse Hastings, had agreed to when they’d been making contingency plans, something they’d written into the contract when they’d incorporated. Just one of many business-first precautions—a what-if that was never supposed to happen.
Wes gave a terse nod. “I was.”
That, he’d been expecting. What he hadn’t been expecting was the hesitancy by several other large law firms—all directly or indirectly affiliated with some of Soteria Security’s biggest clients—to also balk at the idea of representing him.
Blackballed. Whitfield and Kearney wielded their clout with devastating precision, he’d give them that.
“I wasn’t, however, made aware that I had new representation.”
Something flashed across her face that he might have labeled remorse if he hadn’t known that Vivienne was incapable of it.
The odd look was replaced with haughty disdain as she straightened to her full height. In her heels, she was only about two inches shorter than his six-three. “So how did you think you got released today? Magic legal fairies?”
“I figured my assistant had finally hired someone.” Wes aimed for an offhand shrug. “We had a very promising meeting scheduled with one of LA’s most elite attorneys. You might have seen his picture on some of the bus stop benches downtown.”
He was only half joking. Because every cell in his body was screaming at him to back away from the woman in front of him, his freedom be damned.
The two of them had imploded in spectacular fashion last time they’d been in each other’s orbit. It had fucked him up for longer than he cared to admit. And if he was going to clear his name, if he was going to get his company back, he couldn’t afford even the slightest distraction.
“So you’re saying you’d rather hire some hack ambulance chaser who will be thoroughly outmatched by the elite law team representing your former company than be represented by me?”
“Yes.” That was exactly what he was saying.
She blanched, and against his will, Wes found himself trying to soften the blow. “You’re a corporate lawyer, not criminal defense.”
So fucking weak, and she knew it, too.
Determination manifested itself in the set of her chin. “I can do this, Wes.”
The use of his name threw him off. Slipped beneath his defenses. Crawled under his skin.
His blue eyes cut to her dark ones. “As a rule, I don’t like to mix current business and former pleasure. Things tend to get messy.”
Vivienne pressed the remote starter in her hand, and the glossy Vanquish S Coupe behind her purred to life. It was a gorgeous car. Sleek and sexy, just like its owner.
Tendrils of unease fisted around his spine as she pulled the door open for him.
“Doesn’t matter if you like it, Brennan. I’m all you’ve got.”
And that was exactly what he was afraid of.
* * *
Wes looked good.
Vivienne sent a covert glance at her passenger as they zipped over the suspension bridge that led to the 110 and back into LA proper.
In fact, he looked better than good, considering.
She had to strangle a macabre laugh. Considering. A bland euphemism for being arrested, having your assets seized and losing your cybersecurity business and your reputation in one fell swoop.
She’d worried that he’d look different, that prison might have irreparably changed him. It was the one thing he’d vowed would never happen—ending up in jail, like his deadbeat father. But now it had.
And yet, as far as she could see, the only outward evidence of his ordeal was ten days’ worth of facial hair and a slightly wrinkled suit that fit him to perfection—an ode to both the breadth of his shoulders and the skill of his tailor.
Wes had come face-to-face with his greatest fear and emerged sexily disheveled.
An unwelcome heat prickled across her skin, some kind of carnal nostalgia, and she shifted against the black leather bucket seat like it was a lightning rod that could dissipate the sudden charge of attraction inside the Aston Martin.
She was desperate to pop the bubble of awareness that had so easily consumed her, but her haste made her careless and the conversational pin she chose was a mistake.
“How is...everyone?”
Bland pleasantries with anyone else, but between them, the question felt shockingly personal.
Wes’s shoulders stiffened. He obviously hadn’t expected her to go there either.
The fact that Vivienne found she cared about the answer—after so many years of purposefully not thinking about his mother, his sister, him—stung more than she’d expected. Like she’d accidentally ripped a scab off her heart.
“What are you doing?”
She didn’t know. She’d returned from her annual three-day pilgrimage to the Phoenix Inn, a little B&B in Connecticut, to the news that her boss had put Wesley in the FBI crosshairs. She’d quit her dream job and spent the last week pouring everything she had into getting him out of jail. She’d called in every favor, pushed her legal acumen to the brink, wheedled, cajoled, outsmarted and insomnia-ed in anticipation of this moment. And now that it was here, now that he was free...ish...she had no answer to his question, no explanation that wouldn’t reveal more than she wanted to give. He was a weakness she couldn’t afford. He always had been.
“It’s called small talk. It’s a form of politeness that acquaintances use to fill the silence.”
Wes’s sudden grin dominated her
peripheral vision and tightened Vivienne’s hands on the steering wheel. She remembered a time it wasn’t quite so mocking.
A time when a flash of it was all it took for her to surrender her panties in the unisex bathroom at Señor Taco’s a mere two hours and three tequilas after her roommate had dragged her across campus to the lamest of frat parties. Then they’d headed back to her dorm room for orgasms two, three and four, and woken up the next morning wrapped around each other and well on their mutual way to orgasm number five.
Wes hadn’t been wearing a suit then. Just a white T-shirt that seemed to glow against the tan he’d acquired doing manual labor in the California sun, a pair of faded jeans that were soft from washing, the worn fabric hugging thighs thick with muscle, and that smile. The one that gave her the kind of XXX butterflies that skipped her abdomen altogether and headed straight for her—
“Oh, is that what we are? Acquaintances?” He sneered the word.
Viv forced air into her lungs and kept her glance dismissive. “Would you prefer something more colorful?” After a quick shoulder check, she maneuvered the sports car into the far left lane. “Former paramours? Scorned exes?” Her voice broke, and she had to clear her throat to finish her list. “Star-crossed lovers?”
Wes blew out an audible breath, tinged with defeat. “Acquaintances it is,” he conceded. “You going to tell me where we’re going?”
The moment of truth.
“My place.”
For the first time since he’d gotten in the car, she was in his sights. She could feel the burn of his stare on her profile. “I don’t think so.”
Vivienne’s spine hardened with resolve. She wasn’t that idealistic, lovestruck girl anymore, and he was no longer the object of her affection. No amount of reminiscing—sentimental or erotic—was going to change that fact. She was a lawyer. He needed a lawyer. And that was that.
“As a computer wizard and a flight risk, there were a couple of provisos I had to agree to in order to get you out on bail.”
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