Scandal (Tainted #1)

by Aimee Duffy

  Jack built a bridge across the distance and pulled her close. She stiffened in his arms, then ran a few curses through her head. What was she doing? This was the love of her life, not some bastard stranger.

  ‘Babe, you OK?’ he asked.

  Tears turned into sobs that racked through her. Jack gasped, pulled her around, and she could see the pleasure ebb from his expression as shock took its place.

  ‘I hurt you?’

  She nodded. ‘I wasn’t ready … I didn’t …’

  Cursing, he pulled her into a hug. She melted into him and cried into his neck, probably ruining the shirt he’d left on to sleep in. Today had been too emotional, too much to handle, but with him holding her like this – like Sebastian used to – she felt protected.

  ‘I’m so sorry.’ Though his words were slurred, the sincerity was there.

  ‘I know, babe,’ she said between sobs. ‘I’m sorry too. For everything.’

  Chapter Six

  Alicia sat at the opposite end of the sofa from Sebastian with a stiff spine and her chin in the air, showing what little dignity she had left. Still, with every sip of wine she had waiting for their Italian takeaway to arrive, her inhibitions were loosening and the last of the embarrassment was seeping away.

  Sebastian may be right, women might own toys for their own personal pleasure, but she never had. Not until Sylvia had picked one up at a charity evening at work to give Alicia as a gift. Daria received one too, a little less gauche and scary-looking. Until now, it had been thrown in the wardrobe and forgotten about.

  The new Alicia didn’t use things like that – and neither had the old Alicia.

  ‘Earth to Blondie, you there?’

  Sebastian’s voice had her head doing a one-eighty. He’d removed the suit jacket and tie, rolled up his sleeves to reveal tanned forearms, and was lounging on her sofa with the computer in his lap, looking more at home than she felt.

  ‘Sorry, I spaced out.’

  He didn’t comment, but she could sense the cogs working in that beautiful head of his.

  ‘Scoot over and have a read,’ he said.

  After placing her glass on the side table, she did just that, careful to keep some space between them. Sebastian had refused a drink since he was training and now it looked like he was refusing that space she’d kept between them as he shifted so close their sides touched.

  ‘We don’t have much to work with since I was pictured a few weeks ago.’

  She focused on his changes to the press release rather than worry about the stab of jealousy at his reminder. Still, she remembered the pictures well. One in particular. The brunette and redhead he’d spent a night with might as well have been glued to him in that bar. It was the day he’d flunked out of the Australian Open, and instead of keeping a low profile, he’d been caught up in a threesome scandal that AIG had vehemently denied.

  ‘Looks good to me.’ She found it hard to force enthusiasm into her voice. Her father was right. She’d look like one more notch on a bed that was probably whittled away to a toothpick.

  ‘Look, for what it’s worth, nothing happened.’ Sincerity shone from his dark eyes.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  He worked his jaw, glanced at the screen then blew out a breath. ‘That night in Melbourne with those women. I got too drunk to do more than pass out on the hotel bed. No one came back to my room with me.’

  Her throat dried up and she reached for the wine. That would make sense. He’d pretty much messed up his career, which would be enough incentive to drive anyone to drink to forget for a while. Wine had been her friend time and time again when she didn’t want to deal.

  Worse, she believed him, and she really didn’t want to believe him. It was better when he was the womanising pig she’d thought he was. ‘Why are you telling me this?’

  He shrugged. ‘I get it looks bad for you to be dating me after all that happened, but I wanted you to know that I didn’t just hop out of their bed.’

  A flutter assaulted her chest as cool fear lined her stomach. She didn’t know whether he was flirting or making it clear if she gave into how she felt around him then she wouldn’t be taking the twins’ sloppy seconds. And he had to know she wanted him – the evidence almost had his eyes out earlier.

  Not for the first time, she looked at his mouth. Those ever-smiling lips set at the peak of his squared jaw were relaxed now. Maybe even soft. Rule one flashed into her mind but it wasn’t enough to stop her – especially when the thought of breaking it sent a thrill through her.

  Sebastian leaned closer and picked up a lock of her hair, just above her breast, and she swayed forward, unable to take her gaze off his mouth. Blood rushed through her veins, making her mind fuzzy. Or maybe that was the wine. All she knew was it had been so long since a fire had burned at her core longing to be fulfilled, and he hadn’t even touched her yet.

  His breath brushed against her lips and that’s all it took to snap the last of her resistance. She gripped one side of his open collar, intent on finding out if that delicious scent translated to taste. Sebastian cupped her face, his thumb slowly rubbing along her lower lip and sending little jolts straight between her thighs.

  He went in for the kill. The pressure was soft, barely there, but not enough. Alicia leaned in closer. The sound of the door chapping hardly registered as her lips met his.

  Her body disconnected from her mind and before she could stop it she’d shoved the laptop to the side and straddled his hips. He grabbed her waist, pulled her closer, and then his tongue was in her mouth and the fire burning through her morphed into an inferno. Using his shoulders, she pulled herself closer still until his erection pressed into her centre, sending a stab of need between her legs. She ground her hips, trying to get more friction, and moaned when another teasing rub was all she managed.

  A loud rap made her wonder what she’d knocked over, but it wasn’t enough to pull her away. Sebastian did, holding her shoulders and pushing her back an inch. She gasped for air and stared at the flush beneath his skin, his dilated pupils, and a chest that rose and fell as quickly as hers.

  Alicia couldn’t help it. She went back in for more.

  ‘Wait,’ he said.

  She blinked at him, wondering why on earth he wanted to wait for anything, then a louder rap sounded. Oh God, someone was at the door. She scrambled off his lap, trying to right her dress in the process.

  ‘I think our dinner’s here,’ he said with an ease that made her cheeks burn with shame.

  Sebastian left to get the door. Her door. All she could do was sink back into the sofa. Last night she’d spent so much time worrying he wouldn’t stick to her rules and publicly humiliate her when she should have been worried about her own self-control.

  With the last of her working brain cells, she concluded wine and Sebastian Collins together in the same room were a very bad combination.

  Despite what the press might think, that was definitely the first time he’d had to readjust his trousers to answer the front door. As he paid for the food he digested the new-found knowledge that Blondie’s cool outer shell cracked after a glass of wine, revealing the fiery passion he’d glimpsed before.

  Which presented another problem.

  He’d promised himself, her boss, and his manager that he’d keep his mitts off his new publicist. At the time he was confident he could – regardless of what she threw his way – because contrary to universal belief, he did have control over his hormones.

  After hearing she’d pretty much been raised to think outlandish, sexy, or even pretty clothes were a no-go, and to shy away from the basic pleasures in life, he found his promise harder to keep. She was going above and beyond for him – even risking her family’s wrath. Would it be wrong to return the favour and help her see there was more to life than refinement?

  When he returned to the lounge to see her lying back, her skin flushed and eyes closed as she caught her breath after that too brief but mind-blowing kiss, he knew asking for more was wro
ng.

  Didn’t stop him considering taking the expressway to Hell though.

  ‘Do you want me to grab the plates?’ he asked.

  Her eyes snapped open and she straightened. ‘I’ll get them.’

  After kicking off her shoes, she darted into the kitchen. The sight of her hips swinging under the dress he’d picked for her, a dark blue silk that hugged her curves to perfection, didn’t help with the growing bulge in his trousers.

  He followed her into the small kitchen and sat in one of the chairs at the table, watching her open the cupboards with too much haste, banging plates as she went. Resisting the urge to tease her took more effort than he’d put in at training. He liked knowing he could make her lose her cool, so much it was becoming an addiction. But he also liked kissing her, having her on top of him and demanding more with her hips.

  Thoughts like that were definitely not helping with the problem in his trousers.

  ‘I should probably apologise,’ he said instead of giving in to the urge to stop her rushing with another mind-blowing kiss.

  Alicia turned to him with a raised brow. ‘Why?’

  OK, that he didn’t expect. There was no flush of embarrassment, no fire. In fact, it was like she’d shut herself down again and let little Miss Prim lead the way. ‘For breaking your rule.’

  She shrugged, then brought the plates and cutlery to the table with less haste. ‘You weren’t the only one. It was a blip, a mistake. We just have to be more careful next time.’

  More careful? Alicia was too busy serving up their dinner to notice him frown but it gave him time to pull himself together. She was right, it was a blip in terms of the plan they had to stop his sponsors from walking, but the brief kiss also put a chink in the untouchable armour she wore which had to be a good thing.

  He couldn’t imagine how awful it had been growing up having to stifle every emotion or worry about what her actions would do to her family’s reputation. His parents left him breathing space to do what he wanted with his life. They’d always been loving, caring, and outgoing. An anomaly that he now knew they were lucky to find with each other.

  ‘Next time what?’ he asked.

  She sat too straight in her chair, showing off her perfect table manners as she nibbled on her pasta. It took so long for her to answer he dug into his own meal, though it was dry and unappealing but the only thing he could have ordered this far into training.

  ‘The next time anything like that happens … it can’t. You know that, don’t you? My job is to help you keep your sponsors,’ she said.

  Sebastian let his cutlery clatter on the table. ‘Say it, Alicia. Tell me what that was.’

  Her cheeks flushed a pretty pink and her eyes glazed over. ‘It was our libidos getting overexcited. We can’t let that happen.’

  ‘Our libidos.’ If he sounded incredulous, he didn’t care. ‘You’re putting the attraction between us down to misbehaving libidos?’

  She cleared her throat. ‘That’s what it was.’

  ‘And I suppose letting your libido have what it wants isn’t right or proper?’

  She squirmed in her seat, and he knew he should stop pushing but he couldn’t. No woman had ever put attraction down to an unwanted itch she refused to scratch.

  This was the most ridiculous conversation he’d ever had. ‘Well?’

  Alicia’s throat was so dry she wished she’d topped up her glass with wine, but it was still empty and in the living room. Those weren’t her words, not even her beliefs, but the speech her father had given her all those years ago. She shrugged, hoping Sebastian would drop it.

  Unfortunately, he was relentless.

  ‘At least tell me you know how crazy you sound. The way you’re talking, it could have been anyone next to you on the sofa. Does your libido play up around Maine? Tony?’

  His eyes were hard, his jaw tense, and she’d take a guess his hands were probably fists beneath the table. Then it struck her; she’d dented his ego. It had nothing to with him being hurt because she didn’t want him. The thought stung as it burst the fantasy that a man as virile and gorgeous as him would find her more attractive than the usual women he slept with.

  Not that she should want him to.

  ‘Does it matter? We’re working together, not getting involved with each other.’

  He actually snorted. ‘If you think we can ignore the spark between us without wanting a taste of each other, you are crazy.’

  Alicia’s breath caught. There was a spark, but she’d thought it’d been one-sided. Now she knew it wasn’t, a wild image of her swiping the table clear and crawling over it to get to him flashed into her mind. Her heart beat too fast as her lungs stuttered and her every pulse point tingled.

  This was bad. Really bad.

  She’d smothered this part of herself a long time ago and after a couple of days with Sebastian her ‘wild side’ had clawed its way back to the surface. Kicking it back down was a reflex she’d developed over the years, and it wouldn’t fail her now. Not when everything she wanted for her career was finally happening, when she was becoming the new and improved version of herself that would make her father proud to call her his daughter, not the ‘troubled one’.

  Pulling out her well-bred accent, she said, ‘Then perhaps I am. We will work together and nothing else. Keeping our distance unless we’re in public will help.’

  Sebastian shook his head, a small smile playing on his lips, and she almost rolled her eyes. The dented ego had obviously bounced right back.

  ‘You can’t hide behind that façade forever, you know.’

  He leaned closer, resting his elbows on the table as he did. She really hoped her mother’s engagement party plans didn’t involve dinner because she didn’t think teaching Sebastian table manners would go down well, or be any easier than keeping her hands off him.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. This is me, it’s who I am.’ She drove the point home with a glare.

  Sebastian rose, the smile still in place, then cleared his plate. After scraping his barely touched meal into the bin, he returned to tower over her and tilted her chin so she had to face him.

  ‘You and I both know that’s not true. We’re going to finish this, there’s no other option.’

  Alicia recalled the conversation before she’d lost her cool and climbed onto his lap. Her resistance had snapped when he admitted he hadn’t hopped out of the twins’ bed and straight into hers. But what about the latest kiss-and-tell? That was apparently after Melbourne and he hadn’t brought that up when they were talking about dates, had he?

  She jerked out of his hold and stood to face him. ‘You’re trying to use me to deny the latest scandal, aren’t you?’

  His eyebrows shot up. ‘What?’

  If she hadn’t been so flustered finding him with the vibrator she would have paid more attention. ‘That woman you bedded when you got back to the UK. It was supposedly after our first date. You want me to lie and say we were dating then. You want me to make a fool of myself in front of the whole world – another poor woman you cheated on. You can forget it! I’m revising the dates.’

  ‘Shit, Alicia, it’s not like that. I didn’t think about her at all and I didn’t cheat on Mai either!’

  He stepped forward as if to touch her but she couldn’t let him. The spark was still there despite this confrontation and she didn’t think she’d be able to fight it again. ‘You’re telling me you forgot, just like that? Are women so disposable to you?’

  She didn’t bother to call him out on the other lie. His kiss with his partner at Wimbledon on live TV while his fiancée had watched on from the side lines was proof enough.

  ‘No.’ His voice was hard. ‘She was a night of fun, that’s all. It was what she wanted and I bet the reason was so she could make a mint off her story.’

  ‘But you wanted to lie and say you were taken at the time! Did you think you could convince everyone you didn’t sleep with her just because you were with me?’


  ‘Alicia, I didn’t think about her. We can change the dates, that’s not the issue here.’

  He took a step towards her but she retreated until she hit the wall. Her heart hammered with more than anger until she was in danger of believing him. In danger of picking up where they’d left off.

  But he was lying. Staring straight into her eyes and telling her what he wanted her to believe. Just like Darrell had done over and over when he told her he loved her, when he promised they’d be together forever.

  ‘I want you to leave.’ She’d aimed for stern, but breathy and pathetic was all she managed.

  His jaw clenched. ‘You don’t, you’re just terrified of taking this further.’

  Maybe, but she’d never admit that to him. ‘Get out, Sebastian. There’s nothing going to happen between us. We’re working together, nothing more.’

  He shook his head and forced a wry smile that didn’t show in his eyes. ‘I’ll go, but if you think this conversation is over, you’re not as smart as I thought you were.’

  She gritted her teeth and folded her arms to make sure she didn’t find something heavy to throw at him. True to his word, he left. Maybe he’d get bored of whatever challenge he thought she presented and give up, because the alternative that he wore her down and turned her into another night of fun he could easily forget wasn’t something she’d let herself become.

  She had to find a way to keep them apart but still do her job. Alicia sighed. Well, hadn’t she thought at the first meeting he’d be a challenge? But this was more than she’d signed up for.

  After a sleepless night, a morning in the office working on her other clients’ files proved to be the best distraction. Sebastian didn’t try to get in touch, and they hadn’t made plans to see each other again, which was just fine by her. Time away to get her priorities straight and work out a plan that would keep them together enough in public to be convincing, but apart the majority of the time so she could keep temptation off the radar, was exactly what she needed.