The Face of Scandal

by Helena Maeve

  251 South Olive St, Los Angeles. Also known as the Omni Hotel.

  The last time Hazel had heard mention of the place was—

  “Did you find anything?” Mrs. Ling asked, materializing in the doorway.

  Hazel shook her head. “I have to go.”

  “Already?” Mrs. Ling’s indefatigable optimism quaked. “But maybe we can—”

  “I’m sorry.” Hazel stumbled out of Sadie’s bedroom on jelly-weak legs. She didn’t stop until she’d made it out of the house. Deep, gulping breaths did nothing to help her regain a sense of balance. The world threatened to spiral around her, a carousel of memories tainted by what was—what couldn’t be—the single greatest lie she’d ever swallowed.

  Somehow, Hazel made it to the car and stuck the key in the ignition. The Volvo roared to life around her after a couple of attempts. Hazel white-knuckled the steering wheel. Where to now? What’s left?

  The answer was so simple that Hazel nearly barked out a cheerless, shattered laugh.

  * * * *

  “Malcolm Pryce?” Hazel asked, leaning both elbows against the front desk.

  Politely cool smile in place, the receptionist canted his head to one shoulder. “Unfortunately I can’t divulge our guests’ information—”

  “I know he’s here,” Hazel said. “Call the room. He’s expecting me.”

  Perhaps not right now, perhaps not after their last run-in, but Malcolm didn’t make mistakes. If he name-dropped the hotel he was staying at, he had done it for good reason.

  When the receptionist hesitated, Hazel folded her arms across her chest and made a show of getting comfortable right there in the lobby. “I’ll wait if I have to.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” a familiar voice said.

  Hazel turned slowly, fighting to keep her breaths even, to clamp down on the swell of white-hot resentment boiling in her chest. “Malcolm.”

  He was like a dream standing there in his virgin wool suit, silver gray shirt cuffs peeking from beneath dark sleeves. “I knew you’d come.”

  Did you. She leaned back when he reached up a hand, but aborted the attempt to deny him as he twirled one of her blonde curls around his index finger.

  “I liked you better with straight hair,” he mused, the corners of his lips tugging down. “Although I must say, I’m coming around to the whole…hobo-chic thing you’ve got going. Mom jeans and flip-flops. Very California…”

  “You don’t approve?”

  “I’ve seen you look better,” Malcolm replied.

  Tough. “Where is she?” Hazel hadn’t stepped on pride and common sense to endure his fashion advice.

  Malcolm’s gaze snapped up to meet hers, surprise morphing into amusement in a heartbeat. “Ah, you figured it out. I always said you were bright.”

  His smug satisfaction made Hazel want to punch him. The urge to give in to violence hummed in her bones like a tuning fork. It’s what he wants—me the irrational, dangerous ex and him, the tragic victim. As long as she concentrated on that, she wouldn’t have to think about the gut-punch confirmation that, yes, Malcolm and Sadie were in cahoots.

  That they had been, perhaps since the beginning.

  That everything Hazel had shared with her was probably reported back to the man she’d fled from years back.

  “Come upstairs,” Malcolm entreated. “We’ll talk.”

  “We can talk here.”

  His smile said otherwise.

  Hazel meant to dig her heels in, to refuse. You want me—you’ll work to earn my attention. But Malcolm wasn’t Dylan. He didn’t believe in working for anything when it came to Hazel. He was still smiling at her as the elevator doors began to close.

  God damn it. Hazel spurred her feet across the lobby floor. He put an arm against the sliding doors to allow her to penetrate into the cabin. They cinched shut in her wake.

  Over the throb of her pulse in her ears, Hazel picked up the dulcet tones of some jazzy muzak pouring into the confined space as they ascended toward Malcolm’s suite. There were cameras in the elevator. Hazel drew comfort from that, buttressing her resolve as best she could.

  “What gave it away?” Malcolm wanted to know. “Or did Sadie tell you herself?”

  “She didn’t tell me,” Hazel replied as the elevator slowed to a smooth stop. “Surprised you don’t already know that.” Her reflection was hazy in the stainless steel doors when she turned to Malcolm. “Here I thought you had us all figured out.”

  He chuckled. “You’ve gotten lippy. We’ll have to see what we can do about that.” He gestured her out of the elevator with a lackadaisical wave of the hand. Ladies first.

  Hazel committed the floor number to memory, sighting the exit signs first and foremost. She didn’t have much time to get her bearings before she heard the elevator doors sigh shut. For all intents and purposes, she was now alone with Malcolm.

  Expecting him to do something and dreading what that might be was familiar terrain. Typically, Malcolm did nothing to elucidate the mystery. He took the lead as they ventured down the hall, patterned wall-to-wall carpet muffling their footfalls. Hazel turned at the sound of a door clicking open down the hall.

  “Here we are…” Malcolm slotted his keycard out of the lock and leaned on the handle. The massive wooden door swung back. “Try to ignore the color scheme,” he urged in a saccharine voice. “It’s murder in beige.”

  After nearly a month of squatting at the loft, Hazel’s idea of luxury had evolved. She wasn’t as easily bowled over by buffed hardwood floors and satin-thread upholstery. A view of downtown LA could have triggered a gasp, but she didn’t let herself enjoy it.

  “Did the piano come with the room,” she wondered, “or did you have them put it in just for you?”

  Malcolm followed her gaze to the grand Steinway slotted into the space behind the sitting area. “Believe it or not, I didn’t think to request more than the champagne. And now I have someone to share it with. Please,” he entreated, palm warm on the small of Hazel’s back, “have a seat.”

  “It’s barely noon,” Hazel pointed out, a delaying tactic.

  “You know what they say,” Malcolm announced in a sing-song voice. “It’s always happy hour somewhere.”

  What happened to Penelope? Hazel resisted the urge to ask. She pressed her tongue to the roof of her mouth, conscious that she had few cards to play and needed to be careful not to reveal her hand too soon. She sat down without protest, pinning an elbow into the surfeit of cushions at her back. “Swanky place. Must be costing you a fortune.”

  “What good is having money if you don’t spend it?” Malcolm shot back.

  “I wouldn’t know.” Has Sadie kept you abreast of my financial woes, too?

  The champagne cork came free with a deferential pop, bubbly liquor spilling out. Malcolm was slow to angle the bottle toward the pair of flutes. He didn’t seem to notice the trickle of foam onto the coffee table. It was beneath him to wipe it off.

  “Oh, I don’t know that that’s true… I hear you’re living large now.” He met her gaze, emerald blue-gray eyes crinkling at the corners. “I don’t judge.”

  Hazel didn’t return his smile. She hadn’t thought that Malcolm would know details of her new, fledgling relationship with Dylan and Ward. But if Sadie told him everything there was to know about Hazel, then he’d had a first-hand account of where she lived and who she slept with. He could ruin everything.

  By the time she rallied, Malcolm was already holding out a champagne flute. “To old friends,” he toasted. “And new beginnings.”

  In your dreams.

  Hazel brought the glass to her lips and sipped. Liquid courage could only help. “So where are you hiding her?”

  Malcolm arched his eyebrows, as though he didn’t know whom she meant.

  “I gather she’s not here?” Hazel pressed. “Penelope would notice.”

  “There are many rooms,” he replied, evasive. “Want me to give you a tour?”

  “Maybe later.�
� Maybe never. Her skin prickled at the thought of being led through the suite with Malcolm’s hand on her back, steering her like a wayward pup.

  Ward could put a collar around her neck and tug her around on a leash and it wouldn’t be as humiliating. Hazel knew it from experience.

  “Hmm, I hope you didn’t come just for Sadie,” Malcolm said. He circled the coffee table and sat beside Hazel, crossing his legs. He was close enough to touch her if he wished. He made no attempt to prove it.

  Too easy. Hazel swallowed another mouthful of champagne. Thanks to Ward’s sideboard, she had learned how to hold her liquor better than ever before. She wasn’t the wide-eyed innocent Malcolm had zeroed in on in the campus coffee shop. She wasn’t so easy to shock anymore.

  “I’m going to assume Penelope doesn’t know…about all this.” Hazel pinned a foot against the coffee table. “She never liked sharing.”

  Sighing, Malcolm tilted his head back against the couch. “She shared just fine, when it was the two of you. After that…”

  “She said you still watch the video we made.” That you made. Of me. After badgering me to agree to it. The same video Malcolm claimed to have lost along with his stolen laptop. If Hazel had been tempted to believe him in the past, that naiveté had been eradicated in the space of the past week. “She’s livid, you know.”

  “Yes.”

  Hazel huffed out a breathy laugh, feigning mirth. “You do it on purpose.”

  “She’s my wife. She belongs to me. If she is jealous—”

  “She should get over it?” Hazel guessed. “She thinks you’re hung up on me.”

  Malcolm glanced at her through half-lidded eyes. “Who says I am?”

  Common sense. Nearly ten years of silence. Hazel held his gaze. She had a harder time controlling her voice. “Malcolm… Is Sadie here?”

  He sighed, the way he had once done when she did something disappointing, or when he changed the rules mid-scene and Hazel wasn’t able to keep pace. With a careful fingertip, he brushed a stray curl from her cleavage, barely touching skin. The sight of goosebumps on her flesh elicited a smile.

  “Would you like to see her?”

  “You know me,” Hazel answered, heart in her throat, “I always do better when I have someone to learn from.” In Malcolm’s eyes, she had never been good enough on her own.

  She relinquished her champagne flute when Malcolm pried it gently from her hand. His palm was slightly chilled against hers. She made herself grab hold anyway.

  “Goodness, your hands are so callused now,” Malcolm carped as he pulled her up with him. “We’ll have to do something about that.”

  The desire to tell him where to stuff his plans shot through Hazel like a bolt of lightning. Focus. Silence was her best recourse—he could always mistake it for tacit agreement.

  She followed him around the piano with slow steps, toward the double doors at the rear of the sitting room. A lavish master bedroom lay beyond. Hazel sucked in a breath as the narrow gap between the doors widened to a full, unfettered view of the room.

  And of Sadie.

  Chapter Eleven

  Heavy silk drapes blocked out the midday sun, but the light that splashed through the double doors was enough to see by. The king size bed was arranged before a Chinese screen, black and gold marrying beautifully with the Art Deco bronze tables on either side.

  “Wakey, wakey,” Malcolm called. “Can’t sleep the day away, sweetheart. And look! You have a guest.”

  Sadie groaned as she peeked over one pale, bare arm. Her lassitude faded as soon as she saw Hazel in the doorway.

  She sat bolt upright in bed, covers pooling around her. Hazel idly noticed that she was wearing one of Malcolm’s shirts, though it hung awkwardly around her smaller frame.

  “What are you doing here?” Sadie gasped. Then, to Malcolm, “What is she doing here? You said you wouldn’t—”

  He laid a hand on her shoulder. “Hush. She came to us. Didn’t I tell you? She figured out your secret.”

  The pleasure Malcolm took in announcing this turn of events more than matched Sadie’s shock. She winced when he pulled open the drapes, fumbling for the covers before she seemed to think better of it.

  No, there’s no point hiding. I know.

  “How did you find out?” Sadie asked, warily meeting Hazel’s gaze.

  “Your mother is very worried,” she answered obliquely. “You might want to give her a call, tell her you haven’t jumped off a cliff.”

  “There’s still time,” Malcolm chuckled. “But in the meantime, champagne?”

  Sadie blinked at him as though she couldn’t puzzle out the question. Malcolm patted her shoulder, evidently taking her silence for acquiescence.

  “No hair-pulling while I’m gone.”

  Hazel barely reacted at the slide of his hand down her arm. Her revulsion toward him struggled to keep pace with the overwhelming betrayal she felt for Sadie. “How long?”

  “Hazel—”

  “How long has this been going on?” Hazel gritted out, undaunted. You’ll tell me. You owe me that much.

  Sadie raked her hands through her hair. Even woken from a dead sleep, she was still beautiful and put-together, a sheep in wolf’s clothing. “I tried telling you—”

  “Answer the goddamn question. Is this why you helped me find a job?” Every chance she’d had thanks to Sadie was tainted now by the knowledge that behind Sadie’s altruism lay a far darker force. “Or were you in his pocket even earlier?” Hazel huffed out a mirthless laugh. “You helped me pack my shit and leave campus because he told you, didn’t you?”

  “No,” Sadie said, shaking her head. “No, it wasn’t like that.”

  “You’re in his bed,” Hazel spat. “You of all people…” Her voice cracked. You who knew everything he did to me, who listened to all the gruesome, intimate details. Another Jenga block settled onto the tower she’d been building in her mind since she’d found the first photograph. “That’s why you were always the one to tell me about the video uploads.” She had never wondered why Sadie seemed so canny in finding that piece of history. Every time Hazel had it taken down, it lay hidden for a while, then resurfaced in some other forum.

  And Sadie dug them up like a dog trained to pick up a particular scent.

  “You knew.”

  Just as Hazel’s vision began to cloud over with the irrepressible envy that came so naturally to her, Malcolm sauntered back into the bedroom. “Here we are,” he murmured, the scent of his cologne weaving around Hazel like a fine mesh trap.

  She took the freshly replenished champagne flute when it was pressed into her hands, decorum too deeply ingrained to refuse. Blood hummed against her eardrums.

  What was she doing? Why this compulsion to shift blame from Malcolm to literally anyone else—even when his hands were clearly pulling all the strings?

  Malcolm had another glass for Sadie. “I’m impressed. I don’t see any blood spatter. Decide to shake hands and let bygones be bygones after all?”

  Hazel broadcast her disbelief with a snort. Her temper flared again at the sight of Malcolm lingering by Sadie’s side, subtly suggestive. After Penelope, it was an easy illusion to forge. Hazel doused her wrath in champagne, throwing her head back and downing half the contents of the glass before she could think better of it.

  Alcohol burned her throat on the way down. Poison. Hazel froze.

  No, Malcolm would never incriminate himself in such a way. He was too careful.

  “I, for one, am glad this is all out in the open,” he forged on blithely. “We’re on the same page, we’ve cleared the air. Isn’t that better?”

  Sadie glared at him. “You planned this.”

  “I saw an opportunity,” Malcolm corrected, pleasant for the space of a heartbeat, before his smile took on a darker slant. “Watch your tone.”

  “Or what?” Hazel huffed. “You’ve already blackened her eye once.”

  Until the words were out of her mouth, she hadn’t realized that c
onnection. But it made sense—Sadie’s refusal to involve the authorities, let alone take it up with Frank. Her efforts to hide the swollen face from her own mother. The night she had called Hazel and couldn’t get in touch—it hadn’t been suicidal thoughts that had driven her out of the city, but the razor edge between coming clean and remaining a pawn in Malcolm’s game.

  She had chosen wrong.

  Hazel staggered.

  “You all right, baby?” Malcolm made no move to approach her. “You seem a little…woozy.”

  It didn’t escape Hazel that he hadn’t bothered denying that he’d been the one to hit Sadie. She tried to lock her knees. This wasn’t the time for a panic attack. Yet the sensation of legs going soft and rubbery under her was not so easily dismissed. Hazel could’ve sworn she felt her grip around the champagne flute becoming lax.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid. Shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t have let him pour me a drink without watching.

  How many campus flyers did it take for such a simple lesson to sink in?

  She told herself that GHB didn’t act so fast. No drug did. This was just her overactive imagination, fueled by too much champagne on an empty stomach.

  Wasn’t it?

  A tiny mound of white powder clumped at the bottom of Sadie’s flute, dissolving fast.

  Malcolm’s grin blurred at the edges of Hazel’s vision. He still knew how to play her. He had distracted Hazel with barely any effort, sneaking in a surprise attack before she knew what was happening.

  “Fuck you both,” Hazel growled and, with the last of her strength, hurled her near-empty glass at the wall. Shards sprayed the floor and bedspread like snowflakes in a storm. Light caught on the splinters, refracting into a thousand colorful rays.

  Sadie cried out, ducking to cover her face from the shrapnel. The champagne glass spilled from her hand, harmlessly disgorging its contents all over the sheets.