Dynasties: The Elliotts, Books 1-6

by Various Authors

  No, she couldn’t blame the alcohol, as much as that would provide an easy out.

  Of course, she’d also recently been witnessing her family come apart as a result of her grandfather’s ridiculous challenge. Certainly, there’d been more tension around The Buzz.

  But whom was she kidding? She was a lowly copy editor. If there was pressure to be felt, it rested squarely on the shoulders of her uncle Shane, who was editor in chief of The Buzz.

  Thinking of work, she winced as she remembered dragging herself to the office this morning. She’d been an hour late. Shane had seen her come in and quirked an eyebrow.

  If she’d been productive in the hour since she’d arrived, she’d have felt better. Unfortunately, she’d managed the sum total of turning on her computer, making three trips to the pantry for coffee, water and more coffee, and staring at her cubicle wall.

  There was no avoiding the last possible explanation for her uncharacteristic behavior last night: John. In the few weeks since he’d proposed, she’d felt jittery and unable to shake the feeling that she was making a mistake. Instead of planning her wedding, she’d found herself avoiding the subject of her upcoming nuptials whenever Scarlet or her grandmother had brought it up.

  But had she slept with Zeke because of or despite her engagement to John? Had she unconsciously been trying to sabotage her engagement, or had she just been unable to resist Zeke?

  She still couldn’t believe she’d lost her virginity so casually after hanging on to it for so long. The formerly, sensible Summer Elliott had convinced a reluctant John to wait until their wedding night. She’d envisioned her wedding as the culmination of the careful screening process that she’d begun after college, winnowing down a small field of men to find The One. What more appropriate time to lose her virginity than on her wedding night?

  It hadn’t seemed like much of a hardship to wait. She’d known that if she kept to her five-year plan, she would be married by twenty-six. And, she’d reasoned, if pop star Jessica Simpson could resist the delectable Nick Lachey until their wedding night, she could certainly resist John.

  Then, last night, she’d fallen into bed with Zeke after knowing him mere hours. Even more damning, she hadn’t thought about John. Not once. Not until this morning.

  She was whatever they called the female version of a cad. A fiend. Slime. She was only surprised that she hadn’t grown scales and recoiled with horror when she’d faced the mirror this morning.

  She sighed.

  Whenever something had bothered her in the past, she’d always turned to Scarlet. This morning, she’d snuck back into the townhouse when it was still dark and had slept in, mumbling, when Scarlet had checked on her before leaving for work, that she wasn’t feeling well.

  She’d intended to keep last night to herself, to bring it to her grave, if possible, or at least to avoid disclosing the facts as long as possible. But since her brain waves were on automatic pilot straight to Zeke, she figured she couldn’t hold out against a teary confession to Scarlet much longer.

  She got up. In fact, another two minutes was about as long as she could hold out.

  When she got to the Charisma offices on the floor below, she walked toward Scarlet’s cubicle until she heard her sister’s voice coming from a nearby meeting room.

  Bad timing, she thought. Scarlet was obviously in the middle of a conversation with someone else.

  When she reached the open doorway to the meeting room, she saw her sister standing behind a conference table laden with photos and magazine clippings.

  Scarlet’s eyes widened as they connected with hers. Her sister made a quick, seemingly surreptitious, shooing motion with one hand.

  Before she could digest the meaning, however, she took a step forward, and the man standing in front of the conference table turned around.

  Her eyes collided with the impossibly blue, impossibly angry gaze of Zeke Woodlow.

  Four

  Zeke stared at the woman in the doorway. His eyes told him what his gut had already figured out: The woman behind the conference table was not the woman with whom he’d had a torrid night of mind-blowing sex. The woman in front of him was.

  It all made sense now. Identical twins. Of course.

  When he’d stepped into the conference room minutes before, he hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that he’d tracked down the wrong person, despite her resemblance to the woman of last night. He just hadn’t experienced that same kick-in-the-gut feeling of awareness…of being attuned to her.

  But just what kind of game had these two been playing with him? The small part of his mind not given over to simmering anger took note of the fact that the woman he’d spent the night with was dressed much more like he’d imagined her. He hadn’t been wrong last night when he’d thought that her clothes didn’t suit her. She really was all cashmere and pearls.

  His gaze raked her from head to foot before his eyes narrowed on the diamond ring on her finger.

  Hell. She was engaged? What other surprises did she have in store for him?

  Because she continued to stare at him, frozen in place, he glanced back at the woman behind the table, who’d done a good job of holding him off and attempting to cover for her sister. “Scarlet Elliott, right?” he sneered, before swinging back to the woman whom he’d last seen sprawled naked across his sheets. “And you’re her identical twin…?”

  “Summer,” she supplied in a barely audible tone.

  “Well, Summer,” he said with false pleasantness, “there’s no need to look horrified. I have to ask, though, how often have you and Scarlet played this identity-switching game? I’m finding it hard to believe I’m your first victim.”

  “How did you find me?” she blurted.

  “Now, that’s a good question, isn’t it?” he asked in the same pleasant tone. He held out a copy of the New York Post, folded and turned to Page Six. “Let’s just say I got some unexpected help.”

  She took the newspaper from him and scanned it, her eyes widening.

  “Yeah. Exactly.” He glanced at Scarlet, then back at Summer. “Your sister tried to cover for you, but she’s not that good an actress.”

  Scarlet bristled. “Look, Zeke, insult me all you want, but I resent having you take cheap shots at my sister. You may think, just because you’re the current it-boy of the music world, that you can come in here and start flinging accusations, but I can have you thrown out so fast it’ll make that rock-star hair of yours look more than artfully disheveled.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Well, well, a debutante who doesn’t bother with the kid-glove treatment. I guess that was your spandex-and-cleavage outfit that Summer was wearing last night?”

  Summer took a step forward. “Stop it, both of you.” She turned to him. “We need to talk.”

  “Yeah, we’re in agreement on that at least. You owe me some answers.”

  “Not here, though,” she said quickly. “There’s another conference room upstairs, near my desk, that’s rarely used. We can talk there privately.”

  As he turned to follow Summer out of the office, Scarlet threw him a warning look that blared: Watch it. I can still have you thrown out of here on your ear.

  He gave her a parting grin that was full of insouciance.

  As he followed Summer down the brightly patterned hall to the elevator bank, he noted that, if anything, she looked even sexier this morning than she had last night.

  She was dressed in kitten heels, pearls and a twin sweater set. The retro look was demure, yet alluring. While last night’s outfit had been like a green flag at a professional car race, this was more stop than go, and sexier as a result.

  Realizing the direction that his mind was heading in, he put the brakes on his thoughts. Annoyed, he reflected that, while he had every reason to be mad as hell at her, he was still attracted to her.

  When they got to the floor above, he noticed the decorating scheme changed from turquoise blue and edgy to red with lots of glass and chrome. He figured they
were in the offices of another magazine in the EPH publishing empire.

  As if reading his mind, she turned and said over her shoulder, “This floor houses The Buzz.”

  “Let me guess,” he said dryly. “You work for The Buzz.” He reined in his temper once again at the thought that he’d been taken in by some reporter’s scheme to get access. Marty would have a fit.

  “Yes,” she acknowledged, then added, “Did anyone recognize you when you came in?”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t hear the squeals and screams up on the eighteenth floor.”

  She stared at him in astonishment.

  “Worried?” he asked, unable to resist toying with her. Only after a deliberate pause did he explain, “This is New York City. Of course, anyone who recognized me was too blasé to care. That’s why celebrities love New York.”

  When they got to the conference room, she shut the door behind them, and he sat on the edge of the conference table and folded his arms.

  “Now, where were we?” he asked with outward pleasantness. He raised a hand as if to stop her reply. “Oh, yeah, you were about to explain how you forgot to mention you’re a reporter, why you snuck out of my hotel room in the middle of the night and why you happened to be dressed like Scarlet.” He added, focusing at the diamond ring on her finger, “Not to mention the fact that you’ve got a fiancé hidden away somewhere.”

  “He isn’t hidden away. He’s on a business trip.”

  “Even better.” He felt a stab of jealousy. “I wonder how the future Mr. Summer Elliott will feel knowing his fiancée lost her virginity in a hotel room to a man she’d known only a few hours.”

  She flushed.

  He cocked his head. “A little extreme, don’t you think? Losing your virginity for the sake of a reporting assignment? Or was this just some prank that you and your sister concocted—sort of the last hurrah before the wedding?”

  “Stop it! It’s not the way you’re making it seem.”

  “‘Stop it,’” he mimicked. “Is that the best that you can do? Come on, Summer, let go of the uptown girl. Let’s hear you really swear.”

  He was furious with her and even more furious with himself. He, who had a reputation for bad-boy ways and a sullen sulk, had been used and abused by Ms. Prim and Proper. The newspapers would have a field day.

  “I don’t need to swear,” she snapped back. “And you’re one to talk. Do you jump into bed with a different groupie every night?”

  “Jealous?”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  He decided not to enlighten her about his promiscuity or lack thereof. He wasn’t a monk by any stretch of the imagination, but the news reports about him were usually overblown.

  Besides, what could he say to explain jumping into bed with her last night? Whenever I see you, I hear a symphony? How corny was that? Not to mention that The Supremes had made it a hit song long ago. Yet, it was close to the truth. If only he could get that damn song down on paper…

  Aloud, he countered, “You lied to me. Twice. First not telling me you’re an heiress, now this.” He gestured at her hand. “You’re engaged.”

  “I didn’t lie.”

  He chuckled cynically. “Really, Caitlin?”

  “That’s my middle name. Summer Caitlin Elliott.”

  “And do you usually go by your middle name?”

  Her shoulders lowered. “No, but I was only trying to buy a little time—”

  “A little time till when?” he interrupted. “Until we were in bed together? Until the newspapers picked up the story?”

  She threw up her hands. “Okay! You’re right, I’m wrong! Is that what you want to hear?” She blew out a breath. “If you’d just let me explain.”

  “So explain.”

  She squared her shoulders. “I’m just a copy editor here, but my goal has been to become a reporter. Everyone knows you’re the hottest thing in the music world right now. You’re always getting mentioned in The Buzz and in other entertainment magazines. I thought that if I could convince you to do an interview…except I knew that you rarely granted interviews—”

  “That’s because I prefer to let my music speak for me.”

  So, he’d been right. She had been after an interview. Screwed for an interview. He shook his head. Great. There was a song in that, he could feel it.

  She twisted her hands together. “I know it all sounds bad.”

  He quirked a brow. “Honey, it doesn’t only sound bad. It is bad.”

  He’d begun to calm down, but being alone in the same room with her had his body humming. There were also things that still didn’t make sense to him. For starters, she’d been a virgin. Now that he’d started to think logically about all that had happened and all that he’d found out so far, that piece of the puzzle just didn’t fit. Unless, of course, she’d been swept away by lust, too.

  Keeping his voice even, he said, “You still haven’t explained how dressing like Scarlet figures into the picture.”

  She sighed. “I tried to approach you after the benefit concert on Wednesday night, but I couldn’t get by security. Scarlet suggested I’d have better luck if I pretended to be a groupie.” She paused. “Of course, I left my engagement ring at home.”

  He had one other question. “And sleeping with me?”

  She flushed. “That wasn’t part of the plan. It—I—It just happened.”

  Not the satisfaction that he was looking for, he thought, but it was something. He had every reason to be furious at her for misleading him and not revealing she was engaged. Yet, there was something about her that soothed his soul even as it inflamed his lust.

  Besides, he figured her engagement couldn’t be much of an obstacle if she’d been a virgin until last night. And, then there was the matter of the song. With that thought, an idea started to take hold.

  She blinked rapidly. “I owe you a big apology. I never meant to mislead you. I was waiting for the right moment last night to tell you why I was there, but that moment never came.” She drew a quivering breath. “I’m sorry.”

  He looked down for a moment, then back up at her. “What if I said I’ll agree to do the interview?”

  Her eyes widened. “You will? B-but why?”

  His lips teased upward. “Maybe I’ve never had someone go to so much trouble just to get within speaking distance of me.” Or, for the matter, he added silently, into my bed.

  She looked uncertain for a moment.

  “Well?” he said. “How about it?”

  “We slept together!”

  He shrugged and made sure to keep his voice neutral. “So? That’s in the past—” albeit, the very recent past “—and it’s not as if we have an ongoing relationship. Besides, this is the entertainment business, not global geopolitics. No one hesitates to use every connection, no matter how it comes about. And anyway, the press thinks I was out with Scarlet last night, not you.”

  She looked down, contemplating what he’d said, and he found himself holding his breath.

  In the morning light shafting through the room’s windows, she looked delectable, and he felt like the Big Bad Wolf. Last night hadn’t sated his hunger for her. Not by a long shot.

  Finally, she looked up at him with those amazing pale-green eyes. “Okay,” she said, then added, “Thank you.”

  He let go of the breath he was holding. The seduction of Summer Elliott had begun, only she didn’t know it yet.

  “You slept with him?” Scarlet’s mouth gaped open.

  “A little louder,” Summer said dryly. “The next table over hasn’t heard you.”

  They were sitting in a booth in the employees’ cafeteria on the fourth floor of EPH, where she and Scarlet regularly had lunch together. The cafeteria was a quicker and easier choice than beating the throngs that clogged the Manhattan streets downstairs at lunchtime.

  “Didn’t you tell him that you were there as a reporter?” Scarlet persisted.

  “Er, we didn’t quite get to that part.”

&n
bsp; “You didn’t get to that part?”

  Under other circumstances, Summer would have thought this scene was funny. For the second time today, she had managed to flabbergast someone: at the moment Scarlet, whom she knew to be usually unflappable, and earlier Zeke, who certainly appeared that way. Since she was a play-by-the-rules girl, this was a day of firsts for her. Aloud, she said, “Haven’t you ever slept with a guy on a first date?”

  “Never.”

  “Never?”

  Scarlet shook her head.

  Apparently, for once, she’d outdone her twin in outrageousness. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, which was another sign, she supposed, that she was verging on hysteria.

  “Anyway,” Scarlet persisted, the salad in front of her forgotten, “this isn’t about me and this isn’t just about sleeping with a guy. This is about losing your virginity to some bad-boy rock star that you barely know when you said for years that you’d wait for your wedding night.”

  Summer knew that Scarlet had neither completely understood nor shared her vow of celibacy, but her sister had respected it. Now maybe even respect had flown out the window.

  Summer winced at the thought, before joking weakly, “Thanks. Could you maybe make it sound more sordid and trashy?”

  “And what about John?” Scarlet demanded, then shook her head. “I don’t get it. Why lose your virginity now, when the wedding night is around the corner?”

  Summer had been dwelling on the same question since leaving Zeke’s hotel room.

  After the confrontation with Zeke at the office that morning, she’d resigned herself to getting no work done and had popped outside and sat in a café, sipping tea, until lunchtime.

  She’d had plenty of time to think, and to dwell on the fact that she’d never before experienced the same restless, I’ve-got-to-have-you-now attraction that she had last night with Zeke. The attraction defied explanation and logic—he was unlike her in many ways, and definitely didn’t fit her normal taste in men—but there it was.