The Scandal (Billionaire's Beach Book 4)

by Christie Ridgway

  Sara didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at that. “I’m not sure…”

  “I’ve got a better one.” The most handsome man in the world took up Sara’s left hand and kissed her ring finger, his gaze trained on hers. “How about ‘Malibu Butler Marries True Love’?”

  At that, Sara did it all. She laughed, she cried, she kissed the man who had, despite the odds, given her confidence in forever.

  He’s right, she thought, jumping up to wrap her legs around Joaquin’s waist in order to give the paps—and the whole world—an even bigger show. It must be the real thing.

  At dawn on the last day of May, Joaquin stood on a paddle board, stroking out into the calm ocean waters with Essie sitting cross-legged on the nose. His sister had a plumeria blossom tucked behind her ear, and they both wore colorful leis around their necks. Another string of flowers was piled in Essie’s lap.

  He breathed in the cool morning air, thanking George Weatherford for bringing him to this place. If the man hadn’t taken in the broken and grieving sixteen-year-old, who knew what dark paths Joaquin might have traveled to escape his tragic memories. Instead, George had given him a role model, an education, a business that he enjoyed running…and, ultimately, serendipitously, Nueva Vida.

  Glancing over his shoulder, he looked back at the house, smiling when he saw Sara on the deck, watching him. Of course she would be there. He waved, and she waved back, and it was hard to take his next breath because his chest was filled with love for her. As he saw his mother and Martin stroll out to join Sara, he almost fell off the board. Renata was never an early riser.

  “Our mom’s up,” he told Essie.

  She glanced at him and then lifted the lei in her lap. It was mostly white, accented with blood-red blossoms. “This one is hers.”

  “Should we do it then?”

  The teenager looked around. “This seems good.”

  Joaquin stopped paddling, and the board floated easily. “Go ahead, Es.”

  “Okay.” She cleared her throat, then sent another swift glance at Joaquin.

  “Go, sweets.” He gave her an encouraging nod.

  “I…I didn’t get a chance to meet you, Felipe,” she began then, her words slow and measured. “I wish I had been able to know both my big brothers. And I also wish you peace and the knowledge that you’re still remembered.” With a graceful move of her arm, she tossed Renata’s lei into the water. “And loved.” She removed the circle of flowers from around her neck and let it follow the first. “Be at rest.”

  Her gaze came to Joaquin again.

  “You did great.” He smiled at her, then touched the petals of the flowers around his own neck. “Fifteen years, man. I’ve missed you so much for every single one of them. What adventures we might have had together.” It was hard to breathe again. “But I’m now remembering the ones we did have with joy, Brother. I’ve found a woman, I’m putting together a new life for us, and I know, I know you’d be happy for me.”

  He slipped the lei free from his neck and held its light weight in his hand, feeling as if the heavy burden of his grief had been lifted with it. The ghostly regrets seemed permanently buried now, too.

  “Love you, bro,” he said, tossing the circlet into the water.

  Then he echoed Essie’s words. “Be at rest.”

  As the flowers floated on the surface of the Pacific, he and Essie communed with nature and their feelings for a few quiet minutes until he heard his sister’s stomach rumble.

  “Sorry,” she said, with a little grimace. “I think it’s anticipating Sara’s promised waffles.”

  Joaquin laughed. “They sound good to me, too.” Putting the paddle to use again, he turned the board. His fiancée still stood on the deck, the woman who’d told him she was eager to put down roots with him. That together they’d thrive.

  He moved steadily toward her, feeling whole and hopeful and happy.

  This new life was going to be so damn good.

  # # #

  Dear Reader:

  Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed THE SCANDAL, the fourth book in the Billionaire’s Beach series. It’s been great fun to spend more time in Malibu and write another surfside love story for you to enjoy.

  Joaquin and Sara are set to enjoy a bright future together, though more excitement is to come in their lives as Sara’s butler classmates Emmaline and Charlotte journey toward their own happy endings in The Seduction and The Secret. I hope you’ll look for them.

  Interested in sharing your thoughts with other readers? I hope you leave a review for the book here.

  To not miss out on new releases and to get other information about upcoming books, sign up for my newsletter. You can also follow me on Facebook, Twitter, or visit my website.

  Below, find an excerpt to the first book in my Rock Royalty series and links to buy other Ridgway romances you may have missed.

  Enjoy!

  Christie Ridgway

  Excerpt – LIGHT MY FIRE

  © Copyright 2014 Christie Ridgway

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  Chapter 1

  The children of America's premier rock band learned early to sleep through anything. Late night jam sessions, liquor (and worse) -fueled arguments, raucous parties raging from dark to dawn that were peppered with wild laughter, breaking glass, and the squishy thud of fists against skin. At twenty-four, Cilla Maddox had not lost that skill, though she'd recently come to view it as something less than a gift.

  Still, she didn't stir from her curled position on the edge of the king-sized bed when a tall, broad figure entered the room in the middle of the night. No streetlights disturbed the darkness this deep in Laurel Canyon and the newcomer found the bed only by deduction. When, at his sixth cautious step, his shin met an immoveable object, he dropped the motorcycle boots and duffel bag he carried to the plush carpet and took a leap of faith by tipping his long body forward. Finding firm mattress and feathery pillow, he instantly fell into sleep.

  Hours later, Cilla came awake to the sound of birds tweeting and chirping their odes to another Southern California morning as they flitted through the shrubbery and tall eucalyptus trees that grew inside and outside the canyon compound where she'd grown up. Eyes closed, she breathed in the country-scented air, such a surprise when the famous Hollywood Boulevard and its twin in notoriety, the Sunset Strip, were less than a mile away. Flopping to her back, she stretched to her full five-feet, five inches. Then she pushed her arms overhead and swept them back down until her fingertips met—

  Something solid. Warm. Alive.

  On a gasp, her eyes flew open and her head whipped right. She yanked her hand from a man's heavy shoulder to press it against her thrashing heart.

  As it continued to beat wildly against her ribs, she stared at her bedmate. Though his body was plastered to the mattress belly-down, his face was turned toward hers and it only took another instant to realize he was no stranger. But recognition didn't calm the overactive organ in her chest that continued sending blood sprinting through her body.

  She blinked, just to make sure her eyes weren't deceiving her. They apparently had told the truth, she decided. After years of adolescent fantasies, she was actually sharing a bed with him. With Renford Colson.

  No mistake, it was her teenage fantasy man. His glossy black hair that tangled nearly to his shoulders. His days'-old stubble of beard that made his mouth look softer, fuller, more kissable if that was even possible. Those were his spiky lashes resting against his sharp-angled face.

  Yet...was he really here? To make herself believe it, she mouthed his name. Ren.

  As if he heard the silent syllable, his eyes flipped open.

  She started, their distinctive color—a silvered green, just like eucalyptus leaves—jolting her to the marrow.

  Dark brows met over his straight nose and she watched the drowsiness seep from him as his gaze sharpened. "Priss?"

  She frowned. He was the only one to call her that nickname and it had annoyed her since s
he was old enough to understand it telegraphed something about the way he viewed her. "Excessively proper," she remembered reading in the dictionary. "Prim."

  "Cilla." Her voice sounded morning-husky as she made the correction.

  One corner of his mouth kicked up. "Priscilla."

  Ugh. That was worse. To her mind, Priscilla was the name of some old-fashioned china doll that was deemed too nice to play with and so grew dusty on a high, forgotten closet shelf. As the youngest "princess" of rock royalty (an article in Rolling Stone had described the nine collective children of the Velvet Lemons in just such terms), she'd often been overlooked. Likely Ren hadn't given her a single thought in the nine years since she'd last seen him.

  "Why are you here?" she asked, sitting up.

  His gaze dropped from her face to the size XL T-shirt she wore, an authentic Byrds concert souvenir, one of the several such clothing items she'd collected (read: purloined from her careless father) during her lifetime. "Priss," Ren remarked with a note of mild surprise, "you've grown up."

  Grown-ups didn't react to the red flush they could feel crawling over their skin. Grown-ups didn't check out their chest to determine if it was a modest B-cup that led him to such a conclusion. So ignoring both compulsions, she repeated her question. "Why are you here?"

  "Couple reasons." Ren flipped over then jackknifed on the mattress to face her. Both palms rubbed over his eyes and down his cheeks, his beard making a scratchy sound. He'd fallen asleep in his worn jeans and wrinkled dress shirt. On the floor near him were a pair of battered boots and a leather bag, both as black as his hair. His hands went to the buttons marching down his chest.

  She swallowed. "What are you doing?"

  "I've been wearing this damn thing for—Christ, who knows?—it's got to be a couple of days. However long it took me to get here from Russia with a fucking long layover in Paris."

  Her gaze didn't leave his nimble fingers as they continued unbuttoning to reveal a stark white undershirt beneath. "You didn't stop off in London?" That was where he was based. Ren had started as a roadie for the band, then moved into concert tour planning and security. When he'd left the employ of the Velvet Lemons, he'd set up shop across the pond and continued doing the same thing—just not for their fathers' band.

  Cilla couldn't blame him for that. The three Lemons might as well have been named the Odd Ducks. They'd achieved superstardom in the 1970s and when they were nearing forty, somehow decided they wanted more than sex, riches, and scandalous reputations. Each had produced three kids before declaring their paternal urges satisfied. No mothers came attached to the children they'd fathered. They'd been bought off or wandered off and as long as Cilla could remember the nine rock progeny had spent their childhoods in the expansive Laurel Canyon compound that consisted of three separate houses and then this smaller cottage where she and Ren had chosen to sleep.

  Inspecting the hand-tied quilt covering the bed, Cilla ran her fingers over the psychedelic-inspired design. "You know about Gwen?" she asked, referring to Guinevere Moon, an original Velvet Lemons groupie who'd been the closest to a mother figure the band's offspring ever had. This had been her house.

  "Of course," Ren replied. "I couldn't get here for the memorial service, but I came as soon as I was able to make arrangements for my replacement."

  As head fixer for some other band's tour, Cilla supposed. "Her real name was Donna Carp," she said, her heart squeezing to think that the spiral-curled, caftan-wearing gentle soul was now gone. "Gwen's, that is."

  There was a short silence, then Ren laughed. "Baby, you didn't think she really had Guinevere Moon on her birth certificate?"

  Mortification spread heat over Cilla's face once more. Okay, so she had. "Thanks for thinking I'm a fool," she said, glancing up to glare at him.

  The spit in her mouth dried.

  Ren had tossed his shirt over the side of the bed and then stripped free of the undershirt he'd worn too. Beneath that...

  He was cut. Ripped. His abs were perfectly defined above the waistband of his jeans. His pecs were slabs of thick muscle that drew the eye to broad shoulders that led to arms that were sinew, bone, and more muscle. Over his left pectoral began a primitive-yet-elegant tribal tattoo that swirled in black ink over the cap of his shoulder to reach as far as his elbow. Though most of his forearm was unmarked, on his wrist was a lone, stylized half-curve. She stared at it and then his long fingers, unwilling to let her gaze wander back to that beautiful chest.

  She'd been fifteen when she'd last seen him. He'd been twenty-two. Then, she'd only dreamed of his kisses, chaste kisses at that, and hadn't wondered about his body or his hands or what he could do to a woman with them.

  It was what consumed her thoughts now.

  That, and how they were sharing a bed.

  Galvanized by that fact, she leaped from beneath the covers, her bare feet landing on the carpet. The overlarge shirt swung around her body, the hem tickling the top of her thighs. With Ren's gaze on her, her attempt at escape seemed a foolhardy choice. Suddenly her legs felt too naked, and she was acutely aware of what was under her tee—just a scrap of lacey panties. In another not-so-suave move, she swiftly re-inserted herself under the quilt and between the warm sheets, pulling them high to conceal more of herself. "It's, uh, cold out there," she said, by way of explanation. Her breathless state made her voice sound reedy.

  Ren's expression had gone blank and his thoughts were impossible to interpret. Staring at her, he ran a palm along his stubbled jaw. "You cut your hair, Priss."

  Her fingers flew to the bobbed ends. She still wasn't accustomed to how the dark blond stuff curled and waved now that eighteen inches of weight had been taken from its length.

  "I thought you'd vowed never to take scissors to it," he continued.

  He remembered that? She shrugged. "Like you said, I've grown up." The haircut hadn't been her idea, though, and a wave of humiliation at the memory of it washed over her.

  Ren's gaze narrowed. "Priss..."

  "Cilla."

  "Cilla, then. Something wrong? Something bothering you?"

  A lot was bothering her. Up to and including the fact that her old longing for Renford Colson was not dead, but just hibernating until the day his hot body arrived on the doorstep. Now her hormones were stirring and she felt oddly out-of-sorts and unfamiliarly ravenous. Not unlike the California black bears, she figured, that would emerge from their hollow trees and mountain caves in a few short weeks.

  "It's been a lousy month or so," she said. He couldn't doubt that. "Gwen's passing, the wild circus the Lemons made of her memorial service before they rushed back out on tour, and then there's the Beck situation."

  "Beck?" Ren frowned. "What about Beck?"

  The Velvet Lemons' drummer had named his three kids, Beck, Walsh, and Reed—all boys—after musicians he admired: Jeff Beck, Joe Walsh, and Lou Reed. Ren's father had given all three of his progeny, two boys and a girl—Renford, Payne, and Campbell— the surnames of their long-gone mothers. Cilla never got a straight answer from her own dad. She figured he didn't remember why he'd picked out Priscilla, or why he'd chosen Brody and Bing for her twin older brothers.

  She took in a breath, stalling. Beck was the oldest of the nine and Ren was the next closest in age. How would he take the news? "He's missing. Nobody told you that?"

  Ren went still. "I don't have regular communication with anyone."

  The princes and princesses of rock royalty had scattered as each came of age, but she hadn't realized how out of touch Ren had been. "You don't talk to Payne or Campbell?"

  Ren was shaking his head. "Not very often."

  "Beck hasn't been in steady contact with Walsh or Reed either. That's why we don't really know exactly how long he's been missing."

  "Missing," Ren repeated.

  "He took a freelance assignment to do a long piece on the Nile for one of the nature magazines. About nine months ago. No one has heard from him since."

  "Hell."

 
"His dad and the magazine put feelers out, though it's not clear whether Beck is actually lost or merely following the story. It just seems weird that he's been silent for so long."

  Ren relaxed, and ran his hand through his hair, giving Cilla another glimpse of that interesting, incomplete-looking tattoo on his wrist. "I'm sure Beck's fine."

  Cilla wished she had his certainty. "I hope you're right."

  "I am." He half-turned to punch the pillows behind him then settled back, crossing his arms over that magnificent chest. His biceps bulged.

  Gathering the covers closer, Cilla pretended she didn't notice them. "So...you're just, uh, passing through on your way back to London?"

  "Moscow to London via Paris and L.A.? I know we had shitty upbringings, Pri—Cilla, but our schooling wasn't so bad. Pretty sure you'd see there's no logic in that."

  There wasn't logic in anything at the moment. Particularly how she was absolutely electrified by the presence of Ren who was gazing on her like she was a ditzy puzzle and not a desirable woman.

  Though she'd been doubting the desirable part for months already. Her fingers wandered again to the shorn ends of her hair.

  She forced her hand to her lap. "So what exactly does bring you home?"

  He drew up his knees and rested his wrists on the top of them, his big hands dangling. "I got a package from Gwen's lawyer, telling me about some box she left me, as well as a key to this place. Then Bean tracked me down. That was a first."

  "String Bean" Colson, the band's lead guitarist and Ren's father. "What did he have to say?"

  Ren shrugged. "The gist of it was he wanted me to come to the canyon, look things over at the compound since the band's been gone for months. That, coupled with Gwen's death..." Looking down, he ran a finger over the tattoo on his wrist. "I decided to check in."

  His gaze lifted to her face. "What are you doing here, Cilla?"

  Hiding. Licking my wounds. Trying to resurrect my sense of self in the one place where I always found comfort. "I received my own package from Gwen—including a key as well. So I decided to leave my place at the beach and move to the canyon for a while. She left me her costume collection and I thought I might sort through it from here."