“I will get married...
But it sure as hell won’t be for love.”
A compromising viral video has ruined Jeffrey Harper’s reputation. But his father’s offer for a new start comes with strings. To develop a luxury resort at Plunder Cove, the celebrity hotelier must first settle down—with an arranged marriage. That suits the cynic fine, until aspiring chef Michele Cox whets his appetite for something spicier than a contract would allow...
Jeff wasn’t wired for the sort of connection his brother had found.
Then, as the last woman passed by, she stopped and looked up. It was as if she’d sensed him. Her eyes met his. She smiled, and hell if he couldn’t see her dimples from where he stood. If he had to choose one word to describe her it would be sparkly.
“That was Michele Cox from Alfieri’s.” Matt grinned and threw his arm over Jeff’s shoulder. “Be real and you’ll find love. I swear it.”
Jeff exhaled deeply. “Lightning doesn’t strike twice in one family. And I’m not marrying any of these women, but I might hire her. I watched her on a cooking show once. Hell, she handled her kitchen with such passion, such flare. Spice and color all mixed together. She was poetry in action.”
“You like her,” Matt said.
Jeff shot his brother a dirty look. “I’m not interested in searching for love. I just need a chef, and a wife who’ll satisfy Dad’s terms.”
Matt shook his head, his voice sad. “You’ll never feel it that way.”
“Feel what?”
“Lightning.”
* * *
A Convenient Scandal is part of the Plunder Cove series from New York Times bestselling author Kimberley Troutte.
Dear Reader,
While writing this book, an amazing act of solidarity and strength swept the nation in the #MeToo movement. People joined hands and spoke about hurts kept secret for far too long. I hope this is the start of healing for all of us—women and men—for I’m raising sons and want them to have beautiful relationships. Thinking about how love produces hope and strength led me to the hero and heroine in A Convenient Scandal.
Jeff Harper is a television hotel critic caught on tape in what seems to be a scandalous position. No one believes playboy Jeff Harper’s side of the story except Michele Cox, a chef who has been beaten down by her world-famous boss until she doesn’t trust her skills. Together they’ll find love that builds them both up until they are strong enough to face public scrutiny.
For those of you still struggling with uncomfortable or even terrifying sexual-abuse situations please know that you are not alone. Reach out and find support. Good, healthy relationships make each person stronger and never tear a person down. We all deserve to be loved and treated with kindness.
Thank you for reading!
Kimberley Troutte
Kimberley Troutte
A Convenient Scandal
Kimberley Troutte is a RITA® Award–nominated, New York Times, USA TODAY and Amazon Top 100 bestselling author. She lives in Southern California with her husband, two sons, a wild cat, an old snake, a beautiful red iguana and various creatures hubby and the boys rescue.
To learn more about her books and sign up for her newsletter, go to www.kimberleytroutte.com.
Books by Kimberley Troutte
Harlequin Desire
Plunder Cove
Forbidden Lovers
A Convenient Scandal
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Contents
History of Plunder Cove
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
Epilogue
Excerpt from Lone Star Reunion by Joss Wood
History of Plunder Cove
For centuries, the Harpers have masterminded shrewd business deals.
In the 1830s, cattle baron Jonas Harper purchased the twelve-thousand-acre land grant of Plunder Cove on the now affluent California coast. It’s been said that the king of Spain dumped the rich land on the American because pirates ruthlessly raided the cove. It is also said no one saw a pirate ship after Jonas bought the land for a rock-bottom price.
Harpers pass this tale on to each generation to remind their heirs that there is a pirate in each of them. Every generation is expected to increase the Harper legacy, usually through great sacrifice, as with oil tycoon, RW Harper, who sent his children away ten years ago.
Now RW has asked his children to return to Plunder Cove—with conditions. He is not above bribing them to get what he wants.
Harpers don’t love, they pillage. But if RW’s wily plans succeed, all four Harpers, including RW, might finally find love in Plunder Cove.
One
Jeff Harper pressed his forehead to the glass pane of his floor-to-ceiling living room window and watched the mass of reporters swarming below.
They couldn’t get a good shot of him at this height, since he was twenty-two floors above Central Park, but once he stepped outside his building they’d attack. Every word he said, or didn’t say, would be used to bury him—shovel after shovel piled on top of his rotting career.
Dammit, he hated to fail.
Before this week, Jeff had been able to live with the invasion of his privacy and had learned to use the cameras to his advantage. The press followed him around New York because he was the last unmarried prince of Harper Industries and a hotel critic on the show Secrets and Sheets. Paparazzi photographed his dinner dates as if each one was a passionate love match. His name had appeared on the list of America’s Most Eligible Bachelors for the last three years running. When pressed during interviews, he always said there was no special woman in his life and he was never getting married. The author of the article inevitably wrapped up with some bogus statement about “Jeffrey Harper just needs to find the right woman to settle him down.” Which was a big hell no.
Why end up like his parents?
He’d mostly put up with the press until he’d seen his own backside plastered across tabloid front pages with the headline “Hotel Critic Caught in Sex Scandal.”
Sex scandal. He wished.
He’d been set up.
And the incriminating video had gone viral.
The show he’d created and nurtured was canceled. Everything he’d built—his career, his reputation, his lifelong passion for the hotel industry—had exploded.
Just like that, Jeff was done.
If he didn’t fix this, he’d never regain what he’d lost.
Only one person might hire him at this point. Of course, he was the one person Jeff had vowed never to beg.
Grimacing, he dialed the number.
The phone rang once. “Jeffrey, I’ve b
een waiting for your call.”
Not a good sign since Jeff never called.
“Hey, Dad. I was wondering...” He swallowed hard. This was going to be painful. “Is the family hotel project still on the table?”
A year ago, when Jeff’s brother had returned home to Plunder Cove, their father had offered to put Jeff in charge of converting the Spanish mansion into an exclusive five-star resort. He liked the idea more than he’d dared admit. Hotel design, development and management had been his dream career since he was old enough to put blocks together, and he’d steadily worked to become an international expert in the field. But it was more than that. He couldn’t put into words why turning his childhood home into a safe place was important. No one would know why using his own hands to reshape the past meant everything to Jeff. Yet...he’d declined his father’s offer because RW was a mean, selfish, poor excuse for a father, and he’d never respected Jeff.
But beggars couldn’t be choosers, and all that.
“You’ve reconsidered.” RW stated it as fact.
Did he have a choice? “The network pulled my show. I’ve got time on my hands.”
“Wonderful.”
Strange word to use under the circumstances, but his father sounded pleased. The tightness in Jeff’s chest loosened a bit when he realized he didn’t have to beg for the job. He’d half-expected his father would make him grovel. “I’ll be there tomorrow.”
“There’s one condition.”
He should have guessed that. Those three words lifted the hairs on the back of Jeff’s neck. “Yeah? What?”
“You’ve got to improve your image. I’ve seen the video, son.”
Jeff paced his living room. “It’s not what it looks like.”
“That’s a relief because it looks like you had a quickie in the elevator at Xander Finn’s hotel with a hotel maid. Low-class, son. Harpers pay for suites.”
Jeff ground his molars together. “I paid for a suite.”
He just hadn’t had time to use it while he was undercover exposing a social injustice.
Jeff cared about people and used the power of his name and his show to set things right. The great RW would never understand why Jeff went out of his way to expose the megarich like Xander Finn.
Weeks earlier, Finn had threatened bodily harm to the Secrets and Sheets crew if they stepped inside the gilded doors of his most expensive Manhattan hotel. The threat had made Jeff wonder what the man had to hide. He’d filmed the episode himself, and the dirt he uncovered would show viewers how badly customers were being ripped off by one of the richest men in New York.
Little did Jeff know that he was about to become the one to “break the internet,” with ridiculous GIFs and memes.
The latest one said, “Those who can, run a hotel; those who can’t, become sex-crazed critics.”
“Success is all about image,” RW was still talking over the phone. “Yours needs an overhaul, Jeffrey. Didn’t you know hotels have video cameras in the elevators?”
“Of course, I do. I was set up!” Jeff slammed his teeth together to keep from blurting out what really happened in the elevator. His father hadn’t shielded him from abuse when he was six; why would he shield him now?
No, except for this job offer—with conditions—Jeff was on his own. Always had been.
“Wait.” A flicker of foreboding licked up Jeff’s spine. “How did you know I was in Finn’s elevator? Did he send you the entire video?”
“Xander and I go way back. He’s always been a pain in the ass. No, I haven’t seen it all, but he promises me it gets worse. I get the sense you don’t want the public to see what happens next. Am I correct?”
Jeff let out a slow breath. The small digital slice encircling the internet was bad enough. If the rest went public, there would be no coming back. “What does he want?”
“I bet you can guess.”
Jeff rubbed the back of his neck. “The recording I made of his hotel.”
“Bingo. And a televised statement that his hotel is above reproach. The best damned hotel you’ve ever seen.” RW paused. “Xander wants you to grovel.”
“I’m not doing that. It was one of the worst I’ve ever seen. Think about the people who save for years to vacation at his fancy hotel. No. It’s unacceptable. No one can bully me anymore, Dad.”
“Then we have a problem,” RW said.
“We?”
“Harper Industries has a reputation to uphold and stockholders to please. We can’t go around hiring a sex-crazed—”
“Dad! I was set up.”
“Blackmail only works because you were caught on tape. You screwed up.” There. That was the father he’d expected when he picked up the phone. The superior tone and words dripping with condemnation were signature RW Harper.
“Blackmail only works if I roll over. I won’t do that,” Jeff snapped.
“Think carefully,” RW said. “He’s threatening to release bits and pieces of your damned sex video for eternity unless you agree to his terms. With a constant stream of bad press, you’ll never work in New York’s hotel industry again. Or anywhere else for that matter. Not even for me.”
Jeff pinched the bridge of his nose. “Then he’s got me.”
“Not if we stop him with good PR. It must be done quickly to keep your train wreck from derailing the entire Plunder Cove project. I promised the townspeople their percentage of resort profits and I intend to keep my word.”
“The people in Pueblicito not getting their share. That’s what bothers you the most about what happened to me?”
“The Harpers owe them, son.”
Jeff shook his head. Harpers were pirates—takers, and users. The family tree included buccaneers and land barons who’d once owned the people in Pueblicito. RW was just as bad as past generations because he only cared about increasing profits for Harper Industries.
Greed had destroyed his family.
And now Dad wants to donate profit to strangers? What’s the catch?
Jeff didn’t believe the mean oil tycoon had grown a charitable heart. It wasn’t possible.
“Why now?” Jeff pressed.
“I have my reasons. They’re none of your concern.”
Deflection. Secrets. Now that was more like the father Jeff remembered, which probably meant the old man was stringing the townspeople along in an elaborate con. The RW Jeff knew was a master schemer who fought dirty and stole what he wanted.
“You have a choice. Agree to Xander’s terms or agree to mine.” RW paused for effect. “Together we can beat him at his own game.”
“I’m listening.”
“We offer the public a respectable Jeffrey Harper, an upstanding successful hotel developer. You’ll again be a businessman everyone looks up to. The shareholders will have undeniable proof that you’ve settled down and are prepared to represent Harper Industries in this new venture.”
“How?”
“With a legal contract signed in front of witnesses.”
Jeff frowned. “What sort of contract?”
“The long-lasting, ‘until death do you part’ sort.”
Oh, hell no.
Jeff sat heavily on his couch. “I’m not getting married.”
“You can’t be a playboy forever. It’s time you settled down. Started a family.”
“Like you did? How’d that work out for you, Dad?”
It was a low blow, thrown with force. Jeff would never forgive his parents for the hell they’d put him and his brother and sister through.
RW didn’t respond. Not that Jeff had thought he would. The silence was a hammer pounding all the nails into the bitter wall lodged between them.
After a long minute RW said, “I’m hiring a project manager at the end of the week. When the hotel is ready, I’ll hire a manager for that, too. You agree with my terms and y
ou’ve got both jobs. Don’t agree and you’ll be scrounging on your own in New York.”
I’ve been scrounging since I turned sixteen and you kicked me out of the house, old man.
“Think this through.” RW’s voice grew softer. “The hotel you create on Plunder Cove will be a family legacy. I don’t trust easily, but I have faith you’ll do it right.”
Those words floored him.
He’d never heard anything like them before.
Jeff stared at his size twelve loafers. He wanted to believe what his dad said, but the reality of who RW had always been was too hard to forget—as was the “one condition.” “Come on, Dad. You can’t expect me to get married.”
“I’ll give you a few days to think about it,” RW said.
In a few days, another million people would share those damned GIFs and memes. The social media attack would never stop—unless he fought back.
Dad’s ridiculous plan was the only thing that made a lick of sense.
It pissed him off, but still he growled, “Have your people start the search for a chef. A great one.”
“You want to marry a chef?”
“No, I want to hire one. An exclusive resort needs a five-star restaurant. That’s how we’ll get the ball rolling. A restaurant is faster to get up and running than a hotel and the best ones get the word out fast. Find me a group of chefs to choose from. Lure them from the world’s top restaurants and offer them deals they can’t refuse. I’ll assess their culinary skills and choose a winner.”
“A contest? You’d pit them against each other?”
“Call it part of the cooking interview. We’ll see which one can handle the heat. My chef has to be capable of rising above stress.”
RW produced a sharp whistle through his nose, the one he used when he was not pleased. “You must marry, Jeffrey. That’s my only stipulation. I don’t care who as long as she makes you look respectable.”
Jeff didn’t want a wife. He wanted a hotel.
He needed to make Plunder Cove the best locale in the world, and then he’d have his dignity back. And a touch of something that might resemble a survivor’s victory.
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