The Price of Scandal

by Score, Lucy

  “Thanks for the rounds,” I said, deliberately turning away from the woman who was ready to breathe fire.

  “You bet. Beer next week?” he offered, scooping up his gym bag.

  “In the books.” We hugged it out, one-armed man style.

  When I turned my attention back to Emily, she was stepping through the ropes into the ring, her $1,200 shoes neatly tucked in the corner.

  “Are you coming to fight me?” I asked.

  “I am if you think I’m going to that asshole’s party.”

  “Fallen CEOs can’t be choosers,” I reminded her.

  The action around the gym had picked back up, leaving the two of us in the ring.

  “My job is to paint a new picture for the public. And the only way I can do that is by putting you out there.”

  “The man grabbed my VP of finance’s ass and called me a stupid whore at a fundraiser for clean water in sub-Saharan Africa.”

  Asshole. “An open bar, I presume?”

  “I’m not going. Which brings me to the most important agenda item: I now require approval on every event you’re adding to my calendar.”

  “Forget the party. You stabbing Ellison with a Jimmy Choo wouldn’t do much to repair your reputation. But you are going to have to do things you don’t want to do if we’re going to clean this up.”

  She took a step forward and lifted that aristocratic chin. “All I do are things I don’t want to,” she shot back.

  Her lips curled in on themselves as if she was trying to take the words back.

  “Tell me,” I pressed.

  But the walls were back up. The temper banked down.

  We were standing too close. She was in my space, and I could smell whatever delicate perfume she wore, feel the energy crackling off her. If anyone needed to go a few rounds, it was the wounded, frustrated Emily Stanton.

  “I want vetoes,” she said.

  “Fight me for them.”

  Her eyes widened. “I beg your pardon?”

  “You heard me.” I tapped my gloves together. “Fight me for them. We’ll go a round.”

  I expected her to scoff at the suggestion. To toss her hair over her shoulder and storm out. To fire me.

  “I’ll change,” she said with a brisk nod.

  My client was full of surprises.

  I should have known I was in trouble when she returned to the ring in short shorts, a sports bra, and her own headgear and gloves in hand.

  But I was a man. A stupid, stupid man.

  I was too distracted by that lithe, athletic form. Her breasts were small and firm. Her abs were spectacular. Those long, long legs were strong and lean. Her skin had that Miami sun-kissed glow. Who knew an athlete existed under all those designer clothes?

  “I’ll go easy on you,” I promised.

  The dragon stirred behind those cool gray-blue eyes. It was my last warning.

  She decked me in the jaw, threw a body shot, and dropped to the mat to sweep my legs out from under me.

  I went down like the big, dumb asshole I was.

  She rolled, sliding her body over and around mine. My flight or fight system couldn’t decide whether to be incredibly turned on or terrified. By the time I realized the danger, she’d locked her legs around me from behind and wrapped an exquisite arm around my throat.

  There were hoots and chuckles coming from every corner of the gym.

  I was no slouch in the ring. But I’d underestimated my opponent.

  “I want vetoes,” she enunciated in my ear.

  She squeezed tighter, and my vision grayed a bit around the edges.

  “You’re not even sweating,” I gasped out. My fingers were working at her arm around my throat.

  “I kickbox for fun,” she said evilly. “Now, about those vetoes.”

  I didn’t have much at my disposal against her Muay Thai, but I’d be damned if I let her win that easily. Digging my heels into the mat, I worked myself into a bridge and forced all of my weight onto her chest. She could strangle me, but I could suffocate her.

  I found the pressure point on her wrist and shamelessly stabbed it. Her grip loosened, and I rolled, mounting her on the mat.

  There was nothing cool in those eyes of hers now. The dragon was awake and possibly even enjoying herself.

  She hitched her hips and wrapped her legs around my waist, locking them behind my back. And then she realized her mistake. Those eyes widened again.

  Biology reared its head. Jude and I didn’t throw blows below the belt. There was no need to wear a cup when I sparred with him.

  There was also no danger of me getting a hard-on in the ring with him.

  We lay locked together and sweating, our breathing heavy. My weight was pressing her into the mat, my cock hardening to concrete between her open legs where I had her pinned. I could feel the heat from her core through the spandex of her shorts and the mesh of mine.

  Her legs never lessened their pressure.

  She bucked against me once, perhaps to dislodge me, perhaps to feel the shallow thrust against her sex.

  I was gritting my teeth. I was on top, but I sure as hell wasn’t the one in control.

  The feel of her beneath me was toying with the part of my brain that wasn’t fully civilized. I wanted to close a hand over her throat and thrust like an animal. To feel her let go. I wanted to dominate her. Submit to her. Please her.

  Her left hand fluttered on the mat, and I glanced in that direction. I never saw the right that she plowed into my face. It was enough to shift my balance, and then we were rolling and grappling again.

  This time she won the top.

  I outweighed her by almost a hundred pounds. I could throw her off. Probably. But she was straddling me, her thighs squeezing my hips like a boa constrictor.

  Her chest was heaving with effort.

  I’d taken a respectable number of women to bed. I thoroughly enjoyed sex. But never in all of my forty-three years had I seen anything as sexy as Emily Stanton, sweaty and victorious on top of me.

  “One veto,” I offered.

  She squeezed me with those magic thighs, and my dick rubbed against her enthusiastically. The breath she let out was shaky. “Five,” she countered.

  I gave one small, testing thrust. I was a beast. An animal. I was seconds away from seeing exactly how far she would let me go.

  Her eyes were unreadable.

  Disgusted with myself, I tried to lift her off me, but her thighs tightened again. Dear God. This woman was going to kill me. I only hoped she’d let me make her come before she did.

  “Not until we have a deal.” Her voice was raspy, breath hot on my chin.

  “Three vetoes. Final offer,” I said.

  This time, it was she who gave the shallow little thrust. Even fully clothed, I was the Ponce de León of female anatomy. I knew that my cock was coasting through her open folds. There were people in easy view of this tableau. Witnesses who could watch me dry fuck my client into oblivion.

  “Fuck,” I breathed. Where was that control I was so proud of?

  “You must have left it in your other pants,” Emily whispered.

  And now I was speaking my inner thoughts out loud. The woman was a witch. An enchanting temptress.

  “What are you doing?” I gritted out the words.

  She dipped lower until we were nose to nose. “Winning.”

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  “Love, three vetoes or I’m not going to be able to control myself, and I’ll do something that will go a long way in ruining not just your reputation but your ability to enjoy other men in bed.”

  She arched an eyebrow.

  I groaned at the friction against my cock.

  “Someone’s cocky,” Emily whispered.

  “Is that a pun?” I gritted the question out.

  “Three vetoes and allow me to restate that there will be no physical relationship between the two of us. You’re not my type.”

  The woman was a manipulative liar, and I was already hal
f in love with her. I just needed to be patient, give her enough time with my smoldering sexiness before her resolve shattered.

  “A physical relationship with you is the last thing on my mind,” I groaned. My cock twitched painfully against her at my lie.

  “Good. We have a deal,” she said. And then the great and powerful billionaire CEO kissed me playfully on the nose before hopping to her feet.

  I lay there on my back, staring up at the fluorescent lights that hung from the twenty-foot ceiling. What the hell had just happened to me?

  A peek at the real Emily Stanton. That’s what.

  * * *

  Me: Revenge favor.

  Rowena: My fave. Who?

  Me: Malcolm Ellis.

  Rowena: Level of revenge?

  Me: General douchebag. Make it sting. Make sure he knows it’s me.

  Rowena: Lemme see what we’ve got…

  Rowena: Seems Mr. Douchebag has been bidding on a particular piece of art that the artist isn’t keen on selling. Female artist. Takes offense to his hot mic comments regarding the “blow job lips” of the journalist interviewing him. He’s got a hard-on for the painting and keeps raising his bid.

  Me: Buy it and send him a thank you note for making the artist so amenable to my offer.

  16

  Emily

  “From drugs to scars: The inside story on heiress Emily Stanton”

  “Game-changing new scar treatment in the works at Flawless”

  “Bookie lays odds on billionaire’s rehab prospects”

  “Listen, ladies. If we stay focused and don’t let any of these people derail us, we can get out of there in forty minutes flat,” Daisy said with uncharacteristic optimism.

  We were on her terrace, preparing for the Bluewater quarterly neighborhood town hall. One would think that an enclave of wealthy neighbors would be too busy to attend a boring community meeting. But no. Not in Bluewater. We’d accidentally built a community of eccentric, lovely weirdos who were as invested in the community as its founders.

  It was charming, sweet even.

  But tonight, I just wanted to crawl into my bed, binge watch something mindless, and pretend that I was a normal human being.

  I was so. Very. Tired.

  It had been two weeks of Derek running me from public appearance to interview to photo op. Two weeks of me squeezing in late hours of work at home. Two weeks of me trying not to think about the kiss… and the erection.

  Things felt more out of control than they had the day after my near arrest. There was some good press but not nearly enough to turn the SS Sinking Emily around.

  I felt beaten down in a way that was entirely new to me.

  I needed sleep. And comfort food. And a vacation.

  “We’ll talk like the Micro Machines guy.” Cam’s suggestion pulled me from my internal pity party.

  “Pregame?” I suggested, digging deep for some semblance of energy. I’d often wondered how royalty did it, performing at their public appearances when they were uncomfortably pregnant or teetering on the verge of exhaustion. Be a duchess, dammit, I told myself.

  “Pregame,” Daisy agreed. She produced a bottle of organic French vodka. “For the snooty vegan palates.”

  “Oooh! Organic,” Luna said, whipping out her phone to capture the pouring of the shots.

  We’d done town halls without alcohol in our systems. And they were much more painful sober.

  “To the shortest town hall in Bluewater history,” Cam toasted.

  “Cheers!”

  We clinked gold-rimmed shot glasses and downed the vodka.

  “One more?” Cam rasped.

  I nodded.

  “One more and Emily can tell us all about being shadowed by the sexiest man alive,” Daisy suggested with a mercenary grin.

  After brushing off their thinly veiled interrogations for two weeks straight, I’d seen this coming. I was not about to confess that I’d kissed the man mere hours after meeting him. Nor would I mention our fight in the ring that ended with me nearly orgasming from a handful of dry humped thrusts.

  There were some dark, dirty fantasies that should remain private.

  “I would prefer to forget he and his purpose in my life exist for one night,” I said, nudging my glass back at Daisy.

  “Is he kind?” Luna asked. She was sprawled on her belly on a daybed, kicking her bare feet up behind her. The pool was shaped like a scrotum. It was a not-so-subtle nod to the fact that we’d designed and developed Bluewater in the shape of the female reproductive system.

  It had mostly been an accident until one day, while we were pouring over drone footage, Luna said, “Does this look like a…”

  “Reproductive system?” Cam had supplied. “Yup.”

  So we’d added the fallopian tubes. One served as the community’s marina. The other was where we built our four homes… including Daisy’s cock and balls swimming pool.

  “Kind?” Daisy scoffed. “How is that the first question you ask about a man who looks like that?”

  Luna tossed her hair over her shoulder. “That’s what really matters, isn’t it? He can be as beautiful as David Beckham, but if he’s an asshole, that knocks the points off him.”

  “But assholes can be so much fun in bed,” Daisy insisted.

  Cam and I snorted into our shot glasses as the urinating man statue steadily returned water to the pool behind us from his marble urethra.

  “Wait. That came out wrong,” Daisy snickered. “My point is, you shouldn’t be close-minded against the assholes of the world.”

  Daisy liked to try to argue morals with Luna, but Luna’s Zen-like acceptance of literally the entire world made it impossible.

  “I’d like to point out that Emily still hasn’t responded to our inquiry,” Cam said, pointing an accusatory finger in my direction.

  I downed the second shot, a smooth fire coating my throat and temporarily reviving me.

  “He is remarkably unflappable,” I said.

  My friends looked at me expectantly.

  “That’s it?” Cam said. “No ‘he’s a skeezy dirtbag’? No ‘he’s Prince Charming in a business suit’? No ‘he’s a divine god in bed’? Just ‘he’s good at his job’?”

  “No detailed description of what I can only guess is an incredible cock?” Daisy teased, ignoring the chairs and flopping down on the terrace tile.

  I immediately fought off the vision of Derek’s incredible cock that surfaced from where it was emblazoned in my memory banks.

  “In this case, what matters is how good he is at his job,” I insisted. “How was he to work with over your shoplifting thing?”

  Daisy’s new assistant at the time had gotten jealous when her boyfriend said Daisy was “totally fuckable.” In a revenge plot that made sense to no one, the assistant had snuck a $40,000 Cartier bracelet into Daisy’s bag.

  “That was fucked up,” Cam sighed.

  “So fucked up,” Daisy agreed with an elegant shrug of her shoulder. “Derek was brutally beautiful. Ruthlessly efficient. But I wasn’t paying for the babysitting service. At the time, my scandal was a little less big-dealy than yours.”

  I wondered if she’d ever found him naked in her house.

  “You two ever… you know?” Cam, reading my mind, made a hip thrusting motion from her chair. The gesture was incongruous with her impeccably tailored suit.

  Daisy laughed and slapped the pool tile with her ringed hand. “I would have but he was very clear on the ‘no personal relationships with clients’ thing. He missed out on all this.” She gestured at her breasts.

  Against my will, I perked up. So he didn’t turn on the charm and pheromones with every client? Was I special?

  For the love of strong women everywhere, pull yourself together, I told myself.

  “So what’s with him showing up naked in my house?”

  Daisy pursed her raspberry pink lips. “He’s an unorthodox kind of guy. My guess is he was trying to get your attention in a way that wouldn’t al
low you to just cold-shoulder him.”

  “I don’t cold-shoulder people.”

  My friends, comedians that they were, mimed shivering.

  “Hilarious, jerks.”

  Cam checked her watch. “We have to go, jerks.”

  “I don’t want to,” I groaned. Whining was very un-Stanton-like, but I felt like indulging just this once.

  “Last time we were late, they got all hopped up on the smoothies, and now Bluewater has an eight-foot carved parrot next to the disco since the residents decided the rooster statue was lonely. Also, we had to rename the nightclub the disco,” Luna pointed out.

  “Who’s driving?” I asked.

  “We’ll take my cart,” Cam offered. “I made some modifications to it that I think you’ll like.”

  You could take the woman out of the aerospace engineering office, but you couldn’t take the aerospace engineer out of her golf cart design.

  Cam’s modifications on her four-person vehicle included aerodynamic spoilers, ventilated seats to combat Miami swamp ass, and a fringe of neon-lighted tassels that danced in the breeze where they hung from the roof.

  “It’s like being on a flying carpet,” Luna sighed happily as Cam tooled off in the direction of the clubhouse. We cruised over the bridge and down the palm-lined street, past luxury homes into the little downtown area.

  I felt the same driving through Bluewater as I did walking the halls of Flawless. Pride.

  Both places were a reminder that I was doing something in the world. I was leaving a mark. Or, in Flawless’s case, I was removing them.

  Cam punched the horn, and it played a jaunty verse from Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up.” I made a mental note to see about upping my golf cart game by installing a margarita blender in mine.

  * * *

  We weren’t early enough. The vegan strawberry shakes at the bar were gone. The only evidence of their existence was pink solidifying stains left behind on the white linens. The catered desserts, displayed on a beach-themed tablescape, had probably been magnificent. There were no survivors there either. Only sad, lonely crumbs.