The Price of Scandal

by Score, Lucy

  There was controlled pandemonium in the room. It was a much classier version of the fart lighting experiment my brother and I had performed once or twice in our backyard, and I saw from some of the faces of the parents in the room—mostly fathers—that they were reliving their own gaseous youths.

  “But wait,” Emily said, holding up a hand. “The bottle isn’t empty anymore.”

  As she held it upside down, the class watched in rapt fascination as a clear liquid dribbled into the beaker.

  “We’ve made water from fire,” she announced.

  I could hear every girl in the room decide to become a scientist.

  “Now it’s your turn,” she said, gesturing at the lab tables. “Set up your slow-motion cameras first so you can capture the reactions. Esther, Lala, and I will assist you one table at a time starting from the back.”

  Emily claimed her first table and struck up a conversation with her new, young lab partners. Esther and Lala, a six-foot-tall version of Salma Hayek with a PhD in chemistry, did the same.

  I loved it. I itched to document the lab, the experiment, the girls. Emily.

  She was resplendent. There was nothing not to be loved.

  This was the Emily Stanton that the world needed to see. And she was stubbornly refusing to be revealed.

  “Jasmine, hand the beaker to Atlas. Don’t throw it.” The tall, reedy woman clutching an e-reader sighed next to me. She rolled her eyes at me. “Kids.”

  “They appear to be having a good time,” I observed. I had nieces and nephews, nearly a dozen of them. I was used to kid-related chaos.

  “Isn’t this the best thing ever? A science club for girls,” she continued. “I’m Amal, by the way.”

  “Derek,” I said. “This is my first time here.”

  “Oh, your girl will love it. They make science so much fun here. The girls have a blast. And when they turn sixteen, they can sign up to use the lab space for their own experiments.”

  “Really?” I asked, intrigued. Damn Emily and her no-publicity decree. This was public relations gold.

  “Jasmine’s cousin was with AHA for three years,” Amal continued. “Now she’s at CalTech in the biological engineering program. It’s a great introduction outside the classroom. The girls get to work with real scientists in a real lab. With programs like this, they’re helping to triple the number of women in STEM fields by 2030.”

  It was ingenious and, if I had to guess, entirely Emily’s idea.

  The deeper I dug, the more attractive she became to me. I was used to a brief, intense attraction to a woman. But it always burned itself out. Uncomplicated. Easy.

  Emily was neither of those things.

  I considered her as she leaned over the shoulders of two young scientists. She was beautiful. Yes, in the brains and breeding areas, of course she was attractive. But there was something magnetic about her here. She was nearly giddy, and the girls fed off that excitement.

  In the moment, I was sure of two things. One, I was not done with Emily Stanton, and two, it would not end well.

  “Which one is yours?” Amal asked, scanning the room.

  “The tall blonde with the dizzying intellect,” I said, pointing at Emily.

  “Ah. Emily’s boyfriend,” Amal nodded approvingly. “I’m very straight—married to a man and all—but I can appreciate your excellent taste. She’s some kind of biochemist, right?”

  “Something like that,” I hedged. Emily’s secret identity was that of a Sunday scientist. Yes, I definitely wasn’t even close to being done with this woman.

  “Okay, gang,” Emily said, returning to the front of the lab. “Now, let’s work on documenting our findings.”

  * * *

  Half an hour later, as the future of science filed out of the room, I found the woman who consumed most of my brain power standing before me.

  “What did you think?” she asked.

  “I think you should have let me take pictures.”

  “Not everything should be consumed by the public. It’s nothing personal.”

  “On the contrary, it’s very personal,” I countered. “This is the real you. The one the world would have a hard time tearing down. The one the American public can get behind and fork over their hard-earned dollars for a piece of your dream.”

  “These girls didn’t sign up for that kind of exposure,” she said. “I’m here because they’re here. Not the other way around.”

  “Right,” I said. “Because you’re Emily the biochemist.”

  She bit her lip. “I know I can’t keep it secret forever and some of the parents have figured it out. But for now, it works better this way.”

  “You own this place, don’t you?” I asked, picking up a pipette.

  She nodded. “DIY labs are the wave of the future. They can be more flexible with their protocols than a private lab or one funded by government grants. They can partner with similar labs across the country and tackle massive data sets and—I’m geeking out on you,” she said, grinning self-consciously.

  “If everyone could see you like this now, they’d fall head over heels for you,” I said, running my fingers over the buttons of her lab coat.

  “Not everyone,” she said, giving me a pointed look.

  “Everyone,” I reiterated.

  “Last Mini Marie Curie is out the door,” Esther said, ducking her head back into the room. “You ready for some boring ol’ data?”

  “Give it to me!” Emily made grabby hands like a kid on Christmas morning.

  “Lala, you good with clean up?” Esther called over her shoulder.

  Lala gave the thumbs up and blew a bubble with her gum.

  We followed Esther across the hall to the second lab. She flipped on the overhead lights and moved to a workstation with two desktop computers. A fat stack of papers sat neatly next to a mousepad picturing the periodic table. It said, I use this periodically.

  Emily pounced on the report the way a cat attacked a laser pointer.

  She pawed through the papers, skimming as she went. Her lips moved as she absorbed what was on the pages.

  Esther plopped down on a wheeled stool and waited, a smug smile tugging at the corners of her lips.

  “It’s there,” Emily said, not looking up from the data.

  “It’s there,” Esther agreed, spinning around to pull up some gobbledygook on one of the computer monitors.

  Still clutching the papers, Emily peered over Esther’s shoulder.

  “We’re geniuses,” Emily breathed.

  “Motherfucking geniuses.”

  I cleared my throat. “Can a layperson ask what’s there?” I asked.

  Emily spun back around, a sparkle in her eyes. They were more gray than blue under the fluorescent lab lights.

  “Enzymes,” she said.

  “I’m afraid I’m going to need more than that.”

  She practically skipped over to a whiteboard and gleefully grabbed a marker, sketching in quick, confident lines.

  “Okay, so when someone has a significant cardiac event, we can measure high levels of certain enzymes in their blood that indicate damage to the heart muscles. What Esther and I and a few teams in similar labs around the country have been working on is finding indicators that can predict a cardiac event.”

  “And you found one?” I was intrigued by both the hypothesis and Emily’s excitement about it. Her drawing was terrible, but her passion was enthralling.

  She beamed. “We found a few. There are currently tests that identify an indication of inflammation, the high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, for example. But we found a specific enzyme that has consistently performed as a measurable predictor of a future significant cardiac event.”

  “How far in advance have you been able to predict it?”

  She grinned, and I felt a warm glow of desire settle in my chest.

  “Six months,” Esther interjected proudly.

  “Six months is adequate time for intervention. For diet and exercise and lifestyle change
s. For clots and blockages to be identified and treated. This blood test could be the biggest preventative factor in cardiac medicine in almost a decade,” Emily said. “Best of all, we can do it inexpensively. This could become part of the complete blood panel at wellness checks. Doctors offices could require it for high school and college athlete physicals. We’re losing more and more kids to unknown cardiac defects. This could—”

  “Save lives,” I filled in.

  I hadn’t known Emily Stanton long. I didn’t know her nearly well enough for my liking. But I couldn’t think of another person I’d been prouder of in my entire life.

  “Exactly,” she said. Her eyes danced.

  “And you’re not going to let me use this either are you?” I sighed.

  She crossed to me and playfully hooked her fingers in the waistband of my pants. “Nope.”

  “This could really push public opinion in your favor,” I reminded her.

  “Derek, this is so much bigger than public opinion. This is bigger than Flawless and the IPO. This is entirely separate. I don’t want to start cross-pollinating CEO me with Lab Rat me. This is the one thing that I have that is entirely mine. I’m not sharing it with a few million social media followers.”

  I understood. I didn’t love it. But I understood.

  “This is impressive,” I said, watching Esther scroll through spreadsheets of meaningless data.

  “We’re just getting started,” Emily said.

  Yes. We were.

  34

  Emily

  “Where are you taking me?” I asked, yawning in the passenger seat as I pulled the tie from my hair. The excitement of more than a dozen pre-teen girls coupled with scientific achievement had left me with an adrenaline crash.

  I needed coffee before I could even think about facing my Sunday evening to-do list. A CEO’s job was never done. Some people could build their empires and then hand over the reins and take to the golf course. I was not one of those people.

  Derek had won the brief but entertaining wrestling match for the keys to the Porsche. I hadn’t put up much of a fight. I hated to admit it, but I was still not firing on all cylinders. Still tired, it was the price paid for what I’d earned. The work didn’t do itself.

  “Dinner,” he said, picking up my hand and bringing it to his lips.

  Salsa, wildly romantic, played from the stereo’s speakers.

  This moment, with the sun sinking in the spring sky, with the Miami breeze ruffling my very daring haircut, with the debonair Derek Price driving the convertible I’d earned, was perfection.

  “Dinner sounds wonderful.” I sighed.

  “It will be. My stepfather is grilling.”

  It took a few seconds for the words to sink in.

  “No. Absolutely not,” I insisted, sitting up straighter. I chose that moment to realize today was the first time I’d ever ridden in the passenger seat.

  “I’ve met your family,” he pointed out.

  “That was business. That wasn’t a cozy family dinner!”

  “There’s nothing cozy about this. I have a brother and two sisters, my stepsiblings, and somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty nieces and nephews,” he said conversationally.

  “Derek, you can’t introduce me to your family.” I was horrified.

  “Why not?”

  Why not? There were a few dozen reasons why not. I was his client, not his girlfriend. Secondly, to the public, I was the rich bitch who skated on drug charges. And to round out the perfect trifecta of why I shouldn’t be meeting his parents: We. Just. Had. Sex.

  Sex. Not conversations about where this was going or what the expected outcomes were. We’d had glorious, glorious sex, and now I was supposed to shake hands with the man’s mother? I probably still smelled vaguely like her naked son.

  “I mean, why are you doing this?” I tried to squash the nerves that were suddenly electrifying my intestines. Oh, God, did I have my emergency Imodium stash in this bag?

  “I think you’ll find my family more relaxing than some of your regular social situations,” he said. He was too polite to mention the fact that my family was like a reality TV reunion special where someone invariably got punched in the mouth.

  “I’m not in ‘meet new people’ form,” I argued.

  “This isn’t for a photo op or anything other than a good meal and interesting company,” he promised.

  I scrubbed my hands over my face wishing I’d put forth more than the minimum of effort on my makeup this morning. Of course, this morning I’d only been thinking about brunch and the lab. Not meeting Derek Price’s parents.

  He was putting me in an impossible position. If things went badly, I didn’t have an easy exit strategy. I didn’t have Jane. Hell, I didn’t even have the keys to my own car.

  “Emily,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Relax and trust me. I like you, and I think you’ll like them. There are no requirements. If you’re not comfortable, give me the signal, and I’ll drive you home. No questions asked.”

  The man had gotten into my vagina less than twenty-four hours earlier, and somehow that had granted him an all-access pass to my innermost thoughts?

  “Trust me,” he urged. He reached into his pocket and produced a small packet. He held it out to me.

  “What’s this?” I asked, taking it. I flipped it over in my hand. It was a single dose of Imodium.

  “Just in case,” he said.

  “How did you…”

  “Do you really want to talk about it?” Derek asked, his eyes on the road.

  “God, no!” I was humiliated. Humbled. And something else.

  “You can trust me, Emily Stanton, formidable boss, beautiful billionaire, and real live human being.”

  It wasn’t flowers or a love note but diarrheal medicine that made my heart do a slow, inevitable flip-flop in my chest.

  God help me. God help us both.

  I cleared my throat, surprised at the emotion clogging it. “I’ll give it fifteen minutes. What’s our signal?”

  “It should be something subtle like, ‘Derek, I need your throbbing cock in my womb right now,’” he said, smoothly shifting gears and accelerating around a graffitied school bus that was riding the rumble strips in the bike lane. “My family will understand.”

  I rolled my eyes so hard it was audible. “Your ego knows no bounds.”

  “Confidence, love. Not ego,” he corrected.

  “How about a work emergency?” I suggested.

  “Hmm, slightly less believable, but I suppose I could sell it. At least with the less sophisticated Prices.”

  “You’re ridiculous.”

  “Darling, I’m driving the woman who redefined lovemaking for me in the sexiest car in the world after you revealed a scientific advancement that could change cardiac health forever. That’s ridiculous. You’re extraordinary. I’m just very, very ordinary.”

  Possessed by Daisy’s spirit, I stroked my hand up his thigh to his crotch. “Darling, there’s nothing ordinary about you,” I purred.

  Distracted, he coasted onto the rumble strips on the shoulder of the highway before recovering quickly.

  * * *

  The Price house was a beige Floridian stucco with a requisite palm in the front yard. There were cars parked on the street and nearly a half-dozen men, beers in hand, sitting in lawn chairs on the scrap of grass between the curb and sidewalk.

  “A welcoming committee,” I observed.

  “The male members of the family. I may have sent them a picture of your car,” Derek confessed.

  “For once you weren’t overselling, Derek,” a man in a pink flamingo button-down called out over the rev of the engine. He had broad shoulders and an unlit cigar clamped between his teeth. He wore a ball cap backward.

  “He’s talking about you,” Derek teased me.

  I stuffed the diarrhea meds in my bag and hoped for the best.

  We got out, and my car was descended upon by a mob of admirers as the
testosterone-filled side of Derek’s family admired it. Introductions were made between questions about horsepower and original features.

  Michael, the stepfather, was pink flamingo and cigar guy. Then came brother Will, stepbrother Alberto—or Berto—and brothers-in-law Pete and Carmine. All had a loudly voiced opinion about my car and a shameless desire to drive it. Derek handed the keys back to me.

  “Not on your life, gents,” he teased. “Do not let them con you into a ride,” he whispered to me.

  “Your girl’s got good taste in horses, eh?” Pete said, chewing on a piece of gum like it was his last meal.

  “She hasn’t decided if she’s my girl yet,” Derek said, slipping his arm around my waist and guiding me toward the house. “I’m hoping you’ll help convince her.”

  “Run away,” Will fake-coughed into his hand. His grin was a carbon copy of Derek’s, his accent more U.S. than U.K.

  “Good luck in there, Em,” Michael called after us. “Remember, don’t let them smell your fear.”

  “She deals with a board of directors on a daily basis. I’m sure she can handle the female side of the family,” Derek said dryly.

  “You hit your head or something recently, D?” Carmine asked with a wink in my direction.

  My board of directors had nothing on the ladies of the Price-Perez clan. Derek’s sister Tanya—part-time model and full-time mom of three—bounced a sobbing two-year-old on her hip and asked me what my favorite nonprofit organizations were. Liz, with the edgy pixie cut and leather bands up both wrists, gave my haircut an approving nod and asked exactly what my relationship with her brother was. Verita, the bubbly stepsister, pressed a glass of wine into my hand and suggested that I join them on the patio so we could all be more comfortable for the interrogation.

  Derek’s mother, Daniella, was warm and welcoming. Along with that welcome came a very subtle vibe that said we could be friends as long as I didn’t screw with her family. She was beautiful. Her mink-colored hair was cut in a frothy, chin-length bob. She wore black and white checked shorts and a sleeveless white top. Her feet were bare, but her face was expertly made up.