The Price of Scandal

by Score, Lucy

  “Boof.” A dark shape lumbered toward me.

  “Jesus, Brutus! Don’t you ever sleep in your own house?” I asked as the St. Bernard wandered into the room and climbed up on the bed.

  I had work to do. I flopped down on the mattress next to the zip-code-sized dog and reached for the phone. It was time to wake some people up.

  “Jenny?” I said when my attorney picked up on the second ring.

  “Tell me what I can do,” she announced briskly.

  “How are you even awake right now? It’s two in the morning.”

  “I’m on my seventh cappuccino. I’ve got nine cease and desists with threatening legalese drafted and ready for business tomorrow. Then I started the defamation filings just for something to do. I also spent twenty minutes scaring the shit out of that Nina Nowak into spilling everything after Jane and Derek tracked her down. You?” Her words were flying out in an over-caffeinated explosion.

  “Yeah. About that. Are you up for a few more legal maneuvers tonight?”

  “Fuck yes. I’m ready to legally rearrange some people’s faces. Unleash me!”

  “This could be seen as conflict of interest seeing as how I’m being ousted,” I reminded her.

  “I’ve been warming up my middle fingers for my departure tomorrow.”

  “You don’t have to leave the company just because I do.”

  “Emily, I believe in you. Not some name on a letterhead. And certainly not some snively, money-grubbing board of weasels. Where you go, I go.”

  “In that case, I’m going to have an in-house counsel position opening up in a new venture if you’re interested—”

  “Dibs! Mine! Gimmie!”

  “Jenny, maybe you should drink some water or something?”

  Two hours later, I tiptoed out of the guest wing into the main living space. Luna’s living room was a shrine to all things shiny, Eastern, and yoga. Architectural Digest had been begging for a photo shoot for years. But Luna stood firm in her belief that a home should only be shared with love.

  Daisy was snoring on the couch. Her life vest slung over a rattan chair. An empty bottle of cheap pink champagne rested on its side on a cloud-like vegan wool rug.

  Love.

  Daisy and the rest of the girls had dropped everything. For me. There was no inconvenience. Nothing required in return. Because we loved each other.

  Small, strong circles.

  I drew an alpaca blanket over her and hastily scrawled a note on Luna’s recycled house stationery, leaving it on the coffee maker where someone would be sure to find it.

  46

  Emily

  It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be to break into Derek’s condo in the middle of the night. The front desk attendant, an unfairly chipper woman at four a.m., greeted me by name as I slunk into the lobby.

  “Ms. Stanton, so nice to see you!” Adhering to the propriety code of people who served the scandalous, she politely did not mention my public disgrace.

  I appreciated it.

  Her name tag said Kimmy, and she shimmied back and forth on her stool like a kid who couldn’t sit still.

  “Hi, Kimmy,” I said, leaning on the desk. “I forgot my key to Mr. Price’s place, and he’s asleep. I don’t want to wake him by pounding on the door or calling. Can you help a girl out?”

  Subtext: Are you amenable to help a soon-to-be unemployed billionaire break into her ex-boyfriend’s apartment?

  “Of course!” Kimmy said, probably happy to have something to do besides finish her Sudoku.

  I made sure my smile was grateful, not desperate. “Thank you.”

  “Let me make you a temporary keycard. You just have Mr. Price let me know if you need a new permanent one.”

  “You’re the best, Kimmy.”

  “Love the hair, by the way. Totally badass.”

  Minutes later, I faced Derek’s front door, fresh keycard hot in my hand. This was the choice. I could turn around, leave, and find a way to rebuild my crumbling life. Or…

  I swiped the card and stepped inside.

  It was dark, but the moon cast enough light for me to see the mess. His briefcase was upended on the floor near the door. His tie next to it. There was a trail of discarded clothing and personal effects leading from the front door into the living room. The coffee table was littered with beer bottles and an empty bottle of scotch.

  His laptop was open. His phone was on the floor, the screen cracked.

  And there, snoring on the couch, was drunk, unconscious Derek Price. He slept with one arm tucked behind his head, wearing nothing but a pair of low-slung sweatpants and reading glasses, sweetly askew. His hair stood up at all angles as if he’d shoved his hands through it too many times.

  For the first time in hours, the desire to smile was overwhelming.

  I’d made the right choice.

  He gave another soft snore, and I could smell the alcohol fumes as they wafted toward me.

  If this was happening, I needed the man awake. And sober.

  I pulled a cashmere throw off an armchair and draped it over him. That’s when I noticed the shirt tucked under his arm. It was mine. One I’d left here. Any ice left in the cracks of my heart liquefied.

  “Damn you, Price,” I whispered.

  In the kitchen, I fired up his espresso maker. While I waited for the magic of caffeine, I shamelessly snooped through the open files on the counter.

  The complete and official Emily Stanton dossier sat, thick and tempting. But it was a red folder open under another empty beer bottle that caught my eye. I moved the bottle and spun the file around.

  Lita.

  Of course he’d known. Judging from the research, he’d been suspicious from the beginning.

  I’d missed it. I’d been blind to her envy, her insidious undermining. She’d never been a friend. And Derek had seen it immediately.

  He’d tried to tell me, I remembered. “Why do you trust Lita?” And I’d shut him down.

  I paged through the file. He’d had his boxing friend Jude follow her. Noted suspicious contact with La Sophia. Dammit. There were notes from his lunches with her.

  She attempted seduction under the guise of innocent flirtation. Leaning in. Whispering. Stroking my arm. Even went for the damsel in distress routine. Bottom Line: She wants everything that is E’s. That includes me. Hope E gets the opportunity to kick her in the face. Must find way to tell E before L attacks.

  I’d seen enough about Lita’s betrayal and opened the next folder.

  I wasn’t prepared for what I found, however.

  It seemed that Derek’s digging had been more thorough than my own. I sucked in a shaky breath. I wasn’t sure what was worse: the betrayal or the fact that I wasn’t surprised.

  There were more notes here.

  I want to personally take care of this one. Or watch Jane use her stun gun. Derek had pushed so hard with the pen the words were carved into the paper.

  The smell of fresh espresso permeated my fog of self-pity. I had work to do, and I needed the unconscious man cuddling with my gym shirt to make it happen.

  On cue, he groaned.

  It was the raspy, gravelly noise of the defeated and dehydrated. I knew it well.

  I picked up the cup of espresso and my bag and carried them both into the living room.

  “Emily?” he murmured into my t-shirt. I set the cup down with a clink on the coffee table. One of his eyes cracked open. I reached over him and turned on the lamp.

  “Wake up, Price.”

  “You’re here.” He sat upright, swinging his legs off the couch. His feet swept three bottles to their death.

  “Bloody fucking hell,” he groaned, cradling his head in his hands.

  “You’re a mess,” I sighed, carting an armload of empties from living room to kitchen.

  “Don’t go,” he said.

  He was on his feet, swaying.

  “Sit down and drink your coffee,” I insisted.

  “I think this is a dream,” he mut
tered to himself.

  “Price, sit down. Drink your damn coffee. And sober up because we have work to do.”

  He squinted at me from across the room. “You’re bossy like the real Emily.”

  The man was beyond frustrating. And, okay, adorable. Also so gorgeous it hurt to look at him.

  His pants were untied, hanging off his hips and showing off that cut torso to its best advantage. His silky hair stood up in tufts, and the dark stubble on his jaw gave him a bad boy vibe. My mother insisted that men who didn’t shave were unseemly. The woman didn’t know what she was missing out on.

  I ditched the glass in his recycling bin and returned to the living room. I stopped at the end of the couch, not trusting myself to get closer. We had business to attend to, and he was a little too vulnerable and appealing like this.

  “Sit,” I said again.

  He pinched himself on the flat of his stomach. “Ow.”

  “What are you doing?” I pushed him back on the couch. He landed gracelessly and dropped his head back against the cushion. I sat on the opposite end of the couch, keeping a safe distance between the two of us.

  “I’m seeing if you’re real.”

  “Oh, I’m very real. Now drink your coffee.”

  Obediently, he picked up the cup and sipped, still eyeing me.

  We sat like that in silence for long minutes.

  “Are you here for my apology or yours?” he said, finally breaking the peace.

  “Mine?” I scoffed.

  “Alright, let’s hear it, then.”

  “Are you still drunk?”

  “I may be vaguely drunk and very, very hungover, but I still know that we both owe the other an apology.”

  And this was why I loved the man.

  “Why did you decide to get shit-faced last night?” I asked, changing the subject abruptly.

  “Why?” His voice boomed through the space. “My girlfriend was under attack, and she didn’t trust me enough to let me in!”

  “I mean, did you get drunk because you lost me or the game?”

  His brow furrowed.

  “You’re asking quite complex questions when I’ve got more alcohol than blood in my veins.”

  “It’s not that complex.”

  “It is when you assume they’re independent of one another. I let you down,” he said. “I underestimated the threat. I didn’t protect you from it. And I allowed myself to be put into a position that made it look as though my loyalty was divided.”

  “Lita.” I said the name without any of the emotions I felt.

  “Is a manipulative psychopath who is so envious of you she won’t stop until she destroys you. And you believed her over me.”

  Maybe the man was due a small apology.

  “Do you still?” he asked darkly.

  “Still what?”

  “Do you believe that I came on to her? That I was the mastermind behind it all? That I never cared for you?”

  I wasn’t ready to address all that. There was work to do. Revenge to be had.

  “Let’s keep this professional for now,” I told him. I slid the contract to him on the table.

  “Professional?” It was his turn to scoff. “You want to talk business?”

  “It would seem that you didn’t hold up your end of the bargain, Mr. Price,” I said, uncapping a pen. I laid it on top of the contract. “I have some papers for you to sign.”

  47

  Derek

  The woman was a mercenary. And that mercenary was merrily making herself a cup of coffee while I read through her blasphemous contract.

  The contract that gave Emily Stanton fifty percent of Alpha Group.

  I’d lost the bet. I’d guaranteed her the IPO, and instead she’d be losing everything in another—I glanced at the clock on the console table—four hours.

  I’d failed her. She’d lost. And yet…

  I watched her wander back in from the kitchen. She sank down on the end of the couch and pulled her feet up under her. I didn’t see grief or fear in those eyes that haunted my soul. Denim and platinum.

  I saw fire.

  “Well?” She arched a slim eyebrow.

  Wordlessly, I reached for the pen.

  This contract would bind me to her and vice versa. There was nothing that would stop me from making that happen. I’d fight my way back into her heart, her bed. And this partnership gave me a foothold. She couldn’t just walk away now. The contract was my hope, and she’d handed it to me.

  If this was what it took to prove my loyalty, my heart, then she could have everything I owned.

  “Wait,” she said, stilling my hand with hers. “There’s something you need to know first. Those headlines about my twenty-first birthday. They’re true.”

  “I find that hard to believe,” I rasped.

  She pulled back. “It’s important to me that you know the truth first.”

  “And it’s important to me that I sign this without knowing the truth. You’re stepping all over my grand gesture here.”

  “How can you have a sense of humor at a time like this?”

  “It’s part of my considerable charm,” I said, scrawling my signature across the first page.

  “Dammit, Derek,” she sighed. “You can’t perform a grand gesture when you don’t know everything. This might make you change your mind.”

  A part of her expected it to.

  I kept signing. “Tell me your secret,” I said.

  “Lita wanted to go out for my twenty-first. She didn’t like that I was planning to stay in. ‘You deserve to have a little fun, Lady Stanton.’”

  I winced, recognizing the button pushed.

  “‘He’s cute,’ she told me. ‘Go be a normal human being. Get drunk. Have a one-night stand with a stranger.’ I was young. Drunk. And entirely too easily influenced by my friend.” Emily said the word bitterly.

  “I didn’t do that sort of thing. And for good reason. But that night, I felt more like being a Lita Smith than an Emily Stanton. And for good reason. I was getting into his car when a female bartender had hauled me back out of it. ‘Trust me, sweetie, you won’t like yourself when you wake up in the morning.’”

  She scrubbed her palms over her knees.

  “The bartender tried to talk him into taking a cab home. There was a struggle for keys, but in the end, he drove off. I found Lita inside. She’d seemed almost angry that I hadn’t gone with him. ‘You’re just too good for your own good,’ she’d complained. I felt like I’d let her down, so I bought her another round. That’s how I usually made things up to Lita. I bought her things. She liked presents. And I liked having a friend.”

  My heart broke a little more for the lonely girl in the lab coat.

  “By the time I was home throwing up while Lita watched, I couldn’t even remember what he looked like. To my mother’s horror, a few pictures had ended up in gossip rags. The worst of which showed me dancing on a bar at a drag club in South Beach. But the bigger scandal never became public knowledge. Until now,” she said, leveling me with her gaze.

  “I didn’t find out until days later that the guy I didn’t go home with died. He’d driven through a DUI checkpoint, led police on a chase, and lost control of his car. He crashed into a concrete embankment and died on impact.”

  “Jesus, Emily. You could have been with him,” I breathed.

  “That’s what Lita said. Only now, with hindsight, I know she said it wistfully. She showed me the article. I didn’t even recognize his name at first. She knew him. And I think she arranged for us to meet. Maybe she was playing this game even back then.”

  Lita had been. I was sure of it. I hated her. I hated her hatred and jealousy and greed. I hated that she’d hurt the woman I loved.

  “But she never told anyone. She kept that secret. I thought it meant that I could trust her.”

  “Instead, it meant she was waiting for the right time to use it,” I guessed. “You’re not responsible, you know. For what happened to him.”

 
“I know now. Maybe for the first time,” Emily whispered. “So now you know.”

  “Do you see me running for the door?”

  “You’re too hungover to run.”

  She slid closer until our legs brushed. I had to fist my hands at my side to not touch her. Setting her coffee down, she took the pen from me and repeated the signature process. She had shadows under her eyes. Given that it was five in the morning, I assumed she hadn’t slept at all.

  But there was an energy crackling off her, and I needed to reach out and touch it. Touch her.

  Desire lanced through me like a lightning bolt. She was what I wanted, and I just needed to know the game we were playing so I could devise a way to win.

  “Excellent,” she said primly. “Now, on to the next one.”

  Another contract? Was it a restraining order? A buyout offer? A prenup?

  Everything I needed to know about our future would be coldly sketched out in legalese.

  She handed me the papers and then rubbed her palms on her knees again.

  I frowned at the first page, wondering if I needed a stronger glasses prescription.

  “What…” But the question never fully materialized.

  “Sign it.” Emily gripped my wrist firmly.

  “I can’t sign this,” I argued.

  “Why the hell not? You just gave me half of your company.”

  “Jesus, Emily. I thought—” I grabbed her instead and hauled her into my lap. I buried my face in her chest and locked my arms around her waist.

  I could hear the soft rumble of her laughter, and then she was kissing the top of my head and hugging me back. The pieces of my stupid, shattered heart melded back together at the touch. Not wanting to be left out, my cock stirred to life.

  “I thought you stupidly thought you could get away with breaking up with me and stealing my company,” I said, holding her tighter to me.

  She laughed again. “I stupidly thought about it for about ten seconds. But I’m a very smart woman, Derek. You weren’t at fault for anything besides stupidly keeping me in the dark again.”

  “Go back to the part where you know I wasn’t at fault.”