The Price of Scandal Read online

  “I have a little business with my bros,” he said cagily. He turned the engine back on, and we lurched forward.

  Porn probably, I guessed. No, wait. Maybe a yacht party with underage starlets? Bath salt abuse contest?

  I was being uncharitable. And entertaining. It kept my digested food on the inside of my body.

  “How do you know my brother?” I asked.

  “Trey? Oh, man. Me and him go way back. Prep school. Tahoe. Greece.”

  For one out-of-body moment, I wondered what it would be like if my own story hadn’t been limited to classroom, lab, and boardroom. I didn’t have any friends from Tahoe. Or stories from Greece.

  Then again, I also didn’t have to pull up to a restaurant in a car that cost more than most people’s lifetime income to get my kicks.

  “Here we are,” Merritt sang as he revved the engine up to the valet stand. The photographers stationed outside salivated on cue, and camera flashes blinded me.

  “I’ll come around, pretty lady,” he said, wrestling the door up. He tossed the keys to the valet and shot his arms in the air in a V. Passersby stopped to stare.

  Maybe I could just stay in the car? This kind of attention couldn’t really be valuable for either one of us. What did it matter who I went to dinner with? Or didn’t go to dinner with.

  I thought longingly of my pajamas and leftovers in my fridge.

  But my door was lifting like an eagle wing, and there was no longer a barrier between me and the hungry photographers. Someone—Merritt or a valet—reached in and offered me their hand. Thank God I’d worn sensible underwear today. Climbing out of this damn car was like requesting a public gynecological exam.

  It was Merritt’s hand, I realized when I gained my feet on the sidewalk.

  He tossed his sugary hair out of his eyes and offered me his arm. “Smile big.”

  At least that’s what I thought he said. I couldn’t tell for sure over the sound of the sirens. The flashes weren’t just from cameras now. Red and blue lights were painting the outside of the restaurant, bouncing off the glass facade.

  “Someone’s in trouble,” Merritt yelled over the noise.

  “Is this your car, sir?” a uniformed police officer, hand on her weapon, demanded.

  I needed that voice for board meetings.

  Merritt’s yellow monstrosity was being swarmed by more police.

  “What’s going on?” I demanded.

  Merritt shrugged but looked uneasy.

  “Sir? Is this your car? Don’t make me ask you again!”

  “Yes, it’s my car, and you don’t have to have that attitude with me,” he snapped back loud enough for every photographer on the entire block to hear him.

  Oh, hell. He was going to say it. He was going to say it, and I was standing right next to him. Words like that splattered on anyone in the vicinity.

  “Show me your hands, sir,” the cop yelled. She flicked the snap that holstered her gun. I took a decisive step to the side and kept my hands in plain sight.

  “Do you know who I am?” he bellowed.

  What a fucking idiot.

  “Found something,” one of the officers searching the car called. He held up a baggie of something white and powdery.

  Oh, shit. My digestive system gave a warning rumble.

  I moved to open my clutch, dial my lawyer.

  “Ma’am! Put your hands behind your head,” the first cop yelled.

  “That shit’s not mine,” Merritt howled. His tan face was red with entitled rage.

  “Everything is fine,” I said calmly to the cop. “I’m just reaching for my phone.”

  “Hands behind your head!”

  I put my hands in my wasted hair and then schooled my features into a mask of impassiveness while a cop yanked my arms behind my back. As the cuffs snapped into place on my wrists, I spotted Jane jogging up the block, already on the phone. She nodded grimly at me.

  At least my legal team was already informed of my very public humiliation.

  4

  Derek

  My date was annoying me on several different fronts, and we hadn’t even made it to the table yet. Over drinks on the restaurant’s patio behind the wall of paparazzi capturing the comings and goings of the city’s celebrities, I discovered she initiated each sentence with a distinct mouth click and ended with a question.

  Click. “So I haven’t been here since Hidalgo left to work for that restaurant in Rome? He made my favorite risotto?”

  Everything was Alicia’s favorite.

  In the fifteen minutes I’d known the woman, she’d introduced me to her favorite lip stain, her favorite designer eyelash extensions, and her favorite member of One Direction.

  I was rather embarrassed that I knew which one she was talking about.

  Sometimes I wondered why I even bothered. Playing the field and dating in Miami had somehow lost its considerable luster.

  Perhaps I was getting too old for the novelty.

  Click. “Oh. Em. Gee,” Alicia said. Her perfectly stenciled magenta lips moved hypnotically. “This grape and vodka diet is amazing? Wanna try?”

  “Thank you, no.”

  I’d stick with my beer and to women a little closer to my own age from now on, I vowed.

  I hated to call in the “text me with an emergency” favor from a brother or one of my staff. But I couldn’t imagine surviving an entire dinner with the woman.

  She’d said she was thirty, as I recalled, when our eyes met over a cocktail napkin at a trendy bar in South Beach. But she was working hard to pass for an uncomplicated twenty-one. The dress was short. The tan was deep. The hair was not hers. All of that was fine. I loved a woman who dressed for her own pleasure. I was as equally attracted to long legs in short shorts as I was to sedate business suits. I had a thing for unbuttoning buttons and revealing what was underneath.

  There were no buttons on Alicia’s gold lamé minidress. There was no mystery to unveil.

  She’d caught me on a high after a successful cleanup for a client that had eaten up the better part of my April.

  A lovely smile and big brown eyes were just what I thought I needed to shake off the shackles of a demanding crisis management firm. I hadn’t been out in over a month. It was getting easier and easier to focus on work. And now I was wishing I’d decided to focus a bit longer.

  Click. “So you’re, like, British?”

  “Half,” I said vaguely. I’d picked up a bit of my father’s accent before he’d run out on us. It was something of a parting gift, I supposed.

  An engine revved, and a flashy yellow Ferrari lurched up to the curb, pulling me from my depressing revelations. At least I wasn’t that asshole.

  He hopped out of the car like an MMA fighter with a new belt. Cocky and ready to party.

  “Wow,” Alicia purred. “What kind of car do you drive?”

  “An SUV,” I said vaguely. And a sporty BMW, but I didn’t feel the need to add any other tics in Alicia’s “Reasons to Land Derek Price” column.

  Click. “That’s Merritt Van Winston?” she cooed. “He’s even prettier in person!”

  I wondered if perhaps I should give Alicia a moment to introduce herself to the surfer-haired sports car enthusiast. The name registered for me. Miami’s elite citizens were small-town that way. Merritt was the very pretty ne’er-do-well son of a hotelier. If memory served, he was launching some kind of sock or t-shirt line.

  Then the passenger door raised, distracting me and the rest of the crowd.

  I was rewarded with a glimpse of long, long leg. I took my time admiring the view starting at the tip of the toes. The dress ended a few inches above the knee. Black and fitted. Where Alicia’s 24-karat disco ball dress was flashy, this was sophisticated yet edgy.

  That face. I recognized it, not that we moved in the same circles. But everyone in the business world knew her.

  What little I did know about her certainly didn’t add up to being Merritt Van Winston’s arm candy. I frowned, watching a
s the shaggy-haired dipshit swaggered toward the crowd towing billionaire Emily Stanton like an accessory.

  There was a frown painted on her very lovely lips, and I saw why when two police cruisers squealed to a stop in front of the valet stand, boxing the Ferrari in.

  Trouble.

  “Oooh! Someone important must be coming?” Alicia said, clicking the tips of her pink fingernails together.

  “Is this your car, sir?” demanded an officer. She had one hand on butt of her gun and didn’t look afraid to use it.

  Surfer guy shrugged at something Emily said. She was trying to tug her hand free.

  “Sir? Is this your car?” the cop said again.

  I couldn’t hear the exchange because the photographers camped outside the restaurant’s doors exploded with questions and flashes from their cameras, turning Ocean Drive into a red carpet war zone.

  Whatever he’d said, he’d included an unfortunate amount of attitude. Emily took a very intelligent step to the side, keeping her hands visible.

  Too smart for him.

  The host appeared next to me with two menus just as Van Winston howled, “Do you know who I am?”

  Oh, you stupid, entitled idiot.

  The officer searching the vehicle called to his partner. “Found something.” He held up a baggie of what was probably going to be cocaine.

  I was already reaching for my phone when one of the officers caught Emily’s move.

  “Ma’am! Put your hands behind your head,” the first cop yelled.

  “That shit’s not mine,” the pissant howled. The photographers started shooting video.

  I scrolled through my contacts at lightning speed.

  “Everything is fine,” I heard Emily say calmly. “I’m just reaching for my phone.”

  “Hands behind your head!”

  “Imani,” I said into the phone. “You’ve got about thirty seconds before you’re made aware of a rather large problem. I think I can be of some help.”

  The cuffs snapped onto Emily’s well-bred wrists like damnation as two dozen paparazzi recorded every second.

  5

  Emily

  Billionheiress’s public humiliation! Drug arrest!

  Daughter of Miami cruise line executive Byron Stanton arrested for drugs!

  Flawless CEO released without charges in drug bust

  The secret drug-fueled life of party girl Emily Stanton

  “Wake up, jailbird.” The chipper voice cheerfully intruded on the thirty minutes of sleep I’d managed to snag after the worst night of my life. And I’d once dropped a vial of leptospirosis on the lab floor.

  I pried a crusty eye open and peered over the luxurious softness of my bed linens.

  “What are you doing here?” I rasped at the three shadowy figures hovering over my bed.

  I never should have given them my alarm codes.

  “Emergency circle the wagons,” the tallest shadow said, arms crossed.

  “Yeah. Now, get your adorable ass out of bed so we can make it all better,” the middle one chirped, slapping me on the butt. Luna was outrageously cheerful all hours of the day.

  I groaned, sitting up, noting it was still dark outside.

  “Get dressed, my little vagillionaire,” the third one said, throwing workout clothes at me.

  “You want to work out now, Daisy? You’ve got to be kidding me.” Daisy didn’t willingly spend time in the gym unless it was to flirt with a hot personal trainer.

  “Lights on.”

  My bedroom lights came on dimly.

  “Damn it, Cam,” I complained. “I deserve at least another hour of wallowing.”

  My phone signaled from the lovely hammered copper nightstand. I didn’t have the energy to pick it up and immerse myself in the shitstorm that was most certainly brewing.

  “Get up and meet us in the gym,” Luna said.

  They left the room, a united front of badassery.

  I stared at the clothes in my lap. I was exhausted, humiliated, and not just a little worried. I was a fucking basket case. One misstep. I’d just endangered the future of my company, the security of my employees, with one horrifically bad decision. And I wasn’t ready to see just how bad the fallout was.

  “Move it, Ems!” Daisy called.

  Leaving my phone where it was, I dressed quickly and dragged my hair into a limp ponytail as I trudged across the lawn to the gym. I was the kind of person who focused better and worked harder after a grueling workout. When we’d built the enclave, when we’d envisioned Bluewater, I’d taken great joy in designing a property that suited me and my needs down to the ground.

  My friends had a looser, more interpretive relationship with exercise. But they supported me with weekly workouts slash bitch sessions.

  And there they were. My people.

  In the ocean-front, state-of-the-art gym that I started my day in every morning, a peppy pop song thumped through the sound system.

  Cameron Whitbury—aerospace entrepreneur, luxury shoe whore, and long-legged auburn-haired beauty—was looking fierce and squatting with free weights. Her ass was official perfection, at least according to Indulgence Magazine’s Best Butts in Business poll last year. The magazine had neglected to mention Cam’s Fortune 500 rocket-building empire.

  Luna da Rosa—the wildly popular Instagram brand, lifestyle guru, and makeup industry conqueror—was fresh and lovely as always in organic cotton yoga shorts and a knotted tank. She flowed through a sun salutation, stretchier than any human body had the right to be. With long sable hair, she was fairy princess beautiful and heartbreakingly sweet, which led most people to incorrectly assume she was an airhead.

  Daisy Carter-Kincaid was the kind of socialite my mother had warned me about my entire life. When she wasn’t experimenting with extensions or dying her hair silver to stir up the gossip rags, she was working her ass off to run her family’s significant real estate holdings. The Carter-Kincaids owned a very large portion of Miami, Manhattan, and Atlanta. She was currently pedaling on the elliptical in last night’s club VIP section dress and heels. There was a Bloody Mary in her water bottle holder.

  Wordlessly, Cam pointed at the treadmill, and I obliged, stepping onto the deck and punching buttons until the belt whirred to life beneath my feet.

  I cranked the speed and let myself go.

  My privilege had kept my ass from touching the bench in a holding cell last night. My head in-house counsel, Jenny, was already at the station raising hell by the time I’d been hauled out of the back of the patrol car. Unfortunately, when I’d been released a scant forty-five minutes later, every man, woman, and child with a recording device had descended on the station to witness my walk of shame.

  Shitstorm didn’t even begin to apply to the magnitude of bad at this point. The scrutiny required for a company to be allowed to stage an IPO was brutally rigorous, and that was without the CEO embroiled in a drug arrest. Not that I’d been arrested. I’d been questioned, in the presence of my terrifying attorney, and released without charges.

  But that’s not what the headlines would say.

  My friends gave me an entire treadmill mile of silence to collect my thoughts before they started in on me.

  “Okay. Tell us what happened last night,” Cam said, racking her weights and lining up for walking lunges. She’d earned that ass the old-fashioned way.

  I took a swig of water from the bottle Luna handed over and lowered the speed. I didn’t trust many people. But these women had earned their way into that tight inner circle.

  “It was a tit for tat,” I began. “Merritt’s father is some big deal hotelier in Vegas. His son is launching some underwear line. The Van Winston publicist reached out to Flawless. I need to stay in the public’s eye leading up to the IPO.”

  “You’re already running a national ad campaign, and Flawless is being featured in every business and economic publication known to humanity,” Daisy pointed out.

  “But I’m the face,” I said, repeating Lita’s words. �
��We’re looking to move a billion dollars in stock. A couple of yawn-inducing corporate history profiles aren’t going to do that. Anything I can do to stay at the forefront of the public’s mind will benefit the IPO. Well, almost anything.”

  I punched Stop on the treadmill and put my head in my hands. “I don’t even know how badly I’ve fucked up, guys. I haven’t even been able to make myself look at my phone.” It had signaled texts, calls, and emails until I’d put it on vibrate and hidden it under a pillow for most of the night.

  “Okay, let’s stop with the self-pity,” Luna insisted briskly. “Focus on the positive. It wasn’t your giant bag of coke—”

  “And X,” Daisy added helpfully.

  “Seriously?” Merritt Van Winston was a dumbass of the highest honor.

  “Just a little baggie,” Daisy said as if that made it better. “At least it wasn’t meth. There’s no way to class that shit up.”

  Luna shot her a will you shut up look.

  “Thanks, Pollyanna,” Cam snorted.

  “Anyway,” Luna said pointedly. “The drugs weren’t yours. You kept it together for the cameras. Your attorney already put out a statement doing damage control about the ‘misunderstanding.’ Everyone is doing all the right things.”

  “What are the blogs saying?” I asked, not really wanting to know.

  “Let’s focus on what your next steps are,” Cam said evasively as she turned around to lunge back across the gym.

  That meant it was bad. Really, really bad.

  “Better or worse than Zoey Grace’s leaked three-way sex tape?”

  My friends exchanged a glance.

  The spark of hope that had been trying to ignite in my chest sputtered out. And my bowels went icy.

  “Oh, God.” I buried my face in a sweat towel.

  “Look,” Daisy said, wielding her Bloody Mary at me. “Here’s the thing. You’ve never fucked up before. You’ve been squeaky clean. The public hates that. They hate you for being rich and beautiful and smart. And they want you to have to pay the price for being perfect.”