The Price of Scandal Read online

  “Yes. To her office,” Emily explained as if I were a pesky five-year-old. It pleased me that I could annoy her so easily.

  I rose and buttoned my jacket. “Jane, I trust you have enough to get started working out transportation and security.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Pip pip cheerio,” Jane called after me.

  “I like your Jane,” I told Emily as she led the way back toward the reception desk.

  She shot me a wary look over her shoulder.

  “What?” I pressed.

  “I don’t know what you mean by that.”

  I laughed. “I meant just what I said. I like her.”

  “Hmm.”

  We passed reception. Emily was warmer with her greeting on this pass—I took the credit for alleviating some of her stress—and I noticed the receptionist all but bloom under the fraction of friendliness.

  “While I have your undivided attention,” I said, handing Emily a folder. “This is for you.”

  Frowning, she flipped it open as we walked. “You already wrote a speech for the luncheon?”

  “Just the highlights.”

  She closed the folder with what could only be described as a growl and knocked briskly on a glass door before opening it.

  This was the office I would have expected for the CEO. Spacious, plush, and the enviable corner. Lita could take in views of Biscayne Bay and downtown Miami with one swivel of her chair. It was easily three times the size of Emily’s office and decorated in a rather garish fashion. The eclectic world traveler vibe had somehow missed its mark. There was something just slightly off about the dark, imposing furniture and colorful Eastern art.

  “I thought my eyes were deceiving me when I saw the headlines, Emily. That outfit.” The woman behind the desk was curvy and glossy like a pin-up model. Her hair hung in a dark cascade over one shoulder. She wore a red dress that paid special attention to all the right places. Dark lipstick over subtly filled lips, thick lashes, long nails.

  Lita Smith wasn’t afraid of showcasing her looks.

  “I decided it was a casual day,” Emily said breezily. “I wanted to introduce you to Derek Price. Derek will be working with us to contain the situation.”

  Lita offered me a bright smile. “Derek. From what I’ve seen all over the gossip blogs this morning, you’re an excellent purse carrier. I’ve heard a lot about your work with the fallen,” she said, offering her hand.

  “The fallen?” I shook her hand.

  “The mighty. The ones who take tumbles off their pedestals.”

  “Don’t tell me that’s what you think of Emily,” I said.

  Lita let out a silvery peal of laughter and clasped my hand in both of hers. “Don’t be ridiculous. Our Emily is impeccably perfect. In fact, I’d be willing to bet this will be your easiest job. The entire thing was a misunderstanding, one I feel completely responsible for,” she added, releasing my hand and placing a hand theatrically over her heart.

  “Let’s not rehash all that,” Emily said briskly. “Derek has been hired to un-tarnish my image. Which means I’ll be making more public appearances rather than less.”

  I noticed that she left out the part where the board had gone behind her back. No commiserating here.

  Lita pursed her lips. “I see. I assume you’ve run this past Helen,” she said, addressing me.

  “Helen and I have spoken. I’m the point person on this,” I cut in.

  “Well, whatever I can do to help, I’m yours, Derek.” Her lips curved in a feline smile.

  Flawless’s chief marketing officer was an expert flirt.

  “I do have something I need,” Emily cut in. “I need you to take the temperature of the board. Reach out to a couple of the directors and see how they’re feeling about this mess.”

  “Happy to,” she chirped. “I’m always telling you I can handle more. You don’t have to do all the work yourself, Lady Stanton.”

  Emily rolled her eyes in that familiar way female friends do. “Speaking of, are you still available to swing by the lab today?”

  Lita winced. “Today’s a little tight. I’m in back-to-back meetings. What’s happening at the lab?”

  Emily paused for the slightest moment. “We’re removing the biobandages today. It might be good to have marketing there,” she said. I thought I detected an edge of testiness in her tone.

  Lita frowned, but her forehead remained unmarred. The modern miracles of science. “I have that in my calendar for next week,” she said, scrolling through her phone.

  “It’s today. At three,” Emily said.

  “It’s that damn Roderick. He doesn’t know how a calendar works,” Lita groaned.

  “I told you not to hire an assistant based on looks,” Emily reminded her.

  “I didn’t hire him for his looks,” Lita argued unconvincingly.

  “His nickname is Ram Rod, and he can bench press you,” Emily pointed out.

  Lita grinned shamelessly. “Yeah. I guess he can. Look, I’ll send a VP and a photographer over today.”

  “If this goes well, I’m going to want another look at the draft of the press kit for the product,” Emily explained.

  “Of course you will,” Lita said with an eye roll that ended in a friendly wink.

  “I just want to make sure everything is right,” Emily said lightly.

  “Derek, you’ll find that Emily here has difficulty trusting people to do their jobs. But it’s one of the things we love best about her,” Lita teased.

  Before Emily could respond, we were interrupted by a knock.

  “Knock knock, ladies and Tea and Crumpets,” Jane called from the door. “Boss, it’s time to leave for the luncheon.”

  “Derek, like I said, if there’s anything you need at all, don’t hesitate to call me,” Lita said, following us to the door. She slipped a card into my hand and gave me a meaningful look. “My cell is on the back.”

  “Thank you. I’m looking forward to working with you.” I pocketed the card and followed Jane and Emily out with the distinct sensation that Lita was staring at my ass.

  “Me-ow. She didn’t even get to see his schlong like we did, and she’s already going after him,” Jane mused, punching the button on the elevator.

  “I give off a big schlong vibe,” I explained.

  Emily snorted indelicately. “Can we please stop discussing Derek’s penis before we have an HR scandal to deal with, too?”

  We stepped into the elevator car together. Emily pulled out her phone and dialed. “Valerie, I need you to reach out to Bill Haddad in marketing. Have him arrange to be at the lab with a photographer at three. Thank you.”

  She tucked her phone back in her bag. “Lita has a lot on her plate,” she said.

  “Yeah, Tea and Crumpets’s schlong,” Jane said.

  Emily elbowed her.

  “Why is your chief marketing officer’s office three times the size of yours?” I asked.

  “Because she’s an important asset to this company and a valuable friend to me,” Emily said. It sounded like she’d given the answer before. “And I trust her.”

  I smiled at the jab.

  Turning to me, she looked up. “Why did you carry my purse this morning?”

  I glanced down at her as she slid her sunglasses on. “In addition to being perfectly secure in my manhood—should you need an emergency tampon run, I’m your man—I was making sure the world knows who’s the boss.”

  She pursed her lips, but they fought back, curving ever so slightly. “Do you ever do anything without an ulterior motive?”

  “I like to think of it as multi-tasking.”

  13

  Derek

  Emily’s public presentation persona could use a little loosening up, but the speech went over well. The audience was warmly polite, and no one demanded her to answer questions about the near-arrest.

  I considered it a lukewarm positive.

  By the time I was done cracking her lovely, hard-shelled exterior, I had a feeling the world would be f
alling for Ms. Emily Stanton. I just had to figure out where exactly she kept her humanity hidden.

  While two hundred and fifty women dug into their Caesar salads, I pulled Emily out the side door of the ballroom where Jane was waiting with my car.

  I slid into the back with her and reached over the front seat.

  Jane’s fingers drummed on the wheel in time to a sexy salsa number from a playlist she’d synced to my vehicle.

  “Would you prefer the cilantro lime chicken or the tuna salad?” I offered Emily both containers.

  She blinked. “Oh. Ah. I’ll have the chicken.”

  “He asked for your favorites, just so you don’t think he’s big-dicked, gorgeous, and psychic,” Jane said, easing down the alley.

  A smile flitted around Emily’s pink lips.

  “So, how did it go?” Jane asked.

  “I got pity applause.” Emily sighed, the smile evaporating.

  “Better than a boot to the face,” Jane said cheerfully.

  “You did very well,” I assured Emily. “It takes a while to win trust. This was just a baby step in the right direction. Next on the agenda…” I said, taking my readers out of my pocket and skimming the calendar on my phone.

  “The lab,” Emily announced through a mouthful of food. She sounded a little livelier, and I was curious if it was the food or the anticipation.

  “Tell me more,” I urged, removing my glasses and tucking my phone away.

  She dropped her fork neatly in the container. “Eighteen months ago, we discovered an interesting phenomenon involving the moisture barrier of scarred skin,” she began, and it was like the sun had lit her from within. “Stop me if I get too technical.”

  Jane smirked in the driver seat and then tapped the brakes hard when an elderly man with a walker sauntered into the street from between two parked cars.

  “You don’t have much time left! Stay on the sidewalk,” Jane yelled through the open window.

  “The moisture barrier is what holds our skin cells together,” Emily continued, immune to traffic issues. “Like glue or caulk or mortar. But what we were seeing on scarred tissue is that the moisture barrier itself was damaged. So we started experimenting with ways to reinvigorate it. Fast forward to the present, and we have what I believe will be a new way of treating and essentially healing scars.”

  “That’s big,” I observed.

  She awarded me a smile and not one of the toned-down, proper ones. This was a light-up-her-lovely-face grin. Wow. Was that an angels’ chorus I was hearing?

  “It is,” she agreed. “We’re testing these biobandages on three subjects. One is an athlete who had ACL surgery a year ago. Another is an early twenty-something with severe acne scars on her face. And the last is a domestic violence survivor. Her scars are particularly challenging.”

  “Because?” I pressed. I was interested in what she was saying and how excited she seemed by the subject.

  “Age of scarring, for instance, is a hurdle most topical treatments can’t beat or improve effectively. The older the scar, the more difficult it is to make it less noticeable. And Mallory, our subject, has scars that are old and very deep. The scientist in me is crossing her fingers for an improvement. The human being in me hoping for a miracle for Mallory.”

  I had literal fucking goosebumps.

  “When you say ‘we’?” I prodded.

  “My team. This is my lab facility,” she said as Jane pulled up to an innocuous white stone building. “We have systems biologists, chemists, research scientists, and lab techs. This is where all our products are developed and tested.”

  “Oh, God. I’m not about to walk into a room with fifty beagles in cages, am I?” I asked. That would be the end of our professional relationship, no matter how lovely her smile was.

  In an uncharacteristic move, Emily shoved my shoulder. “No animal testing,” she said primly. “The lab at school was an emotionally scarring experience. Lita and I vowed that we would never test products on animals. It’s also part of why Luna and I are friends. Her cosmetic company Wild Heart is vegan and cruelty-free.”

  “So the testing is more expensive and probably takes significantly longer,” I predicted.

  Emily nodded, reaching for her door handle. “Yes, but this way I can sleep at night knowing that I don’t have a bunch of sweet rats or dogs caged up just so I can make another billion.”

  “In that case, we can still be friends,” I told her.

  “Goody.” She rolled her eyes and got out.

  The lab was, from my uneducated assertion, state of the art. There were several fancy-looking workspaces. Everything looked new, pristine. Stainless steel sparkled, work tables gleamed, and an entire herd of scientific-looking people bustled about looking important and scholarly.

  “Here,” Emily said, handing me a lab coat. “Put this on.” She was already wearing one and had pulled her hair back into a no-nonsense bun. I liked the look more than it made sense.

  I shrugged into it and decided to wonder what exactly it was that attracted me to her later. I didn’t have a type. I loved women, period. It was quite possible that I was seduced by the puzzle as much as the woman.

  “Do I look science-y?” I asked, smoothing a hand over the fabric.

  “You look protected from spills,” she said with a smirk.

  “You look excited,” I observed, slipping my phone into the pocket of the lab coat.

  She bit her lip in adorable nerd-like excitement, and the attraction went from a zing to a thump. “I am,” she confessed.

  “This could be a revolutionary product for your company.”

  “This could be life-changing for Mallory,” she countered.

  I followed her through the bowels of the lab into a smaller, brightly lit room. Her subjects were seated at the front of the room. A photographer was setting up his lighting equipment. The rest of the inhabitants were an odd mix of business-suited executives and lab-coated geniuses. Everyone seemed excited.

  “Mind if I talk to the subjects?” I asked Emily.

  She was frowning over some data on an iPad a tech had handed her. “Sure. Be nice,” she said.

  As if I would be anything but.

  “And don’t record anything,” she said.

  “You’re ruining my fun,” I complained.

  “The patent is pending, and the subjects have a right to privacy,” Emily said. “Don’t screw with me or them.”

  I introduced myself to the participants. Nervous and energetic Nina was twenty-three and had a flesh-colored bandage on both cheeks. Dewayne wasn’t just any athlete but the star point guard for the Miami Buzz. His last season had come to an abrupt end due to a ligament tear and knee surgery.

  And Mallory, who was, by best guess, in her mid-forties. She sat with ruler-straight shoulders. Her long hair was swept over the left side of her face. When she looked up at me, I saw why. Her bandage molded around her jaw up to hug the line of her nose. Her perfunctory smile made me think she’d rather be anywhere but here.

  “What are you hoping to see once the bandages come off?” I asked Nina.

  She rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “I want to be normal. I don’t want to have to spend an hour every day covering up acne scars or hours on the weekends scouring YouTube for new products or solutions. You know? These stupid scars are getting too much of my life. I’m over them.”

  I moved down the line. “How about you, Dewayne?”

  He leaned his big frame back. “Man, I just want to leave last season behind me. You know? Blew out my knee. Had the surgery. Now I’m training. I wanna come back faster and stronger. I don’t want to live with this big-ass reminder of the worst moment of my career carved into my knee.”

  “And you, Mallory?” I said.

  She was silent for a long moment, and I thought maybe she wasn’t going to answer me. “I just want to see an improvement,” she said softly. “I’m not greedy. I’m not asking for perfection or for what I looked like before. I just want my scars
to be better. I’m better. I want my face to reflect that.”

  Emily joined us, giving me a suspicious look. I held up my hands to show her that I hadn’t recorded or stolen anything.

  “Are you three ready?” Emily asked, shifting her attention to her subjects.

  They nodded, and she ran through the details. “The sensors we embedded under the bandages have been monitoring for things like moisture and bacteria. That data looks great. We’re all excited to see what the visible results are. Does anyone need a drink of water or anything before we get started?”

  No one did, so Emily asked everyone in the room to take their seats.

  “Don’t be nervous,” she whispered to Nina when the nurse began to gently tug at the edge of the first bandage.

  Nina blew out a breath and squeezed her eyes shut as the nurse efficiently peeled the bandage back.

  She was telling Nina not to be nervous, but the way Emily flattened a hand to her own belly told me she was the one experiencing nerves. But the moment passed, and the bandage was loosening.

  I could see by the spark in Emily’s eye, the parting of her lips that indicated she liked what she was seeing. Her hand left her stomach.

  “Let’s take the other one off, too,” Emily said, leaning in.

  “How does it look?” Nina asked, trying not to move her lips.

  The crowd in the room laughed gently, and the photographer danced his way in and out, capturing reactions.

  “It looks good,” Emily said. “Very good.”

  “Good how? Good like I won’t need to spackle six layers of pore eraser on every day?”

  Emily signaled to the back of the room, and Nina’s before pictures appeared on the screens behind them.

  “Goodbye to foundation good,” Emily said, handing the girl a compact mirror.

  “Holy shit,” Nina gasped. The room rumbled with laughter again as the occupants craned for a better look.

  “Let me just take these quickly,” Emily said, snapping a photo of each side of Nina’s face. Moments later, the new images appeared on the screens side-by-side with the before angles.

  The difference was nothing short of remarkable. Nina’s red labyrinth of scarring had become healthy pink like she was fresh from a facial. Even the ice-pick-like scars were more even as if the skin had miraculously resurfaced itself.