The Price of Scandal Page 9

  “Holy shit,” she said again, looking at the photos. “I can’t believe it!”

  She surprised Emily with a bouncy hug, and Emily’s laugh was buoyant. My fingers itched to capture the moment.

  “Come on, guys. Me next,” Dewayne insisted.

  The nurse slid her wheeled stool in front of him and went to work on the bandage on his knee.

  “Come on, big money,” Dewayne muttered like a mantra.

  The nurse’s self-satisfied smile gave it away. Emily punched her fist into the air, one moment of unadulterated satisfaction. This was her three-pointer. Her game-winning buzzer beater.

  Dewayne’s dark skin was glossy with residue where the bandage had been. The jagged surgical scar had been reduced, smoothed. The discoloration evened. It wasn’t perfect, but it was very damn good.

  Dewayne jumped out of his chair and did a little boogie, pulling Emily into it. She laughed, light and easy. The joy of accomplishment flushing her cheeks.

  Nina was busy snapping selfies, and Dewayne insisted on getting in on the action. I made a note to find and follow their social media accounts.

  Mallory, meanwhile, sat with her jaw tight, staring at the floor in front of her.

  “Mallory,” Emily said softly. “It’s your turn.”

  “I’m afraid to hope,” she confessed in a voice barely above a whisper, and my heart broke into pieces for her. The damage humans could inflict on one another remained an awful mystery.

  Emily sank down in front of her. “You are seven years out of a relationship that could have killed you. You got your master’s degree and landed the job you always wanted. You put your kids through private school. And you make damn fine pottery on the weekends. Scars or not, you are hope.”

  I felt my throat tighten uncomfortably when Mallory linked her fingers through Emily’s. She nodded. “Okay. Let’s do this.”

  The nurse worked slowly and carefully. I could feel the room behind me holding its breath. Tension grew. Anticipation. Hope.

  “Oh, my,” the nurse said, dropping her professionalism. “This looks very good, Mallory.”

  “Really?”

  Emily couldn’t contain herself and leaned in.

  Reaching behind her, she held out a hand. A psychic lab tech handed over the camera.

  “Mallory?” Emily said as she snapped a picture.

  It popped up on the screens, and everyone in the room inhaled sharply.

  “Yes,” she whispered. Her eyes were squeezed shut.

  “Open your eyes.”

  The nurse held up the hand mirror, and Mallory opened her very lovely green eyes. They widened with shock.

  The scar had been an ivory path carved from jawline to nose, splintering under the eye in a spiderweb of trauma. Now it was… smaller, thinner, smoother. Some of the threadlike splinters had vanished completely.

  “This is after one week, Mallory. Imagine what three weeks will look like,” Emily said as the woman before her took a shaky breath.

  Mallory turned to look at the pictures. She was nodding slowly, slowly. And there was a small, tender smile playing at the corners of her unpainted mouth. Acknowledging a new reality, a new future, that Emily had given her.

  Yes. There were some members of the human race who made it their duty to tear others down, tried to destroy them. And then there were the Emily Stantons of the world. Ones who cared and fixed and tried to make things better.

  Was that sweat stinging my eyes?

  I glanced around. It appeared that everyone had sweaty eyes. Or allergies. People were blowing their noses while others wiped their faces with their sleeves.

  Mallory was hugging Emily now. A hard, tight embrace more powerful than any words of thanks.

  My client was a motherfucking genius, and if she kept smiling like that, I was going to have a problem not falling hard for her.

  14

  Emily

  Mom: Emily you must call me immediately.

  Mom: I need to speak with you about this unfortunate situation.

  Mom: Kerrigan Mortimer is shopping for a third wife. A wedding would be just the thing to distract everyone from your misstep, don’t you think?

  Mom: I’ll never be able to show my face at the club again. Crystal Fordham had the audacity to ask what rehab facility I’ll be sending you to. Call me!

  Leaving the happy chaos of the lab behind me, I ducked into a storage room for a moment of quiet.

  It was a habit I’d developed years ago. Sometimes things in my life were so big, so thrilling, that I needed a few minutes to take it in. To say a thank you to the universe. And to feel really damn proud of myself. Then I would compartmentalize it and neatly dive back into the next thousand details requiring my attention.

  I blew my nose into the tissue I’d snuck out of the box by the door. It wouldn’t do for my team to see the Emily Stanton tearing up over, well, anything.

  We’d done it. The formulas would need to be refined and tested further. But this was a win. I was already thinking of price points and how to keep these little magical marvels affordable. Everyone deserved the chance to heal their scars. I didn’t want this to end up as some high-end plastic surgery upgrade only available with the right bank account balance.

  Money was a physical presence in my life. But sometimes, the hunger others had for it overwhelmed me. There would be a fight. A low-cost scar treatment didn’t exactly fit with the rest of our high-end products. But I was confident we could find a way around it. Perhaps a more budget-conscious brand with a new line of products?

  I laughed softly to myself.

  My vision for the company had been evolving for quite some time. And in quiet moments like this, I worried that I would lose the ability to fight for that vision once I had shareholders to answer to.

  “Suck it up, Stanton,” I whispered out loud. I would meet whatever challenges came my way just as I always had.

  The walls of this room were crammed full of wire racks with equipment and the accessories of scientific study. Every test tube, every dry erase board, every pipette was mine. And I was going to use them well. This was just the beginning of the advancements possible. I wanted to make sure that Flawless was on the front lines of development.

  There was so much more to do.

  “Emily?”

  The door opened behind me, and I quickly swiped the tissue under my eyes.

  For one whole minute, I forgot all about the mess that required Derek Price’s presence in my life.

  “Just doing a quick inventory,” I said without turning around. “I’ll be out in a minute.” A brisk brush-off that anyone tuned to human nature would read to mean “Leave, now.”

  He closed the door, but I could still sense him in the room with me. My acute awareness of his presence was yet another annoyance.

  I felt hands on my shoulders, and then he was turning me to face him. Manhandling was something I did not tolerate. But rather than kicking him in the spectacular junk, I studied the tips of my shoes.

  I was puttering around a lab in open-toed stilettos. I was an embarrassment to scientists everywhere.

  “Emily,” he said again, nudging my chin up with an arrogant thumb.

  I met his gaze with hostility. I hated being anything in the neighborhood of vulnerable. And being vulnerable in front of a man I’d known for less than twenty-four hours? Well, that was unheard of. An impossibility. A rogue data point that would be ruthlessly stripped of significance.

  “What? Why are you here?” My voice was cool, clipped.

  “That was fucking amazing. You dazzle me,” he said, running his hands down the sleeves of my lab coat.

  I felt my eyebrows wing up. Uh-oh. “I beg your pardon?” I said stiffly.

  “I’m going to cross a professional line here,” he warned me. “It’s your fault because that in there was like witnessing a miracle.”

  “Cross a professional line? You?” I scoffed, more nervous than I cared to admit. I’d handled unwanted advances with a fr
osty efficiency before. But this felt… different. “Are you breaking into my house and taking a bath again?”

  “No. I’m going to kiss you right here in this science closet.”

  “It’s a storage room, not a science closet. And no. You’re not,” I said, hands flying to his chest. There went my frosty efficiency.

  “Afraid I am. And I’d apologize, but we both know I’m not going to really be sorry.”

  He was leaning in. My body, already revved from scientific achievement, happily threw itself into overdrive. His chest, firm and toned, pressed into my palms, testing my resistance.

  “I don’t know you,” I said quietly as his mouth moved closer. I didn’t kiss strangers. Certainly not strangers who trespassed and stole. God, what would he take from me?

  My heart beat out a tempo loud enough that I was sure he could hear it.

  “I’m starting to know you, and I quite like it,” he countered.

  I was wearing a lab coat with my “librarian bun” as Jane liked to call it, and the sexiest man I’d ever laid eyes on was putting the moves on me. My brain scrambled to rationalize.

  He’s using you.

  He wants something from you.

  He’ll hurt you.

  He’s not right for you.

  “You can slap me after, I promise,” he said just before his lips brushed mine.

  Oh, those lips. Firm, demanding, insistent.

  Biology took over. And not the knee-jerk self-defense kind. It was an instant chemical reaction.

  “Dazzled,” he whispered the word again, his mouth moving over mine. And then it was me who was dazzled.

  I heard the thrum of my blood as it pumped through my veins. I tried to stay still. To be impassive. I couldn’t allow him to think that it was acceptable to kiss me like this.

  But, oh, it was.

  Even my stomach stopped the acrobatic act it had been performing for the last hour and went warm and liquid.

  I gripped him by the lapels of his coat and kissed him back as if there was nothing else in the world I’d rather be doing. As if there were no demands waiting for me outside that door. No family responsibilities. No concerns over perception or next steps.

  I kissed him as if this moment was the only one that mattered.

  Derek’s body pressed against mine was the only sensation I had to concern myself with.

  Sorry, Mom. I’m too busy being seduced to worry about image and reputation.

  He was lean and rangy. Made to wear fine suits and slim ties. His height was lovely. Most men I dated were eye-to-eye with me when I was in heels. But Derek had inches to spare.

  Our tongues twined in an instinctive dance, and my senses were full of him.

  Wrestling control back, he kissed me thoroughly, hungrily. Tongues mating, lips bruising. My breath was his. His hands slipped inside my jacket and coasted over waist and hips.

  “We need to stop,” I said, kissing him with a desperation that was quite frankly terrifying.

  “Absolutely. It’s vital that we stop kissing immediately.” His tongue danced back into my mouth.

  Oh, God. He was hard. His erection pressed against my belly. I’d seen him naked already. And now I was feeling him. Was this a planned seduction? Some master plot designed to coax me into letting my guard down?

  If it was, it was working quickly. Less than twenty-four hours, and I was allowing him to kiss me. Hell, I was forcing him to kiss me.

  What would the board say if they could see us wrapped around each other? Derek one day into his babysitting job. Me two days off a company-derailing scandal. If I was this hard up for physical contact, I could have Daisy or Luna hook me up with an acceptable one-night stand. I could not pursue a physical relationship with my fixer.

  As if sensing my mental gymnastics, Derek pulled back and cupped my face in his hand. He brushed his thumb over my swollen, half-devoured lips. “You’re incredible,” he whispered.

  My head moved in a half nod, half shake.

  “We can’t do this again,” I told him. “Your advances are officially unwelcome.”

  “Yes, that’s the message I got loud and clear,” he said lightly. His thumb skimmed under my lip, and he looked at me almost fondly.

  “Get that look off your face immediately,” I commanded.

  He grinned and my knees nearly went out from under me. A smiling Derek Price was dangerous, a weapon of mass destruction.

  “I’m serious, Price. This isn’t happening. We aren’t happening.”

  “Not until you’re ready,” he promised.

  * * *

  “You look like you just got ravaged in a closet, boss,” Jane said, eyeing us in the rear-view mirror when Derek and I climbed in the back seat of the Range Rover.

  I shot him a frosty glare. He grinned devilishly.

  “Emily was on the receiving end of several hugs from her study’s subjects,” Derek said smoothly. He tugged the tie out of my hair, and as I shoved his hand away, I wondered if I was imagining the possessiveness in that move.

  One mistake of a kiss did not entitle the man to any further physical contact.

  “Must have gotten a few victory kisses, too,” Jane mused.

  Grumbling under my breath, I pulled out my lipstick and compact to right the damage that one steroidal pheromoned Derek Price delivered.

  It was four o’clock in the afternoon, and I’d faced the media, delivered an award, confirmed a significant scientific achievement, and been kissed senseless in a storage room.

  For the first time in my adult life, I felt like calling it an early day and going home to hide in my bedroom.

  15

  Derek

  “Sophia Wang shoe style sells out after post-jail Emily Stanton steps out in them”

  “Flawless board scrambles to save IPO”

  “So you broke into her house and pulled the old Say Hello to My Little Friend?”

  A meaty fist swung at me. I dodged and landed a blow on the behemoth’s jaw.

  Jude Ellis was the size of a small country. The running joke was that his massive biceps should be registered as weapons. We’d been sparring together since before hangovers lasted three days and closing down clubs and strutting into work with lipstick and glitter on our collars got old.

  “Had to get her attention,” I grunted, absorbing the blow to my gut.

  This was a friendly match in our favorite dingy gym in Miami. The warehouse hadn’t been so much converted as two boxing rings had been erected in the middle of cracked concrete floors. Racks of weights and heavy bags took up the rest of the space. The brick walls were papered with yellowed newspaper articles about old fights.

  It was dirty. Gritty. It smelled like sweat and testosterone. And it reminded me fondly of my youth. Always looking for a fight, a challenge.

  “You got balls, brother. She could have had her security shoot you,” Jude said, ignoring my feint to the left.

  That was the problem with knowing someone so damn well. Poker and boxing became more like a choreographed dance than a competition.

  “I get the feeling that Ms. Stanton would prefer to shoot me herself,” I said.

  “A little fire under all that ice?” He was a man of few words. Ex-military. A vault about his history. But our friendship didn’t require encyclopedic knowledge of each other’s pasts. We both enjoyed a good challenge and ice-cold beers after a fair fight.

  We exchanged rapid-fire blows to the torsos.

  “I believe there might be—” I ducked when he took a swing at my head and threw an uppercut. “A dragon under that very proper exterior.” That kiss we’d shared had been anything but cold and civil.

  Sweat sheened my torso and dampened my hair. My muscles were warm. I loved shedding the civility of a suit and stepping into the barbaric energy of the ring.

  In the next ring, the local female featherweight champion was training with her coach. The sound of blows reverberated off the concrete.

  Not wanting to be left out, we put on
our own show of fast feet and lightning strikes.

  “Price!” The voice was sharp and authoritative. And decidedly feminine.

  “Uh-oh. Your dragon’s here,” Jude said, in the clinch.

  Action around the gym came to a halt.

  Already amped from sparring, I felt the quickening of my pulse. There was something very appealing about Emily Stanton, and it went far beyond her billions. We broke apart, and I strolled to the ropes, breathing heavily.

  She stood out. Surrounded by men and women in the throes of beating out their aggressions into canvas and flesh, Emily stood coolly in heels, tight cropped pants, and a short-sleeved sweater in graphite that managed to be both demure and sexy. Everything about her was decidedly feminine, even the power, the temper, that radiated from her.

  Her arms were crossed, and that razor-edged line of her jaw was tight. And I remembered in vivid detail just how those lips tasted.

  “Emily, what a lovely surprise.” I was curious how she’d found me.

  “Bullshit,” she said succinctly. “You booked me for Malcolm Ellison’s beach party.”

  Malcolm Ellison was an entrepreneur of questionable reputation. But his soirees were wildly famous. Attendees were in the news for days after a party and usually included the A-list of Miami’s residents. It would be considerable controllable press for our tarnished billionaire.

  “I did,” I said, picking up my water bottle.

  “You’re in trouble,” Jude whisper-sang behind me.

  I reached behind my head and flipped him off.

  “I’m not going,” Emily said.

  “Oh, really?” I asked, fascinated.

  “Hey, man, I gotta roll. Meeting a client in an hour,” Jude said. He was a reluctant one-man security outfit and couldn’t seem to stop getting business thrown his way.