Page 19 of Scandalous Lover

“I work from home on my social media channels. I go out all the time and do stuff so I have content, but I don’t exactly have a schedule.”

“What do you mean by social media channels? I mean,” I say quickly when she narrows her eyes at me, “I understand social media, like Instagram and TikTok, but what does it mean to have that be your job? Where does the income come from?”

“I get paid when I can get people to buy things from other people. So my job is to have enough people follow and trust me that when I go somewhere or recommend something, they also go there or buy that thing. It’s a balance of creating eye-catching content, being a relatable, trustable person, and selling things.”

“Influencer,” I say, finally feeling like I have a tiny grasp on the meaning of the word.

Naomi smiles down at me as she scoops the bacon from the pan. “Exactly. People will buy what I suggest they buy, butonly if they want to be me. So I have to present my life in a way that looks pretty perfect but also authentic and vulnerable enough that they can relate to me as a real person.” The eggs hit the pan with a sizzle.

“That sounds like my own personal version of hell.”

She laughs. “Which part?”

I think about it for a long moment. “I guess the part where you put everything you do and think online. I’m more of a work at work and home at home kind of guy. I don’t like it much when the two cross over.”

A perfectly cooked and styled plate of bacon and eggs, complete with an orange slice and a buttered English muffin appears before me on cheerful red pottery with a ridged rim.

“Thank you,” I say in amazement. “I don’t usually get such royal treatment in the morning. Or ever, I guess.”

Naomi sits in the chair across from me at the small square table and leans forward on her elbows. “No one’s cooking for you down on Faraday?”

I shake my head, holding my hand to my mouth while I finish chewing the first delicious bite. “Not unless you count the cooks at Reef.”

“That’s the new restaurant you guys opened in the basement, right?”

I cock my head side to side. “It’s more of a ground level space than a basement. It’s on the pool level and has a big door that opens to the patio. It’s really cool, actually. The guests have been leaving the best reviews. Raft is great and all, but Reef is really what we needed for our guests and their families to get their day-to-day meal needs met.”

She’s quiet and I glance up to find her grinning at me.

“What?” I can’t help but smile back.

“Nothing. You’re just adorable when you talk about that place. It’s like your baby.”

She’s far from wrong. “It does sometimes feel like a dependent that I’m responsible for keeping alive.”

Naomi laughs. “That’s not all a baby is, you know.”

I take another bite and wait curiously for her to go on.

“Your baby is what you love most in the world. What you’re most proud of. What you can’t stop thinking about and want to succeed and flourish so badly that you would pour your own blood, sweat, and tears into helping in any way you can.”

I chew quietly and try to identify the double meaning she’s clearly trying to communicate.

I come up empty handed. My usually keen intuition is failing me when it comes to this woman. Or maybe I just can’t hear it over the buzzing in my ears that amps up every time she gets within a few feet of me.

“Well, when you put it that way. It’s definitely my baby.”

“But you work with your friends. Isn’t that crossing your work/home boundary?”

Just the word boundary sends me straight back to last night when I was centimeters from plunging myself into her forbidden pussy.

I feel myself flush and look down at my breakfast. “It’s not quite like that. The guys and I don’t exactly work together. Dom and I do, but the other two…” I trail off with my foot in my mouth.

“The other two just fly in and out when they feel like it?” She rushes in to save me.

I smile up at her gratefully. “Something like that.”

It’s so much more than that, but I don’t know how to put the relationship with my three best friends and business partners into simple words that won’t make me sound like a complete fool.

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