Page 143 of The Price of Scandal
I’d believed her and acquiesced to spending my birthday in a more traditional fashion.
I’d nearly gone home with someone. A stranger. I was drunk and flirty. And the guy, a friend of a friend of Lita’s, had been… insistent. At the last second, I’d bailed. And he’d died.
Lita had done this. All of it. I’d known it the second I saw the photo.
Derek’s pointed questions about trust. Jane’s snide comments about Lita. Was I the only one who was surprised by the betrayal?
But what was Derek’s role in it all?
I couldn’t picture him with her. Couldn’t see him falling for her wiles. He had his own, and he’d wielded them on me. Somehow, in a way that made no logical sense, I still didn’t doubt his feelings for me.
But he’d gone behind my back. He’d put himself in a situation that forced the doubt. And again had told me nothing.
I’d surrounded myself with too many people who didn’t love me, didn’t have my best interests at heart. And that was the price I was paying.
But I was finished with that mistake. And now that the purge had begun, I was ready for more. Rock bottom was nothing but a foundation. And I would rebuild. But this time, it would be the life that I wanted.
I tapped the notecard against my palm, debating.
“Screw it,” I sighed to the dark. I slipped my thumb under the fold and ripped it open.
Emily,
We still have business. Tell me what you want.
Love,
Derek
Of course, it wasn’t an apology or even a plea to explain. That wasn’t Derek Price’s style. This was a reminder that we weren’t done yet.
“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—”
