Page 90 of Wicked Beautiful (Wicked Games 1)
“All right. Lock’ll be on by tonight. I’ll get you some paper on her by Friday. Can do a quick scan today, call you if anything interesting pops up, but the other stuff’ll take a few days.”
“Thanks.”
Connor crosses the room, stops in front of me and holds out his hand. We shake.
Holding my gaze, he says, “It’s probably nothing.”
I nod.
His black eyes grow piercing. “But if not, you should decide now what you want to do about it. Get your head straight, yeah? Because if you got feelings for this girl and she’s gunnin’ for you—”
“I know.” I cut him off, my voice curt. He doesn’t have to say more, and frankly I don’t want to hear it. Because if Victoria Price is gunning for me, I’m going to have to make a choice between the two of us.
After last night, I’m not entirely sure I wouldn’t let her win.
Connor says good-bye and lets himself out, while I go back to staring out the windows, nursing my scotch and brooding.
Victoria. Who the hell are you?
TWENTY-SIX
~ Victoria ~
The moment the elevator doors slide open to reveal the private entrance of my penthouse, I shout, “Where are you!”
Tabby’s faint response comes from my office. “In here!”
I hustle in there so fast I don’t even stop to take my heels off, though my feet are killing me. My new Louboutin platforms are over six inches high, and my arches hate me right now. I burst through the door, see Tabitha sitting at my desk, peering intently at the computer screen, and yell, “What the hell happened?”
Without looking at me, she calmly replies, “I told you; I was in the emergency room with food poisoning.”
I glare at her, huffing. “I just spent a hundred bucks bribing a valet guy to get my phone out of Parker’s car, the last fifteen minutes in a cab hyperventilating because you didn’t pick up your phone and only responded to my frantic texts with a VERY unhelpful ‘Chill, dude, it’s all good’—and now you’re sitting at my desk like the Queen of Sheba, surfing eBay for your next Hello Kitty handbag obsession while I’m suffering a heart attack about what leaked online? Tabitha, this is unacceptable!”
She looks over at me, blows her bangs from her eyes, and smiles. “Did you just stomp your foot? That was cute.”
“Arrrghhh!”
“All right, calm down! Take a load off and I’ll give you the 411.” She waves to one of the chairs in front of my desk—my desk—and turns back to the computer.
“You’re so fired!”
She says nonchalantly, “I know. Sit.”
I make a growly noise, stomp over to the chair, sit, and toss my handbag on the desk. “Start talking, girl genius. What happened?”
She leans back in my chair, turning her attention to me. “The Drudge Report is what happened.”
The noise that escapes my mouth sounds like air escaping a balloon.
Tabby rushes to add, “But it was only a tiny mention, a few sentences, no pictures, only one eyewitness who claims he saw you at the Laredo airport exiting a private jet. It’s a total nothing story, Victoria. It wasn’t even picked up by any of the other major entertainment outlets.”
My eyes are in danger of popping out of my skull. “Nothing story? It mentions Laredo.”
She shrugs. “There’s nothing that ties you to that city, so…so what?”
I stand and lean over the desk with my hands braced against the desktop. “Parker Maxwell is so what!” I collapse back into the chair. “Oh my God. He’s going to figure out the whole thing. I’ll have zero credibility left. He’s going to ruin me. Everything I’ve built, everything I’ve worked for…”
I end with a helpless groan.
