The Price Of Scandal(3)

“This is a huge deal, Emily,” she reminded me.

“We’re already a huge deal,” I pointed out. We’d built a billion-dollar company together. I felt like that monumental achievement was being overshadowed by the potential influx of even more cash. It felt… desperate? No. Perhaps just a little unseemly to be salivating over what some would see as “free money.” But it was the next logical step.

“We need to keep the press positive,” she said, unfazed.

“Of course.”

“And as the face of the company, you’re going to need to step up your public appearances. Keep reminding the world of how beautiful and talented and genius-y you are.”

I bit back a sigh. “What do you want me to do?”

Lita sat up straighter. “It’s just dinner with the bachelor son of a hotelier.”

I let my impeccable composure slip just a little bit and dropped my head back against the white leather of my desk chair. “You want me to go on a date to make the company more attractive to the public?”

My stomach gave a warning gurgle. I’d never admitted it to anyone, but certain situations threw me into anxiety-induced diarrhea with alacrity.

I always carried an emergency stash of Imodium with me.

“There’s my grumpy, geeky friend,” Lita crooned. “It’s a tough job going out to dinner on the arm of a handsome, single entrepreneur.”

“Entrepreneur’s son,” I corrected.

“Whatever. Dinner. A nice dress. A few pictures. You’ll be home in bunny slippers by nine. We need every ounce of positive attention we can get between now and the IPO.”

At least it wasn’t a gala or a charity golf tournament.

“What’s in it for him?”

“This guy is launching a luxury underwear line,” Lita said straight-faced.

“You’re kidding, right?”

She grinned. “You wish. Publicity for him, pretty pictures of you. It’s a win-win.”

I sighed, and Lita knew she’d won.

“I’ll text you the details,” she said triumphantly.

“Can’t wait,” I lied.





2





Emily





“Darling, that dress,” my mother said approvingly as we air kissed and pretended not to notice the interest from neighboring tables. The Palm was Mom’s favorite place to be seen lunching. And by “lunching” it was understood that she would push her kale salad around on her plate while enjoying her vodka tonic and pressuring her daughter into whatever scheme would most effectively raise the Stanton family profile.

“You look lovely,” I said, taking in her glowing cheeks and freshly styled hair.

We were both blonde. Both tall. But my mother made it her life’s work to cling to every shred of youth or, as she saw it, value. In some ways, I imagined my mother had subliminally planted the idea for Flawless in me at a young age. It certainly hadn’t been my childhood dream to develop a wrinkle reducer—at five, I’d spent an entire weekend trying to develop robot bandages. Yet here I was, the queen of high-end skincare. Wrinkle reducers had led to wrinkle prevention products, skin tone correctors, and moisturizers.

Women now had an entire line of weaponry in their fight against the aging process, most likely thanks to my mother’s early influence.

I never put quite as much effort into my appearance as Mom would have liked, and she never put quite as much effort into pretending to be interested in my work as I would have liked. It was the perfect balance of vague disappointments.

Mom patted her hair in satisfaction. “Oh, I’m just my usual mess. The salon had their work cut out for them this morning,” she said breezily.

Venice “We Have a Responsibility” Markham-Stanton had never been a mess in her life.

“I’ve been thinking about doing something different with my hair,” I mused, skimming the menu and regretting it instantly.

“Emily! Don’t you dare do something vulgar like cutting it all off. Or, God forbid, getting those trashy extensions like that Daisy friend of yours. She looks like an exotic dancer.”

Daisy, the compulsive rebel, would appreciate my mother’s horror.

We ordered our usual. Kale salads with broiled chicken breasts. Had I been here with friends, I’d have gone for the fish or perhaps even a small filet. But this way, I didn’t have to endure Mom’s pointed comments about diet and waist size. We Stanton women had to maintain our appearances.

That tenet did not extend to the male members of the family. My father’s waist had been expanding steadily in recent years into a comfortable, rotund gut. And my brother’s playboy tan was reaching George Hamilton shades. But male Stanton value was calculated by bank balances, not waist size or skin tone.

It was easy to forget that my mother had grown up without money. She wore wealth so well. Her father, my grandfather, had abandoned his wife and two children to marry a tire heiress. When they’d died in a car accident, my twenty-two-year-old mother had inherited a respectable fortune and invested it in remaking herself. By twenty-four she’d straightened her teeth, lost the flat Midwestern accent, and caught the eye of a wealthy Chicago entrepreneur. She’d lived up to her end of the prenup and pocketed nearly two million dollars when they divorced civilly five years later. She married my father six days after her divorce was final.