The Price Of Scandal(45)

“The reports,” she said, looking down in her lap and then craning her neck to see into the back seat. “The social media team needs my input tomorrow morning. I have to reschedule the new chemist’s onboarding tour. I didn’t call her back. And there should be an end-of-day report from legal.”

She was working herself into a righteous lather. How dare I drag her away from her work.

“Everything that can be handed off has been. Anything left can wait until tomorrow,” I snapped.

“You don’t get to call the shots, Price. You have no idea what it takes to hold a corporation this size together,” she shot back, crossing her arms over her chest and scowling through the windshield.

“You don’t get to scare the life out of me by rolling your eyes back in your head and passing out on your feet because you’re too fucking stubborn to offload tasks you should have handed off years ago.”

There was probably a rule somewhere about shouting at a woman who had recently regained consciousness. But I was a rule-breaker at heart. “This is your fault entirely. You know that you can tell me when you need a break. When you need a moment. A fucking meal. Yet you martyr your way through a packed schedule because you can’t bear to be honest about your own limits.”

She opened her mouth on a righteous gasp of indignation.

“Everyone has limits, Emily. You don’t get bonus points for pretending you’re exempt.”

We rode in hard, angry silence for several minutes until my phone rang through the SUV’s speakers.

“Jane,” I said, by way of a greeting.

“Is the boss okay? Do you want me to babysit tonight?”

“The boss is right here, and since when do you do what Derek asks you?” Emily snipped, grumpily.

“Hi, boss,” Jane said, remarkably unconcerned.

“I pulled babysitting duty tonight,” I told Jane. “Rest up. I’m sure she’ll be a nightmare to deal with tomorrow.”

“Copy that.”

“You both are fired,” Emily said.

“Be a good girl for the nice man,” Jane told her. “Good luck, Tea and Crumpets.”

“Thanks,” I said dryly. I clicked off and made the turn into Bluewater. The guard waved us through, and we returned to our stony silence. She was putting on a good show of anger, but I knew she was shaken, too.

“Stay,” I told her when I pulled up to the front of her house.

I got out and came around to her side of the SUV. She opened her own door, uselessly proving that she was capable of it. But I had the last laugh when her knees buckled. “Not so tough now, are you, love?”

“Shut up, Tea and Crumpets.”

I made a move to scoop her up, but she stopped me.

“Don’t. You. Dare. I will accept a steadying arm, but that is it,” she insisted firmly.

Rolling my eyes, I slid my arm around her waist and offered her my free hand. She took it in a death grip, and together we made our way to her front door.

I keyed in the code while she complained about needing to change it again and how I needed to stop hacking into her security system.

“Where are we going?” she demanded when I steered her past the kitchen.

“To bed.”

“Derek, I’m starving.” I heard the raw need in her voice and softened ever so slightly.

“And I will see to that in a minute. For once in your life, just do what you’re told.” I pushed her not very gently down onto the bed and then made my way into her closet. I pawed through a few drawers before I found her blasted other man’s boxers and a soft tank.

“Here,” I said, returning and tossing them at her. “Change. And do not leave this room.”

“Bossy,” she muttered under her breath as I left.

I made my way back to the kitchen. It was pristine without being stark. White-washed cabinets were complemented by glossy blue marble counters. The ceiling was done in a driftwood gray that suited the space. Like most of the rest of the house, glass doors opened up to the view of Biscayne Bay.

I moved to the pantry. One could learn all one needed to know about someone with a peek in their medicine cabinet or their pantry.

Emily’s pantry, disguised by two doors matching the rest of the cabinetry, revealed that she was obsessively organized and had absolutely zero imagination when it came to food.

It was roughly the size of my own master bedroom. But there were no convenience foods or treats. No bags of chips. No microwavable popcorn or Red Dye No. 52 marshmallow cereal. No secret stashes of chocolate. There were shelves with meticulously lined glass jars filled with oats, flour, and chia seeds. Smaller kitchen appliances and larger pots and pans lived behind closed glass doors, all so spotless I wasn’t sure if they’d ever been used.

Finding nothing useful, I ventured back into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. Aha! Portioned prepared meals were neatly packed and stacked in glass containers. I opened one, sniffed, and deemed it acceptable. Some kind of Thai chicken dish with vegetables and rice. I helped myself to a second container of the same and popped them both into the microwave.

Minutes later, I returned to Emily’s room with a tray, food, and my briefcase.

She eyed the food hungrily from the bed. “Thank God, you picked these. Cristoff gets unbearably annoyed when I don’t eat every last morsel he leaves me.”