The Price Of Scandal(51)

Back to the kitchen I went. “Dress?” I asked expectantly.

Derek had joined the girls for snacks and what looked like a nice white wine. “In the garment bag on your bed,” he said.

I snatched his glass of wine from his hand, cursed his perfectly tailored tux, and hauled ass back to my bedroom.

I shimmied into the dress, forgetting both bra and underwear. Neither would be good for the lines of the dress anyway. It wasn’t one that I’d had in my closet. I would have recognized it. This was a sleek, black, off-the-shoulder gown that clung very nicely to my breasts.

“You decent, boss?” Jane called.

I had wet hair, a bare face, and an unzipped dress. “Enough.”

She appeared in the bathroom doorway. “Bad news. Hair can’t make it. They got stuck in traffic downtown and got rear-ended by—get this—a $250,000 Bentley.”

“Shit.” My hair hung, damp and limp in my face. My mother was going to murder me. “Okay, it’s fine. I’ll just do some kind of bun thing,” I decided.

Maybe a chignon or a simple knot.

“Find me some big jewelry that will take attention away from my hair,” I instructed her, turning my hair dryer on full blast.

“Derek’s already on it,” she yelled over the sound.

I rolled my eyes. I was beginning to think the man had a fetish about pawing through my closet.

Derek poked his head into the bathroom, holding up sapphire drop earrings to his own lobes. “Yes?”

“You’re ridiculous. Yes.”

My phone buzzed. It was a text from my mother.

Mom: We’re leaving now. You’d better be on your way!





“Agh!”

He grinned and stepped inside. He dropped the earrings on the vanity and zipped my dress. “You know I’m not going to think about anything but you being commando under that dress all night,” he teased.

“Derek, unless you’re a secret hairstylist, I need you to get the hell out of my bathroom right now,” I screeched over the hum of the hairdryer.

“It would seem that once again, I’m exactly what you need.” He plucked the dryer out of my hand and grabbed a brush from the drawer.

“Chair me, Jane,” he called.

Jane appeared a moment later with one of the turquoise ottomans from my bedroom, a slab of cheese hanging out of her mouth.

“Cheese and cracker the boss, Jane,” Derek said, pushing me down on the stool and going to work on my hair.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I muttered as he deftly dried and volumized and smoothed.

“Product?” he asked, switching the dryer off.

I pointed to the slim closet next to the sink. While he rummaged, I put on the earrings.

“Lovely,” he announced.

Jane returned with a plate of cheese and crackers and a tall glass of water.

“How was your day?” I asked, stuffing the first cracker in my mouth.

“Productive,” he said. He placed a comb between his teeth while he buried his hands in my hair. “Yours?”

“Same,” I said, trying not to close my eyes as his fingers massaged my scalp. I wondered what it would feel like if he washed my hair.

“I think we’ll do something that makes a bit of a statement,” he said, swooping my hair this way and that. “Something that says badass.”

Involuntarily, my lips responded in a smug smile.

I relaxed and snacked as he twisted and tucked, fingers working quickly and competently.

“How did you learn to do this?” I asked as the style began to take shape.

“After my stepfather made me give up thievery, I had to earn a living somehow. My mother was keen to keep a close eye on me. She made me work at her salon after school. I picked up a few things in the years I was there.”

“A few things meaning women?” I asked.

He gave me a cat that ate the canary look in the mirror. “Perhaps. You have to admit, I’m excellent with my hands.”

“I’ve seen you steal wallets and style hair. That is the extent of my experience with your hands.”

Was I flirting with him? This was not a smart move, no matter how I played it. Encouraging Derek would only get one of us hurt.

“Perhaps you’ll experience something a little more hands-on tonight?”

“For the cameras, of course,” I said.

He fluffed the hair at my crown and sprayed it.

“Not only for the cameras, love.” His eyes were a hypnotic blue in the mirror. I wanted him to press those lips to the back of my neck. To bite the skin where my neck and shoulder met. To trail his tongue over me.

I felt a rush of something delicious between my legs. “Are you this flirtatious with all your clients?”

He tucked another stray pin into place at the nape of my neck then leaned in so I could feel his breath on my shoulder. “Only you, darling Emily,” he whispered. “What do you think?”

“I think us having sex would be a huge mistake.”

Amused, he laughed. “Some mistakes are worth making. But I meant your hair.”

He’d styled it in a teased pompadour on top and sleek bun in the back. It was edgy, interesting. My mother would hate it.

I loved it.

“Not bad, Price.”