The Price Of Scandal(74)

Sex. Not conversations about where this was going or what the expected outcomes were. We’d had glorious, glorious sex, and now I was supposed to shake hands with the man’s mother? I probably still smelled vaguely like her naked son.

“I mean, why are you doing this?” I tried to squash the nerves that were suddenly electrifying my intestines. Oh, God, did I have my emergency Imodium stash in this bag?

“I think you’ll find my family more relaxing than some of your regular social situations,” he said. He was too polite to mention the fact that my family was like a reality TV reunion special where someone invariably got punched in the mouth.

“I’m not in ‘meet new people’ form,” I argued.

“This isn’t for a photo op or anything other than a good meal and interesting company,” he promised.

I scrubbed my hands over my face wishing I’d put forth more than the minimum of effort on my makeup this morning. Of course, this morning I’d only been thinking about brunch and the lab. Not meeting Derek Price’s parents.

He was putting me in an impossible position. If things went badly, I didn’t have an easy exit strategy. I didn’t have Jane. Hell, I didn’t even have the keys to my own car.

“Emily,” he said.

“What?”

“Relax and trust me. I like you, and I think you’ll like them. There are no requirements. If you’re not comfortable, give me the signal, and I’ll drive you home. No questions asked.”

The man had gotten into my vagina less than twenty-four hours earlier, and somehow that had granted him an all-access pass to my innermost thoughts?

“Trust me,” he urged. He reached into his pocket and produced a small packet. He held it out to me.

“What’s this?” I asked, taking it. I flipped it over in my hand. It was a single dose of Imodium.

“Just in case,” he said.

“How did you…”

“Do you really want to talk about it?” Derek asked, his eyes on the road.

“God, no!” I was humiliated. Humbled. And something else.

“You can trust me, Emily Stanton, formidable boss, beautiful billionaire, and real live human being.”

It wasn’t flowers or a love note but diarrheal medicine that made my heart do a slow, inevitable flip-flop in my chest.

God help me. God help us both.

I cleared my throat, surprised at the emotion clogging it. “I’ll give it fifteen minutes. What’s our signal?”

“It should be something subtle like, ‘Derek, I need your throbbing cock in my womb right now,’” he said, smoothly shifting gears and accelerating around a graffitied school bus that was riding the rumble strips in the bike lane. “My family will understand.”

I rolled my eyes so hard it was audible. “Your ego knows no bounds.”

“Confidence, love. Not ego,” he corrected.

“How about a work emergency?” I suggested.

“Hmm, slightly less believable, but I suppose I could sell it. At least with the less sophisticated Prices.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“Darling, I’m driving the woman who redefined lovemaking for me in the sexiest car in the world after you revealed a scientific advancement that could change cardiac health forever. That’s ridiculous. You’re extraordinary. I’m just very, very ordinary.”

Possessed by Daisy’s spirit, I stroked my hand up his thigh to his crotch. “Darling, there’s nothing ordinary about you,” I purred.

Distracted, he coasted onto the rumble strips on the shoulder of the highway before recovering quickly.





The Price house was a beige Floridian stucco with a requisite palm in the front yard. There were cars parked on the street and nearly a half-dozen men, beers in hand, sitting in lawn chairs on the scrap of grass between the curb and sidewalk.

“A welcoming committee,” I observed.

“The male members of the family. I may have sent them a picture of your car,” Derek confessed.

“For once you weren’t overselling, Derek,” a man in a pink flamingo button-down called out over the rev of the engine. He had broad shoulders and an unlit cigar clamped between his teeth. He wore a ball cap backward.

“He’s talking about you,” Derek teased me.

I stuffed the diarrhea meds in my bag and hoped for the best.

We got out, and my car was descended upon by a mob of admirers as the testosterone-filled side of Derek’s family admired it. Introductions were made between questions about horsepower and original features.

Michael, the stepfather, was pink flamingo and cigar guy. Then came brother Will, stepbrother Alberto—or Berto—and brothers-in-law Pete and Carmine. All had a loudly voiced opinion about my car and a shameless desire to drive it. Derek handed the keys back to me.

“Not on your life, gents,” he teased. “Do not let them con you into a ride,” he whispered to me.

“Your girl’s got good taste in horses, eh?” Pete said, chewing on a piece of gum like it was his last meal.

“She hasn’t decided if she’s my girl yet,” Derek said, slipping his arm around my waist and guiding me toward the house. “I’m hoping you’ll help convince her.”

“Run away,” Will fake-coughed into his hand. His grin was a carbon copy of Derek’s, his accent more U.S. than U.K.