The Price Of Scandal(8)

I was rather embarrassed that I knew which one she was talking about.

Sometimes I wondered why I even bothered. Playing the field and dating in Miami had somehow lost its considerable luster.

Perhaps I was getting too old for the novelty.

Click. “Oh. Em. Gee,” Alicia said. Her perfectly stenciled magenta lips moved hypnotically. “This grape and vodka diet is amazing? Wanna try?”

“Thank you, no.”

I’d stick with my beer and to women a little closer to my own age from now on, I vowed.

I hated to call in the “text me with an emergency” favor from a brother or one of my staff. But I couldn’t imagine surviving an entire dinner with the woman.

She’d said she was thirty, as I recalled, when our eyes met over a cocktail napkin at a trendy bar in South Beach. But she was working hard to pass for an uncomplicated twenty-one. The dress was short. The tan was deep. The hair was not hers. All of that was fine. I loved a woman who dressed for her own pleasure. I was as equally attracted to long legs in short shorts as I was to sedate business suits. I had a thing for unbuttoning buttons and revealing what was underneath.

There were no buttons on Alicia’s gold lamé minidress. There was no mystery to unveil.

She’d caught me on a high after a successful cleanup for a client that had eaten up the better part of my April.

A lovely smile and big brown eyes were just what I thought I needed to shake off the shackles of a demanding crisis management firm. I hadn’t been out in over a month. It was getting easier and easier to focus on work. And now I was wishing I’d decided to focus a bit longer.

Click. “So you’re, like, British?”

“Half,” I said vaguely. I’d picked up a bit of my father’s accent before he’d run out on us. It was something of a parting gift, I supposed.

An engine revved, and a flashy yellow Ferrari lurched up to the curb, pulling me from my depressing revelations. At least I wasn’t that asshole.

He hopped out of the car like an MMA fighter with a new belt. Cocky and ready to party.

“Wow,” Alicia purred. “What kind of car do you drive?”

“An SUV,” I said vaguely. And a sporty BMW, but I didn’t feel the need to add any other tics in Alicia’s “Reasons to Land Derek Price” column.

Click. “That’s Merritt Van Winston?” she cooed. “He’s even prettier in person!”

I wondered if perhaps I should give Alicia a moment to introduce herself to the surfer-haired sports car enthusiast. The name registered for me. Miami’s elite citizens were small-town that way. Merritt was the very pretty ne’er-do-well son of a hotelier. If memory served, he was launching some kind of sock or t-shirt line.

Then the passenger door raised, distracting me and the rest of the crowd.

I was rewarded with a glimpse of long, long leg. I took my time admiring the view starting at the tip of the toes. The dress ended a few inches above the knee. Black and fitted. Where Alicia’s 24-karat disco ball dress was flashy, this was sophisticated yet edgy.

That face. I recognized it, not that we moved in the same circles. But everyone in the business world knew her.

What little I did know about her certainly didn’t add up to being Merritt Van Winston’s arm candy. I frowned, watching as the shaggy-haired dipshit swaggered toward the crowd towing billionaire Emily Stanton like an accessory.

There was a frown painted on her very lovely lips, and I saw why when two police cruisers squealed to a stop in front of the valet stand, boxing the Ferrari in.

Trouble.

“Oooh! Someone important must be coming?” Alicia said, clicking the tips of her pink fingernails together.

“Is this your car, sir?” demanded an officer. She had one hand on butt of her gun and didn’t look afraid to use it.

Surfer guy shrugged at something Emily said. She was trying to tug her hand free.

“Sir? Is this your car?” the cop said again.

I couldn’t hear the exchange because the photographers camped outside the restaurant’s doors exploded with questions and flashes from their cameras, turning Ocean Drive into a red carpet war zone.

Whatever he’d said, he’d included an unfortunate amount of attitude. Emily took a very intelligent step to the side, keeping her hands visible.

Too smart for him.

The host appeared next to me with two menus just as Van Winston howled, “Do you know who I am?”

Oh, you stupid, entitled idiot.

The officer searching the vehicle called to his partner. “Found something.” He held up a baggie of what was probably going to be cocaine.

I was already reaching for my phone when one of the officers caught Emily’s move.

“Ma’am! Put your hands behind your head,” the first cop yelled.

“That shit’s not mine,” the pissant howled. The photographers started shooting video.

I scrolled through my contacts at lightning speed.

“Everything is fine,” I heard Emily say calmly. “I’m just reaching for my phone.”

“Hands behind your head!”

“Imani,” I said into the phone. “You’ve got about thirty seconds before you’re made aware of a rather large problem. I think I can be of some help.”

The cuffs snapped onto Emily’s well-bred wrists like damnation as two dozen paparazzi recorded every second.