Just One Scandal (The Kingston Family #2) -Carly Phillips Page 0,15
they said their goodbyes.
Then, Chloe pulled out her laptop she’d packed to take with her and began to do some online shopping. She also made calls to a couple of personal stylists she knew in order to fill in her wardrobe while she was staying with Beck.
* * *
Beck withdrew to his bedroom, leaving Chloe alone in her new accommodations across the hall. For a man who kept his emotions locked up tight, Chloe brought out the oddest feelings, and he wasn’t talking about his attraction to her, either. Her vulnerability reminded him of his sister. Whitney had had a bright smile, a big laugh, and she’d just begun to see who she might become as a woman when cancer had hit, but she’d also been a fighter. And she hadn’t gone down easily.
He walked to his bedside drawer, opened it, and pulled out a piece of paper he’d had laminated so nothing would ever destroy his tangible memory of her. The words Bucket List were handwritten across the top of the page. A list of things Whitney wanted to do once she’d kicked cancer’s ass. And when it became clear that wouldn’t happen, a list she made Beck promise he’d complete for her. So one of them would fully live. He hadn’t been Whitney’s twin, but they’d been close nonetheless.
And he’d completed most of them. A tandem jump at Skydive Arizona, in the heart of the Sonoran Desert, which taught him extreme sports were not his thing, a hot air balloon ride in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the ballooning capital of the world, which had been phenomenal, and surfing lessons in Kauai, Hawaii. He’d enjoyed that experience but decided he’d prefer to be on a yacht instead of in the water. There were more things on the list he’d accomplished, and at each, he’d felt like his sister was with him, sharing the moments.
Only two remained. Seeing the northern lights and getting married. Of those, checking out the aurora borealis would happen. He’d been debating between a trip to Alaska and Norway, depending on how much time he wanted to be away. But the last item on her list would remain undone. Getting married was not in Beck’s future. After Whitney had died, he refused to let anyone close enough for him to feel that kind of shattering loss again.
The buzz of his cell shook him out of the past. He put the laminated paper back into the drawer and closed it again before answering his phone to one of his brothers.
“Drew, what’s up?” he asked.
“Just calling to find out what ended up happening last night.”
Beck laughed. “You’re the one who had a bridesmaid all over him. I should be asking you that.”
“But you picked up the bride and carried her out of the ballroom. Sounds much more exciting to me. Where’d you go?” Drew asked.
Beck cringed as he replied. “I took her to the bridal suite.”
“Jesus fuck, Beck. Tell me you dumped her in bed and left her to sleep it off.”
With a groan, he settled onto his king-size mattress. “Something like that.”
“How about you explain?” An attorney, Drew was never one to let something go without getting an answer.
Beck slid an arm behind his head, stretched out, and told him how last night had gone down with Chloe, how he’d carried her upstairs and settled her in.
“Kingston? Chloe Kingston, Linc Kingston’s younger sister? That’s whose wedding we crashed last night? Carrie, the bridesmaid, was too drunk to talk much, and eventually she left and stumbled upstairs with her friend who was all over Tripp,” Drew said. “But back to you. Tell me you tucked her in and left her alone.”
“Wish I could.” Staring up at the ceiling, Beck bit the bullet. “I stayed with her – nothing happened – and this morning I had a scene with her douchebag brother before telling her she could stay at my place until she figures out what to do with her life.”
Beck pulled the phone away from his ear while his brother listed all the stupid reasons why having Chloe here was a bad idea. It started with her being a Kingston and ended with her being twenty-five to Beck’s age of thirty-two.
“First off, it’s not like she’s underage. Second, we’re platonic…” Despite his raging hard-on when he thought about Chloe. “Third, she’s nothing like her brother, and the fourth and final point, how the hell do you know how old she is? I had no idea.”