Just One Scandal (The Kingston Family #2) -Carly Phillips Page 0,7

my mom. And here I am, alone on my wedding night.” She lifted her hands and helplessly dropped them back to her lap and continued to list all the reasons she’d chosen her groom.

Not one of them, he noted, was love.

The longer she spoke, the more her hysteria built, and Beck sat back to let her get it all out, only reaching out occasionally to dab at the dripping black tears in order to save the white gown from ruin. If anyone had told him this was how he’d be spending his night, he’d have had a good, hard laugh. The fact that it was Linc Kingston’s sister made it even more ironic.

“We even liked to stay in at night and watch television together,” she said on a wail. “It’s not like he was a guy who chose bars and drinking. So much for playing it safe.”

“Safe isn’t always smart,” he said, handing her another tissue.

She blotted her eyes and nose, then handed him back the Kleenex. He shook his head and put it on the dresser.

“And now I’m stuck with no place to live and a boring job with a brother I love but who won’t let me branch out and … and … what happened to my life?” she asked. She glanced down and started to work an emerald-shaped engagement ring off her finger.

“Wait. Stop.” He didn’t need that expensive rock lost somewhere in this hotel room. “Leave it on until you can put it somewhere safe. Then you can decide what to do with it.”

“I hate looking at it,” she said. Even pouting, she was pretty.

Knowing he was in way over his head, the best thing he could do was get her to fall back to sleep. She’d wake up in the morning no happier, but at least she’d be sober, and, he assumed, calmer.

“Listen, I think you should get some rest. Things will look brighter tomorrow. What do you say?”

She nodded and then, taking him off guard, pushed herself around him to the end of the bed and rose to her feet. Stepping over, she turned her back toward him and lifted her heavy, gorgeous hair and swept it to one side.

“Undo my buttons,” she demanded.

“What? Why?”

She turned her head, giving him a perfect view of her exquisite profile. “Because you said I should go to sleep, and I can’t get comfortable in this dress.”

He swallowed a curse. She had a point, but that meant he’d be left with Chloe sleeping in whatever she had on beneath that dress while he … what? Sat in the uncomfortable chair in the corner? Or stretched out beside her and ignored his aching cock.

“Fine,” he said through gritted teeth. It took a while for his big fingers to slip each tiny button through the small loops, but he finally managed, revealing inch after inch of her porcelain skin. “All set,” he muttered.

“Whew!” She released her hair, and as it tumbled down her back, she shrugged and let the dress fall to the floor before spinning back to face him.

She stood in a strapless white lace push-up bra, sexy matching panties, and a blue garter hooked around her thigh. She was a vision with her blond hair tumbling over her shoulders and the body of a goddess.

He swallowed a low groan of desire just as she reached for the back hook of her bra.

“No!” He couldn’t handle it if she stripped down to nothing, and there was no way she’d be happy with herself in the morning. “Climb into bed. I’m sure you’ll be comfortable like that.”

She pouted but did as he asked, striding to the other side of the mattress, giving him a view of her heart-shaped ass in the barely there panties. He shook his head, wondering what he’d done in this lifetime to deserve such torture.

She turned down the covers, slid beneath, and he gave a relieved sigh. That is, until she wriggled under the comforter and the bra went flying across the room, followed by the garter. As he braced himself for her panties to go next, she lay her head on the pillow, sighed, closed her eyes, and just like that, fell asleep.

His shoulders dropped as his tension eased, and Beck let out a long groan of relief. Now that he didn’t have a hysterical woman to deal with, he turned his attention to where he’d be spending the night. One look at the uncomfortable chair and he nixed that idea. He’d just have to