The Price of Scandal (Bluewater Billionaires) - Lucy Score Page 0,51
the mattress on the opposite side.
“What are you doing?” she asked with her mouth full.
Fluffing the pillows behind my head—why did women insist on having a phalanx of pillows on their beds—I reached for the second dish of chicken.
“I’m babysitting you.”
“I’m fed. I’m in bed. Your job is done,” she said.
I gave her a long, steely look. “Clearly, it’s not. I’m staying right here and making sure you get at least nine hours of sleep and a hearty breakfast. You running yourself into the ground is not part of my plan.”
“You can’t be serious,” Emily said, neatly scooping up a bite of rice.
“Deadly, darling.”
“Fine. But we’re not having sex,” she insisted.
“Right now, I’m more inclined to strangle you than have sex with you.” I found the remote on the side table and turned the TV on. “Now, let’s see what the lovely Emily Stanton watches when she’s in bed.”
I scrolled through her recently watched shows and grinned.
“I refuse to be embarrassed by my viewing habits,” she sniffed as I clicked on a tiny home builder reality show.
“You can’t expect me to not comment on the irony,” I said dryly. “I had to drop breadcrumbs just to find my way from your kitchen to your bedroom.”
“Shut up, Price.”
“It’s nice to see it’s not all documentaries and biopics,” I mused.
“You make me sound so boring,” she complained.
But there was nothing boring about the woman in bed next to me.
“Well, this is cozy. And confusing.”
Cameron Whitbury, aerospace billionaire and next-door neighbor, poked her head in the open bedroom doors.
“Cam!” Emily said in surprise. “What are you doing here?”
“I saw Captain Chivalry here half dragging you into the house. You looked sick or something. Are you feeling okay?”
“She is not,” I said at the same time Emily said, “I’m fine.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Emily decided to run herself into the ground on no food for who knows how long,” I informed her.
“I can report that she also hasn’t been sleeping. Her home office lights aren’t going out until three the past several nights,” Cam said.
“Here’s an idea, how about you all butt your pretty little noses out of my life?” Emily grumbled.
I glared at her.
“Stop looking at me like that,” Emily complained. “I’m trying to run my business and appease the board and make nice with the media and win over the public. I am trying to do everything.”
“Maybe you should stop,” Cam suggested. Clearly, at home here, she crossed to the bed and flopped down at Emily’s feet. She was wearing a tailored pantsuit and flip-flops, which I assumed she’d donned after shedding some spectacular pair of stilettos.
“I would expect you of all people to support me here, Cam,” she said.
“Hey, I’m not the one passing out at work. When I do, you can come over and rub my face in it.”
“Jane has a big, fat mouth.”
“Ladies, ladies. Let’s not fight while we’re all in bed together,” I said, helping myself to more chicken. I wanted to meet this Cristoff. He was excellent with poultry.
Cam sniffed the air and stuck her face in Emily’s dinner. “That smells divine.”
“There’s another one in the fridge,” I told her.
“I shall return,” Cam said, sliding off the bed and strolling out of the room.
“Cristoff will be very happy,” Emily sighed.
When Cam returned with her own dinner, I opened my laptop to tackle some work while the girls watched a couple from Seattle construct a six-hundred square foot shed in a forest.
“Digging the reading glasses,” Cam said approvingly.
“Right? It gives him this nerdy sex god vibe, doesn’t it?” Emily yawned.
I ignored them.
I had my own game of catch up to play. My business was small but full-service. When we had a client such as Emily, my team worked around the clock doing whatever was necessary to achieve the desired outcome. Rowena was digging into Merritt Van Winston’s background as well as that of his immediate family.
Lance was ghost-writing glowing posts and articles about Emily, Flawless, and Bluewater and spreading them far and wide within our network of friendly media. My other clients were being “fixed” by my small team of junior associates. We had a B-list sex tape scandal that was proving to be a bit tricky and a messy divorce that needed decluttering.
But Emily Stanton’s situation was currently my firm’s main priority.
I had the email from Flawless’s publicist who forwarded the daily list of media requests. Most of which were tabloids and gossip blogs hoping to nail our lovely leader to the cross in the name of clicks and advertising. But