The Price of Scandal (Bluewater Billionaires) - Lucy Score Page 0,63
a billionaire sister and not being able to get in on the action?”
I wanted to grab him by his too-long hair and bounce his forehead off the wall. Wouldn’t the cameras and the glittery people inside love that? Instead, I defaulted to my trademark frost.
“Oh, don’t go all ‘Lady Stanton’ on me.” He smirked.
I was going to need to squeeze in another kickboxing class this weekend or find some other way to blow off steam.
I thought of Derek, naked and hard. My sheets tangled around his legs. Whoops.
“Look, Trey,” I said, shifting gears. The man was my brother, after all. We were destined to spend Thanksgivings together forever. That didn’t entitle him to a job, but it did avail him of my vast business knowledge. “I’m not giving you a job. But if you’re serious, I’ll help you find something that suits you. If you’re serious,” I repeated.
“Yeah, I don’t know. Maybe.” He gave a jerky shrug. A gesture I knew meant he was already over the conversation. He wasn’t serious. He never was. And I’d just given him the one thing he couldn’t stand: the word “no.”
“Are you out of money?” I asked.
“Not everything’s about money,” he said scornfully. “Anyway, whatever. I’m going to go talk to Mom.”
He left me standing there next to an artful arrangement of pink roses dripping with crystals and mossy greenery. I still felt like screaming.
Back in the ballroom, I avoided the family table and made a beeline for Derek. Somehow, in a ballroom of a few hundred of the glitziest people Miami had to offer, he still managed to stand out.
“How was your conversation?” Derek asked, handing me a martini.
“Riveting. Life-altering,” I muttered. “Where did our curvy friend go?”
“I babysat her until she said, and I quote, ‘Hashtag do you even ’gram?’” Derek said, in a spot-on impression of the breathy Theolonia. “And then I had to leave before I slapped the phone out of her hand and taught her how to make eye contact with people.”
We laughed until I had to grip his arm to stay upright.
“God, that felt good,” I said, swiping at the corners of my eyes.
“Allow me.” He fished a handkerchief out of his pocket and gently dabbed around my eye makeup. We were close again. Surrounded by people yet somehow all alone in the center of everything.
I felt light. Esther’s text. Meeting a jelly-swilling kindred spirit. Sticking to my guns against my brother. And now watching Derek Price laugh.
The orchestra played a little trill announcing the beginning of the dinner service, and—with a hint of reluctance—we returned to the family table. My mother was swooning over Trey’s surprise appearance. My father was having trouble looking away from Theolonia’s chest. Fortunately, she had yet to raise her eyes from her phone and hadn’t noticed.
“You’re so terrible! Surprising your mother like this,” Mom crooned. Two more chairs were produced. Because of course Trey had neglected to RSVP. I wondered who would cough up the $40,000 for his and his date’s dinners. We all squeezed in together. It would have been cozy had it been any other family than our own. We were seated with the hospital dean of medicine and her wife as well as Bethenny and her boyfriend, Ed, a country music producer who wore cowboy boots with his tux.
My mother wiggled a finger at a passing waiter and pointed at her empty glass.
My knee was pressed up against Derek’s under the table, and damn if it didn’t feel like an anchor.
“You would not believe what those ridiculous society blogs are saying now,” Mom announced breathily. “Our Emily is quite the news item,” she explained in an aside to the dean.
“Yeah, so popular with her most recent arrest,” Trey said. He tapped his shot glass to Theolonia’s. “Cheers, babe.”
“Wait! Let me boomerang it,” Theolonia whined.
Derek leaned back in his chair and caught the arm of one of the waitstaff. “We’re going to need a very large bottle of tequila and several glasses,” he whispered. “It’s an emergency.”
The waiter glanced over Derek in the direction of where Trey and his date were making out while taking selfies. “Right away,” he promised.
“We’re not getting shit-faced,” I hissed at Derek.
“It’s not for us,” he said. “It’s for the rest of the table.”
“As I was saying, it seems the reporters think our Emily and Derek are scandalously dating,” my mother piped up, disappointed that attention had waned. “Have you ever heard of anything so ridiculous?”