Second Chance Mess (Bad News Billionaires #1) - Lucia Jordan Page 0,27

out. The problem wasn’t as much that she had done it, but my physical reaction to it. I had just been thinking about making love to Brooke and was already feeling turned on, even before anyone touched me. When Chelsea managed to stroke me off, it literally caused a visceral reaction that immobilized me for a split second and made me instantly swell and harden at the touch before I could pull her hand out. Chelsea stood there, looking impressed with herself.

“What the hell, Chelsea?” I shouted at her after telling the photographer to pack up the shoot and making sure that she knew not to use the erotic looking photos that were snapped.

Now I couldn’t tell Brooke everything about the shoot. I couldn’t tell her that this had happened—not right now—after we had just finally gotten to such a good place. I told Chelsea that the next time she tried to touch me, I would file a harassment charge against her. She looked intimidated enough by that threat to hopefully stay away.

I had the photographer show me the shots that she would submit to the client, none of which, of course, were the last one that was taken while the camera shutter was still clicking with Chelsea’s hand in my pants. The photographer said that after the select few were removed from the camera and sent off to the client, that the rest would be deleted. The few employees who were there were sworn to silence about it on the threat that I would end their career if word got out about this inappropriate shoot to anyone. I decided that since the issue had essentially been erased, the best thing for me to do was to act like nothing had happened and move on from it.

I knew that I should have learned my lesson from the last time and probably just marched upstairs and told Brooke the truth right away, but it really didn’t seem like this would be a lingering issue. I didn’t want to go right back to the beginning of the problems again. I wanted to stay in the place that Brook and I were in now. Chelsea wasn’t going to be able to plaster the picture all over social media this time because she didn’t have it.

My body calmed back down after a few minutes, and after I thanked the photographer and gave everyone else one last look of warning, I went back upstairs to my office.

“Hey,” Brooke smiled as I walked in. She was sitting next to Max with a pile of papers spread out in front of them. It looked like they’d been hard at work. “How did the photo shoot go?”

“It was fine,” I said without expression. “It lasted a bit longer than expected, so I’m definitely ready for another cup of coffee now.”

Brooke laughed and offered to go grab some more caffeine for all of us. After she left, Max gave me a look. I recognized that look; it was the look he gave me when he knew there was more to say than what was actually coming out of my mouth.

“You knew,” I said when I saw his face, “You knew that she would be there, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, I heard someone in the publicity department mention it.”

“Why didn’t you warn me?” I asked, a bit pissed-off.

Max shrugged. “I didn’t think it would do any good. It wasn’t like you had a choice in the matter. I heard the client requested Chelsea specifically.”

“Yeah, they did. Figures.”

“How did it go?”

“Not well, if we’re honest now. Chelsea put her hand in my pants, and I reacted without meaning to.”

“Oh shit,” Max said with wide eyes. “Did they get a picture of that?”

“Yeah, I think so, unintentionally. But the photographer is going to delete them once she has the pics from the client downloaded.”

“You have to tell Brooke, like right now.”

“No, I already took care of the picture, threatened Chelsea with legal action if she didn’t knock this type of shit off, and swore any of my employees that were there to secrecy.”

Max shook his head vigorously. “That’s a really bad idea, man. You shouldn’t keep anything from her again. You know what happened the last time.

“Yeah, I know. And I know that you’re usually always right about these things, but I just can’t open this wound with Brooke again. I didn’t do anything wrong. Chelsea touched me faster than I could stop her, and I pulled her away and shut down the shoot