Page 18 of Taming Scarlet

“Doesn’t matter,” Scarlet declared as she reached for a second shot.

“Do you really even need a bodyguard?” the pixie-cut girl asked, but Scarlet ignored that as she asked the blonde and the woman in orange what their ‘drink of the night’ should be.

I stood against the wall in the VIP area with another bodyguard—this one so large he was practically a wall himself—both of us silent as we watched our charges.

He was a man who looked vaguely familiar. Maybe a footballer or something like that. A guy so large that having a bodyguard almost seemed ridiculous.

It wasn’t long before the girls I was watching were five, six, seven drinks deep. Getting louder as they got drunker.

Every now and again, Scarlet’s gaze slid to me, and the facade fell for a second before she was smiling and laughing with the girls again.

Drinks led to dancing, picture taking, more drinking, more selfies, then another club. And another.

The blonde was looking green by then.

“She needs a break,” I said after snagging Scarlet’s arm as she tried to pass me on the way back to the dance floor.

“What?” she asked, her gaze pointedly going to her arm in a way that saidAre you really putting your hand on me?

I didn’t release her though, but pulled her the tiniest bit closer.

“She’s going to be sick all over the rest of you if you don’t get some food in her.”

Scarlet’s bleary gaze slid over to her too-skinny blonde friend. One who likely hadn’t put anything in her stomach for all that liquor to land on.

“Fine,” she snapped, yanking her arm from my grip, and making her way back to the table, bending forward enough that I was worried her ass might peek out as she whisper-yelled at her crew.

It didn’t escape my notice that it was Scarlet who laid down her card to pay for all of their drinks before she wrapped an arm around the blonde, then led the crew out to her car parked down the street.

Unfortunately for the crew, they waited too long to feed the blonde. And by the time they ordered food at an all-night Italian place, the blonde was rushing to the bathroom, and getting sick.

Afterward, she laid against Scarlet as the others picked at their food.

“What are you doing?” I asked after, yet again, she paid for everyone, then half-dragged the blonde outside as the other two girls went to the bathroom.

“Sending her home,” she said, waving at Eric who rushed out of the car to come and take the blonde from her, and half-carrying her to the town car.

“And?”

“And going to Sparkle.”

“No.”

“Excuse me?” she snapped.

“You need to call it a night.”

“You’re not my fucking father,” she snapped, swaying on those icepick heels of hers.

“You need to go home. You’re about to be just like your blonde friend,” I told her.

“I’m fine,” she insisted, yanking her chin up.

“You’re sweating,” I told her, then watched as her brows furrowed as she reached up to touch her hairline where the beads of perspiration were forming. “I doubt it would be good for your image to be sick all over the place.”

Her face hardened but her hand went to her stomach that must have been sloshing around.

“Fine,” she snapped, then marched back into the restaurant to tell the other girls she was calling it a night.

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