Page 8 of Charming Deception

“The nefarious one.”

Harlan, then.

“No.”

“That’s your entire response?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll pass that along.” She hurries to follow me as I cross the living room. “There’s more. Mr. Hudson is here?—”

“Ten minutes.” I hold up my hand, silencing her. It’s quiet in the house, which is just the way I want it right now, but my best friend is the only person I actually want to see. “Just tell him to hang tight and we’ll have dinner. Give me ten minutes for a shower, then meet me in my office for a debriefing. I need some of my travel plans adjusted.” Cancelled, actually.

I need my entire fucking life cancelled for the next forty-seven days, before the limitations imposed upon me by this fucking challenge make me lose my mind.

“Of course. And by ten minutes, you mean twenty?”

“I might mean an hour, and I’ll expect you there, waiting, whenever I show up.” I hold up my drink. “And bring me a refill.”

“Perhaps I should bring the whole bottle?”

“You should, if you want a raise next quarter.”

“Ten minutes it is.”

Clara’s high heels clip away as I stalk down the long hall toward my private wing, unbuttoning my shirt as I go. It’s humid this evening. I can smell the scent of the freshly cut lawn drifting in, sticky and sweet.

Just as I’m starting up my private staircase to the second floor, my head of security creeps up in that ninja-silent way of his. I feel Locke before I hear him, and I turn to find him standing at the bottom of the stairs, hulking and stone-faced.

He says nothing—just holds out his phone to me.

“What is it?”

“You best see for yourself, boss.”

I take the phone. On the screen, a web browser is open to a celebrity gossip site—showing a photo of me, holding hands with A-list actress Geneviève Blaise.

I scroll, finding three more photos, all similar to the first. Stalker-style paparazzi shots of me and Geneviève, walking out of one of my family’s hotels together.

Pulling out my silenced phone, I scroll through messages from Annabeth and the rest of my team at the office, which I ignored in the car. They’re all trying to reach me, to alert me to this breaking scandal.

It’s all over the internet already.

Apparently, just moments ago, while I was standing in the street watching a stranger bungee-wrap her broken suitcase, these photos hit the web and the whole online world decided that I’m fucking a movie star.

My family included, I’m sure.

I swear and shove the phone back at Locke. “I’m going for a shower.”

As I stalk up the stairs and into my bedroom, I wonder if Mr. Hudson—my best friend, Cole—is out by the pool. Or in the games room. Or the basketball court.

Or fucking someone in his guest room, because he doesn’t have some overbearing older sibling who’s banned him from sex because they’ve decided his cock is a scandal magnet.

It’s in moments like these that I can’t totally say that I blame them.

Chapter 2

Megan

---