Page 32 of Sinful Desires
Scarlett Harper. The girl in the fountain. Three years ago. New Year’s Eve.
Scarlett Harper, daughter of billionaire Lucius Harper and Italian socialite Francesca Lazzio.
Shoplifting arrests like they were hobbies. Benders fueled by drugs, booze, and too muchfuntime. Mob scenes wherever she set foot, like her mere existence lit people on fire. Fistfights with paparazzi caught on grainy footage. Boyfriends who looked like they belonged in morgues, not on red carpets. Photos of her topless on beaches, weeping behind designer sunglasses, flashing cameras the finger like a spoiled brat denied her favorite toy.
They called her the Red Goddesswhen they wanted to sell magazines. The Red Queen when they wanted blood.
I’d told him I wasn’t interested in babysitting some spoiled superstar. What I hadn’t said was that I’d been watching her for three years.
Call it stalking if you want. I called it survival.
The thing inside me, the monster, stayed quiet every time it saw her. Watching her fall apart was the only thing that had kept me from doing the same. And in the shadows, where no one looked, I had already been taking care of her.
But her as my client?Hell fucking no.
I protected politicians with skeletons in their closets, CEOs who’d bought their way out of scandals, blue bloods who thought morals were tax write-offs.Theyat least understood discretion.
Scarlett Harper? She was a loaded gun, safety off.
I should know. I’d already been shot by her once.
The memories rushed back. I saw water. Stone. Her fingers on my lips. She’d looked up at me like I was death wearing a suit. Had whispered things I’dneverrepeat.
And now I was being asked to watch her. Protect her.Officially. Pretend I hadn’t once pulled her out of a grave she’d dug with her own hands. And maybe I could’ve walked away if Oliver hadn’t known exactly where to sink the knife.
“Maybe you’re not as good as you think you are,” he said, voice low. “Didn’t think a little spoiled diva would be the one to break you. Guess I’ll stick you with some half-dead senator again. Wouldn’t want the great Théo LeRoy getting his hands dirty.”
I fisted my hands at my sides, knuckles white. If there was one thing I couldn’t stand, it was being fucking underestimated.
“I’m in,” I said, the words tasting like ash in my mouth.
He just leaned back in his chair, smug as hell.
“But they better make it ten. Five million won’t even come close to covering the nightmare I’m about to fucking walk into.” I turned away, my head pounding, not just with the weight of my own fucking stupidity, but with the echo of her voice slurring against my throat.
You feel like an angel.
I had walked straight back into that fire.Voluntarily. And I’d known exactly what it would cost.
This wasn’t protection. This was diving straight into hell.
“If you haven’t gotten the memo, turning on any appliance in the morning is illegal, asshole,” Scarlett grumbled, her voice thick with sleep as she glared at the blender like it had personally wronged her.
She stumbled into the kitchen like she’d lost a fight with her bed, wearing shorts so small they barely clung to her thighs, with skulls and crooked black hearts stamped all over them. Her top, tight and long-sleeved, stuck to her like a second skin, the sleeves pushed up. Her hair was in her usual braid, and her face was still puffy, soft, undone.
She looked like hell.She looked like heaven.
She looked like both at once, and I fucking hated her for it. And maybe I hated more that I still noticed. Still remembered too much.
The rough scrape of her voice dragged through the room, thick with sleep, sticking to my skin. My dick hardened enough to hurt. I grabbed a frozen banana, dropped it into the pitcher, and punched the blender to life. The machine screamed through the kitchen.
She yelped, hands flying up to clamp over her ears like I’d shot her. She marched closer, ripping the plug from the socket, and the blender died with a hard cough. Still clutching the cord, she glared at me like she was ready to wrap it around my throat.
“Are you deaf?” she snapped.
I wiped my hand on a piece of cloth and grabbed the pitcher off the base, ignoring her.
“Sadly not.”
