Page 13 of Texas-Sized Scandal

Five

As soon as Slade was gone, Melinda called her sister. Her phone went to voice mail, which it did a lot lately. She was worried about Angela. It was hard being in love with a man their father hated. Ryder Currin. The man who many believed had had an affair with their mother and who had framed their father for embezzling. But Angela loved him, and as a woman who was pregnant with her lover’s baby, Melinda got it. The heart didn’t always follow the most well-laid plans.

She almost let herself be distracted by that. Almost let herself focus on her twin instead of the very big problem in front of her. It would be so much easier to try to deal with Angela’s issues instead of her own.

Her phone pinged with a reminder and she glanced down to see she had forty minutes to get to the board meeting for Help Houston Read. It was a charity that she had cofounded with one of her sorority sisters almost ten years ago. They worked on making sure that every kid had a library of books at home. It was an idea they’d borrowed from Dolly Parton, who had started doing it in her home state of Tennessee.

She hurried into her bedroom, showered and changed back into her A-line skirt and blouse with the bow at the collar. She took her hair down from its ponytail and then fluffed it around her face before grabbing her catchall bag, a Louis Vuitton that had been her gift to herself when she’d started the foundation. She made sure she had her planner and notepad, ignored the pregnancy tests on the bathroom counter and walked out the door.

She took the elevator to the ground floor and walked quickly through the lobby. There were no photographers waiting and the doorman smiled at her as she approached.

“Mr. Bartelli took care of the scavengers, so it’s all clear,” Johnny said.

“Thank you for letting me know,” she said, putting on her wide-frame cat’s-eye sunglasses as she stepped out into the Houston sun. She kept her head held high and her posture straight as she walked to her car. It was a VW Passat because she liked small cars that weren’t too ostentatious.

She made good time to her meeting and realized once she was seated in the conference room with a large glass of sweet tea in her tumbler that she’d almost forgotten about Slade, the engagement and the baby. Almost.

“Hiya, Melinda,” Carly said, walking into the room with a smile on her face. Her sorority sister and cofounder was always someone she was happy to see. “I guess I don’t need to ask if you had a good time at the opera last night.”

“Girl, you don’t even know the half of it,” Melinda said. “I have no idea how that picture got into theChronicle.”

“He’s big news for that page and you are seldom seen outside of charity events, so they probably felt like they got the scoop of a lifetime,” Carly said.

“They did.”

“How are you holding up? I know that kind of publicity isn’t your thing.”

“It’s not, but I’m doing okay,” she said. Then she remembered that Slade wanted them to be engaged. She hadn’t decided yet, but she knew she should start laying the groundwork in case they did it. “We’ve been dating for a while.”

“I suspected you had a new man but had no idea it was Slade Bartelli. That is one hot-looking man.”

She blushed. He was a hot-looking man and she made no bones that she liked the way his ass looked in his custom-made tuxedo, but she also liked the way he made her feel like what she was saying was important. Whenever they were out together, she had never seen Slade looking at another woman or being distracted by his phone—which was saying something because his phone pinged constantly with updates, messages and media alerts. But when he was on a date with her, he made her his priority.

“He is,” she said. “No denying it.”

“But you’re not usually the type to fall for a great pair of biceps. Remember Antonio? He tried for months to get you to go out with him,” Carly said, sitting down across from her and taking her laptop from her bag.

Melinda already had her laptop set up and glanced down at the screen as a notification popped up in the right corner, letting her know that she had over a hundred new social media tags.

Ugh.

“Antonio was all smoke and mirrors. Sure, he looked hot but the man had never heard of Dalí. Let’s face it, if you’re on the art council, you should at least have heard the name before,” Melinda said.

“Agreed. Not saying you should have hooked up with Antonio. I’m simply curious why Slade,” Carly said.

“He’s smart and funny and sexy. I mean, there is a part of me that knows there is a dark side to him, but when I’m with him, he seems...well, too good to be true,” she admitted. She knew that no man was perfect and yet when she was with Slade, everything seemed ideal.

“How long have y’all been dating? You know how it is when a relationship is new,” Carly said.

“Not too long. A little over six weeks,” Melinda said. Her friend had a point. The relationship was new. She’d been trying to be her best self as Slade was probably doing as well.

“Wait until you hit your first road bump and see how he reacts,” Carly said. “That will give you the measure of the man.”

Carly had a point, which she allowed herself to think about as the rest of the committee slowly came into the conference room. The pregnancy should have ruffled Slade. Shown her more of the real man behind the gentlemanly image he’d been portraying for her.

But it hadn’t.

Other than his temporary engagement idea, but even that had been framed in a way to benefit her.

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