The Scandal (Billionaire's Beach Book 4)

by Christie Ridgway

  She placed the frozen cartons onto the conveyer belt. “Until we expire from a sugar rush.”

  He laughed. “Can you handle this transaction if I dash out for a quick errand? I’ll be done by the time you’re through the line.”

  With two fingers she held up the household account’s debit card, determined not to be warmed by his laugh or that he thought they made any kind of team. “Go forth and errand.”

  His gaze narrowed on her again. “Definitely saucy,” he said.

  “What?”

  Instead of answering, he strode away, shaking his head.

  She realized she’d been smiling when it died. As she placed a box of cereal on the belt, her gaze caught on the display of tabloid newspapers and gossip magazines nestled beside the candy bars and the soda cooler. Quickly averting her gaze, she scooped the last items from the bottom of the cart.

  At first glance, Sara’s own image hadn’t appeared on any of the covers like it had four months before, but she was going to handle this head-in-the-sand style. If she didn’t see it, it wasn’t there.

  As she pushed the cart of bagged groceries out of the store, she spied Joaquin striding in her direction. His gaze met hers and he smiled. Her feet stuttered and her heart jolted in her chest, as if he was trying to tug it from its safe haven there.

  The man! How did he do this?

  He continued forward even as she remained rooted in place. Then he held up his hand, a plastic bag in his grip swinging. “For you,” he said.

  “Me?” Any resistance she might have to accepting the gift melted as he drew out the book she’d coveted. “Oh.” Dreaming Outside: California Landscapes.

  He placed it in her hands and took over the guidance of the shopping cart. “You wanted it, right?”

  But she knew it would be beyond her budget, no matter how gorgeous. “I can pay you back,” she offered anyway.

  “Nonsense. I need to make amends for that little fall into the Pacific.” They continued past the shop, and he tossed her another devastating smile. “Forgive me?”

  But before she could answer, she saw his attention divert to another narrow storefront. The newsstand that had been darkened before—a scrawled sign taped to the front door saying the owner had briefly stepped away—was well-lit now, the periodicals of all sorts arranged in tall shelves that filled the small space. The colorful and lurid gossip rags were front and center and facing the window, a dozen of them screaming about other people’s private lives.

  Panic sucked the air from her lungs.

  Why was Joaquin staring at them? Would he go inside next and page through each publication? Find a story that painted her in an ugly light?

  A dizzying heat flashed over her face and chest, and all she could think was how to divert him. As he took a step closer to the store, she caught his arm.

  He glanced around, brows coming together. “Sara?”

  “You didn’t let me thank you,” she said, rising on tiptoe and running her hands up his chest to circle his neck. “Properly.”

  The kiss was meant to sidetrack. Just a peck.

  But as her lips met his, another flare of heat burst over her skin and an electric awareness charged every nerve ending. Her head spun, and one of his arms wrapped around her waist as if he knew her knees had gone weak. Yet the kiss wasn’t lascivious, but instead soft and near-innocent, and it shook her more than their other, more lusty exchanges. Their mouths continued to cling like cautious lovers, tender and restrained, and somehow the sweetness of it made her want to weep.

  Then, as if by a tacit signal, they eased away from each other.

  His eyes trained on her face, he hauled in a long breath. “Well, that packed an unexpected punch,” he said, looking slightly disgruntled by the thought.

  Sara could only nod. It was as if the blow had tilted her world and torn the veil from her eyes. The blame for all her out-of-character behavior couldn’t be laid at Joaquin’s door, she knew that now. What was happening between them was something they managed to conjure up together. And from the expression on his face, he felt as wary of the effect they had on each other as she.

  I think we make a good team.

  Joaquin likely wouldn’t say so now.

  His hands slid off her shoulders to reach for the cart. As he pushed it in the direction of the car, he sent her a glance. “We need to sit down together. We’ll have a serious talk about this.”

  “Okay.”

  That actually sounded promising, she decided, almost skipping to keep up with his long strides. A man as experienced and sophisticated as Joaquin would have run into this kind of…of combustion before. He’d know how to neutralize the fire, the conflagration as well as those more dangerous, gentler flames.

  But it wasn’t the sexual heat that she found so frightening. It was the way her knees melted and her safeguards yielded so easily. It was the tenderness that had found its way into her heart in a public shopping center with ice cream melting in the cartons and gallons of milk going bad.

  Still, she thought, determined to be optimistic, there has to be a simple solution.

  The hopes of which he dashed with his next words. “But I’m not sure, Sara, that we can find our way off this train.”

  Chapter 6

  Joaquin stared at the sun setting over the ocean and told himself a case of hard-dickitis was nothing to get all worked up about.

  Nothing special.

  Turning his head, he peered through the open glass doors to the house and watched the butler move about the kitchen. She did fascinate him for some reason. It could be the tidy way she folded a dish towel. Or maybe it was the instinctive manner in which she anticipated the household’s needs. A fresh glass of lemonade at Lulu’s elbow. A plate with half a sandwich and some apple slices—though dinner had ended no more than an hour before—now set in front of RJ.

  Those two kids were ranged on one of the couches watching TV. Essie wasn’t in sight, probably talking or texting with her boyfriend in private.

  As he watched, Sara returned to the kitchen and then slanted a glance his way. Woops. Caught staring.

  But damn, she looked so neat and dainty in her black-and-white checked dress. Was it any wonder he wanted to ravel a seam or loosen a button?

  Though their last kiss hadn’t been the wild-tumble type at all.

  Chewing on that uncomfortable thought, he stretched out on a lounge chair and turned his gaze westward, watching the orange disk of the sun slip into the silver-blue bath of the ocean. He shouldn’t have expressed doubt to Sara that there wasn’t a way off the train.

  There had to be a way off the train.

  Though her footsteps were quiet on the deck, he could sense her coming up behind him. Maybe it was the stirring of the air or the almost subliminal note of her perfume floating toward him, the one that caused him to sweat when he first entered his room after she’d been there. One day he’d lingered in the hall while she made his bed with fresh linen, and watching her slender hands smoothing his sheets and plumping his pillows had gotten his motor running as well or better than any kind of naked foreplay.

  Now she placed a small bowl of mixed nuts on the narrow table beside him, followed by what looked like a gin-and-tonic. She’d caught him with the latter and a handful of the former the night before, post the last meal of the day.

  And she’d remembered.

  Another example of the nurturing that seemed to come so naturally to her. He wondered if it had been instilled in her at the fancy butler school or if it was an innate quality that was just part of Sara being Sara.

  For a man who’d been raised without any such care, it should come as no great surprise that he found it damnably appealing.

  Still…

  Glancing over, he saw that she lingered on the deck, her gaze trained on the view.

  “I’ve got three reasons we can’t go to bed together,” he heard himself say.

  Three? Where the hell had that number come from? his cock protested.

&nb
sp; She echoed its thoughts. “Three?”

  Without an actual clear plan forward, he manfully carried on. “Yes, three. I’m a business guy.” One who had never conducted such a bloodless conversation with a woman about the pros and cons of fucking, true, but then again he’d never had a butler before, either. “I’m accustomed to boiling down complex issues into simple bullet points.”

  Though her calm expression didn’t change, he thought it possible she was laughing at him behind her composed mask.

  Shit. He cleared his throat. “It’s the paycheck problem, first and foremost. I sign yours, and there are rules about that kind of thing, right? I don’t want you to feel I coerced you.”

  “Coerced?” Her eyebrows drew together. “That sounds like you think I’d…you know, do it for money.”

  “No.” Christ. “That’s not what I meant at all.” Running his hand through his hair, he tried to think how it didn’t sound like that. “Sara…”

  A ringtone trilled, and she pulled her phone out of her pocket.

  “Excuse me,” she murmured, looking down at the screen. “I need to take this.”

  Joaquin watched her return to the house and disappear in the direction of her quarters. He was still watching when she reappeared and, instead of walking back onto the deck, started wiping down the already spotless kitchen countertops.

  On a sigh, he got to his feet and made his way to her. Lulu and RJ were still engrossed in their show and Essie remained wherever Essie had gone. Joaquin leaned against the island as Sara continued to clean, the swing of her hair obscuring her face.

  He stared at the smooth skin at the nape of her neck and told himself he didn’t need to press his mouth there.

  “Look,” he said, and cleared his throat again. “I apologize for saying something that came out like an insult to you.”

  She turned to him. “It didn’t cast you in a better light. I don’t imagine you usually need an act of quid pro quo to acquire a bed partner.”

  Would it be wrong to admit she’d lost him at quid pro quo? Those three syllables put her mouth into such distracting kissing shapes that his mind wandered away into a fantasy about how it would feel pressed to his again, and then on his chest, and shortly thereafter around his…

  “Joaquin?”

  He shook himself. “Uh. Yeah. Yeah, I’m here.” With the solid island between them, disguising his reaction to his wayward thoughts, thank God. “And anyway I have a second point. Probably,” he added, muttering.

  What the hell might it be? His brow furrowed as he deliberated. Hadn’t he considered Sara not the type for a short-term affair between the sheets? She’d expect more—women were raised that way, right?

  “I’d hate to see you disappointed,” he finally said.

  Okay, now she really looked as if she was going to laugh.

  “Disappointed?” Her lips twitched. “Men rarely express such a lack of confidence.”

  Shaking his head, it was he who had to laugh. Okay, so his making the case for abstinence was a big fail. Why shouldn’t it be? He didn’t want to abstain. Even ten feet away, she held some sort of draw for him.

  She was so damn pretty.

  Those big blue eyes, that prim-yet-puffy mouth, the faint flush of sunburn across the bridge of her nose and cheekbones she’d probably gotten during their coastal drive. Then there was the trim little body, those neat curves that he wanted to stroke with his hands and skim with his tongue.

  Shit. The tongue that was a minute from lolling around his knees.

  Shaking his head again, he tried to pull himself and his thoughts together. Remember that first night? When his sister had shown up? He’d been adamant Sara stay at the house while the teenager was in residence, and if an affair between them went wrong, it could screw that up.

  He hauled in a breath. “Essie’s a concern—” he started.

  As if summoned, the young female in question skipped into the room. “Essie’s what kind of concern?”

  “Never mind about that.” Turning to his sister, he latched on to her presence as a welcome interruption. Maybe his mind would work better later. “What have you been up to since dinner?”

  Without answering, she pounced upon the tub of red licorice sitting on the island. “These are my favorite!”

  Joaquin’s breath stalled in his chest, taking in her delight. Felipe had loved red licorice—it was likely why Joaquin had unconsciously reached for the candy in the grocery store earlier that day.

  His brother was never far from his mind.

  As Essie pried open the top, she threw him a bright smile.

  Felipe’s smile.

  Joaquin still couldn’t breathe. Sometimes he could go for days without pain, but as the anniversary neared, it could strike like vicious claws at any time. It tore at him now.

  His sister grabbed a fistful of vines and thrust the container toward Joaquin. “Want some?”

  Like a robot, he plucked a few.

  Sara came over. “Joaquin.” Her cool hand touched his forearm. “Are you all right?”

  He would never be all right. “Fine.”

  But her sharp gaze didn’t waver and her soft concern didn’t subside. Both seemed to be boring a hole through his skin and bone. Soon, she’d see directly inside him if he didn’t stop her.

  “We’re about to start a movie.” Essie wagged a licorice whip at him. “Watch with us?”

  “Sure,” he said, needing space and distraction even more than before. Glancing at Sara, he registered her little frown. Yeah. Space and distraction.

  His sister dropped onto one of the couches next to Lulu. Joaquin opted for an oversized easy chair. RJ manned the remote, and the program on the big screen changed from a laugh-track sitcom to a black screen and then to a title sequence.

  Familiar music began to play. Joaquin stiffened as an acoustic guitar picked out a single melodic line.

  Get up, an inner voice urged. You don’t have to stay for this.

  But his muscles felt encased in concrete and his heartbeat had gone sluggish. His limbs wouldn’t obey the commands of his brain. He closed his eyes, awaiting another lash of pain.

  “I’ve seen it like a million times,” Essie said blithely. “But this time will be special. That’s you, isn’t it?”

  Joaquin opened his eyes. As he watched, the movie played.

  In the distance, a skinny young teenage boy palms a basketball on a weed-dotted outside court surrounded by a ragged chain-link fence. The blacktop is crumbling, and the metal rim of the hoop is rusted.

  Bounce. Bounce. Rattle as the ball drops through the net-less rim.

  Bounce. Bounce. Rattle.

  A beat-up old station wagon passes by, equally beat-up suitcases strapped on top and the cargo area filled with boxes. Another, slightly older boy, leans out the back window and waves.

  “Seeya, sucka!” he calls, his friendly grin belying the words.

  Felipe’s grin.

  The younger kid runs along the fence as the car cruises on, waving and waving, like he’ll never see the other boy again and it is breaking his heart.

  The station wagon turns at the corner and passes a sign. You Are Now Leaving Crystal, Texas. Population 623.

  Again, from a distance, a shot of the younger boy leaving the playground, his manner dejected, his ball under his arm.

  Joaquin could gather himself and leave now, too. He almost managed it—his palms pushing against the arms of the chair, the soles of his shoes pressing against the floor—when Sara came to sit on a nearby ottoman. Joaquin felt her gaze again.

  The touch of it gave him second thoughts. Sure, he could run like a coward. Or instead, he could stay. Man up and face down the twin beasts of grief and remorse. Prove that in fifteen years he’d managed to tame them some.

  “What’s going on?” the butler asked, her voice low.

  “Do you know this movie?” He didn’t take his eyes off the screen as the opening credits began to roll.

  “I don’t think so. T
hat basketball boy was you?”

  “Yeah. My dad made them put me in the movie. The other, older kid’s my brother, Felipe Cielo.”

  “An actor.” She hesitated. “Essie told me he passed away.”

  “Right. This was his first feature film. It’s kind of a teen classic, though the storyline’s pretty typical. Small town tough hits the big city and has to find a way to fit in. The female factor went crazy. Moms and daughters saw it together in droves, it was said.”

  Now the plot began in earnest. There was Felipe, in the wrong kind of jeans and the wrong kind of sneakers, walking into his new school.

  It was his brother’s real walk, with that little bounce, like his heels had springs on the bottoms of them. Joaquin remembered being in front of the mirror in their shared bedroom, at ten years old trying to copycat that extra cocky saunter, while Felipe lounged on the nearby bed giving him shit.

  Now Joaquin swallowed, trying to loosen his tight throat. He forced his shoulders down and his back to relax against the chair’s cushion. His fingers digging into the arms he commanded to loosen.

  I can handle this.

  In the movie, Felipe zeroed in on a busty brunette in tight jeans—the right kind—and a pair of short, red cowgirl boots. His gaze tracked from her face, to her boots, to her boobs. She batted bedroom eyes at him.

  And suddenly Joaquin recognized her, his gut churning like a cement mixer. He’d forgotten that Penny Jakes had a bit part in New Kid…or he’d blocked it from his mind. But now he recalled how she’d looked that last night, older than when she’d made the movie, her mouth glossy and red, her voice a seductive purr. His emotions of that evening came back to him too—lust, irritation, rebellion.

  I’m not my brother’s keeper, he told Mick as they’d left Felipe at the nightclub.

  And he’d been so fucking wrong.

  Pain sliced through Joaquin, but he doggedly forced himself to pull air in and out of his lungs, reminding himself that fifteen years had passed. That he could do this, at least, watch one of his brother’s iconic performances without climbing a wall or trashing the television.