Dirty Scandal

by Amelia Wilde

  My hands tremble over my keyboard all through the morning.

  At ten minutes to ten, I lean back in my chair and clench them into fists, stilling my body through sheer force of will.

  You are in control of this meeting, I remind myself. This is your job, and you’re great at it.

  My face slips into the neutral expression that I’ve always worn before high-pressure meetings. A former boss of mine once said that he wondered if anything ever shook me, and I laughed it off. “No,” I said. “Nothing ever does.” That’s the kind of illusion you need to maintain if you’re going to work in PR, and I’ve been damn good at it so far.

  Christian has taken me far off that path, but I’m back on it and ready to face him.

  That’s what I’m telling myself when my phone rings at 9:55.

  It’s Adam, calling from his desk.

  “Campbell,” I say, my voice strong and clear. I’ll be damned if I let anyone see how much this has shaken me, how much it’s made me doubt everything that happened over the past few weeks.

  “Mr. Pierce is here for your ten o’clock. Should I send him in?”

  “Absolutely,” I say, and my heart wrenches in my chest.

  Moments later, my office door swings open, Adam holding it, and Christian strides through, his chin up, his back straight. I drop my shoulders a little and lift my chin in answer. Adam gives me a nod and pulls the door closed behind him as Christian crosses the office without a pause and sits down across from me.

  He looks like shit.

  That’s not entirely true. He looks amazing. He always does. He’s clean-shaven, giving me an unobstructed view of his chiseled jaw, and his suit is tailored to perfection. I’m sure that what’s underneath hasn’t changed at all.

  But his eyes are filled with pain—and something else.

  “Mr. Pierce.”

  “Ms. Campbell.”

  His words settle in the air between us. My throat tightens up.

  Not now.

  I swallow hard and give him a thin-lipped smile. “I’m sorry I had to cancel our meeting last week. I wasn’t feeling well.” My tone was meant to be confident, but my voice rings false, strained. This isn’t what I want to be saying.

  “I understand.”

  “Thank you.” I slide a leather portfolio across the desk to him. “This is what I have planned for the upcoming week. If there are any tweaks you’d like me to make in terms of scheduling or venue, I thought we could go over those today.”

  He reaches out one of his strong hands. I want him to be reaching for me, cupping the side of my face, pressing against the small of my back while he kisses me like tomorrow might never come. Instead he flips open the portfolio and scans the top sheet.

  “I have no problem with this schedule.”

  Christian’s voice gives away nothing, but his eyes…

  I want to say, why did you lie to me? I want to say, how could you? I want to say, take it back. I want to howl my heartbreak at him.

  I say none of those things.

  Instead I say, “Wonderful. I won’t take up any more of your time today, Mr. Pierce. I’ll see you on Monday for the veteran’s benefit event.”

  And then, even as my heart is tearing in two, I rise from my seat and extend my hand across the desk to him.

  He rises to meet me, his eyes never leaving mine, and puts out his hand.

  Takes mine in his.

  Shakes.

  Like we’re business associates, and nothing more. Yet at the touch of our skin, there it is—that connection, that undeniable recognition…

  My heart is never going to be whole again.

  He drops my hand and turns to go, and I sit back down, my fists balled in my lap.

  Christian pauses, his hand on the door handle, and looks back at me.

  “This?” he says, waving his hand between us. “It isn’t over.”

  Then he’s gone.

  44

  Christian

  I don’t know what came over me back there.

  That’s a lie.

  I know exactly what came over me, and what came over me is that I’m in love with Quinn Campbell. I’m in love with her, and there’s nothing that anyone can do about it.

  On Monday, I put some things into motion. I made a few calls. I consulted with a few people, anonymously, because I’m not as stupid as my decisions make me seem.

  With every moment that’s passed since I left my father’s office on Monday, the way ahead has become clearer and clearer. It’s like a light has gone on in my head, illuminating everything I need to do with such clarity that it’s blinding.

  I don’t care.

  Getting her back is all that matters.

  When I sat down across from Quinn, I saw the struggle in her eyes. I saw what she was trying so valiantly to hide. I saw it in the way there were tiny crescents on two of her knuckles from clenching her hands into fists. I heard it in the tired strain in her voice. And I felt it between us, the connection stretched so tight it’s ready to snap.

  But it hasn’t yet.

  That’s what buoys me as I get the hell out of HRM’s headquarters and slide into the back of the town car.

  It’s not over for her.

  She might tell herself that it is. She might even tell other people—Carolyn comes to mind—that she’s done with me. I’m only surprised that Quinn didn’t admit it to me during the meeting. She prides herself on honesty. I haven’t forgotten how she told me she learned about Elijah—the person she thought was Elijah—while sitting at that very desk. It’s not like her to hide things, which means that I hurt her deeply.

  It also means that she hasn’t made up her mind yet.

  She’s hedging her bets, not wanting to give up more information than necessary.

  Once again, I’m impressed by her professionalism in the face of total devastation.

  When I got up to leave, I couldn’t keep myself under control any longer. I had to say something, anything, to acknowledge the situation we’re in. I certainly didn’t plan it, otherwise I’d have said something other than “this isn’t over.”

  Of course it isn’t over. If nothing else, we’re working with each other until…

  Until what? Until she rats me out? She’s not going to do that. If she was going to, she’d have done it by now.

  What else is there to do?

  She could quit.

  No, she couldn’t. Quinn isn’t a quitter. She came out here to build a new life for herself, and she’s not the kind of woman who’s going to flee the city without giving notice because a new relationship didn’t make the cut.

  Or so she thinks.

  While Louis navigates the town car through the midmorning traffic, I fight the urge to tell him to turn around right now.

  It’s not over.

  I want to go back there and explain what I’m planning to do, but it’s taking longer than I expected to get all the pieces in place.

  There’s also the fact that she probably thinks I’m a disturbed liar—a felonious criminal. Maybe she even thinks that I murdered my brother.

  It’s also entirely possible that I’ll be prosecuted for identity theft once…

  I can’t think about that now.

  The only thing that matters to me is how I feel when I’m with Quinn, and how she feels when she’s with me. The only thing that matters is us.

  I close my eyes and think back to the first time I saw her, frantically yanking on the handle of that suitcase, stuck out in the middle of the intersection, the rain cascading down on top of her. I didn’t know the first thing about her, but her strength drew me in even then. She hadn’t broken down when the jerk in the SUV sent her suitcase flying, didn’t crumple onto the sidewalk and cry. She commented on it wryly and then went right back out into the street to collect her sopping wet clothes from the pavement without ever missing a beat.

  She’s still that woman.

  She’s still the same woman who decided to give her life in Colorado the m
iddle finger and do something else because, damn it, she wasn’t going to live with the memory of her asshole ex-fiancé flung in her face all the time.

  So, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe she will leave the city.

  But if I know Quinn—and I think I do—she won’t leave before I can set things straight.

  And I have to make this right with her. Between us.

  Louis pulls the town car up to the curb outside the Pierce Industries building, and I step out into the sweltering summer heat. It’s miserable in the city right now. I can’t wait for autumn.

  By the time the leaves fall from the trees, this nightmare will be over, one way or another. I have no idea right now if solving one problem will lead to a thousand more, but now that I’ve seen Quinn, my mind is made up.

  The lobby of the building is blessedly frigid, and I move at a leisurely pace across the lobby to the bank of elevators. Our floor is, obviously, air conditioned as well, but the lobby might as well be a walk-in refrigerator. The cool is amazing on my flushed skin. It’s not only the weather that has me hot and bothered, and my heart rate is so high right now that I’m probably in danger of cardiac arrest.

  It’s time to get this show on the road.

  The elevator doors slide open, and I step into the empty car. There are a few things I need to finish up this morning, and at some point—

  A man sticks his arm between the closing doors. They stop closing, and then start sliding open again.

  It’s my new lawyer.

  “Mr. Pierce,” he says, a sheepish smile on his face. “I was in a bit of a hurry, hoping to meet with you by lunch—”

  “Not a problem,” I say, smiling back. “We can get started on our business right away.”

  45

  Quinn

  The moment Christian is out of my office, I grab for my phone, tugging open the bottom drawer of my desk with so much force that I nearly dump the entire contents of my purse onto the floor in my hurry.

  Hands shaking, I type out a message to Carolyn.

  She doesn’t know everything—she can’t know everything—but I can’t keep this all to myself.

  Christian came in for a meeting

  I’m fairly certain that she’s working at the boutique right now. She’s almost always at work. I lay my phone down on the desk and take a deep breath, preparing myself for the agonizing wait.

  Her reply comes so quickly it’s like she had been holding her phone in her hand, so quickly that the vibration against the glass surface of my desk startles me.

  Calm the hell down, Quinn. People are going to think you’re having a fit.

  What people, I don’t know, since I’m alone in the office and Adam calls ahead when there are visitors, but I take another calming breath in through my nose and let it out slowly through my mouth.

  OMG. How did it go?

  It was weird. And then at the end he said

  My thumb slips onto the send button before I can complete the sentence, and while I’m typing out the rest of what I wanted to tell her, Carolyn’s reply comes in.

  DON’T YOU DARE LEAVE ME HANGING LIKE THAT

  Accidental send! He said “This? It isn’t over.”

  What does that mean???

  I have no idea.

  Wait…was it mutual?

  Not really.

  What do you mean, not really?

  I left him.

  Have you talked about it?

  No.

  Carolyn sends an animated emoji of a yellow smiley face rolling its eyes.

  I know…

  Talk to him, Quinn.

  I don’t know how to have this conversation.

  Yes you do.

  It won’t fix anything.

  How do you know?

  I know, okay?

  Then why are you texting me about what he said?

  I pause.

  I have to know.

  If I don’t find out why Christian did what he did, I’ll spend the rest of my life wondering, and I can’t do that. Could it honestly be that he couldn’t bear to face his father, knowing that his favorite son was dead?

  The blood drains from my face. Christian lied to me. There’s no way around that. But he could have been telling me the truth last Thursday, too.

  I had every right to be upset about him lying to me. I still have every right to be upset.

  But Christian is human, like the rest of us. And from what I can tell, he didn’t get anything extra out of pretending to be his brother, other than his father’s affection.

  I never doubted that my father loved me. Not everyone in the world has it so easy.

  Even billionaires have their problems.

  Nope. No.

  I need to shut this down. I can’t keep spending time justifying his actions. I’m not ready to forgive him and move on from this. I’m in New York City because another man lied to me so well and for so long that by the time I left, he had another life waiting for him in the wings. With my best friend.

  It’s not my job to let Christian off the hook. My biggest responsibility is to live a life that I want to live, and right now—as gut-wrenching as it is to admit it—that life does not include a lying billionaire who is still, to this day, impersonating his dead twin brother.

  And yet…

  And yet…

  I send another message to Carolyn.

  I want some closure.

  Are you sure that’s all you want?

  Yes.

  Then I’m with you 100%.

  The bubble indicating that she’s typing again pops up right away.

  I agree, though—what a bizarre thing to say!

  I drop my phone back into my purse and flick on my computer screen, an odd wave of focus coming over me.

  I can take charge of my own life.

  It won’t be the first time I’ve done it, and it won’t be the last, but I need to do something right now to make a change. It will put my mind at ease. It will put a stop to this endless second-guessing about a relationship that probably wasn’t going to go anywhere. Sooner or later, the truth was going to come out. There isn’t a person on earth who could keep a secret like that for a lifetime. Jesus, what if we’d been married? What if I’d been pregnant?

  I need to put myself back in the driver’s seat, and I know how I’m going to do it.

  I stand up from my desk and glance at my reflection in the office window, tugging my blazer so that it lays smoothly over my curves. Then I’m in motion, out the door.

  “Adam, call Walker and tell him I’m coming down for a meeting.”

  “Of course, Ms. Campbell,” Adam calls out to my retreating back.

  Walker’s office is on the opposite end of the floor, so it takes me a little longer than I’d like to get there. Quite a few people greet me as I go past, and I stop to chat with most of them. I’ve always made it a habit to be a charmer in the office. You never know when those connections might come in handy.

  Finally, Walker’s secretary—who is constantly on the phone—waves me in with a smile.

  “Thanks, Marjorie,” I mouth, and go in through Walker’s open door.

  He turns away from his computer when he hears me enter. “Quinn,” he says with a broad grin. “Adam said you were on your way. What can I do for you?”

  I sit down in one of the two chairs across from Walker’s desk and cross my legs, making sure my posture is straight and confident. “You know how much I love it here at HRM, don’t you?”

  A flicker of confusion crosses his face, but his smile doesn’t waver. “You’re doing quite the job with the Pierce account,” Walker laughs. “If you hated it here, there’s no way you’d put in that kind of effort.”

  “The thing is—working on the Pierce account has opened my eyes. I don’t want to leave HRM. I want to go…bigger.” I raise my hands in front of me, giving Walker an approximation of the size of my dreams. I let my smile extend all the way to my eyes.

  He cocks his head and considers me. “What do you mean b
y bigger? Are you requesting a transfer? There’s only one office that…” His mouth drops open. “You’re an ambitious one. Are you talking about what I think you’re talking about?”

  “Yes,” I say, my voice strong and enthusiastic. “London.”

  46

  Christian

  This is what my life has come to.

  I’m standing in the Pierce Industries lobby on Friday morning with a black portfolio in my hand. Frank, my lawyer, stands at my side.

  “This isn’t a requirement,” he says for the hundredth time. “We can begin private negotiations on this issue without letting the world know through a press conference. The news will break eventually. It doesn’t have to happen today. As your lawyer, it’s my duty to advise you that this—”

  “I know,” I say quickly, cutting him off. “I know, Frank, but this is what I have to do. The thing starts in five minutes. Are you going to stand here trying to talk me out of it until the last second?”

  He shakes his head, then pats my shoulder. “I had to try one more time.”

  “Glad it was the last one.”

  The press is gathering on the sidewalk. Two different networks have cameras here, and there are reporters from three print outlets, plus the usual cadre of bloggers who show up whenever someone from a multinational corporation holds a press conference.

  Good, I think. She can’t miss this.

  In fact, I’m going to make sure she doesn’t miss this.

  She can’t miss this, because from what I understand, this is my last chance.

  The text from Carolyn came in late Wednesday night.

  You up?

  Always :)

  Ha.

  What do you need?

  Chris, I don’t know what’s going on between you and Q. None of my business. Don’t need to know the details on your end unless you want to tell me. But she told me this evening that she started talking to HRM about a transfer to London. If everything works out, she’ll be gone in a matter of weeks.

  Thanks for letting me know, my friend.