Dirty Scandal

by Amelia Wilde

  “The man who posed as a CD seller.”

  Angelica lets out a huge sigh, then smiles widely, visibly relieved. “You got them both?”

  “Yes, and we all owe you a debt of gratitude.”

  Her eyes widen. “For what?”

  “The information you provided made it easier to find him.” The chief clears his throat. “When our agents apprehended him, they recognized him for his true identity.”

  Angelica gives a little shake of her head.

  “Charlie was only an alias. His real name is Randall Harvey.”

  A collective gasp runs through the officers in the room, and Angelica’s head whips around. “I’ve never heard that name.”

  “He’s in charge of some of the most notorious crime rings in the city, targeting different groups at different times. We’ve been after him for the last three years. It’s always a scam within a scam. In this instance he started with your brother. He asked him to warehouse some things in his apartment and paid him a handsome fee. Then he accused him of stealing the items. By then, the money was spent. He demanded that it be paid back. That’s where you came in.”

  Angelica narrows her eyes. “I’m…glad that I could help. But are you sure this was because of me?”

  The chief nods solemnly. “We’re operating under the assumption that he’s run scams like this before, but we’ve never been able to pick up any of his associates—or the people he’s forcing to run errands for him.”

  “Why not?”

  The chief looks at me, then back at Angelica, and I understand.

  “Because he makes them disappear.” I say it before I can stop myself.

  “Jesus Christ,” Angelica whispers under her breath.

  “Our guess,” the chief says, “is that he was going to string you along for long enough to get a permanent foothold in Mr. Brandon’s accounts. Your instinct was right, even if your actions were on the wrong side of the law.” Then he turns to me. “And since you’re adamant about not pressing charges…”

  “Completely,” I answer.

  “Then I think we’re all in agreement.”

  There’s a chorus of yeses from throughout the room, including the person on the line from the DA’s office.

  “I’m sorry you got caught up in this, Ms. Chandler,” the chief says, rising from his seat and offering her his hand to shake. She stands to shake his hand, and then I do the same. “Would you mind making yourself available as a witness?”

  “Of course she will,” Angelica’s lawyer says, her eyes still wide.

  “Wonderful,” the chief says, then glances around the room. “No need to loiter, people. Get back to work. Ms. Chandler, you’re free to go. Mr. Brandon, we’ll be in touch.”

  Everyone files out ahead of us, but Angelica turns back to the chief. “Sir, are you—are you sure that—?”

  “I’ve already been in touch with the local PD from your hometown, Ms. Chandler. Until we’ve apprehended all the significant figures from Mr. Harvey’s group, there’ll be someone looking out for your family. If you have any concerns at all about your own safety, you can call me.”

  “Thanks.”

  We turn to go, and I wrap my arm around her shoulders while we head out of the police station.

  “Are you ready to go home?”

  “More than ready. If I never see the inside of a police station again, I’ll be happy.”

  “No guarantees. You’re probably going to be a key witness for them. You’ll probably need to identify Harvey from a lineup.”

  “What did you do, binge-watch Law and Order while I was gone?”

  “Maybe.”

  I pull open the door of the town car and let Angelica climb in first. I feel light and free, and I’m not the one who was in danger of going to jail over this ridiculous business.

  As I slide in next to her and pull the door shut behind me, a strange expression flickers across her face.

  “You know, Jett,” she says slowly, “now that this is all over, I think this might...I think we should probably talk.”

  “About what?”

  “About whether we both want this.”

  “Do you not?”

  Her voice spikes high. “Won’t you always suspect me? Won’t it be hard for you to trust me, even if we are together?”

  I smile at her, and she frowns.

  “Why are you smiling?”

  “There’s something I wanted to show you.”

  47

  Angelica

  I don’t know what possesses me when we leave the police station. I don’t know why I can’t accept Jett’s defense of me. Maybe it’s because I’ve worked for years to fit in here, in the city, in my career, with my friends. I clawed my way out of my tiny hometown, taking out student loans and applying for every scholarship possible, but underneath this cascade of emotions, the girl I used to be returns in the blink of an eye.

  The girl I used to be who sought approval, who needed people to reassure her that she was, in fact, making it and not a complete fraud.

  I was a fraud with Jett. Not completely, but enough, and I want to know. I want to know that after the excitement fades, after the relief is less powerful and it’s the two of us, that he won’t think the worst of me if I’m not in bed when he wakes up at night.

  So I ask him before things go any further.

  “You know, Jett, now that this is all over, I think this might...I think we should probably talk.” It’s a thousand times harder than admitting to him that I was the culprit when it came to the money leaking out of his accounts.

  “About what?”

  “About whether we both want this.”

  “Do you not?”

  I want this. I want this so much. Whatever it is, whatever it becomes, and it could become something so incredible, so fantastic, that it will last a lifetime.

  I don’t want to pressure him. I can’t say that I want it so much that every muscle in my body aches to be next to him, even when he’s in the next room. “Won’t you always suspect me? Won’t it be hard for you to trust me, even if we are together?”

  He doesn’t launch into a lengthy explanation for why he will or won’t suspect me. He smiles at me, his green eyes dancing in the late afternoon light. “Why are you smiling?”

  “There’s something I wanted to show you.”

  He leans forward and whispers something to Stuart, then leans back and enfolds me in his arms again.

  Aside from being in bed with him, it’s the best feeling in the entire world. In my entire life.

  I never dreamed it could be like this.

  Fifteen minutes later, we pull up to a nondescript building on the Upper East Side.

  “Back in ten, Stuart,” Jett says, then steps out of the car, extending his hand to help me out onto the sidewalk.

  The building looks like a generic office building, the concrete facade giving absolutely nothing away. It’s the kind of building you could pass a hundred times and never really see. It looks like dozens of other buildings I’ve passed during my time in the city.

  “What is this place?”

  “You’ll see.” Jett’s eyes are shining, and he walks in through the front door radiating a kind of confidence that fills me with heat.

  The lobby is small, paneled almost entirely in wood polished to a high shine. There’s a kind of sacred hush about the room, which has exactly one occupant other than the two of us: a man in a dark, tailored suit who sits behind an antique desk. When we come through the door and into the cool of the air conditioning, he stands up and approaches us.

  “Mr. Brandon,” he says, extending his hand. The two men shake.

  “This is my guest, Angelica Chandler.”

  He offers me his hand to shake as well. “Gregory. Ms. Chandler, would you step over to my desk for a moment?”

  Jett’s by my side as I follow Gregory to his desk. He opens a drawer and pulls out a tablet, sleek and thin. It looks like an iPad, except it has a scanner built into the bottom.<
br />
  He swipes at the screen for a moment, and when he turns it toward me the first thing I see is a picture of my own face. It looks like my last driver’s license photo, and I glance over at Jett. He gives me a subtle nod.

  Gregory indicates the scanner at the bottom. “Press your thumb here until the green bar appears.”

  When I put my thumb against the scanner, a green line blooms from the center of the screen and unfurls out toward the edges. When it gets there, it blinks three times.

  “Wonderful. Now—” Gregory produces a stylus. “Could you sign on the dotted line?”

  “Sure.”

  I sign my name where a dotted line has appeared below my picture and a bunch of other information about me.

  “It’s absolutely secure,” Jett says. He must have seen my eyes widen.

  “Thank you,” Gregory says and puts the tablet back into the drawer. Then he turns to one of the side walls.

  A green light blinks above what looks like a piece of the paneling, and then it slides open to reveal a hallway.

  “Mr. Brandon. Ms. Chandler.” Gregory returns to his desk.

  Jett gestures for me to proceed into the hall.

  I’m so curious I think my heart might fly out of my chest, but it’s so quiet that I don’t want to ask any questions.

  Jett follows me through the door, and it slides closed behind us.

  In the hallway, there are six other doors. Jett steps up to the second one on the left, then presses his hand into a panel at about shoulder height.

  That door slides into the wall. The room inside is small, with a kind of safe set into the back wall. There’s enough room for an ornate antique chair and a small table in the center.

  “Come on in,” Jett says, going to the safe and pressing his hand to another scanner. The safe pops open, and Jett takes out a small wooden box. I think it’s a jewelry box until he opens it.

  Inside are two keys.

  “This is an access point to the Swiss bank that handles the bulk of my personal accounts,” he says, and I glance up at his face. He’s concentrating on the keys. “The money that Harvey was stealing from the States came from a set of accounts that only holds a fraction of my wealth.”

  I shake my head a little. Where is this going?

  “These keys can be used to access the vault at the Swiss bank’s physical location.” He picks one up and presses it into my palm. “This one is yours.”

  “Jett, I don’t—”

  “I want you to know, with every ounce of your being, that I trust you.”

  My hands shake a little. “I can’t—”

  “You can take it, and you will.” He pulls another small box from his pocket. This one is a jewelry box, and inside is a delicate chain. Jett puts the key box on the table and holds out his hand. I put the key in it like it’s on fire.

  He threads the chain through the top of the key, then steps forward and reaches around my neck, fastening it while I hold up my hair.

  “I trust you,” he repeats, and then I’m in his arms, and he’s kissing me hard. The weight of the key is comforting against my collarbone.

  Then he breaks the kiss. “I love you, Angelica.”

  My world explodes with joy.

  48

  Jett

  Angelica’s face is flushed with happiness when we leave the secure building. On the way out, I give her another surprise. “Any time you need anything, you can come to this building and go into my safe. When you signed that pad and entered your finger, I was adding you to the security system so you can always enter. I keep an amount of cash in case of emergency in the safe, as well.”

  She shakes her head. “You’re too much.”

  “You’re too much. You—” I lose the words I wanted to say. “You changed everything.”

  We get into the car and Angelica leans up against me as Stuart steers us into the traffic. Her chest rises and falls, her breath calm. My own chest opens up, my heart overflows. I’ll never say it to any of my friends—not Connor—but there’s no better feeling in the whole world than being in love.

  Than being in love with Angelica.

  It’s so clear to me now that everything else I thought was love was mutual lust, a business transaction that was ultimately hollow, a risk not worth taking.

  “Wait,” she says as we go past the usual turn for the penthouse. “Where are we going? My place?”

  “Oh, right. We’re not going back to my place.

  “Okay.”

  “Or yours.”

  She sits up straight, eyes shining. “Where, then?”

  I turn toward the front of the Town Car. “Stuart?”

  He brings the car to a stop at the next light, then pulls something off the front seat and hands it back to me.

  “Jett, what did you—?”

  I hold up the garment bag in front of Angelica and unzip it, revealing an evening dress in dusky rose. I’ll tell her later that I bought it for her the week after we met, and I’ve been saving it all along for something special.

  This is it.

  “Do you want me to look away?”

  “No,” she says with a wicked smile, then starts stripping off her jacket. I glance in the rearview mirror. Stuart’s eyes are locked on the road.

  Good man.

  Angelica is down to her bra and panties in less than thirty seconds. Then she reaches for the dress.

  “Wait.”

  She pauses, her hands in the air, and gives me a look.

  I put the bag on the seat next to me and lean over, running my hands over the curves of her waist. I am never, for as long as I live, going to pass up the chance to worship her body in every possible way.”

  “Jett....”

  I kiss her, soft and slow, and she moans into my mouth, starts to press the length of her body against mine....

  I pull away.

  She groans in frustration. “Why?”

  “We’re almost there.”

  She points an accusing finger at me. “You did that on purpose.”

  “Not entirely. I can’t resist you.”

  “Good.”

  She leans over me, and for a moment I think she might straddle me, which would be icing on the cake. Instead, she runs her lips along my jawline, then snatches up the garment bag from the other side of me.

  “Vixen.”

  “I never claimed otherwise.”

  She shimmies into the dress, which looks stunning even when she’s sitting in the backseat of the Town Car. I can’t wait to get her home. Her place, mine—I don’t care.

  But first—this.

  Stuart pulls up in front of the main entrance of the Swan and stays seated, like I discussed with him earlier. I get out and go around to Angelica’s door, open it, and hold my hand out to her. She takes it with a wide smile.

  “Back to first-date territory?”

  “Plus a little extra.”

  There’s a photographer from one of the gossip magazines outside the main entrance, leaning up against the wall, and I take my time leading her in. Before we go in the door, I dip her back and kiss her again, the click of the shutter carrying over the traffic noises.

  I want everyone to see.

  I want everyone to know.

  I don’t give a shit what news breaks in the coming days and weeks. I want the world to know I love Angelica Chandler.

  I’d shout it out right now, but there’s something I need to do first. For her. For me.

  When I break the kiss and lift her back up to standing, we’re both a little breathless. Giddy. Electricity arcs between our hands.

  “Did you get us the same table?” Angelica jokes as we head into the lobby, but then she sees who’s standing inside and her jaw drops.

  “Mom? Adam?”

  Her mother and brother are both dressed to the nines, her mother beaming and radiant in something midnight blue, her brother in a suit I had sent over for him this morning. It only took a little dishonesty on my part, which I’m sure Angelica wil
l forgive—their numbers were the very first ones saved in her phone.

  “Honey,” her mother says, wrapping Angelica in her arms. I see instantly from whom she gets her good looks. Her mother pats her back, then steps back and sizes me up. “Jett Brandon,” she says, a little wonderingly. Then she laughs, deep and rich. “I can see why she fell for you.”

  “Mom!”

  Adam steps forward and shakes my hand. “Adam Chandler,” he says with a sheepish smile. I give him a firm shake and a nod.

  “Are we ready?” I say, getting an enthusiastic nod from Angelica’s mother and a slightly more subdued one from Adam.

  “Jett,” Angelica says, linking her arm through mine. “What are we—?”

  “You’ll see, I promise.”

  I lead them down one of the hallways off the lobby, taking us past the main dining rooms to one of the more opulent rooms for rent. There are about twenty tables inside, and when we come through the door, Angelica’s mother gasps.

  Each of the tables is set with glittering centerpieces, candles, the works—and gathered near the door is a crowd. Connor is here, most of my best friends, and Angelica’s, too—even her boss couldn’t hide her excitement when I told her about the event. The woman might be cold-hearted, but inviting her will make things easier for Angelica in the long run, I hope.

  Not that she’ll need to work, if she doesn’t want to.

  That’s beside the point.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” I say, and everyone applauds like we’re royalty. When they quiet down, I continue. “I want to introduce to you the love of my life, the woman who makes me better in every way, the woman I hope will never leave my side: Angelica Chandler.”

  In the crescendo of their applause, Angelica turns to me, pulls my face down to hers, and kisses me.

  Our forever begins now.

  Epilogue

  Angelica

  It’s been six months with Jett.

  Six gorgeous, beautiful months waking up next to his perfect body. I usually wake up first in the mornings, but he hears me stirring. The sight of his green eyes lighting up with joy to see me is one of the greatest pleasures of my life.