Page 32 of Scandalized

“Okay, but where are we actually going?” I ask, grinning. “All the nice beaches are north of my place.”

“We’re going to Laguna.”

I gape at him. That’s an hour away.

He does a quick double take. “You said you sent your story in and have the day off.”

“I do, but Santa Monica is right there.”

He laughs. “I want to take you to my favorite place, and I haven’t done this—gotten in a car and driven myself here—in probably ten years.” He looks around, and I wonder what it must feel like to have spent his entire life here until he was almost twenty.

“Do you miss California?”

“Yes and no. I mean, it’s nostalgic, and there are things I love. But I’ve been away almost a decade and a half. I can’t really imagine living here again.”

I don’t know what to say to that, but a weird darkness settles in my chest—for only a second—realizing that we’re fifteen minutes into what is our true first date, and I’m already having the best time. But he’ll fly back to England in a couple weeks, and I might never see him again.

A few minutes of easy silence pass, with music quietly filtering into the car and LA growing smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror.

“You got quiet,” he says finally, taking his attention from the road in a couple of small flashes. “Everything okay?”

I veer away from any heaviness, nodding. “I like your accent now.”

“Do you?” It’s growly, the way he says this, and sends a shiver of electricity through me. Alec catches my sharp look and grins. “What?”

“I’m not sure how I’m going to be able to be on a beach with you using that voice and not be able to touch you.”

“We’ll do our best. I know we’re capable of exerting some self-control.”

“You have zero evidence for this,” I say, laughing.

He laughs, too. “Yael knows about us, of course—”

“I feel like the underwear purchase was a big clue.”

“It was, indeed, but if my manager, Melissa, knew that I was on a date, and that I was skipping out on a free day and going to the beach?” He whistles. “I would be in a lot of trouble.”

“You’re a grown man!”

He nods. “Sure, but there are some freedoms those of us in the public eye have to give up, and anything like this should be cleared. Especially if I am out with a woman—I wouldn’t be alone with a woman in public at home. Melissa doesn’t like to be surprised.”

“Does she know about Seattle?”

“Yes.”

“Wow, she knows everything? Even when you have sex with someone?”

“I mean, we don’t discuss it in such explicit terms,” he says, laughing, “but I let her know I spent time with someone there and it was just overnight, so I’m sure she read between the lines.” He pauses, sobering a little. “She doesn’t know that we saw each other again in the hotel in LA, though.”

My brows go up. “I’m a secret lover.”

“You’re a friend,” he adds, winking. “Right? My sister’s best friend from childhood. Of course we’d reconnect.”

“We’ll be good,” I promise. “I won’t even treat you like a celebrity. If you get hot, you can fan yourself—”

“Fan myself?” He pretends to start to turn the car around.

“—carry your own towel,” I roll on. “I won’t grope you out in the open.”